Grounded in the Wilderness

 Sermons through Lent begin with this quote from sculptor and environmentalist Anthony Goldsworthy. We often forget that we are nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we have lost our connection to ourselves.

 

This morning, we find ourselves in the Wilderness of Sin with the people who have fled Egypt, following Moses through a river into a vast unknown-to-them landscape. The people journey by stages, as the Lord commanded. The land they enter, is the Sinai Peninsula. Its nights can be extremely cold and its daytimes full of intense heat. Strong winds blow as they please. The wilderness of Sin has high altitudes, mountainous topography, and lots of arid desert. The south is full of igneous rock and canyon-like wadis, in the North are massive plateaus, and the costal plains have extensive sand dunes. The landscape is dotted with scrubby plants, succulents, and on plateaus stubbly pasture. Animals are rare. In ancient times, the Egyptians built, Tjaru, in Sinai, as a place of banishment for criminals. The wilderness of Sin was noted as a hostile and inhospitable environment. This is the nature -the natural environment – the place of freedom that greets the people who have fled slavery.

 

In the Exodus story, human nature expresses itself early. It took just three days for the complaining to begin, What are we to drink?, the people ask. There was water but it was bitter. Complaints continued. No bread! No meat! Each time the people were provided for: the water was made sweet, manna fell from heaven, and quails appeared. And yet again, human nature wanted more. As we enter today’s scene, we once again hear that the complaint of the people is for water. This time the complaint is expressed as a demand, the first account in the biblical story of humans testing God, demanding, Give us water.

 

One April I went camping with my son and his Scout Troop. There were still large patches of snow on the ground and the temperature hovered around freezing at night. The first part of camp -we complained-was cold and wet, the second part was hot and sunny … the temperature went above 20C. Scouters are always prepared. Each Scout had brought their drinking water, calculated based on the duration of the camp, average temperature, and required hydration. Everyone ran out of water because of the spike in the temperature. Plan B was to use melted snow and extra water brought in large plastic drums that was intended for washing, doing dishes, putting out fires, and wiping down equipment. The water in the plastic drums was not intended for drinking. Anyway, water in the drums and melted snow was made potable by shocking it with bleach. Our water bottles were refilled – with water that was safe to drink. It was a little yellow, it had an off-taste, slight smell, and it was warm. It was kind of icky! No, it was really icky! We asked for water, and the Scout Troopers provided. Although we judged it as second-rate and complained about it, it was water and it was hydrating and it did quench our thirst.

 

Human nature tends to identify what is missing and then complains about it. Human nature, while provided for, judges and then complains about the provision. This is nothing new. The Exodus stories have Moses naming the places of complaint as: Marah, Massah, Meribah. Respectively they mean bitter, testing, and quarrel. Each relates to the response of human nature in each circumstance.  Bitter. Testing. Quarrelsome.

 

While the three consecutive stories of complaint are being told, listeners get drawn into the very human response to the conditions. As hearers we judge the people and their reactions. We assume that we would have acted differently had we been there. Would we not have been patient, grateful, and trusting? Not likely. These stories are memorable because they reflect our nature.

My Godson brought a book to my house last weekend that he thought I would enjoy. We had a lot of fun looking through it together. It was a small book square book filled with photos of animal faces. Some were bizarre, others humorous, some faces were serious – there was a wealth of expression and emotion.

On one page there was an owl’s head taken from a sideway perspective, the owl’s head slightly turned out towards the viewer and with a definite tilt of the head down, so the big owl eyes looked down their beak in a judgemental kind-of-way. Lent is the season of confession – I saw the look as one that I give. Or at least an expression I feel. It is ‘the look’ I have when I shake my head in disbelief at stupidity; utter the phrase– are you serious; the look I have when baffled by other’s intolerance or am aghast that others don’t see things my way --- the look I would have had in the wilderness of Sin.

 

The people complained and asked, Is the Lord among us or not? This is the crux of the story, attention finally gets around to God and their judging of God’s character. So wrapped in complaint they had forgotten the story of God walking the land with Adam and Eve, with Abram and Sari. Did they not trust in the stories of old, that clearly tell that God was and is present?

 

The story is told from the perspective of human nature. But it is God’s nature that is extraordinary. Perhaps you heard it in the story - God’s nature is expressed in rescue, freedom, and provision. God was present in Egypt. Through God’s power Moses is rescued as an infant and brought up in the Pharoah’s house. Through God’s walking the land with Moses, Moses remembers his people. Through repeated visits to the Pharoah, along with plagues, the people who are in bondage – slaves- are told to leave Egypt. The people are rescued, and as they flee, the waters of the parted sea cover over their pursuers. Once across the sea and into the Sinai Peninsula - there is freedom from bondage. God’s big dream continues. In this wilderness landscape God is already present, knowing the nature of the land, God knows there is provision for food and drink. It is hidden in new-to-the-people-forms and although not instantly seen sustenance is present. Rescue, freedom, and provision are God’s nature – God’s nature is the foundation of this story. It is unfortunate that in the story – and in human life – God’s nature gets overshadowed by human nature’s complaining and judging.

If we take the time to explore the text, we learn something else about God’s nature, God doesn’t give up. God remains present among the people. God continues to pursue relationship. God confirms with Moses, I will be standing there in front of you on the rock Horeb. In spite of the lack of gratitude and distrust on the part of God’s people, God gives water. God provides for the quenching of thirst.

Human thirst. The story is not just about physical water for the body. Human nature thirsts for more – the want, the complaining, the testing, the quarrelling, the bitterness – returns to a thirst for deeper meaning and deeper connection. Thirst is unsatiated when human nature remains on its own, disconnect from others, creation, and God. Living water -the nature of God- quenches thirst through relationship with God who is already standing there in front of us, at the rock, waiting for us to stretch out our hands to receive the water. Water. Rescue, freedom from bondage, provision.

 

Today’s story can be read from the perspective of nature, human nature, God’s nature. We are invited to reflect on our thirst, as a people. How do we face the challenges and crisis that cause us to want, to need? Are we grounded in our relationship with God? So that we trust in God’s presence and wait on God and God’s nature of rescue, freedom, and provision – filling us with life-giving water. Or do we choose to walk with fear and doubt, complaining, testing, quarrelling, bitter that needs are not met fast enough, that God is not present; will human nature overshadow God’s nature such that we believe that we will die of thirst in the wilderness… or do we remain grounded, even in wilderness, trusting in God’s big audacious promise and dream that is continuing in becoming whole.