March 3, 2024: Water in the Wilderness

Old Testament Reading: Exodus 17:1-7
Gospel:  John 4: 5-42                      

Exodus 17:1 “From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded.” The Israelites were in both the literal and metaphoric wilderness. God led Moses to help them escape enslavement in Egypt but escaping in body did not yet free their oppressed minds. They were still trapped in the wilderness that is here called Sin but is really doubt. God had already made the water drinkable at Marah and rained down Manna daily to eat. There was no reason to doubt God would provide, but doubt they did, even wondering whether it would be better to be back enslaved in Egypt rather than thirsty and questioning in this wilderness.

When one has been enslaved or oppressed it takes time to understand and trust freedom. The limitations and pain of enslavement have inflicted trauma on the body that is not forgotten just because one is no longer in that circumstance. The Israelites are still carrying that trauma with them in the wilderness and the trauma is blinding them to what God is doing for them so they cry out that they are thirsty rather than trusting that God will provide.

And how does God respond? God responds in love. While Moses is frustrated, probably even angry that they don’t get it, God understands and gives them what they need: water in the wilderness and witnesses of how God provided it to let those small seeds of faith grow. 

There is a reason that the Israelites wandered for 40 years in the wilderness and that it is really the next generation that gets to experience the promised land instead of them; they just weren’t ready. They could not shake off the shackles of enslavement in order to really understand and accept what God was doing for them. Luckily, their children could; their eyes were open to what God provided. “From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed in stages.” They do move away from the time of enslavement, from the time of doubt in the wilderness, but they must do it in stages to get there, something that God understood. 
Doesn’t it also take us time, or stages, to move out of our disbelief? Don’t we also have to wander in the wilderness of challenges at times in our lives in order to eventually see that God has been there, ready to offer refreshing, living water the whole time?  

I led a Lenten Women’s Prayer Breakfast at Grace Congregational Church in Rutland yesterday for about 25 women. I shared with them last year’s Lenten Theme of “A Time to Grow: Lessons from the Garden to the Table” by Kara Edison and slowly decorated a table with the planter and colored tulle representing soil, water, sun and a growing plant just as we saw throughout Lent last year on our altar. In between we did different contemplative practices from breath prayers to chair yoga, to walking prayers and drawing around the word “Reconciliation” to show how we can repair relationships, learn to forgive and to grow from it. 

I reminded them that we practice our faith rather than perfecting it. We will make mistakes, we will doubt, we will hurt others and seek forgiveness because we all have our times in the wilderness; we all wander seeking living water that is there but that we are somehow blinded from seeing at times. Like the Isaelites, we too get lost in the despair of the world. The pain and suffering of war, violence, betrayal, illness, and our own doubts. But God, like a patient mother, waits in the wilderness for us to be able to hear her whispering, guiding us out of a challenging time, relieving us of some of the burdens we carry - the control we seek - by reminding us that we can’t control everything and we are actually refreshed by letting go and letting God. 

One tool I shared with them was Psalm 46:10 said quietly with pauses to clear the mind and focus like this:

Be Still and Know that I am God,
Be Still and Know that I am
Be Still and Know
Be Still
Be…

It is in quieting our minds and just being that we can hear God whispering our name, guiding us out of our wilderness moments, reminding us that we are not alone. 

What if we could be more like the Samaritan Woman?

She comes to the well during the heat of the day because she is not welcome there in the morning when the other women come. She has been married five times and is living with a sixth man whom she is not married to. She is considered a sinner. And yet, this sinner finds her way out of the wilderness much faster than most saints. When Jesus tells her what he knows of her, she readily declares him a prophet and continues to ask him questions and learn from him. 

She is knowledgeable, she tells Jesus she knows that the Messiah is coming and he reveals, for the first time to her, a sinner, “I am he.” The disciples arrive about this time, surprised that Jesus is talking to a Samaritan and b. That she is a woman, but they do not say anything. 

What does the Samaritan woman do, she leaves her water jar and Jesus and the disciples at the well and immediately becomes an evangelist saying, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. He cannot be the messiah, can he?” And in that question, she found her answer: he could. And the Samaritans that this sinful woman spoke to not only believed her but followed her advice and went to see this man soon enough declaring, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

The Samaritan woman did not need to wander for 40 years in the wilderness to find her way out. She just had to be offered the living water that is Jesus Christ. 

Why was it easier for her to believe than the chosen people? Why might it sometimes be easier for those the most lost in the wilderness or marginalized to accept Jesus rather than those who only wander in the wilderness occasionally? 
I think the answer is humility. In order to hear God whispering, guiding, we have to quiet ourselves, we have to clear out the clutter of stuff that this life offers to go beyond ourselves and sit still long enough to feel God with us and to accept that living water that God has been holding out to us all along. 

Let’s quiet our minds in prayer and try to let God in:
I am here God.
I am ready to listen-
For the whisper of your breath
Stirring in my heart and mind,
For your gentle nudge prodding me
Out of the wilderness.
Open my eyes to see the living water you 
Are extending to me through Jesus Christ.
Let me drink that nourishing water and flourish with your love. Amen.

Pastor Michelle Fountain

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