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ALMIGHTY GOD AND THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR

10/22/2023

Sunday, October 22, 2023
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

We lived in the parsonage, right next door to the church.  The church’s yard and our yard seamlessly blended together into one large parcel, where I had many happy adventures as a kid.

One day, my father rather casually informed me that not only would I continue to cut our grass every week as one of my chores, but now I would also be mowing the church’s grass as well.  For free, he said.  I should think of it as an offering to the Lord.

Now I was a rather pious little kid, so I understood what my dad meant.  But I was also a young, budding capitalist, who didn’t like this arrangement at all.  It seemed unfair to work and not be paid – even if it was for the Lord.  Well, to my dad’s credit, he listened to my concerns and eventually took them to church’s board, who agreed that I should be paid… two whole dollars a week!  Now I am no spring chicken, but even back then two dollars a mow was the bargain of the century and likely some kind of child labor violation!

But two dollars was better than nothing, which had been the previous arrangement, so I agreed to the terms. And every month, I received a check from the church for eight dollars.  And every month, I cashed that check.  And every month, I put 80 cents into the offering plate.  Because we believed in tithing.  Everyone in our church was expected to give 10% of all the money they made, even twelve-year-olds.

Now maybe that sounds onerous to you, but the idea of a tithe or giving 10% is deeply engrained in Scripture.  Even Jesus talked about tithing on three different occasions.  And, as methods go, this one is pretty simple.  You don’t really have to think about what you’re going to give.  It’s just 10%.

Other people practice an equally simple method of stewardship.  They say that everything belongs to God and is simply on loan to us.  Folks who adhere to this philosophy try to decide what they get to keep, not what they give.  Giving away everything except what you need for your necessities might sound fanatical, but you have to admit… it’s simple.

But most of us do not experience our generosity or stewardship in such simplistic terms.  We live complicated, 21st century lives.  We work and plan and save for our children’s and grandchildren’s educations.  We think about our retirements and how much money we will need to be comfortable.  We plan our legacies and decide how much money to leave behind.  --And besides all that, we don’t really want to talk about this too much, especially in church.  It all seems rather vulgar.

Well, it certainly can be.  But Jesus did talk about money.  According to some scholars, 15% of his recorded words are about or related to money.  Eleven of his forty parables mention money.  And money, and what we do with it, seems to be directly connected to our hearts.  According to Jesus, it is a reflection of our relationship to God.  So, church seems like a perfectly good place to talk about it.

One day, the Pharisees set a trap for Jesus.  And it was all about money.   And since politics makes for strange bedfellows, the Pharisees enlisted their arch enemies, the Herodians, to help them.  Now these two groups had many differences, and one of them was about their relationship to Rome.  The Pharisees saw the Roman tribute tax as a form of heresy since the coin had a graven image of Caesar on it.  That coin also represented the oppression under which the Jewish people lived.  The Herodians, on the other hand, were puppets of Rome.  And they didn’t want to rock the boat.  So, for them, paying the tax was a way to keep the peace and to keep their place in society.  But the Pharisees and the Herodians both wanted to get rid of Jesus, so they temporarily laid their differences aside.

They started the encounter with a compliment, since compliments so often disarm us.  “Rabbi,” they said, “we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor, or not?”

It was a trick question, because if Jesus said it was lawful to pay the tax, then the Pharisees would accuse him of heresy and capitulation.  And if he said it was unlawful, then the Herodians would accuse him of tax evasion and sedition.

But Jesus understood the trap.  And so, he asked for a coin.  And they brought him a denarius; the equivalent of one day’s wage.  “Whose head is this, and whose title?” Jesus asked.  It was the emperor’s head, of course.  And this was the title embossed on the coin: “Tiberius, Son of the Divine Augustus and Chief Priest.”  In other words, Caesar was Lord.

I imagine that Jesus paused before he uttered what was to become one of his most well-known sayings: “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Well, that sure sounds right, doesn’t it?!  But what, exactly, does it mean?  How are we to know what belongs to the Empire and what belongs to God?  It would have been easier if Jesus had just said, “10% of this coin’s value belongs to God.” Or “This whole coin, and every other coin, in the whole wide world belongs to God.”  But instead, with his enigmatic statement, Jesus invited the people to engage theologically and spiritually with money.  He invited them to thoughtfully and prayerfully discern what they do with it.

