A Way When There’s No Way

We don’t know exactly the path that the Israelites took from Egypt to the Promised Land. We do know that it wasn’t the direct route. When they left Egypt, instead of traveling along the Mediterranean Sea, we think they traveled south, along the Red Sea, and wandered through the desert. They didn’t know where they were, so we really don’t know where their path. What we do know is that they moved when God commanded, from place to place. And they came to a place Scripture calls Rephidim. Rephidim literally means “resting place.” They got to a place God told them to set up camp, and there was no water. Water is a must in the desert if you are going to set up camp and rest someplace.

So, they quarreled with Moses. “This can’t be where we are supposed to stop. There’s no water. We need to keep going. Give us water to drink. What kind of person are you to bring us up out of Egypt to bring us HERE for us and our children and our livestock to die of thirst?” It wasn’t a calm discussion. The Israelites were frustrated and angry and scared and tired and, thirsty.

Then Moses turned to God. “What am I to do with these people. They are done with me. If I want to live, I am going to have to get them water.”

And God answered Moses, “Walk ahead of the people to a place I will show you. When you strike the rock, water will come out of it.” So, Moses did. And he called the place two names Massah and Meribah – testing and quarrelling.

Old Testament Professor and Scholar Terence Fretheim writes that the wilderness stories are about a people stuck between promise and fulfillment, and God’s leading doesn’t always move directly toward oases. The people tested and quarreled because God had led them where there was no water. Life was at least as hard as it was in Egypt, if not harder, so was God with them, or not? If life isn’t easy, if you don’t have even your basic needs met along your journey, how do you know you are on the path God intends you to travel? If you don’t have tangible evidence, physical water each day, how can you trust that God is present?

Last summer when we crossed the border into Jordan and looked out the bus windows at the sand dunes, I tried to imagine being on foot, journeying across this land that is sand for as far as you can see, but you can’t see far because the sand has blown into dunes that are taller than you are, so you would wander around them, unsure whether you were coming or going, and whether you had passed this way before. It is no wonder that they doubted, that fear gripped them. “Is the Lord among us, or not?”

Covid-19, Murder Hornets, Police Brutality, Racial Injustices, Saharan Dust Plume – it is no wonder that some doubt, that fear grips us, “Is the Lord among us, or not? Are we headed the right way?”

“We want a sign! If God is with us, give us water to drink.” What they are doing is setting God up for a test, to coerce God into acting, “If you are there, show yourself!” We don’t want to believe because we have faith, we want to believe because we have tangible evidence.

It is akin to people who claim faith healing, if you believe purely enough, if you pray in the right way, you will be healed. And here’s the problem with it, it holds God hostage, puts God on display like a Vaudeville Magic Act,…it puts God in the role of servant, and us in the role of master.

And it assumes that when we get past one challenge, the rest of the journey will be smooth. It’s not. As we travel through this wilderness of pandemic and social unrest, we do well to remember that God’s defeat of Pharaoh did not solve all of the Israelites’ problems.

As God passed over with the final plague, the Israelites slept with their doorway marked by the blood of the sacrificial lambs, and as they awoke to Moses and Aaron calling them across their thresholds and out of Egypt, for Pharaoh had released them to go and worship the Lord and take their flocks and herds and GO!, they must have been ecstatic.

But by the time they reached the Red Sea, Pharaoh had changed his mind and sent troops after them. When they were hungry, God provided manna and quail. When they were adrift, God provided daily routine and Sabbath rest. And yet, here at Rephidim they were without water, facing the reality of death again, gripped by fear and doubt, they wonder “Is God with us, or not?”

Just over a year ago, I was standing by the window at Whole Foods, watching the cars pass by on Poplar as I asked, “You mean it’s malignant?” I knew it was. I had seen the ultrasound. I had been here before. My doctor had just told me the oncotype of the tumor was different than my previous cancer. Fear and doubt gripped me.
When have fear and doubt gripped you?

Rev. Dr. Gerald Janzen writes that “If absence of water in this instance counts against God, what of all the “stages” along the way where water has been provided? Do they not count positively for God? Which experiences, the negative or the positive, shall we take as the most reliable evidence concerning God in the world and in our lives? Here, faith and trust vie with fear and doubt.”

It is at those places of struggle, when we need a way where there is no way, where we need water where there is only sand and rock, that the people of faith look back and see God’s faithfulness. Janzen says that what keeps us going is “the memory of oasis points in our past” where we have known God’s presence with us and God’s provision for us. We are able to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving.

God says to Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people. There you will strike a rock and water will flow.” Not here – there. God doesn’t sustain us where we are, but where we are going.

In this liminal time, this space between, as the pandemic has shifted our world, we must keep going. We have talked about turning back, if you missed it, go back and worship with us in the service titled “Ah, Remember the Fleshpots.” There is no going back to the way things were; and when we look back, we remember “normal” much better than it actually was. There is only going forward. At times we may feel hemmed in, like we have the Egyptians behind us and the Red Sea in front of us, we may find ourselves desperate for sustaining water, may we in those times recall that God listens to our cries and makes a way where there is no way and sustains us and encourages us to keep pressing forward out of the bondage of brokenness toward wholeness.

And at times, we, church, may be like Moses. The people may be yelling at us, desperately begging us to DO something, “Is God even HERE?” Moses didn’t get defensive. Moses didn’t yell back that they were better off than they were in Egypt. Moses didn’t see an oasis on the horizon. Moses heard their cries and turned to God for direction.

My friends, even in the midst of this liminal time, in the midst of pandemic and protest, political divisions, racial strife, and economic crisis, even in the midst of murder hornets and a Saharan Dust Plume, yes, God is with us, making a way where there’s no way. May we follow. Amen.