Back in Egypt,
when Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh to request that he let YHWH’s people go, the
narrator of the Book of Exodus tells us that Pharaoh’s heart began to harden. (See
Exodus 7.) Pharaoh, of course, had a country to run, and all those pyramids to build.
He had a pretty good thing going with that cheap labor force and all those
Hebrew brick-makers. Compassion—and a softer heart—was something he just
couldn’t afford if he wanted the economy to stay strong.
Among God’s own
people, called to become “a people after God’s own heart,” I am much more
amazed how quickly hearts can be hardened. How is it that people who owe their
very lives to God can suffer from amnesia so quickly? In today’s Old Testament
reading, we’re just three chapters beyond the dramatic crossing of the Red Sea.
We’re only two chapters beyond Moses and Miriam and the people of Israel
dancing and laughing and singing of Yahweh’s great triumph:
…the horse and his rider he has hurled into the sea.
the
Lord is my strength and my song
and
he has become my salvation;
This is my God, and I will praise him… (Exodus 15:1b-2)
And we’re only one
chapter beyond that first incredible batch of daily bread raining down from
heaven: manna enough to eat and survive on. It’s not filet mignon, but it is
nevertheless a daily, tangible reminder of God’s providential care. Give us, this day, our daily bread. That becomes the heart of the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples to pray: to
live one day at a time, with glad and generous hearts. The rich want more than
that; the poor wonder if they will get even that. But the truth is it’s all any
of us ever get. One. Day. At. A. Time.
From the wilderness of Sin, the whole
congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded…until they came to Massah and
Meribah.
There it all fell
apart. They are thirsty. They are overtired. But more than that, they are
frightened and confused. They begin to wonder if this whole Exodus-thing was a
good idea in the first place. In spite of the parting of the Red Sea, and their
singing and dancing, and the manna from heaven, their hearts are getting harder
by the minute. They choose anxiety over
trust. Or you might say, because of the way our brains are hard-wired: fight or
flight kicked in, and they could no longer trust God. Or Moses. Or each other.
So it’s grumbling over gratitude. It’s blame over responsibility. It looks as
if it’s going to be a very long forty years! Soon there is quarreling and
strife in the ranks. Before you know it, neighborly love is in short supply. Why
did Moses even bring us out here to die? Oh, the leeks and melons back in
Egypt!
I have not
forgotten my plan to preach on the psalms this Lent. But if you’ve been
reflecting on the 95th psalm with me this week, then you know where
this sermon is headed. The poet, many centuries later, remembers this pattern.
Because it is a pattern that unfortunately gets reenacted far too often by
God’s people. The psalm we prayed today begins with praise and with shouts of
joy, inviting us to come into the presence of God with glad and generous and
soft hearts:
Come, let us sing to the Lord,
let
us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation
We are invited to
know and to trust that the One who holds the “caverns of the earth” in His hand
holds us, too, to remember that we are the “people of his pasture, and the
sheep of his hand.” God’s got the whole world in Her hands! The poet sings on,
knowing that the God who formed the dry land formed us, too, and remembers that
we are but dust. The poet recognizes that the God we approach in worship is not
only Creator of the universe—but our
Maker.
Suddenly, at verse
seven, however, the poet remembers Exodus 17. God interrupts the happy singing
and brings up an unpleasant memory, reminding the people what really happened.
God sets the record straight. Or at least, makes sure that the rest of the
story is told:
Harden not your hearts, as your
forbears did in the wilderness,
at
Meribah, and on that day at Massah, when they tempted me.
They
put me to the test—though they had seen my works.
For God’s baptized
people, those who are trying to be followers of Jesus, it is helpful to
remember that Jesus grew up singing the psalms. He didn’t have a Blue Hymnal. He
sang from the psalter. The scholars suggest that just as we use the Venite in worship at Morning Prayer, so,
too, have Jews used it for centuries in worship. So Jesus would have learned to
sing this song in Temple. And at home.
I find myself
wondering today if this psalm might have been somewhere in the back of his mind
when he came to that Samaritan city
called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son
Joseph…when tired out by his journey, he sat down by that well. (John
4:5-42) After all, everybody knew about Samaritans. Jews aren’t supposed to
associate with Samaritans. In fact, in this culture men aren’t supposed to talk
in public with women, either. Notice, however, that in today’s gospel reading,
the fourth gospel writer has taken great care to paint this scene. Jesus cares
deeply about this woman and what she thinks, in spite of what he’s been taught
to think about Samaritan women.