So, how do we do that?  Where do we start this process of discernment?  Well personally, I don’t think we should start with a heavy-handed message.  And I don’t think we start with guilt, since Scripture says that the Lord loves a cheerful giver – not a guilt-ridden giver.  Instead, I think we should start with what Jesus actually said.  Remember that he asked whose image was on the coin.  Caesar’s was, of course.  So, then, according to Jesus, that coin belongs to him.  It has his image on it.  It has his name on it.  -- So then, what if we used that same methodology to decide what belongs to God?  What if we asked: where do we find God’s image?  Where is God’s name inscribed?

Well, let me give you a clue.  I want you to, right now, look to your left.  Now, look to your right.  What did you see?  Unless you’re against a wall, you saw another human face.  And if Scripture is to be believed, then that’s where you’ll find the image of God.  That’s where God’s name is written.   And that means we, and everyone else, belong to God.

St. Irenaeus of Lyon, a second century bishop, once famously said: “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”  What if we gave to those things that made God’s children fully alive?

And isn’t that what this church does?  We create music that lifts and inspires.  We speak words that comfort, challenge, and console.  We give food that nourishes and blood that saves lives.  We love and teach children and youth the ways of Jesus that can guide them their whole lives through.  We baptize people and confirm people and marry people and bury people.  We sit with the sick and send cards to the lonely.  We organize for outreach and caring and faith formation and worship and facility use by the community and membership growth and proper administration of it all.  We do all of these things in obedience to Jesus and with the aim of full human flourishing; polishing the image of God in everyone who walks in these doors.

Only you can decide what you want to give to this church.  No guilt… just the words of Jesus.  Give to God what belongs to God.  And what belongs to God is you.  So, give that.  And what belongs to God is your neighbor.  So, give for them.  And for everyone, everywhere who bears God’s face.

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GRANDMA

10/15/2023

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GRANDMA
Sunday, October 15, 2023
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Philippians 4:1-9

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

My grandmother once told me that if she hadn’t become a preacher, she would have been a movie star. She certainly had the drive and determination, the glamour and the glitter to have succeeded, if the Lord hadn’t called. But the Lord did call, and my grandmother answered.  The Lord did call, even though no woman was going to get a pulpit in the 1950s.  But that didn’t stop her.  Very few things ever did.

So, my grandmother became a traveling evangelist known as Sister Betty.  She would go to preach in any church or gathering that would have her. And she didn’t just preach.  She also sang and played the piano and the ukulele.  She once auditioned for a Gospel Singing Group, but it was made up of all men and they wouldn’t let her in.  So, she started her own group called “Sister Betty and the All Girl Gospel Band.”  They became popular enough that some men asked to join the group.  But grandma sent them packing, reminding them that they hadn’t let her in and now she was returning the favor.

My grandmother was only 41 when I was born, and I have distinct memories of being instructed to call her Betty in public.  And I was blessed to have my grandmother until I was 41.  She’s been gone a long time now, but all these years later, I can still miss her so intensely that it will stop me in my tracks.

I thought about her a lot this week as I settled on the epistle lesson for my text today.  It contains a verse that was a life mantra for my grandmother.  She used this verse to both encourage and to scold.  And she lived it perhaps more fully than anyone I have ever known.  - I can still hear her voice as she would say: “… whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

Grandma would say this if one of her sons told an off-color joke.  Or if someone was arguing.  Or if the news got her down.  Or if her health or the failing health of my grandfather began to weigh heavy on her.  She would whisper: “whatsoever things are true… whatsoever things are honest… whatsoever things are just…”.

Last Sunday, about 15 of us gathered after the sermon for a discussion of the text.  You might remember that I preached on the fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”  One participant commented that he was impressed by the implied mindfulness of the commandment – the call to “remember (or call to mind) the Sabbath.”  He went on to say that Sabbath provides a way for us to focus on the present moment – and thus to feel something akin to gratitude even when the world is on fire.

