My focus today is on Exodus 17:1-7, with emphasis on verses 6-7: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will stand before you on the rock
at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and
the people will drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He
called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of
the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, ‘Is the Lord
among us or not?’”
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I
rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”[1]
Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we
listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply
as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.
On your next drive to Dallas, when you reach Denton, look left towards
the University of North Texas, and you will see a larger than life-sized mural
of UNT’s most famous alumnus, and undoubtedly the greatest football player born
in Texas – #75 of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mean Joe Greene. Today, Mr. and Mrs.
Mean Joe Greene and his six Superbowl rings live a quiet, Christian life in
Flower Mound, Texas.
Why open a sermon entitled God Visits His People with Refreshment with Mean
Joe Greene? Two reasons. First, in the time it takes to drive to Dallas, Moses
– if he had a bus and an interstate – could have driven across the Sinai to
Israel. It’s 200 miles. Even with traffic, it don’t take 40 years. Second, because,
in 1979, Greene starred in a Clio Award-winning commercial for Coca-Cola that
changed his life more than his helmet-slapping, stunt stance ferocity. In the
commercial a sheepish boy offers an injured Greene a Coke, prompting Mean Joe
to grab the bottle and guzzle the contents, before turning to limp away. He
then turns back toward the crestfallen child, smiles and tosses the kid his jersey
with the famous punchline, "Hey Kid,
Catch!" The heartwarming commercial became immensely popular and made
Greene an international celebrity. 35 years after Tommy Okon offered Mean Joe his
Coke, kids still approach the Steel Curtain stalwart with theirs. No one sells
refreshment better than Coca-Cola, but no one refreshes better than our Triune
God.
Today, we reflect on first, how God refreshed His people in the wilderness.
Second, how God refreshes us with His Word. Finally, how God calls us to refresh
the world today.
First, how God refreshed His people in the wilderness. After leaving
Egypt, Moses did not travel east along the Way of the Philistines, but turned
south into the wilderness of Shur. After 3 days without water, they arrived at
Marah, where the water was bitter. Here, Scripture records, “The
people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’”[2]
As he was prone to do, Moses cried to the Lord, who showed him a log, which
Moses threw into the water, and the water became sweet.[3]
This was the first of three times God provided refreshment to the Israelites
wandering in the wilderness. Shortly thereafter, they camped at Elim where
there were 12 springs and 70 palm trees.
A few weeks passed, and the people again grumbled against Moses. “Would
that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by
the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this
wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”[4]
Hearing their complaint, God provided bread in the morning and meat in the
evening.
That brings us to today’s reading. The Israelites camped at Rephidim, an
oasis in Sinai that provides enough water for large flocks and people.[5]
As Exodus records, however, there was no water for the people to drink. The
people quarreled with Moses. ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses replied,
‘Why
do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ Unsatisfied with
Moses’ inaction, the people grumbled, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to
kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?’ Moses then cried
to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’[6]
We know God provided refreshment once again when Moses struck the rock as
commanded, but … what is really going on here?
More than providing water and food for His people, God was initiating a
relationship between Himself and Israel with Moses as their leader. Bear in
mind, God’s people were in Egypt for 400 years before Moses led them out of
slavery. In Egypt, who was God and who led the people? … Pharoah
The Israelites were accustomed to a cruel, murderous leader who enslaved
them and made life unbearable. As the nation’s leader and god, Pharaoh did not hesitate
to kill the Israelites or their young.[7]
Imagine that the only god you have ever known is a murderous
slave-driving tyrant. Along comes Moses, a prince raised in Pharaoh’s palace.
This fugitive murderer tended flocks of a cultic priest in Midian. There, he
met Yahweh for the first time. Now, he returns and talks of freedom in a land
of milk and honey.[8] … You
would be crazy not to follow him, and you would be crazy to follow him – and
his God who promises faithfulness, mercy and loving-kindness.
The Israelites could not believe life could be different. They had no
experience of a loving, merciful God. He did not exist in Egypt. That is why
the Israelites had difficulty adjusting to Moses as their leader and Yahweh as
their God. They were accustomed to a precarious existence.
Is it any wonder why the Israelites had trouble entering into a faithful
relationship with a God who not only responded to their cries as oppressed
slaves and wandering sojourners, but also provided refreshment and protection? They
grumbled out of desperation because they honestly believed that Moses led them
into the wilderness to kill them. … One day Israel would look
back at Massah and Meribah, where they wondered, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’
and realize He was.
Having examined how God refreshed His people in the wilderness, we turn
to how God refreshes us.
Most of us were raised in Christian homes by parents who taught us about a
Triune God. We attended worship and religious instruction on Sundays. Unlike
the Hebrew slave under the oppression of Pharaohs, we live in a nation where
most people know God’s presence, mercy and loving-kindness. As Lutherans we
recognize the means of grace as God’s Word and Sacraments, namely Holy Baptism
and the Lord’s Supper.
God refreshes us through His Word, that is, Scripture. Read the Bible
daily and you will undoubtedly find a passage where God promises you His
presence, mercy and loving-kindness. My favorite is Matthew 11:28: “Come
to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Rest in God’s presence. Rest in God’s Word.
