Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
February 27, 2005
Exodus 17:1-7
A Vietnamese Buddhist chant: I am full of God
I have all I need
I can give what I have
There need be no struggle
There is enough
I am enough
I love those words, if only I could live them. But too often, I fear, I am more like the “Very Proper Lady” described in this story told by Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggmann: “A very proper lady went to a tea shop. She sat at a table for two, ordered a pot of tea, and prepared to eat some cookies which she had in her purse. Because the tea shop was crowded, a man took the other chair and also ordered tea. The woman was prepared for a leisurely time, so she began to read her paper. As she did so, she took a cookie from the package on the table. As she read, she noticed that the man across from her also took a cookie from the package. This upset her greatly, but she ignored it and kept reading. After a while she took another cookie, and so did he. This unnerved her and she glared at the man. While she glared, he reached for the fifth and last cookie, smiled, broke it in two and offered her half. This was too much. Such nerve! She paid her money and left in a great hurry, enraged at such a presumptuous man. How dare he! She hurried to her bus stop just outside. She opened her purse to get a coin for her bus ticket and saw, much to her distress, that there in her purse was her package of unopened cookies.”
I want to believe, “There is enough.” But again, I fear I am more like that woman… I fear there isn’t enough, not enough to go around, not enough cookies, not enough money, not enough love, not enough grace.
But clearly Moses had had enough. Think of all he had done for this grumbling and ungrateful people – what God had done for them. Freed them from slavery, taken them through the Red Sea for heavens sake, found manna in the desert when they were hungry. Yet still they whined and complained and doubted God. Did these people have no memory? I recall hearing Fred Craddock once say, “There is no modulation of the human voice that can make a whine acceptable.” And, oh my, were these people were whining. But why? Why were they whining? What were they afraid of?
Well how about not having water? Whatever else you may need in the desert, there certainly is one thing absolutely essential for life… and that is water. You might be able to get along a few days without food, but spend even a few hours in the burning desert without water and you have some serious trouble. The scouts came back and said they could find no water anywhere. Running out of water in the desert was no inconsequential matter. It went right to the heart, the core issue of survival. So could it be that the people were a little justified in their whining? Perhaps Moses should have been a little more sympathetic. I know I wouldn’t like to run out of water in the desert. But, again, is water – or the lack of it – really the issue here?
Many years ago that renegade Episcopalian, Malcolm Boyd, wrote a book, a series of prayers with the title Are You Running With Me, Jesus? I want to share just the opening prayer:
Are You Running with Me Jesus?
It’s morning, Jesus. It’s morning, and here’s that light and
sound all over again.
I’ve got to move fast… get into the bathroom, wash up, grab a
bite to eat, and run some more.
I just don’t feel like it, Lord. What I really want to do is get back into bed, pull up the covers, and
sleep. All I seem to want today is the big sleep, and
here I’ve got to run all over again.
Where am I running? You know these things I can’t
understand. It’s not that I need to have you
tell me. What counts most is just that somebody
knows, and it’s you. That helps a lot.
So I’ll follow along, okay? But lead, Lord. Now I’ve got to run.
Are you running with me, Jesus?
Are you running with me? In those times when I am spiritually dry, when I feel lost and alone with no where to turn, when life’s landscapes seem barren and dry, with no hope of refreshment, are you going to be there? Reflecting on this text, one Old Testament scholar has said that “wilderness is no longer simply a place but a state of mind – bleak, desolate, and dry.”
Yes, for the children of Israel wandering in the desert, water certainly was an issue. But, in the words of Tim Diebel, a Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, minister, there was more. He writes, “Yes, their mouths were dry, and yes, they could definitely use a drink, but water wasn’t even the half of it. It was their psyches and their souls that were feeling the dehydration. Cracked lips and dusty throats had merely begged the question. Spitting out the words as best as their sticky tongues could manage, what they really wanted to know was, “Is the Lord among us or not?’” In the rocks and sand of the desert, truly between a rock and a hard place, they felt physical thirst on the one hand and spiritual thirst on the other. God are you going to be there for us? When life turns against us, when the night is dark and we are far from home, when we don’t know where to turn, when the foundations shake and nothing seems certain any more, will you be there?
