Jasons Sermons

Crisis of Confidence

Text:  Exodus 17:1-7

            Those were the days!  Things were better back then.  People were kinder.  There wasn’t so much badness going about.  If the past could become present then we would be happy.

            Then again perhaps the past was as lousy as the present and so we turn our attention to the future.  When I get to the weekend I’ll be able to chill out and rest up.  Next week will be better.  I’ve got holidays coming up.  Then I’ll have the time to do the things I haven’t managed to get around to.  Life will be better if my circumstances change:  if my boss is promoted and gets out of my hair...if my neighbour moves house...if my kids get their lives sorted out...if I could find another job.  Contentment is one step in front of us. 

            Always thinking of the past or dreaming of the future we do not live in the present.  We convince ourselves that satisfaction in life is a set of circumstances that exists somewhere else as in Judi Garland’s famous song, “Somewhere over the Rainbow”.  Happiness is the mirage in the desert that disappears as we approach it.  It is a raging thirst that sees on shimmering sands an oasis that is not there.

            Is there such a thing as happiness?  Can we ever expect to be content?  Is it realistic to expect that we can truly be satisfied?  We might be better off abandoning such a heady ideal and simply hunker down and accept our lot.  Who knows?  We may be making ourselves miserable by believing in a state of being that simply does not exist. 

            The people of Israel were on the move.  They were between escaping Egypt and entering the land of promise:  the wilderness.  They were on the move between the starting point and the destination:  the journey.  The wilderness was an uncertain place to be.  It was hard to remember the astounding events of plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.  It was hard to imagine what the land of their dreams was like.  How could they be content when they were in this state of limbo?

The wilderness consumes them.  They vacillate between trusting the LORD’s lead and throwing a wobbly.  Most of their wilderness worries centre on the menu.  They weren’t happy about the quality of the water and the scarcity of food.  They looked to the past.  They remembered the good old days in Egypt eating sumptuous stews and fresh baked bread.  They imagine contented lives as slaves.  Certainly it was better than the wilderness!

The LORD hears their complaints.  Bitter water is made sweet.  Manna and quail are sent.  Even then the people will not follow the most basic of instructions about collection.  They either collect too much or too little. 

            We find them in the place in the wilderness named Sin.  We have no way of pinpointing where these places are.  Even Mount Sinai, also known as Horeb, is not certain.  The important feature of their wilderness wanderings is that their journey is being completed in stages by the direction of the LORD.  They have their moments of carping but this must not obscure the reality that they do follow the LORD’s lead – at least most of the time.

            The camera pans in on one of the stopping off places in the wilderness:  Rephidim.  Rephidim means ‘food stores’.[1]  Ironically, in the place called ‘food stores’ there is no water to drink. 

The people are not happy.  They enter into a bitter argument with Moses.  They demand that Moses meets their need tout suite.  “Give us water to drink.”  Moses makes it clear:  “Why are you having a go at me?  It’s really the LORD that you have a problem with!  Are you testing to see if he’ll come through for you?” 

The people’s need for water is urgent.  It isn’t that their request is unreasonable.  The problem is with their attitude.  They want God to prove himself to them.  They accuse Moses of trying to kill them.  Did he bring them out of Egypt so that they with their children and livestock would die of thirst?  The people of Israel are having a crisis of confidence.  Is the LORD present in their community or not?

Moses is backed into a corner.  The people are not letting him off the hook.  He cries out to the LORD.  We hear the exasperation in his voice, “What am I going to do with this lot?  They’re ready to pummel me with stones.” 

The LORD responds to Moses and tells him to walk on ahead with a handful of the elders of Israel.  There’s no water within sight.  However, a little further on the source is to be found.  Moses is to carry the staff that struck the Nile and turned water into blood.  This staff that turned the river Nile to blood will make water come out of the rock.  The LORD’s words are urgent.  They begin “Go” and are followed by the hasting words “...and go.”

The LORD promises to be standing in front of Moses at the rock at Horeb. The LORD is present.  It is clear that nothing that happens is anything of Moses’ doing but of the LORD’s.  In the presence of the LORD Moses is to strike the rock and water will come out of it.  The people will then be able to slake their thirst.  Moses does this before the LORD and in the sight of the elders of Israel. 

Now Horeb is also known as Sinai.  This is the mountain on which the LORD gives the law to Moses carved by the finger of God onto tablets of stone.  The words of the law are not lifeless and cold.  This rock at Horeb that gushes with water is like the law which is life giving. 

The place called Rephidim – ‘food stores’ is renamed.  In fact it receives two names.  Moses calls the place ‘Massah’ which means ‘test’ and ‘Meribah’ which means quarrel.  The place is forever associated with the quarrelling and testing of the LORD.  Will the LORD prove himself to us that he is present? 

The people of Israel found it hard to be content.  When their circumstances presented alarming, life-threatening difficulty, they looked to an idealised past or the frightening prospect of the future:  death by starvation.

            As people of God our lives are experienced as wilderness.  We have started out on the road believing that Jesus died and rose again for us.  We are looking forward to being in his presence and experiencing all things put to rights.  The present moment has the feel of being in the wilderness.  Life has straight stretches when it’s not too hard to trust that the Lord is with us.  But what about the times when the road bends and twists and there are potholes everywhere?  What happens when the circumstances of our lives cause a crisis of confidence?  When we face a relationship falling apart, our health threatened, our job uncertain, how do we trust God?  Do we look to an idyllic past or an illusory future?  Do we bargain with God saying, “If you’re really out there then sort this mess out.  If you do then I’ll be able to trust you’re really there”?

            Contentment comes from trusting God rather than our circumstances.  Anthony de Mello relates this stark and moving story about the nature of what it is to be truly happy:

Once upon a time in a concentration camp there lived a prisoner who, even though he was under sentence of execution, was fearless and free.  One day he was seen in the middle of the prison square playing his guitar.  A large crowd gathered to listen, for under the spell of the music, they became fearless as he.  When the prison authorities saw this, they forbade the man to play.

But the next day there he was again, singing and playing on his guitar with a larger crowd around him.  The guards angrily dragged him away and had his fingers chopped off.

Next day he was back, singing and making what music he could with his bleeding fingers.  This time the crowds were cheering.  The guards dragged him away again and smashed his guitar.

The following day he was singing with all his heart.  What a song!  So pure and uplifting!  The crowd joined in, and while the singing lasted, their hearts became as pure as his and their spirits as invincible.  So angry were the guards this time that they had his tongue torn out.  A hush descended on the camp, a something that was deathless.

To the astonishment of everyone, he was back at his place the next day swaying and dancing to a silent music that no one but he could hear.  And soon everyone was holding hands and dancing around this bleeding, broken figure in the center [sic] while the guards stood rooted to the ground in wonder.[2]

            The water that came out of the rock at Horeb was life giving.  Jesus himself offered water that would satisfy thirst permanently.  The music that welled up from within the man in the concentration camp did not depend on whether he had fingers, a guitar, or a tongue.  God is the source of life that comes out of rock hard circumstances.  The life of faith does not imagine that God was more at work “then” or will be more at work “someday”.  Rather, faith calls us to trust God in the present moment and to know that the life giving water he offers goes beyond this life and is eternal.  The question is this:  Are we trusting God or your circumstances to satisfy our thirst?