Today’s bulletin art and the artist’s statement come from Hannah Garrity of A Sanctified Art, and they are a reflection on our Old Testament passage, as the people of Israel near the end of their wilderness journey. In her statement, Hannah uses some feminine pronouns for God, and that may be a little off-putting to you if you aren’t used to it. She uses masculine ones as well and she does so in order to keep with Biblical witness of God as the one in whose image both men and women were created. Scripture also refers to God at times as a mother hen, a mother bear, and even as a woman in labor, and she is writing out of that tradition. As you hear these words, I invite you to look at the cover of the bulletin and consider how God might be speaking to you through Hannah’s work and Biblical witness.
“It is in the wilderness that we question God. Is God among us? Is God here? Are you there, God? It’s me, calling out to you. In this text, God proves her presence by telling Moses to strike water from a rock with the same staff he used to strike the Nile. As the leaders of Israel see the water, they see the love of a parent, of God’s love for her children. When a son questions, pushes back and complains desperately, his mother makes sure his basic needs are met. A father can see through his daughter’s struggle, deeper into her patterns, her hopes, and dreams, further into her future. A daughter’s father acts to sustain her, to guide her. In our wilderness moments, love is a relief. It is like a flowing out of pain. Kindness, love, and care all combine to wash over us, to embrace us. Particularly in our travels through the emotional and social wilderness, we meet with God in the most unexpected and painful spaces. In this image, I envisioned the water that God sends to the Israelites. Water comes in many forms, pouring out, flowing in, washing over. The Holy Spirit flows. She is like water in many forms—pouring out, flowing in, washing over.”
Whether you say “he” or “she” or "they," God is the one who provides for us in our distress. It may not happen like it did in this story, but it will happen. It already is happening. God is not the God of parlor tricks and secret Santa gifts, but God is – to quote one of the songs we sang with our youth last Sunday – a way maker.
It’s still hard not to want God to be like Santa, though. Last week when I was leaving a member who was recovering from illness, I told her I would pray for her. Normally I pray with, but this was in the PT room and she had asked to be “kept in prayer” rather than prayed with. In honoring that I realized I needed to tell her Physical Therapist I would pray for her, too. Then I started repeating that to the other staff in the room. It wasn’t where I meant to be, but God has a way of helping us out when we are open to it. One of the health care workers said, “please pray for my car, I have a repair that costs $2,000!”
Well, my theology got the best of me – I was walking out after all – and I said, “It would be nice if it worked that way!” Then I recovered slightly, “I’ll pray for it though. God makes a way for things that we can’t always see!” I hope that was a good enough witness. I didn’t really need him to think one way or another about me. I just needed him to have hope in something greater than any of us.
Sometimes it is hard to separate the personal and the collective. We each have our own views on the world, but we also represent something greater than ourselves. By that, I’m not necessarily talking about the congregation or even the Christian faith. I’m talking about the clear and present reality that God has acted in and through the person, the work, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth!
We find our hope in God’s love poured out through the Holy Spirit like water from the rocks that we break ourselves upon over and over and over. Did you notice how the rock in the story changed from the threat of stoning to the promise of salvation? The solid became liquid. The life taking object of violence became the source of life-giving water.
There are so many examples of people whose faith has made a way for just such a transformation: Home Boy Industries is a ministry in LA that started with outreach to a gang member and spawned a cottage industry that removes tattoos, prints t-shirts, and staffs restaurants with people who used to try to kill each other. Another example is Cafe 490. This bakery in Michigan only employs formerly incarcerated women, because the owners realized that these women needed a job that let them produce something that people valued.
There are so many other stories of faith transforming rocks into living water, and of course, we can’t forget our own partnership in Cuba that is providing clean water for the town of Sabanilla. Yet even as we come to that well again and again like the woman at the well in our scriptures today, we must not forget who the source of these living waters is.