“I know that yesterday I told you not to come, but today you better get here.” This is what my sister said to me when she called from Phoenix on Monday, February 21st. My mother’s health had crashed once again – how long could this go on – and my father was really struggling to hold it together. My sister been there all week and she needed to get home, so on Tuesday, February 22nd – our daughter, Bethany’s 29th birthday – I went. And sitting on the plane, flying to Phoenix yet again, I was feeling a little lost in the wilderness. So many crises, so many trips, so many good-byes. I think my mother and I must have the Guinness record for the most tearful final good-byes. I knew my father was on the edge and, quite frankly, I didn’t know how much more of this I could stand. And I know many of you have walked that same path – we’ve talked about it over the years. “I am thirsty, God, a little empty and a little lost. Are you there? Are you running with me? Are you with us or not? How much more of this can we, including Mom, possibly endure?” I must confess that as I sat on that airplane, I found myself just a little more sympathetic with the complaints of the Israelites.
I realize now that I assumed this trip would be like others; that Mom would rally and stabilize at a little lower level as she had done so many times before. This trip is for Dad, I told myself, to give him some support. I walked into her room at 9:20 PM and immediately knew things were different this time. Her respirations were shallow, she was not responsive, her eyes were closed. I said to Rose, her caregiver, that surely this could not go on much longer. A Hospice nurse was sitting there. She left the room leaving me alone with my mother. And I said to her, it was agonizingly hard to say it, but I said it: “Mom, I’m here for two reasons; to tell you that I love you and I always will, and to tell you that you can go, that it is time for you to go – time to leave this pain and suffering behind once and for all.” I sang a song, shared a prayer, and recited the 23rd Psalm, which in midst of that stressful moment I managed to forget about half way through. I tried to assure her that love was waiting if she could just give herself permission to go there.
My father had been there much of the day and I knew he had just about had it and wanted to get home to bed, but then I remembered that I had brought a couple of tapes and I had them in the car for her. There had been so much tension around my mother; maybe I could to change the atmosphere in her room. I wanted to play some soft music, so I went out to get the tapes. Rose brought in a tape player and of course we couldn’t get it to work. I told Rose that we could work on it when I came tomorrow – assuming that I would be back tomorrow. But then I noticed something – something in the room had changed, changed very suddenly. Mom’s breathing had slowed – it was amazing how quickly it happened. There would be a long breath, then a long pause, another deep breath, then pause. She did this five or six times and took one more breath, then nothing. I asked Rose, “Do you think she’s gone?” The Hospice nurse came in and said, “I think she is.” She listened to her heart, tried to take her pulse and confirmed to me that she was gone, that it was over. But I just stared and waited. I think I said something intelligent like, “Are you sure?” My mother had fooled us so many times; I fully expected that she would begin breathing again. But not this time. After so many close calls, after all these years – and you’ve walked it with me – after all these years of poor health and pain and grief, my mother was dead. And I’ve got to tell you, in that moment, along with our tears, springs of living water opened in the desert.
I am so much like that proper lady; so careful with what I have, so afraid there will not be enough. And then, in a moment of loss, a moment when my soul truly was empty and parched, came the realization that there is enough, that I have all I need; that God was running with me, even then, that I was not alone, indeed that my mother was not alone. I suppose I am not always the most spiritual of persons, but in that moment I needed nothing else –there was grace and love in such abundance. It was as if Moses himself walked into the room, banged his staff on the hard rock of my life, and water flowed.
In our men’s Bible study we have been studying the Gospel of John. (for 17 years now, it seems.) Jesus tells his disciples to drink deeply of him, of the living water which he offers, and they will never again be thirsty. They don’t get it of course, and think he must be talking about some giant glass of water out in the desert somewhere that is always full. But he is talking about life, the life he brings, the life that never dies, the life that is always filled to the brim. And this is the life I commend to you today. Drink deeply of it when sorrows like sea billows roll, when all hell shakes our souls and when there is seemingly no water and no hope. Drink deeply of it – for that’s the good news; that’s the hope, that’s the Gospel!