A Lectionary Reflection for the people of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church for worship from home, September 27, 2020, Year A, 17 Pentecost, Proper 21

Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

This Sunday, we hear the Exodus story of the Israelites’ cry for water in the middle of the desert wilderness. 

For them, it’s only been a month or two since, by God’s act, the Israelites escaped from slavery in Egypt, but this is not the first time they have complained of a lack of the basic necessities.  Three days into their wanderings they could find only bitter water – until God turned it sweet.  And then, a few weeks later, when they complained about being hungry, manna from heaven and quails appeared. 

And now, once again, the Israelites are thirsty.  They are so fearful and frustrated by their thirst that Moses worries they might kill him.  But the Lord, of course, hears their cries and provides water.  Moses strikes the rock with his staff and water gushes out. 

And I want to pay attention to the last word the narrator has to say about this third and final experience of lack at the beginning of the Israelites’ sojourn in the wilderness: “[Moses] called the place Massah and Meribah,” the text says, “because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’”

But if we go back over these three episodes, we see that those words are not what the Israelites say.  They say, “We’re hungry and thirsty” or “At this rate, it would have been better if we stayed in Egypt.”  But not once in all three episodes in these chapters of Exodus do they say “Is the Lord among us or not?”

But I think the narrator here understands that in all their fearfulness, in all their constant wondering out-loud about survival, the newly freed Israelites are questioning God’s presence among them.  For them, God’s presence can only be trusted if it is always stunning and new.  They can only see God in the immediate, miraculous moment.  But God, of course, is with them always, if they would only look with the eyes of faith. 

Because it’s not just the exodus from Egypt that the Israelites can reflect upon to remember God’s providence for them.  Again and again, constantly and continuously, God shows up for God’s people. 

First, since they began their journey in the wilderness, these folks have been guided and protected by physical signs of God’s presence: pillars of fire and cloud remain at the front of the caravan morning and night.  And those pillars are still there, still visible to the people when they complain about food and water.  It’s almost comical.  It’s like complaining of thirst while standing beneath a sign pointing towards a nearby water fountain.  But, it seems that after weeks of following the pillar before them, they’ve already forgotten what it means; they’ve forgotten how to read that particular sign as the symbol of God’s presence and power that it has always been. 

And they’ve forgotten, too, that only a few weeks earlier, they camped at a place called Elim, “where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees,” Exodus tells us.  It hasn’t always taken a miracle to provide for God’s people.  Sometimes, often times, there are oases even in the most dismal wildernesses.  But, the Israelites have short memories.

And then there’s Moses’ staff.  It is such a simple thing, really, a shepherd’s tool, something very ordinary.  But it becomes extraordinary.  Because that same staff turned into a snake when Moses first encountered the Lord at the burning bush, that he might lead the Israelites out of slavery.  By that same staff, he called down the plagues on Egypt that revealed God’s power.  And through that same staff in Moses’ hand, God parted the Red Sea and then brought it crashing back down on the Egyptian army. 

And that same staff is with Moses now, even as the Israelites quarrel with him about food and water.  That same staff strikes the rock to bring forth water.  It’s no pillar of fire or cloud, but Moses’ staff, deceptively simple, is as much a sign of God’s presence and power and providence as any of the other symbols the Israelites have been given in the wilderness.  And it is another sign they fail to see.

But that’s the thing about sacraments, those “outward and visible signs” of God’s grace.  Sacraments are often deceptively simple.  Or hidden in plain sight, like an oasis, in the landscape of our lives.  Or so much a constant presence that we’ve forgotten what they point to.  And it takes the eyes, the heart, the memory of faith to see and comprehend them.

We are six months into the corona-virus now, with what seems to me to be at least that much longer to go before we resume some kind of normalcy, before we can gather and delight in one another again.  We are also smack-dab in the middle of a divisive and destructive election season.  We are confronting the global effects of both widespread injustices in our systems and societies and the catastrophic repercussions of a changing climate as seen in unprecedented numbers of wildfires and hurricanes.  Right now – all of us together and each of us as individuals – right now, we are deep in a desert wilderness.  And it may feel like there is no way to survive.  Without even realizing it, we may find ourselves asking, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

In answer to that question, this text from Exodus asks us, challenges us to look with the eyes of faith and see sacraments all around.  Maybe it’s a miracle we’ve grown accustomed to and stopped noticing, like the love of family and friends that continues to sustain us.  Maybe it’s a time, even in these past terrible months, when we’ve discovered, surprisingly, a moment of respite from the madness.  Maybe it’s a small, simple thing – a daily walk, or an evening ritual, or the first signs of fall – that satisfies our longing for the fullness of life. 

And I think, too, that during this time, we are called to sacramental acts.  God has invited each of us, like Moses, to join in this work of making sacred even the most ordinary aspects of our lives by giving them over to God and by trusting in God’s power to make them something new.  As we enter this season of stewardship at Thankful, let us consider how we can use our material resources, like Moses’ staff, to reveal the power of God in the world, to work for the good of others and to engage in God’s mission of grace, even and especially in these anxious times.

Because, yes, we find ourselves in a desert wilderness right now.  It may feel like survival is the best we can hope to accomplish and that we may not even manage that.  But let us not lose heart, dear ones.  With the eyes of faith, let us look for sacraments, those signs of God’s abundant grace, those symbols of God’s presence among us.  And if we cannot immediately see them, then let us join with God to create them anew, by using what resources we have before us for God’s work in the world and trusting that God will make them, and us, sacred to the task.  Amen.