Do you ever get the idea that God is trying to tell you something? There might be something He is trying to teach me about Exodus 17:1-7. In a span of a couple of days, we read Exodus 17 in our family devotions, it was the text at a service we went to at the Gospel Hall, it showed up in my personal devotions, and was referenced in the lectionary when I was looking for texts to preach on the other week. With all of these hints I thought I should spend some time reflecting on this passage this week; so that is what we are doing today. And, if I had any lingering doubts this morning, 7 years ago today I saw in my Facebook memories that I congratulated a friend on preaching a great sermon on these exact verses!
The people are grumbling about God to Moses in
Chapter 17 because they have nothing to drink. And In Chapter 16, they were
grumbling about God to Moses because they had nothing to eat – Is God a waiter
to bring them food and drink? Or is God the cook and Moses the waiter and the
people have so many complaints about the food and the cook that they just keep complaining
to Moses: ‘Take this back’, ‘I don’t like that’ ‘Tell the cook this!’ ‘Bring me
that!’
I don’t think I am generally a whiny costumer, but
I do have one story of being a little short with a fast-food restaurant’s drive-thru
staff. A long time ago in a province far, far away, I was with my two little
children going through an A&W Drive-Thru. Being that my children are
vegetarians, I ordered them something with no meat: a grilled cheese sandwich, cheese
on a toasted bun. The voice in the drive-thru box said, “I don’t think we can
do that”. I replied, “sure you can: first you take the bun out of the package;
then you toast it and then you put the cheese on it.” They did. My little
children loved the episode immensely and still remember that incident to this
day, even now as they are all grown up and moved away – the day we told the
restaurant how to make a grilled cheese sandwich.
The Israelites here are being whiney drive-thru
customers as they are travelling across the desert, telling Moses exactly what
they want and how they want it. They are pretty dramatic about it as well:
Chapter 16, about the food, verses 3-4, The Israelites said to them, “If only
we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and
ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to
starve this entire assembly to death.” And then after God and Moses give them
meat and bread of Heaven in the very next chapter, Chapter 17:2, 'So they
quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”'
And just before their whining and complaining
about the food and water, just before these stories take place, is the parting
of the Red Sea – remember how the people came to Moses about God then? Exodus
14:11-12: They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt
that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing
us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us
serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians
than to die in the desert!” And so it goes…Exodus 17:2, 'So they quarreled with
Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”'
The Israelites have developed a pattern of
whining and complaining in their lives. If you look back at Chapter 16 you can
see that people responded a little differently about the instructions they were
given about the food: some obeyed, some did not; but it seems like the majority
of them complained. And sometimes their complaints made me wonder, ‘do these
people even believe in God?’ 17:7: “Is the Lord among us or not?” The fact that
they are always going to Moses and/or Moses and Aaron with their complaints
sound to me like they almost think that Moses might even be just making this
whole God-thing up. You can see how Moses – and GOD – get quite upset with the
people as recorded in the book of Exodus!
The people are so focused on the apparently bad
things; the people are so focused on the difficult things (which they interpret
as bad); the people are so focused on
the challenging things (which they interpret as bad); the people are so focused
on an imagined ideal, comparing it to an imagined reality that falls short in
their minds, so they are not happy and so they whine and so they complain about
God and their leaders.
It is SO easy to do! …so tempting too! Whine
and complain! Whine and complain about our leaders! I was able to see Pierre
Poilievre, the Leader of Canada’s Official Opposition on Thursday. Gord Johns,
our MP has agreed this week to appear on Heather’s TV Show (HTV: Heather’s
Talk in the Valley); It is so easy to complain – either about politicians
or in agreement with their complaints about other politicians or the
government. Politicians are often simply people doing a difficult job and we
often find something to complain about them – whether we have ever even met
them or not! I remember being blessed to serve from the food truck alongside
both Josie Osbourne (our MLA) and Gord Johns (our MP) at Christmas time and
chatting briefly about just that: no matter what we say or do, someone will always
complain! I know I can be frustrated by others complaining about me, both if I
do something and if I don’t do the same thing… and so you think I would know
better than to complain about others, but alas, I can still be tempted to
complain about so and so, or this and that, and grumble and whine against our
leaders or someone else… just like the Israelites
Philippians 2:14: 'Do everything without grumbling or arguing'. When we get into a habit of complaining and thinking negative thoughts, it can be hard to even see good in people we love. Whining and complaining about people in our lives and/or things out of our control can be all-encompassing and can really drag us down. We can get so that almost every thought is negative.
Do we ever get like this? Do we ever whine and
complain? Do we ever get worked up about things that we know nothing about,
things that are out of our control, things that are turning out just they way
they are supposed to turn out, things that are turning out just the way they
were always likely to turn out - and then do we whine about them to ourselves
or others and in the process make life a lot more difficult for ourselves and
everyone else!?!
When we are in a difficult spot, do we look to
God expecting a miracle and wondering what it might be and how He might do it?
Or do we complain about our leaders, our circumstances, and/or God? Do we ever
whine and complain so much that if people read stories about us, like we do about
the Israelites in the desert, that many of the stories would be about how much
we whine… about our government (Trudeau this, Liberals, NDP, or Conservatives,
that) … about our church leaders (Headquarters! or Major said this or did
that!), our bosses (That Major again!), or one another (so and so always does
this or never does that; why do I always have to…) do we ever whine so much that
people might ask of us, “Is the Lord among them or not?” and/or “do they even
believe in God?”
Whining and complaining can certainly come
across to others as if we don’t believe in God. If we are always complaining
about our lives, it certainly does look like we don’t believe that the Lord
will and is taking care of us; it certainly looks like we don’t have faith in
God.
Even worse than how it might appear, complaining
can actually get in the way of our relationship with one another and with God.
It can pull us away from a life of peace. Grumbling and complaining is
destructive and it can be addictive like any drug or any other bad habit and it
can be very destructive to our soul, our mental health, our spiritual well-being.
We find what we look for: the more we look for bad things in our lives to complain
about, the more we find them; the more talk about the bad things in our lives,
the more we notice bad things in our lives, the more we listen to (and so
encourage others to talk about) complaints about bad things in others’ lives,
the more we focus on the bad things in their and our lives. And when we complain
about the bad things, it is easy for us to be overcome by those bad things. But,
on the other hand, when we focus on God; when we look for what God is doing in
the world and in our lives, when we look to see how He will deliver us through
our challenges, when we have faith in God, He can deliver us from anything,
even a grumbling and complaining spirit. Jesus is, after all, the Prince of
Peace.
God and Moses wanted the people to be free of the
grumbling spirit that was trying to tear them from Him. You notice that all
through the Exodus story, God never gives up on the Israelites. He keeps
providing food for them even though they complain about it throughout. Even
though they complain along the whole journey and ask, “Is the Lord among us or
not?”, He continues to lead them, loving them so much that He hopes and encourages
them to be free of the rain cloud of despair and complaint and to experience His
Peace instead.
And He wishes the same for us. The temptation
to grumble can certainly be strong. God knows that. And even though it seems
like our complaining can be all-encompassing, tortuous, and must be exasperating
even to God, He does love us, and He does want us to be free and at peace. We
have that opportunity today so I encourage us all to give our worries and
complaints over to Him for when we do then indeed even we can have our spirit at
peace, for Jesus Himself is the Prince of peace.
Let us pray
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