Staying in the present moment… dwelling on what is true, honorable, and just.  This challenge came rushing back as this past week unfurled.  The unspeakable violence unleashed in the Holy Land grabs us by the throat; stirs up in us fear and dread and the thirst for vengeance; and then it haunts our dreams.  It is relentless and can so easily consume our days until we are unable to see or feel anything else.

And that’s to say nothing of Washington, in its disarray and disfunction.  Ukrainians continue to live with a horror that increasingly bores the rest of the world.  Economies shake.  Health fails.  Despots rise.  Families are disconnected.  We don’t sleep well.  We don’t eat well.  We forget to breathe.  And it all feels out of control – because it is.

And yet… above that din I can hear my grandmother whisper: “whatsoever things are true… whatsoever things are honest… whatsoever things are just… think about these things.”

This instruction comes from Saint Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, also known as the “epistle of joy.”  But the setting of this passage is anything but joyful.  And Paul knew, first-hand, how hard life could be.  He wrote this letter from prison awaiting trial and his eventual execution by the Roman Empire.  Before he landed in jail, Paul had been threatened, rejected, beaten, and even shipwrecked.  He suffered from some kind of chronic illness (which he called his “thorn in the flesh”) for which there was no cure – not even prayer.  And, to make matters worse, Philippi was his very favorite congregation, yet they were embroiled in a major fight that threatened their unity and mission.  Two of the congregation’s leaders – women named Euodia and Syntyche - had a major disagreement that, like all church fights, spread like fire and divided the whole congregation.  Gossip and anger and suspicion were rampant.  And all Paul could do was write a letter.

But the pen is mightier than the sword.  And this letter makes the compelling case for joy – despite the troubles of the world.  “Rejoice in the Lord always!” he writes.  “Again, I will say, rejoice!”  “Don’t worry.”  “Pray about everything.”  “Stay in the present.”  “Look for beauty.”  And the result of all of that is the peace of God that surpasses all human understanding.

This was not mind over matter.  This was not the power of positive thinking.  Instead, Paul urges these early Christians to a life of spiritual discipline that makes a pathway for a truth that is broader and higher than this present moment.

We don’t talk much about spiritual disciplines anymore, but we should.  The discipline of prayer.  The discipline of reading Scripture.  The discipline of charity.  The discipline of stewardship.  The discipline of mindfulness.  – Now, this last one, in particular, is challenging for people like us, for whom mindfulness can seem like a middle class, bourgeois waste of time, when the world is on fire.

But when the world is on fire, what good are you if you are on fire too?  And so, from a dark prison, Paul reminds us of the power of mindfulness.  He writes: “if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  Not all the time, of course, but in a regular, disciplined way.

Some years ago, Marcos and I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  We all know the story.  But what fewer people know, unless you have read her diary, is that Anne practiced mindfulness.  She regularly looked for beauty and pondered that beauty in a very dark world.

Two weeks before she and her family were discovered in their hiding place and deported to a concentration camp where Anne would die, she wrote these words:

“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

Our faith never calls us to stick our heads in the sand.  But it does call us to the rigorous discipline of hope.  It calls us to pay attention to beauty and goodness and justice and love – precisely so we can face the challenges of this present moment.

“… whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on (dwell on, count on) these things.”

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“Days pass, years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.”

10/8/2023

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SIGHTLESS AMONG MIRACLES
Sunday, October 8, 2023
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”

Her name was Maria Fernandes.  She was the 32 year old daughter of Portuguese immigrants who had settled first in Massachusetts and later in New Jersey.  Maria was trying to make a living working a minimum wage job. That’s impossible, of course, so Maria actually had three minimum wage jobs – all at Dunkin’ Donuts.  Working three jobs at three different stores meant that Maria hardly ever had a full night’s sleep.  Instead, she would nap a few hours here and there between shifts inside her 2001 Kia Sportage.

