Quarreled & Tested

I am one of those concerned about the future of access to clean water and the struggle over water rights in the United States and beyond. As fierce as the battles over oil have been in our recent past (and present?), the wars over water may become even more strident. We need oil to power the world we have created. We need water to power the world God created. It seems more immediate and personal somehow.

Consequently, the Exodus text dominates on a day when the southwest US continues to suffer historic droughts, even after floods this past winter. Like the people wandering in the wilderness, we’re thirsty too. And like them, we might be on the verge of panic. “Give us water to drink!” Talk about getting to the point. Moses seems offended, however. He hears the panic underneath. He hears the complaint, the frustration and anger on the verge of breaking out. So, he pushes back. “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” This isn’t just about his leadership; this is about faith in the God who rescued them, the God who set them free. And before they are done, he renames the place. He calls it Quarreling and Testing. Now anytime anyone drives by and reads the signs or checks out the area on Google maps, they’ll be reminded that this was the place where the people grumbled. Probably should have named the whole area Massah and Meribah because this wasn’t the only quarreling place.

Jesus doesn’t rename the temple quarreling and testing, but he could have. Everywhere he goes, it seems someone stands up with a question. And it usually is a question that isn’t a question. It’s a trap. It is a “gotcha” designed to make him look bad, or subversive, or an enemy of the faith. So it is with this question. “By what authority,” they ask him. “How dare you,” they might have said. Or maybe they did, under their collective breath. How dare you attempt to tell us what God is like, what God wants from us. How dare you do the things that you do, the healing and the accepting and the touching and the claiming? How dare you do these things? It sounds like a question, but it wasn’t a question. It was a stone hurled at him. It was a finger pointed or a sneer directed his way. “Who do you think you are,” they asked him.

Like Moses, Jesus could have gone to God and said, “Why did you give me such a recalcitrant group of people to work with?” He could have, but he didn’t. Or maybe he was just so close to the God who sent him that he didn’t need to. He knew what God wanted him to do—help them see, quench their thirst. So, Jesus turns the question around on them. “You want to talk about authority? Well, let’s talk about authority. Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

So, they put their heads together and figure out the reverse trap, and they answer, “We don’t know.” “Great,” Jesus says, “then you don’t need to know mine either.” Then he tells a parable about two sons who have a significant disconnect between words and deeds and asks, “Which do you prefer?” And everyone says, “deeds; we want those who do good things.”

Of course, Jesus asks in such a way as to get the answer he wants. “Which of them did the will of his father?” He didn’t ask which was better, who was more holy. And by so doing, he emphasized what God wants: folks to do the right thing, to do the loving thing, to do the justice-making thing. God wants those who can get their hands dirty, those who build community, who foster relationships, and who mentor those who come alongside.

You know, if pressed, I’ll bet Jesus would say that those whose words match their deeds are to be prized as well. “That’s the path we’re on,” he would argue—to let our words, our promises, our covenants match what we actually do. In the long haul of this faith journey, we are moving toward congruence, where our lives are whole, are of a piece. What you see is what you get; that’s us.

But maybe, as he sums up this teaching, what he’s saying is that what we need to work on first is living the faith. Even if we’ve come to it late, even if we don’t know all the right words to say, even if we feel out of place among the people who have been doing this all their lives, even if we sit when we’re supposed to stand when we come to worship or sing when we’re supposed to be silent. Don’t let that stop you from living it out; don’t let a shaky past get in the way of how you choose to live today. Even if there are those who will come and ask you, “How dare you?” or “Who do you think you are?” Kin-dom living is about living, not just talking about it. And maybe some of the stuff we decide to quarrel about isn’t really that important. Maybe some of the tests we devise for one another and for God aren’t going to amount to anything of value in the long haul.

Do you know the really amazing thing about the Exodus account? God gave them water. God showed Moses where to find the very thing that they were shouting about. God didn’t grumble back; God just said, “I’ll go show you the rock where the water is. Come, strike the rock and water will come.” I would have been inclined to make them wait for it, to test them as they tried to test me. But then, I guess that’s why I’m not God. God, with amazing grace, provides, sustains, and walks with us, even when we go off track. Thanks be to God.