Last week, we talked about how Abraham was called by God to cross the wilderness trusting in God’s promise to give him a new land, a great name and countless descendants. About five centuries later, Abraham’s people finds themselves again in the wilderness, having to go back to Canaan, after they had been freed from Egypt. We skipped many chapters obviously, but here is a short reminder: Jacob’s son Joseph was sold by his brothers to the merchants and became a slave in Egypt, yet because of his strength of character and with God’s grace, Joseph will move from being a servant and then a steward in a rich man’s house to becoming Pharaoh’ prime minister. Later on, Joseph’s brothers will visit Egypt at a time of famine in Canaan and from that, many Hebrews will settle in the land, so many, the Bible says, that Egyptians began to worry they would become more powerful than they were and so they started to enslave them. The Book of Exodus is all about the misery of the people crying out to God and Moses rising among them as the man sent by God to set them free – you probably know the story very well, we all have seen the 10 commandments and the dramatic parting of the red sea, marking officially the end of the Hebrews’ captivity.
The passage we have read this morning starts shortly after the parting of the red sea. In Chapter 15, we read that, as they witness Pharaoh and his armies drowning into the sea, the people start singing to God loud hymns of praise, only to realize that they are now in the wilderness of “Sin” (The name has nothing to do with its meaning in English, it’s just the transliteration of the Hebrew) and now they have nothing to eat and nothing to drink. Well, that’s not exactly true. At the end of Chapter 15, they find water but when they taste it it is sour, so God gives Moses a log that has the power to make the water sweet. And then God leads the people to springs and 70 palm trees with fruit to eat. Then we learn, in Chapter 16, that the people wants bread, and God sends them the manna, and then the people wants meat, and God sends them quails. Now the people are ready to leave Sin and resume their journey, and as they camp at Rephidim the issue around food and water supply rises again, and the people get very upset at Moses.
What I would for us to remark if we want to understand this passage, is that this is not about complaining and although many attempts have been made to turn this story into that sort of thing, it’s not made to be a moral lesson about how wrong it is to complain. First of all, because the people have a good reason to worry: They have no water in the desert. It’s like what you need most in the most desperate situation. The only worst scenario would be to lack oxygen. We have even turn that into a saying: we say we need something like water in the desert. Then we see that the Hebrews are worried about themselves, but also worried for their children and their animals. So their request is reasonable and legitimate. And I think it is important for us to notice that, because sometimes we are told that if we’d believed in God and trusted in God, we shouldn’t be worried ever, we shouldn’t get scared ever, we shouldn’t ever ask for anything. And indeed, when we look at the story, we understand the pattern: God has provided for the Hebrews with water, fruit, bread and even meat, and so the reader gets it that God will continue to provide, but imagine yourself as a Hebrew’s mom, with your baby crying in your arms, one would probably not have the same kind of cool confidence. So it looks like the text points in another direction. And if we look at Psalm 95 we have just heard, a Psalm that reflects on the story and gives it its own interpretation, this is what it says: “Harden not your hearts as your forbears did in the wilderness (…) They tempted me, they put me to the test“.
So the issue isn’t about the worrying, the fear, or the begging or even the complaining, the issue is about the quarreling, with one another, with Moses and with God. It is quite striking when we look at the text to witness the “hardening of heart”, the abuse, the outburst of verbal violence at the center of the reaction of the Hebrews to their hardship: They accuse Moses (and beyond Moses, God of course) to have misled them and to cause them to die, them, their children and their cattle. They get so angry that Moses (who likely wasn’t a man prone to be intimidated) starts to worry about his life. He says to God: They are almost ready to stone me. And so to me, this is more likely the issue, the moral and theological issue at stake within the text: It’s not there to tell us that, you know, it’s wrong to be afraid and it’s wrong to complain, it’s there to show us how ingratitude, abuse, anger, violence and even murder are there lying just beyond the surface, ready to burst out when things do not go the way we want them, or need them to be. It was true for the Hebrews, and it is still true for us today. In the past years, we have experienced some frustration with lack of resources, gas, food, medical supplies, and I think we have all witnessed, at different levels, how people can quickly turn against each other, against their leaders and even against God in times of uncertainty. As it is with us, I guess the Hebrews used to think of themselves as “good people”, indeed they are meant to be seen as the good guys in the story, the ones who used to be oppressed, the ones God took sided with, and yet we see that they would also be quick to become the oppressors, the abusers and even the murderers. This is our reality as well. but it is in the midst of that that God has to teach us something.
– The first teaching of the story, is, quite obviously, about God’s faithfulness: God provided in the past for the Hebrews and God will continue to provide, even in the most difficult situations and in the most surprising way. After all, who could have expected to see water spring from a rock? It may be difficult to believe when we know so many people today lack food and basics necessities. But this faith in a God who provides isn’t meant to turn us into selfish and careless people. Rather, God requires of people that they would take care of creation and take care of one another. If so many people are in need today, it’s because some of us have never enough and choose to rely only on themselves to survive, seeing others as rivals in a world of limited resources. When we trust in a God who provides, we are not meant to trust that God will magically solve all of our problems, rather, as we talked about in the two past weeks, the Bible teaches that trusting in God opens a world of possibilities, when parting from God only shrink our lives and brings death in the end. We see in our story today that solution comes when Moses turns to God, prays and gathers with the elders and go out to seek some water. Instead of turning against each other and against God when fear and worry size them, the people have to turn to God and to come together. They are called to stop seeing each other as rivals and enemies, rather they are invited to work together and cooperate with God. So this is an important change of mindset, you see, and I think it is still valid for us. Trusting in a God who provides and brings forth good things for all should make us more willing to help each other in times of crisis, rather than hoarding what we can for ourselves or for our own families. The Hebrews festivals were meant to remind the people of God’s generosity with them in the past, the psalm reminds the people of what God did, and invite to continue to walk in this assurance.
– The second teaching of this passage is maybe a little more difficult to see, but to me it is an important one and I think it’s about what it means to learn to be free. As I have mentioned, the Hebrews have just left Egypt and suddenly they find themselves in the wilderness with nothing to eat and nothing to drink. It’s not the first time that the Hebrews will complain about the lack of resources and how they missed the food of Egypt. In Numbers 11:5, they say: We remember the fish we ate in Egypt. It didn’t cost us anything. We also remember the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.And indeed, slavery was horrible but in the meantime, they didn’t have to worry about finding food. Egypt was a great and wealthy nation, and we see in Genesis how Joseph started organizing the supplies to make sure the people wouldn’t go hungry even in the years of famine. Now this is another reality:The Hebrews have to learn how to become the people of God, but also how to become their own people, taking care of themselves and of one another. Their complaining in our story today is bad, as it leads them to violence, but it’s also their growing pains. Being a slave was horrible, but sometimes learning to be free can seem even harder for them, though in the end, and we see that throughout the Bible, it became all of Israel’s pride to have been freed from Egypt, to become God’s people. Freedom comes at a cost that we aren‘t always willing, or able, to pay. Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. Still today for us there are many things, situations or even people God wants to set us free from, but how do we react when that happens? It seems to me that being scared, worried or even angry makes the process even more difficult.
So, again, rather than a lesson about complaining the two teachings I would take away for our reflection in Lent is that first, believing in a generous God can help us to become more generous, and as we deprive ourselves for certain things during these few weeks, I invite you to notice how God provides in the meantime and how it can lead us to interact differently with those in need. As we do that, we may start to experience a greater trust in God and also a greater sense of freedom and responsibility.