Much Quarrelling

 

Haiku of testing

In the wilderness,

 

pitched their tents at Rephidim.

 

Dry, with no water.

 

 

The people quarrelled

 

with Moses. We need water,

 

can you give us some?

 

 

Don’t quarrell with me!

 

The Lord brought us to this place;

 

Why do you test God?

 

 

They kept complaining.

 

You brought us out from Egypt

 

to kill us with thirst!

 

Moses cried to God.

 

What shall I do with this mob,

 

they might just stone me?

 

Take your staff and go

 

with some elders to Horeb,

 

I’ll be at the rock.

 

Strike it with your staff,

 

water will spring from the rock;

 

the people can drink.

 

 

It was as God said,

 

the elders saw the wonder;

 

the Lord passed the test!

Massah, Meribah;

 

good names for a testing place

 

with much quarrelling!

 

Is the Lord with us

 

or not? It seems the people

 

were the ones tested.

 

© Ken Rookes 2023

Complaining place

Haiku for the thirsty

Water; essential

for all creatures, without it

there can be no life.

Understandably

they thirsted, craving water;

I would complain, too.

In the wilderness

with no river, pool, or spring;

what was he thinking!

How about it, Mo?

Did you bring us here to die,

along with our kids?

Where’s your God, Moses?

It’s getting hard to believe

when our throats are parched!

Okay God, your turn!

They are ready to stone me;

what am I to do?

Take your staff, Moses,

stand at the rock of Horeb,

I’ll give you water!

Moses struck the rock,

water gushed out. He called it,

Place of Complaining.

© Ken Rookes 2023

The whinging tradition

The places that the incident occurred at were named after the fact that the Israelites

argued at that place, and that was also the place where they asked Moses "Is God Amongst us or not?" This is not an isolated incident in OT history. In the OT Israelite tradition there is what scholars called the 'murmuring tradition'. This could more properly be called the whinging tradition. 'Oh Moses, why did you bring us out here into the desert? We were better off in Egypt.' They feel deserted by God and are angry and afraid. They grumble to God and God responds. They need a miracle and they get Water from a rock.

           Moses gets so concerned here that he is afraid that they are going to form a lynching party and kill him.

           But they really have a good question. "Is the Lord amongst us or not?" We can learn two things from this question.

           Firstly, the importance of whinging. How often if we are honest, do we feel deserted by God and ask the same question as the Israelites? Modern Christian tradition seems to discourage whinging to God, but Jesus seemed to have no trouble with it. In fact in a couple of parables he actually encourages nagging God till you get what you need. (parable of the widow) God is big enough God can take it. Complain, nag, moan and whinge to God. i.e Fiddler on the roof.

           But Secondly, there is more to this than getting what you want. The reality of life is that we don't always get what we ask for. The reality of the Christian tradition is that God does not offer to make the path pain free. What God does offer in the cross is the assurance that God travels with us into the depths of our pain and despair. The answer that Jesus would give to us regarding the question Is God amongst us? is an adamant YES.  And Paul would repeat that promise just as emphatically. "For I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus."

           I read a sermon this week by Paul Tillich in which he spoke of the meaning of the concept of providence. The word is not one that vaguely promises that everything will work out in time; there are many things that will work out to a bad end. It is not having hope in every situation; there are situations in which there is no hope. It is not waiting for some time in history when God will come and make everything right. But Tillich says that Providence is... "When death rains down from heaven as it does now, when cruelty wields power over the nations and individuals as it does now, when hunger and persecution drive millions from place to place as they do now, and when prisons and slums all over the world distort the humanity of the bodies and souls of people as they do now - we can boast in that time, and just in that time, that even all this cannot separate us from the love of God."

           The Israelites had the right question, but in the midst of their suffering they could not see the presence of God. Instead they demanded a miracle and got one. But the real miracle that they missed was that God continued to be with them especially in the midst of their suffering.

When we are faced with great pain or suffering (as were the Israelites) then our hearts can be turned to stone, and it can take something as mighty as the power of God to split the rock and allow the water of meaning and love to flow again.

         

Chagall, Moses and the rock

Is the Lord among us or not?

This is the question, dark and deep

that each person asks, (if we are honest)

from time to time.

Out here in the wilderness

we thirst and we wonder

if we should ever have left Egypt.

The mighty Nile never failed to deliver

its life-renewing waters;

but this Moses and his strange

disappearing God,

of them we are not so sure.

Out here in the wilderness,

away from secure streams

the questions intrude:

what will we drink tomorrow,

how shall we sustain ourselves,

our children and our animals?

Out here in the wilderness

with cracking soil, anxious crops

and lean livestock

we scan the skies and ask

whether the God who fashions clouds,

paints sunsets,

gathers snow in the heavenly storehouses

and brings to stillness the raging winds,

is still among us,

or not?

© Ken Rookes