Even from Rock

• Exodus 17:1-7

  Water from the Rock

  17 From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 The people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do for this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. 6 I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 He called the place Massah[a] and Meribah,[b] because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

• Matthew 21:23-32

  The Authority of Jesus Questioned

  23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for all regard John as a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

  The Parable of the Two Sons

  28 “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father[a] went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.

My brother, Caleb, was just like any other kid growing up. Like any kid, he had the things he cared about—frogs, reptiles, dinosaurs. He cared, and still cares, about the wellbeing of all sorts of creatures. My grandmother loves to tell the story of my brother offering words of encouragement to an insect that was struggling to crawl over the wall-to-wall carpeting in my grandparents’ living room—and that was just a year ago. Just kidding, he was very small when he did that. He was extremely empathetic and compassionate, which is why he spent his tenth birthday in a way that no other child probably would have chosen to: raising money for, and participating in, the Capital Region AIDS Walk in Albany. The Aids Walk was an annual event organized primarily by the Damien Center, an organization in Albany that provides programs, services, and even temporary and permanent housing for people living with HIV/AIDS. It was pretty straight forward as far as fundraisers go. Participants would raise money, get t-shirts, and walk a predetermined route around the City of Albany to raise awareness of the cause. In this case, there was also the goal of destigmatizing the people living with HIV/AIDS. There was a festival portion, where local artists would perform to help raise the profile of the event, and there were speakers who were people living with HIV/AIDS, support staff, or family members who had lost loved ones to the virus. To be there was to be surrounded by those traversing the wilderness, mostly expecting to never make it out.

I was only seven when we participated in the AIDS Walk for my brother’s tenth birthday. Most of what I remember was going to the vendor tables with my sister and picking up the free yogurts and granola bars that they had out for the people walking. When you’re seven, and you’re walking around a park with a four-year-old, free food is what really stands out. But I also remember being on the walking route and being handed a bottle of water by someone. When you’re seven, and you’re walking miles around a city for a cause you don’t really understand, being handed a bottle of water really stands out. The AIDS Walk became an annual event for our family, and each year it became more and more significant to each of us. Each year we would walk the route, and each year we would be handed bottles of water as we walked. As I got older, I began to notice that the people handing us the water were from the Damien Center. They may have been staff or volunteers. They may have been members of the community, the recipients of the Damien Center’s services. Some of them may very well have been addicts or unhoused folks. Whoever they were, they were people walking through a particular wilderness or, at the very least, walking with people through that wilderness. They were those familiar with the stigmatization of illness, of being subjected to assumptions about who they were or what they had been through. They were the recipients of the fundraiser, for Christ’s sake. Weren’t the walkers supposed to be the ones extending grace, offering help, offering saving?

This passage from Exodus that we heard this morning must be one of Moses’ greatest PR spins of all. Moses had led the Israelites out into the wilderness, following God’s call to liberation, and seems to have been caught entirely unaware. How can you set out on a desert expedition without a plan for where you will get water from? Surely it would have been wise to have someone on the journey with knowledge of the desert, of where the watering holes were or where someone might have dug a well. You can only take so much water with you when you first set out on a journey such as this one. As the leader, you ought to have a plan for where you might find things like water. But we’re supposed to see the Israelites as unreasonable? We’re supposed to see them as quarrelers, as those who question God simply when what, when they run out of water? God forbid the people wandering the desert get a little worried when they realize they don’t have a water source nearby. “What shall I do for this people? They are almost ready to stone me!” Yeah, Moses. I get that this puts you in a tough position, but are you really surprised? And then to call the place where all this happened Massah and Meribah, because the people argued with you? What a way to turn a failure to plan into a geographic claim of the Israelites’ lack of faith. No wonder Moses is still in power, the way he turned his own failure into someone else’s. 

And let’s not forget about God in this episode. Surely God could have made this a bit more straight forward, too. Surely God could have led them to an oasis or a stream or something. But no, God had to hold out for the dramatic, the unexpected, the show-stopper, the “raise up your staff and strike this rock” performance. Just to show off? Maybe. Maybe the way Moses gets down to it is a little flashy, but hey, he had to restore some public trust. But of all the ways for God to act, this was surprisingly subtle, and probably not what the Israelites expected. They might have expected, or hoped for, an oasis or a stream or some great source of fresh water that might have gotten them some meat, too. They might have expected, or hoped for, something as spectacular as a flock of quails or magic bread from heaven. What they got, though, was a rock. An ordinary, everyday rock, dry and lifeless. In the middle of the wilderness, life was sustained by a rock—by God working through a rock. When life was not seen, God reminded the Israelites not only of God’s presence among them, but also the kinship that is shared by both human and non-human Creation. God broke through in that moment, to announce that no part of Creation is too ordinary, too inanimate, too simple, or too broken to be a source of grace. God broke through to remind the Israelites that even those in need of grace—even those looked down on, cast aside, and forgotten—can extend that grace to others. God broke through in that moment, in the midst of a walk that seemed to last forever, to whisper that even when we wander the wilderness, nothing can prevent the possibility of God’s mercy, God’s love, and God’s justice flowing forth. No, nothing. Not life or death, not angels or rulers, not things present or things to come, not powers or height or depth, not anything in all of Creation.

We may sometimes, or often, feel that we are wandering through the wilderness. We might sometimes, or often, encounter others on our walk who are moving through the wilderness. Those suffering from loss or illness, those weary from immigrant journeys that still leave them unsafe. Those cast aside, forgotten, imprisoned, oppressed. Those from whom food is withheld, for whom shelter is denied. Those struggling in ways seen and unseen. May we remember to be not stony and unyielding, but to be sources of life and grace. And may we absolutely remember that those we encounter in the wilderness still have life and grace to give. In our thirsty wanderings, may we remember that God’s grace flows in unexpected ways. May we remember to seek out the grace we need, the water we need, and be open to receiving it even from the people and places we least expect. Even when we fail to plan, even when being empathetic and compassionate is hard or impossible. Still we are called to be people of grace, wherever that grace may come through. May we hear this call, and know that even when we fail, even when it seems impossible for God to be present, for love and justice to be found, still nothing can stop the love of God. And, that grace is there, before we know it and even when we quarrel. And thanks be to God for a love like that. Amen.