Water from a Rock

February 24, 2008
Exodus 17:1-7, John 4:5-42
Sermon by Torin Eikler
Lent 3

Whining is something that we all associate with childhood. Kids, it seems, are wise to the fact that a particular attitude, a particular tone of voice is exactly what they need to burrow through the will power and indifference of parents and sometimes get exactly what they want. And it starts so early. As I can assure you from personal experience, even children who cannot tell you what they want have a way of getting under your skin when they want ring the doorbell over and over or eat an unreasonable amount of raisins – or just throw them all over the floor. It’s true that the whole thing sometimes backfires and they get snapped at by an exasperated father instead of getting to watch the television show they cannot live without. But, hey, it’s worth a try, and it gets your attention in a way that very little else can.

I have never read this story from Exodus as a tale of whiney children trying to get something that they want from a parent though many people (especially parents) find to be quite appropriate. After all, the Israelites had a point. They needed water. Just imagine 400,000 men and women traveling across a desolate land where nobody farmed because there just wasn’t enough water to make it worthwhile. Now add thousands of livestock and another several hundred thousand children complaining about being thirsty, and I think you can probably find it in your hearts to forgive them. Even in this day and age, the same problem is driving legal and political wars in our own southwestern states.

For my part, I have always thought of the people as voicing quite reasonable concern about this lack of planning on the part of their leader - or perhaps on the part of their God. But, it cannot be denied that the text says the people quarreled with Moses about this issue. And however justified they may have been, it is clear that they were not using a reasoned, adult approach to the problem. At the least, they were complaining – and probably doing so in a manner designed to be just as piercing and annoying as a child’s whining. What is complaining, after all, but the adult version of whining about things that seem unfair or just don’t live up to our expectations. It seems that we never really outgrow our tendency to whine in one way or another despite the fact that it is less and less likely to change anything the older we get.


Two things, though, are interesting to me about this particular passage. First, this story does not take place immediately after the Israelites escaped Pharoah’s army at the Red Sea. They have already traveled for some time, and God has provided for them. When they were hungry, manna and quail appeared for them to eat. When they were thirsty and the only water around was brackish and undrinkable, God showed Moses a stick to throw into the lake, and the water became not just potable but sweet to the taste. At every turn, the needs of the people were met even though they were traveling through a land that could hardly sustain so many. So, it seems a little strange that at this point the Israelites should be complaining in such a childish way when this particular campsite did not seem to have a source of fresh water. After all, things in the wilderness were not always what they seemed , and perhaps they should simply have asked God to provide them with water since that was how they had received what they needed before.

And this is the second thing that strikes me as odd. The Israelites turn to Moses in stead of the God that brought them out of Egypt. It’s true that, Moses stood – first before Pharoah and then before the people – and spoke or acted to bring about each of the plagues or miracles that the Israelites had witnessed. Yet, at each turn Moses attributed the miracles to the hand of God working to save the people rather than some magical power of his own. And beyond that, the people were lead through the wilderness by a pillar of cloud or of fire that was neither created nor sustained through any action of their leaders. It seems that no one who traveled with that crowd could have denied that the divine presence was with them. And, with all that God had done for them, it seems strange the people still doubted, challenging Moses with the question, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

In the face of this hardness of heart – this lack of faith – Moses turned to God in exasperation, asking what he should do. As usual, God provided a solution when once the question is directed to the right person. “I will be standing on a rock a Horeb,” she said. “Take your staff and strike that rock in the presence of witnesses, and I will make water flow from its heart.” Moses followed the instructions, and when his staff struck the rock it broke open. But, the hearts of the people, hardened to stone by years lived according to the whims and desires of others, did not. Despite the seeds of faith that had been planted in their spirits by their deliverance – despite all that they had received and the wonders they had witnessed, they continued to question the power and faithfulness of God throughout all the years they wandered in the wilderness. I hope that I would respond differently in their place, but I suspect that I have taken the gifts of God for granted many times throughout my life as well.


