It seems there are some people who will complain about pretty well anything. Perhaps you’ve met some of them! They remind me of the two characters Statler and Waldorf years ago in The Muppet Show. Do you remember how they sat week after week in their box seats sarcastically chortling and guffawing at everything they saw on the stage? There was never an episode that went by when they couldn’t come up with a put-down or find something to make a snarky remark about.
In this morning’s reading we are journeying with Moses and the people of Israel in their forty-year trek from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. Pharaoh had done everything in his power to make life impossible for them. They had been coerced into cruel and back-breaking slave labour and were severely beaten if they were perceived not to be working hard enough.
Finally, by God’s miraculous intervention, they were able to escape from Egypt and begin the long and arduous trek toward the home of their ancestors. With the Egyptian army following close behind, God had driven back the Red Sea, enabling the Hebrews to cross over and make their escape towards the land that he had promised to Abraham and his descendants centuries before.
The people protested
But now we find them complaining—and this is not the first time we come across them being disgruntled. Nor would it be the last. [If you go back to the previous chapter before this morning’s reading, you will find that they were complaining there too. On that occasion it was because they didn’t have any food.] In fact if you follow the account of the people of Israel’s forty-year trek from Egypt to the Promised Land in the book of Exodus, you will find them moaning and grumbling at more than a dozen different points along the way. It reached the stage where at one juncture they were even plotting to rise up against Moses and put him to death.
Somehow the long and arduous journey across the wilderness had made their recollections of life as slaves in Egypt far rosier than it could possibly have been even in anyone’s imagination. “Back then we had meat by the potful every evening,” they growled, “and the following morning we would gorge on bread until we were stuffed with it!” (Exodus 16:3). Clearly their memories were playing tricks on them!
Now I’m not saying that the journey across the Sinai peninsula to what is now modern-day Israel was a cakewalk. Far from it! (Just as an aside, when I tried to look up what their journey might have been like, the AI on my computer mapped out the route from Cairo, Georgia, to Beersheba Springs, Tennessee!) In fact, the most direct route that they might have taken would have involved a distance of 700 kilometers or so. Nowadays you can drive it in a little over eight hours. But of course the children of Israel didn’t have cars and they didn’t have roads.
Nor did they take the shortest route. Their journey involved hoofing it over a challenging combination of rugged mountain landscapes and desert wilderness and rocky terrain, all spread over an area a little larger than the size of Nova Scotia. To make things even worse, the temperatures in those parts can vary from scorching 36°C daytime highs to overnight lows as chilly as -16°C. Then add to that the fact that, included among the estimated 600,000 travellers, there were children, elderly and disabled people, in addition to flocks and herds and whatever else they were able to take along with them. When you think about it, it was an impossible challenge, a disaster waiting to happen.
And sure enough it did. By the time we get to our passage this morning, the people had already run out of food. Naturally this had led to complaints against Moses and his leadership. In response to their need God had graciously provided them with an enormous flock of quail along with that mysterious fine, flaky bread-like substance to which they gave the name “manna” (which literally means “What is it?”).
Now, after a further journey southeast, another problem arose. This time it wasn’t a lack of food but a lack of water. And so, not surprisingly, we find the people once again complaining and laying all the blame for their predicament on Moses.
Moses prayed
And what was Moses’ response? I suppose he could have gone into a fit of rage and blasted the people for their lack of faith. He could have questioned how the crazy notion of trekking across hundreds of miles of wilderness to place he had never set eyes on had ever entered his mind. Or he could simply have shrugged his shoulders and sunk into despair. But no, that was not the man that Moses was. Instead, he did what in the eyes of most people would seem utterly impractical: he prayed.
When we turn to the gospels in the New Testament, we find that Jesus had a lot to say about prayer. He told the story of a man who comes to his friend’s house at midnight needing a loaf of bread. Will the friend just shout from his bed, “Go away! Don’t bother me when my family and I are all trying to get a proper night’s sleep!” Of course not! So, Jesus tells us when it comes to prayer, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Luke 11:5-9) The real meaning of Jesus’ words comes across if we translate them more like this: “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”[1]
That is the way we find Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. Luke’s gospel tells us that “in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” (Luke 22:43)
When I am honest about my own prayer life, I realize how shallow it is, how I have barely scratched the surface, how much deeper I need to learn to go!
The Lord provided
Now I suspect that Moses’ attitude when he came before God in prayer was akin to that of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. When Moses prayed, it is clear that it was not just a matter of rattling off a few pious words. The Bible at this point doesn’t go into detail. It simply tells us that that Moses “cried out to the Lord”. And I believe that, were we to unwrap those few words, we would find Moses baring his soul, laying his own profound feelings of desperation and hopelessness before God. “Your people are accusing me of bringing them here to die!” he cried out. “I have nowhere else to turn but to you. What am I to do?” Moses had reached the end of his rope!
And I can only imagine that the next morning it was in fear and trembling that he followed the Lord’s instructions: “Go on ahead of the people…, take your staff in your hand and go… Strike the rock, and water will come out…” And we know what happened.
But God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way we might hope or expect or desire. The apostle Paul told of a problem that vexed him, about which he pleaded to the Lord on three separate occasions. God’s answer: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Yet in spite of this Paul was also able to testify, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)
God miraculously provided for the people of Israel when they found themselves without water. However, he does not always answer our prayers in ways we might hope for or expect. He does not promise to magically erase all our problems. But he does promise to be with us through them, as he was with Moses. And we can count on Jesus’ last words to his disciples: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20b)