I know that sounds odd to say, but it seems pretty common to the human condition to think we have it all figured out. Like the woman, we make the best of whatever our situation is. Like the woman, we know that we are still thirsty. Like the woman, we sometimes think the claims of Jesus do not match with the thirst we express.
When difficulties come along we often look at Jesus and say, “Where’s your bucket?” That’s not a bad thing to do. God is the one who meets us in the wilderness and provides when we cry out. We just have to be open to the source and the substance when what we get is not what we want.
The Apostle Paul reminds us of this when he tells us to boast in the opportunity to share the gospel. Then he reminds us that we should also boast in our suffering. Why? Not to attract attention or beg for sympathy, but as a testimony to what God has done and is doing through Jesus Christ! So, we boast that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint!
Here’s the thing, though. Paul wasn’t saying that everything is going to turn out the way we want. He’s saying that the source of our hope is that we know and can proclaim that God is good even when things are bad. The big takeaway is not that we get what we want, it is that we get what we need.
What we need is to be reconciled to God and one another. Now I can’t say what that looks like for you, but this story does give us some options. Could it be that it looks like the discipline that Jesus offered the disciples right before the first evangelist, a foreign woman, came back with a crowd? Could it be that it looks like a redefinition of intimacy between us and God? Could it be that it looks like a crowd that once condemned a woman for factors beyond her control who are now listening to God because of her testimony?
The simple answer is, “Yes!” it is most certainly all of these and more, but the place where reconciliation comes to life is the space in between us. Currently – due to COVID 19 – that space has been advised to be 6 feet, and that can make it a little bit harder. Being set apart seems so ineffective. Being told to just stay out of public spaces and wash your hands is so hard when people are hurting, but even more so when it’s not anyone you know. Unfortunately, if it keeps spreading the way it has, eventually it will be someone you know.
There will be community and personal needs that will certainly offer opportunities to do something, but at the base of it all is the hope that draws us together. Certainly, we expect things to get better, but our hope is not based on something as short term as that. Our hope is based on the fact that God is with us no matter what, and that we are being reconciled to God and each other no matter what.
This is how it has always been, and how it will always be. It is our faith that helps us see it, but it is our God that has made it so. Ira Byock, in his book The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life, speaks about the reconciliation God brings about in terms of what it means to care for one another as a civil society.
Whether you say “he” or “she” or "they," God is the one who provides for us in our distress. It may not happen like it did in this story, but it will happen. It already is happening. God is not the God of parlor tricks and secret Santa gifts, but God is – to quote one of the songs we sang with our youth last Sunday – a way maker.
It’s still hard not to want God to be like Santa, though. Last week when I was leaving a member who was recovering from illness, I told her I would pray for her. Normally I pray with, but this was in the PT room and she had asked to be “kept in prayer” rather than prayed with. In honoring that I realized I needed to tell her Physical Therapist I would pray for her, too. Then I started repeating that to the other staff in the room. It wasn’t where I meant to be, but God has a way of helping us out when we are open to it. One of the health care workers said, “please pray for my car, I have a repair that costs $2,000!”
Well, my theology got the best of me – I was walking out after all – and I said, “It would be nice if it worked that way!” Then I recovered slightly, “I’ll pray for it though. God makes a way for things that we can’t always see!” I hope that was a good enough witness. I didn’t really need him to think one way or another about me. I just needed him to have hope in something greater than any of us.
Sometimes it is hard to separate the personal and the collective. We each have our own views on the world, but we also represent something greater than ourselves. By that, I’m not necessarily talking about the congregation or even the Christian faith. I’m talking about the clear and present reality that God has acted in and through the person, the work, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth!
We find our hope in God’s love poured out through the Holy Spirit like water from the rocks that we break ourselves upon over and over and over. Did you notice how the rock in the story changed from the threat of stoning to the promise of salvation? The solid became liquid. The life taking object of violence became the source of life-giving water.