Consider now another whose life was shaped by dependence on others and the customs of a society that relegated her to little more than slavery. The Samaritan woman who met Jesus at Jacob’s well was not the happiest of women. Living in a time and place where she could not expect to survive on their own, she had probably been married at a fairly young age, becoming the prize and the responsibility of one of the young men of her village. Perhaps she was well treated and cherished by that husband. Perhaps despite the Proverbial wisdom that good wives are like jewels her husband treated her poorly, eventually divorcing her. Perhaps she was unable to bear children before her husband died, and she was passed on to others in the family. Or, perhaps she had been unfaithful to her husband though I think that no others would have married her if she had been branded as an adulteress. For whatever reason, this woman had been married five times and was living in the household of a sixth man.

Living as I do in this time and this place – in this society, I have trouble getting my mind around a culture in which a woman must have a husband in order to survive. Some of you may remember a time when this was also the case in this country, and I know that some women still feel this is the case today. Yet, as hard as it is for me to comprehend the social structure of that time, it is even harder for me to imagine being passed from one spouse to another four times over. Whether she buried five husbands or was simply used, divorced and left to survive on her own, I’m sure she suffered in the process. I expect that the experience had slowly eroded whatever dreams she had when she was younger, and over the years, she had closed herself off, masking her true self and hardening her heart to hope and love as a kind of armor against the pain and disappointment that came along with them.

There had been no miracles in this woman’s life. No one had come and freed her from the duties and obligations that bound to a life shaped by others. She had not seen birds settle all around her or woken to a fresh blanket of bread when she was hungry. She had not tasted water made sweet where it had been bitter or seen a pillar of flame shining through the dark night of her soul, assuring her that she was chosen and beloved by God. Yet, one day just like any other, she went to the well for water and found a man exactly where she usually found no one.

Surprised, she greeted this strange man only to discover that he was a prophet. He knew all about the tragedy of her life, but he did not judge her to be sinful or cursed. Though she was a Samaritan and he was a Jew, he did not ignore her or treat her with disdain. And when he asked her for a drink, he was not angry when she did not immediately draw water from the well. Instead, he treated her as an equal. He looked past the mask she had put on – put on and grown into over the years – and saw her for who she was. He saw the pain and the need she hid and offered her a gift.

Still fearing to hope – yet with growing wonder – she ventured to mention the one prophesy said would bring freedom to the people. Jesus replied, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” And, at the gentle touch of his words, the stone of her heart broke open and living water flowed forth to refresh her spirit. And she hurried off in the heat of the day to tell everyone about the man who told her everything she had ever done – the man who truly knew her and loved her all the same.


How different these two stories are. One peopled with a chosen nation freed from generations under the whip of the Egyptians. One the solitary account of a woman who had been passed from household to household, powerless and without hope. One packed with divine intervention – from a surprising escape to the miraculous appearance of food and water. The other just a simple conversation between a man and a woman. Both tales of God coming to offer life and hope yet with very different endings.


Two weeks ago, I mentioned Psalm 51 and its prayer for a clean heart. That psalm goes on to ask God to restore the joy of her salvation and sustain a willing spirit within us. That’s a prayer that we all need to remember. Too often, as we move through life we close ourselves off. We refuse to risk the vulnerability of loving deeply so that we don’t feel the pain of broken relationships. We close our hearts to compassion so that we don’t despair at the suffering we see around us. We shut the eyes of our spirits to hopes and dreams to avoid disappointment. We harden our hearts in order to survive and the price of our self-protection is that our hold on the promise of God’s grace slips away little by little and the upwelling living water becomes no more than a trickle barely sustaining the deepest core of our hope instead of gushing forth, filling our being and overflowing – springing out through us to water the seeds of hope buried in others.
As you – as we all – wander through the wildernesses of our lives, my prayer is that we will be able to look beyond the little things and the big things that leave us feeling peevish and filled with a complaining spirit. Whenever we find ourselves in that state of mind and heart, I hope that we will recognize the presence of God among us. That feeling that presence surrounding and upholding us, we will seek the strange man sitting by the well – the Christ that we have come to know and love. And, that at his touch – that gentle prodding that we so earnestly long for – the stones that we would make of our hearts will break open anew so that the presence and love of God – the living water of faith – will flow freely once more. And then, cleansed and refined, filled with the joy of our salvation we will turn back to the world with a spirit willing to reach out and share the hope and the power of the promise that we have found in Christ. May it be so.