Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
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SERMON
When was the last time
you grumbled at God?
Some of us probably do that quite regularly;
others, almost never.
For some of us, that seems like
a faintly blasphemous thing to do …
for others of us, it’s more like
just sharing a gripe with a sympathetic friend.
I can distinctly recall the last time
I got put out with God,
and was quite sure that God
had fallen asleep at the switch and wasn’t doing his or her job.
It was yesterday morning,
when I got up and heard the sleet falling,
saw that my back yard was white,
and the roads completely iced over as well,
and knew that it didn’t matter,
I still had to drag my carcass out into the cold,
and get to the presbytery meeting.
It didn’t help when, an hour later,
I got outside to find a sheet of ice covering my car,
and none of the roads south of the mixmaster
had been salted or sanded at all …
I could understand, at least a little,
how those Israelites felt,
wandering waterless in the wilderness.
“Yo, God! Remember us?
Have you forgotten us out here?
You’re the one who brought us to this wretched place.
We need water!
What’s the matter with you?
Who gave you a license to run the universe, anyway?”
Poor Moses.
He had to put up with people like me
all day long.
We like to think of the Hebrew people
as bold and courageous, full of faith,
escaping from slavery to follow God
they-knew-not-where.
And that’s partly true.
But “the rest of the story”
shows them in a little different light.
They were frightened.
The Egyptians nearly caught them
at the Red Sea, you know.
And that Moses – he once killed a man, you know.
Could they trust him 100%?
They were afraid.
And their fear made them contentious,
and angry, and complaining,
and all those things
that made Moses’ job all the more difficult.
Especially when things really aren’t seeming quite right.
Imagine, if we had followed a persuasive leader
who claimed to have God’s authority,
and she led us out to a place that
looked like someplace about halfway between Midland and El Paso
in August of a drought year,
and told us to make camp there,
without a drop of water in sight.
Would we just quietly go along with it?
I know you better than that!
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Are you sure this is the place where God told you?”
“Are you sure it’s God you’re talking to?”
“Is this whole thing some kind of trick?”
“Did you even look at a map before we left?”
“I wish we had never left Dallas.”
“Yeah, it may have had its problems,
but at least we had water.”
“And trees!”
“We’re gonna die out here if somebody doesn’t do something!”
Moses seems to have remained fairly calm,
all things considered.
He’s pretty astute.
Notice that he makes it quite clear
what the problem really is.
“Why do you find fault with me?” he asks them.
“Why do you put the Lord to the test?”
Aha! There’s the heart of the matter.
Not that the people don’t trust Moses,
who is, after all, human …
but that, even after everything that’s happened so far,
they still don’t trust God.
This is where their story
really begins to intersect with ours.
Some of their experience is, and will always remain,
foreign to us.
But this we can understand,
if we’re honest, anyway:
being fearful, or feeling threatened somehow, or both …
and not trusting God to see us through.
Now we might not see it that way at first.
We might simply feel overwhelmed,
and claim that life is unfair –
which it is, sometimes! –
and, if there’s a Moses handy,
blame him for leading us astray.
And we might either redouble our efforts,
and try to fix the situation by ourselves,
or we might become passive and resigned and hopeless,
figuring there’s nothing more that can be done.
Either way,
God gets left out of the picture.
Often, in the busy lives we lead,
part of the reason we don’t trust God
may be that we have forgotten to include God at all.
We assume that something must be done by a human agent,
or not at all.
Now, let me back up for just a minute.
I want to be real clear about
what I’m not saying.
I do not intend to suggest that,
if we will only trust God hard enough,
God will give us everything we want.
Though you can find some who will tell you that.
Like this whole Prayer of Jabez book and related paraphernalia –
just ask for God’s blessing and really mean it,
and all kinds of good things will come your way.
That’s not just unbiblical;
it’s heresy.
If you want something
that is not in your best interest,
or the best interests of others,
I don’t think for one minute that God is going to give it to you.
God may not stop you
if you go out and grab it for yourself …
But God is not going to give you something harmful
just because you want it,
no matter how much trust you have.
What I am saying is this:
If you are traveling the road
God means for you to travel,
God will insure that you have
adequate provisions for the journey.
Even if you haven’t arrived yet –
perhaps, especially if you haven’t arrived yet.
We don’t have to be perfect or worthy or “finished”
to receive God’s attention.
I mean, look at the Hebrews!
They were far from ideal.
Yet God provided water in this story,
manna in another story,
quails in yet another.
Not a seven-course dinner
served by hot and cold running waiters …
but entirely adequate food and drink
for the journey they were making.
Why is this trust in God so hard for us?
For some of us, some of the time, it may be because
we want the seven-course dinner
and we know that manna is all we’re going to get
from God’s kitchen.
I guess all of us, at one time or another,
want more than we need,
and we’re fairly sure God isn’t going to
subsidize our expensive fantasies.
And we’re right about that!
But I think that most of the time,
it runs deeper.
We fear embarking on the journey God calls us to make,
because we really believe, deep down inside,
that we’ll have to make it all on our own.
But you see,
that’s our culture’s message, not God’s.
It’s just that we’ve internalized it so deeply
that we forget there’s any other way to look at reality.
We feel, or fear,
that we’re on our own in a basically hostile world.
And I’ll admit, there are days
when it really does feel like that.
But is isn’t.
We are never alone.
And we are especially not alone,
if we’re trying our level best
to follow the path God has laid out for us.
Sometimes there may be other humans with us,
journeying on the same path …
At other times, we may lack human company;
our path may be an uncommon one.
But we will never be alone on it.
God is there every step of the way,
even if we do wander off the right path
every now and then.
God knows what our needs are,
and will provide for them,
one way or another.
If we are thirsty,
God might come up with water from a rock,
or a stranger with a canteen,
or an ice-cold Dr. Pepper …
Or God might relieve our thirst
and simply take our mind off it,
until we reach the next oasis.
If we are feeling lonely,
God may send us human company,
or may use the opportunity to teach us
how to rest quietly in God’s company alone.
We are promised provisions for the journey.
And God is no liar.
So let us stall no longer.
The path lies ahead of us.
Let us journey,
with God.
Amen.
© 2002 Julie
Adkins (e-mail: Drjadkins@aol.com)