There are so many examples of people whose faith has made a way for just such a transformation: Home Boy Industries is a ministry in LA that started with outreach to a gang member and spawned a cottage industry that removes tattoos, prints t-shirts, and staffs restaurants with people who used to try to kill each other. Another example is Cafe 490. This bakery in Michigan only employs formerly incarcerated women, because the owners realized that these women needed a job that let them produce something that people valued.
There are so many other stories of faith transforming rocks into living water, and of course, we can’t forget our own partnership in Cuba that is providing clean water for the town of Sabanilla. Yet even as we come to that well again and again like the woman at the well in our scriptures today, we must not forget who the source of these living waters is.
I know that sounds odd to say, but it seems pretty common to the human condition to think we have it all figured out. Like the woman, we make the best of whatever our situation is. Like the woman, we know that we are still thirsty. Like the woman, we sometimes think the claims of Jesus do not match with the thirst we express.
When difficulties come along we often look at Jesus and say, “Where’s your bucket?” That’s not a bad thing to do. God is the one who meets us in the wilderness and provides when we cry out. We just have to be open to the source and the substance when what we get is not what we want.
The Apostle Paul reminds us of this when he tells us to boast in the opportunity to share the gospel. Then he reminds us that we should also boast in our suffering. Why? Not to attract attention or beg for sympathy, but as a testimony to what God has done and is doing through Jesus Christ! So, we boast that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint!
Here’s the thing, though. Paul wasn’t saying that everything is going to turn out the way we want. He’s saying that the source of our hope is that we know and can proclaim that God is good even when things are bad. The big takeaway is not that we get what we want, it is that we get what we need.
What we need is to be reconciled to God and one another. Now I can’t say what that looks like for you, but this story does give us some options. Could it be that it looks like the discipline that Jesus offered the disciples right before the first evangelist, a foreign woman, came back with a crowd? Could it be that it looks like a redefinition of intimacy between us and God? Could it be that it looks like a crowd that once condemned a woman for factors beyond her control who are now listening to God because of her testimony?
The simple answer is, “Yes!” it is most certainly all of these and more, but the place where reconciliation comes to life is the space in between us. Currently – due to COVID 19 – that space has been advised to be 6 feet, and that can make it a little bit harder. Being set apart seems so ineffective. Being told to just stay out of public spaces and wash your hands is so hard when people are hurting, but even more so when it’s not anyone you know. Unfortunately, if it keeps spreading the way it has, eventually it will be someone you know.
There will be community and personal needs that will certainly offer opportunities to do something, but at the base of it all is the hope that draws us together. Certainly, we expect things to get better, but our hope is not based on something as short term as that. Our hope is based on the fact that God is with us no matter what, and that we are being reconciled to God and each other no matter what.
This is how it has always been, and how it will always be. It is our faith that helps us see it, but it is our God that has made it so. Ira Byock, in his book The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life, speaks about the reconciliation God brings about in terms of what it means to care for one another as a civil society.
He wrote:
"...Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fish hooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
"But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
"A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said."
" We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized."
In times like these, what more could be said? Perhaps only this, remember that it is God who provides – especially in the wilderness – and God’s provision is the source of our hope. Our hope is not realized in things going our way, but in the reconciliation that happens between us when we align our way with God’s. So, say your prayers and wash your hands, because germs and viruses are everywhere, but so is God. All glory, honor, and power be to the one who is pouring out, flowing in, and washing over, now and always. Amen!
"...Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fish hooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
"But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
"A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said."
" We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized."
In times like these, what more could be said? Perhaps only this, remember that it is God who provides – especially in the wilderness – and God’s provision is the source of our hope. Our hope is not realized in things going our way, but in the reconciliation that happens between us when we align our way with God’s. So, say your prayers and wash your hands, because germs and viruses are everywhere, but so is God. All glory, honor, and power be to the one who is pouring out, flowing in, and washing over, now and always. Amen!
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