Baptism. When we were baptized, we were joined to the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. His Paschal Mystery sets the pattern and rhythm
for our daily lives, strengthening and refreshing us.[9]
Confession. Most of us do not like to admit our faults, our sins, even to
ourselves or our Savior. What God’s Word says about our favorite vices may make
us angry, ashamed or afraid. However, God’s call to repentance is one of love.[10]
God did not call the Israelites into the wilderness to kill them but to love
them.
Absolution: For us, repentance or that rhythm of turning from sin and to
Christ is no theological abstraction, but a concrete practice of Christian
living. I need to hear, “I forgive you
all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”
from my pastor. Pastors restart our crushed hearts with Jesus’ words of
ultimate love: I forgive you all your
sins.[11]
Holy Communion. I need to be in a faith community that believes Christ is
present under the elements of bread and wine.[12]
Eating and drinking His Body and Blood refreshes me. Through this Sacrament, we
experience God’s love in the resurrected body and blood of Jesus in the bread
and wine.[13]
One way we can ponder the refreshing power of this Sacrament is to pray
after receiving Holy Communion these words that are often printed in our
worship guide: “Dear Lord Jesus, I thank
You and praise You that You have again refreshed me with the gift of Your holy
body and blood in this comforting sacrament. Bless my participation that I may
depart from Your presence with peace and joy in the knowledge that I am
reconciled to God. I ask this in Your name. Amen.”
Finally, God refreshes us through one another. Have you pondered how God
calls you to refresh not only the people you like, but everyone? Why do I greet
some people with enthusiastic joy, but others with the same enthusiasm I feel
when my doctor prescribes MiraLax.
Daily God greets each of us with enthusiastic joy and His renewed
promises of faithfulness, mercy and loving-kindness. God visits us with
refreshment. Refreshed as God’s people, we now ask how we might refresh the
world today.
Most people know that I am not from Oklahoma. A couple of years ago one woman
after asking, “Where are you from?” commented,
“You sure do talk funny!” … I am not
from here, but I was overwhelmingly impressed last spring how Oklahomans and
Lutherans responded to the victims of the tornadoes. To quote President Matthew
Harrison, “When disasters strike, we make
an enormous difference by bringing our resources to bear where people are
hurting.”[14]
We strive to ease their hurt and bring refreshment through grace. All Christians
should respond as we did, but to apply our theme drawn from the refreshing waters
of Exodus, think about a population of people who, like oppressed Hebrew slaves,
grew up not in a Godly home, but in an environment where God was absent.
Twice in my life, I ministered to the incarcerated. My first experience
was to men at the Collins Correctional Facility in New York, an exclusive,
gated community, whose motto was – “You
pulled the crime. You do the time.”
My second experience was the Allegheny County Jail. I created a program
for incarcerated mothers. Few experiences are as distressing and dispirited as meeting
with incarcerated mothers. These women committed non-violent crimes related to their
addiction – theft, trafficking, solicitation and so on. They sorely missed
their babies, their toddlers, their teenage sons and daughters.
Like Hebrew slaves, they grew accustomed to cruel people who made life
miserable. They grew up in harsh environments with no knowledge of a God promising
faithfulness, mercy and loving-kindness.
My friend, Liguori Rossner, and I designed “I to I” or “Incarceration to
Independence” where I went into the jail to see what these women needed before
they went to court or returned to the former lives and habits. The details I
will save for another day. Suffice it to say, this is one way God calls us to
refresh the world today.
God does not call everyone to minister to incarcerated, addicted mothers
or homeless men with mental health disorders. God knows, however, there are
many people in our world who sigh desperate cries of anguish that fall on deaf
ears. However, if we listen, we can hear them in our children’s classrooms, in
nursing homes or just down the block. We can hear them from here and we can
minister to them. We can because God has visited us with refreshment, just as
He did in the wilderness.
When people in crisis wander in the wilderness, refreshed Christians walk
alongside them. We strive to ease their hurt and bring refreshment through
grace. As thirsty as we get when we wander through life’s wilderness, we
realize that the Lord is among us. So, stay thirsty my friends. Stay thirsty
for God’s refreshment and you will meet the world’s most interesting men and
women. When you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:7). Amen.
[1]
Psalm 122
[2]
Exodus 15:24
[3]
Exodus 15:25
[4]
Exodus 16:2-3
[5]
Jean-Pierre Isbouts, The Biblical World: An Illustrated Atlas. Washington, DC:
National Geographic Society (2007, 136.
[6]
Exodus 17:1-5
[7] See
Exodus 1:8-21
[8]
Exodus 3:7-10
[9]
Lutheranism 101, p. 138
[10]
Lutheranism 101, p. 140
[11]
Lutheranism 101, p. 141
[12]
Lutheranism 101, p. 150
[13]
Lutheranism 101, p. 160
[14] Caring
for Body and Soul in the Name of Jesus, A letter from the Rev. Dr. Matthew C.
Harrison, President, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, May 22, 2013
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