Early one Monday morning in 2014, Maria pulled into a gas station parking lot in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in order to sleep a little while she left her car running.  There was a container of gasoline in the back of the SUV, that, unbeknownst to the sleep-deprived Maria, had tipped over.  The gas fumes and the carbon monoxide killed her as she slept.  But one could just as easily say that the cause of her death was exhaustion.

Friends and co-workers remembered her as a sweet person with a soft spot for animals.  And, they said, she was a very hard-working person.  She never missed a day of work – until that Monday.

Maria Fernandes was exhausted and distracted and overburdened.  Most of us are too.  We may not be working three jobs, but we also run around on too little sleep and too much anxiety.

The statistics about our frenetic pace are staggering: Americans leave 765 million vacation days a year unused. Even when we are out of the workplace, we’re still working – enough that it adds up to a day of overtime each week.  66% of us check work email while we’re on vacation.  50% of us check it in bed.  And 38% of us check our email at the dinner table.  Americans take less vacation, work longer days, and retire later than the rest of the world.  -- And here’s the thing: we’re proud of it.

We’re proud of it, despite the fact that enshrined in the Ten Commandments, those hallowed and foundational words for Jews and Christians alike, is a commandment to take regular and methodical rest.  Still, someone has called this commandment the “Rodney Dangerfield of the Decalogue” because it gets no respect.  It gets no respect because we no longer respect the idea behind it.  Practicing Sabbath has passed into history like rotary telephones and typewriters – outdated, inefficient, quaint.

The Ten Commandments are what biblical scholars call the "apodictic law"; that is those things that are absolutely certain or necessary. In other words, there is no debate or nuance here.  And these commandments are traditionally broken down into two groupings: the commands to love and honor God; and the commands to love and honor one another.

The first four are said to be about God: don’t have any other gods; don’t worship idols; don’t use God’s name for evil purposes; and remember the Sabbath day.  The final six are said to be about others: respect your parents; don’t kill; don’t cheat on love; don’t steal; don’t give false testimony in court; and be content with what you have.  But not all of these Ten Commandments fit so neatly into those two categories.  Some of them straddle the fence – like Commandment Number Four.  Yes, Sabbath-keeping is about God, but it is also about us.  And it is about others.

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”

Now I don’t preach this sermon today as someone who always keeps Sabbath well.  I confess that I derive a great deal of my self-worth and my identity from my work.  I love my Monday day off, but truth be told I often have no idea what to do with it.  And so, I just find different kinds of work to do because busyness and productivity are my addictions; maybe even my gods.  But Sabbath challenges that skewed view of life and seeks to restore the divine order.

Sabbath imposes a rhythm on a hectic, demanding world.  Sabbath is a deep breath in a breathless world.  Sabbath creates a space for God in a godless world.  Therefore, says theologian Walter Brueggemann, sabbath is a form of resistance.  In a world addicted to busyness as proof of our worth, Sabbath says: “that’s enough of that.”  Sabbath asks the question: “Do you really trust God to be God?”  Sabbath insists that we are mere mortals.  Therefore, Sabbath is a form of resistance.

And Sabbath is also an act of justice.  Keeping Sabbath is also about the other.  In this sentimentally religious country of ours, we like the idea of the Ten Commandments.  We like them on monuments in front of court houses.  But if we took the commandment to rest as seriously as we took the commandment not to kill, then Maria Fernandes might still be alive.  If we took the commandment to rest as seriously as we took the commandment not to steal, then there might be a living wage for everyone, so that everyone could enjoy the Sabbath.

A Sabbath observed would also mean more justice for the earth itself.  Our addiction to frenetic activity actually results in a more polluted planet.  Imagine if there were one day a week when we all stopped shopping and demanding the kinds of 24/7 services that force others to work and drive their cars and keep their lights on.  What if once a week, the planet got to rest too?  Now lest you think that this is some new-fangled, “woke” idea, it’s important to remember that ancient Jewish law required that once every seven years the fields were to lie fallow.  A Sabbath rest for the earth.

