2020.09.27 | ARE WE WITH GOD?
“Are We With God?”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Good morning, church! I hope that you are staying cool and hydrated today. The forecast for today and tomorrow include temperatures in the high 90s with 50% humidity and 0% chance of rain.
We’ve had quite the extremes in weather this past summer, amen?! At my house, these kinds of extremes dredge up memories of living comparable conditions in our younger years. If one of us comes into the house complaining about the temperature, the other invariably replies, “How hot is it?” There are only three possible answers: it’s Iowa hot, it’s DC hot, or it’s Java hot.
“Iowa hot” reminds me of the summer weather we experience when I was youth growing up in Iowa. The reference to Iowa hot refers to summer days with clear blue skies, bright sunshine, and high humidity. Whenever I complained about the wealthier, my dad would say, Stop complaining. It makes the corn grow. To which I thought, “OK, but it makes me want to go to town and go swimming at the swimming pool.”
“DC hot” refers to the summer temperature in our nation’s capital. The weather in DC is sauna-like in an oppressive way. Whenever I experience that kind of weather, I have to wonder what my in-laws were thinking when they bought a house there over 40 years ago, and I have to wonder why our founding fathers built our nation’s capital on a swamp. They were supposed to have been really smart!
“Java hot,” by comparison, reminds me of being in Indonesia with Stephanie thirty some years ago when she was doing Fulbright research, and realizing how quickly someone could die in the heat without shade or an adequate supply of potable water.
Until I had spent 30 days with Stephanie in Indonesia, I had only one or two experiences that had led me to think, “Wow, I could die here without water.”
II
Modern wilderness guides teach “the Rule of Threes:” a person can live 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.
According to the book of Exodus, our Hebrew ancestors regularly put this wilderness wisdom to the test during their 40-year sojourn in the wilderness of Sinai. Our ancestors were on a journey without a map, headed to a place where they had never been, and along the way, they encountered numerous obstacles, not the least of which was the lack of shelter, food, and water. And this lack of life-sustaining essentials caused them to frequently ask the question, “Is God with us?
By all accounts, the Hebrews’ 40-year pilgrimage was anything but a cakewalk, and even less fun for Moses. In today’s pericope we learn that Moses cried out to God for help, and God answered. God told Moses to tell the rank and file to set up camp while he and his search party went looking for water.
When the search party arrived at the place where God had directed, Moses hit his staff against a rock, and behold, there was water! Then, he returned to camp, and invited the rest of the pilgrims to follow him to the oasis that they had found.
The narrator in Exodus said that Moses named that place Massah and Meribah, because the Hebrews quarreled and questioned whether God was with them.
I wonder, have you ever found yourself in a similar predicament? Have you ever been on a journey without a map, have you ever been lost, desperate for water, and wondering where in the world was God?
Of course you have. We all have. The exact weather conditions and the landscape likely varied; but very few people escape this life without feeling literally or figuratively lost and parched, and realizing, “Wow, I could die out here.”
Furthermore, very few people escape these existential realities without wondering: “God are you with us?”
III
This question calls to mind a story about Abraham Lincoln. At the heat of the American Civil War, President Lincoln heard one of his advisors state that he was very grateful that God was on the side of the Union.
Rather than shouting “Amen,” Lincoln replied, “Sir, my concern is not with whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
Experiences of extreme disorientation, profound loss, and the lack of life-sustaining resources such as water, food, and shelter can prompt us to question God’s presence and purposes, but these privations do not confirm God’s absence. They may, however, illustrate that we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking the question, “Where is God?” Let us ask ourselves the question that Lincoln asked. “Are we with God?”
And, let us answer not just with our words, but with our deeds, so that our very lives might reflect the type of integrity that causes others to become part of God’s loyal legion. Amen.