Notice that she is the one who brings up the
sensitive theological debate between Jews and Samaritans about whether the
“right” place to worship is on Mt. Zion, in Jerusalem, or on Mt. Gerizim, in
Samaria. That theological debate was the source of great contention between
Jews and Samaritans that went back hundreds of years. Jesus has a chance to set
this woman straight. He has a chance to tell her why his people are right and her
people are wrong. Instead he points toward the future, to the day when all people
will worship the allusive Spirit of God in genuinely spiritual ways. Together.
Perhaps you think
I’ve lost my way today, moving as I have across many centuries: from the Exodus
to the psalm and from the psalm into Samaria, where Jesus sits and talks with
that woman at the well. The truth is that these are three great texts and I was
like a kid in a candy store this week and I couldn’t seem to settle only on the
psalm alone. But also, I do believe that this psalm provides us with a kind of
bridge to understanding the challenges that people of faith face across the
centuries and across old and new covenants. It provides us with a doorway to
understand not just the problems that religious people have faced in the past
but that we face, even today. Hard-heartedness can so easily distort faith, making
us more fixated on the rules than on love of God and neighbor and more
committed to being right than to the truth.
What the poet who
wrote the 95th psalm understood so well is that this is a uniquely
“religious” temptation: this temptation to harden our hearts to those who look
or act or think differently from us, and to make “our” God into a kind of
immunity idol. It’s not just Pharaoh and the Egyptians or the Samaritans or
some other group who can have this happen to them. So the poet writes this
beautiful hymn of praise and thanksgiving this opening canticle inviting the
faithful to worship: and then hits us right between the eyes:
Harden not your hearts, as your forbears did in the wilderness,
at
Meribah, and on that day at Massah, when they tempted me.
They
put me to the test—though they had seen my works.
When Jesus sits
down at the well and asks that Samaritan woman for a drink of water, he is
confronting hard-hearted faith and moral certitude head-on. By choosing to talk
with this woman who is different, who does not believe as his people believe (and
by treating her as a fellow-journeyer) Jesus models for us what faith looks
like when it casts out fear and is shaped by compassion. If we mean to follow
Jesus this is a good model for us when we meet up with Buddhists or Muslims or
Jews or the ever-increasing “nones” at the water-cooler. We don’t have the
whole truth. We don’t have to have all the answers. Rather, we just need to
listen with respect and kindness and love.
In the meantime,
the disciples are scared to death that this woman is going to give Jesus
something to eat. Notice that all the time that Jesus and this woman are
talking together, the disciples are walking up and down the aisles of the local
grocery story as anxious as people trying to stock up their pantries with
supplies and saying things like: “you don’t think he’s going to eat with her,
do you?" While I realize that part isn’t in the text, notice that the very
first thing they ask him when they get back is whether or not he’s eaten!
What is in the text is that a good Jewish man
isn’t supposed to talk with a Samaritan woman, and he shouldn’t drink from the
same cup, and he shouldn’t accept anything she offers him to eat. You can quote
from the Bible to “prove” all those rules, by the way. But what you are left
with in the end isn’t really faith at all. Just hard-heartedness.
What if this is
the most important lesson to be learned in the wilderness time of Lent: how to
be less afraid and more trusting, how to blame less and love more? How to
remember when we come to the Meribah and Massah moments in our own journeys to
keep on singing praise.
Come, let us sing to the Lord and shout for
joy to the rock of our salvation!
That may be “good
news” in the times we are now living in – interesting times to be sure. Scary
times. But what if right now, what God wants from us more than anything else is
softer hearts, and to be good neighbors?
What if what God
wants more than anything else from faithful men and women is that we are
learning how to make ourselves more vulnerable to one another and to judge each
other less? What if what we are meant to
do is put our whole trust in God’s overflowing love—for us and for the whole
world—a love so deep and so broad that it enfolds us all? To embrace that kind
of faith is to be transformed by grace.
Oh that
today we would hearken to God’s voice!
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