So, Sabbath is about resistance and Sabbath is about justice.  But Sabbath also does something deeply personal for us.  It resets us. It reboots us.  We are simply not made to work all of the time; to be engaged and stimulated every second.  We, literally, can’t take it.  This is such an important thing for us to learn that a Holy and Eternal God, not constricted by human frailty, rested on the seventh day of Creation as an example for us.   Genesis 2:1-3 reads: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.  And on the seventh day God finished the work that God had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested…”

Sabbath is an incredible gift, because it allows us to experience again this fleeting gift called being alive.  We so often miss the devastating beauty of the ordinary.  We don’t even see sunsets or feel the heartbeat of a lover or taste all the notes in a wine.  We eat on the run and multitask and fret and worry and fall into bed only to get up and do it all over again – until one day we never do it again.

There is an old Jewish Sabbath prayer about the fleeting nature of our lives and what we miss because we do not pause to see.  And it goes like this: “Days pass, years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.”

Sabbath rest is about making time to see the miracles; to open one’s eyes to the glory of being alive.  And Sabbath is also about building a world in which Maria Fernandes and child workers in Haiti and the tech slaves in China all have the same God-given right.

“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.”

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"I have come to believe, with all my heart, that doubt and fear and anger are not the enemies of faith. They are the practice of faith..."

10/1/2023

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GOD ON TRIAL
World Communion Sunday, October 1, 2023
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Exodus 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

In 1972, a book entitled Evidence that Demands a Verdict, created an instant sensation.  It was written by a man named Josh McDowell, who presented what he considered an air-tight argument for the claims of Christianity and the existence of God.  Using certain historical facts and philosophical ideas, he put the modern skeptic on trial, peppering the skeptic with questions about his doubts, forcing him into a so-called intellectual corner, and then demanding that he render a verdict on the evidence in front of him.  In essence, McDowell put humanity on trial.

The idea of humanity being on trial is not a new one.  In fact, it is baked into our liturgies and hymns.  And it is the basis of one of the classical theories of the atonement - that is what the death of Jesus means for us.  This atonement theory is called the penal substitutionary atonement, and in it, an angry God is both judge and jury.  And all of us have been found guilty of our sins.  The punishment is death.  But, as the theory goes, instead of punishing us, God punished Jesus.  Jesus died in our place, and thus, the wrath of God is satisfied.

But this is just one theory of the atonement.  There are many others.  There are all kinds of way to look at what the Cross means.  Likewise, there are all kinds of ways to look at the human condition and how we all experience being alive.  And that’s a good thing, because while we might be comfortable thinking about God as judge when life is good, or God as judge for all those other people who deserve it, it’s much harder to think of God as judge when our life is overwhelmed by suffering.  In those moments, it sometimes feels as if the roles change and the evidence that demands a verdict is the seeming silence or absence of God in the face of our suffering.

I know that to even suggest such a thing makes some folks uneasy.  But I am simply giving words to what most of us have thought when the innocent are gunned down in schools and churches and on American streets.  Whether we want to or not, we wonder: is the Lord among us or not?  The earth teeters on the edge of ecological collapse and we fear for those who will come after us.  And we wonder: is the Lord among us or not?  The doctor gives us the worst news.  We lose our job and cannot pay the mortgage.  Our relationship crashes and burns.  Those we love die.  And we wonder: is the Lord among us or not?  And sometimes, in the heat of suffering, we even demand that God give us an answer.  It is God who is on trial – an idea as old as the Bible itself.

The children of Israel were wandering in the Sinai Peninsula after their liberation from slavery in Egypt.  They camped at a place called Rephidim because they had heard that there was water there.  They had plenty of quail and manna, but nothing to wash it down with.  And they were dangerously thirsty, their tongues thick in their mouths.  But that promise of a long, cold drink of water helped them to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Promises often do that.  When they arrived at Rephidim, however, the spring had gone dry.

A panic based in the survival instinct set in and created a mob mentality.  And they turned on their leader Moses: “Give us water to drink!” they demanded.  The Hebrew language is actually stronger than that: “You - give us - right now - water to drink!”  Their anger was so hot that Moses actually feared being stoned to death.  In a panic, he replied: “Why do you quarrel with me?  Why do you test the Lord?”  The words translated as “quarrel” and “test” are actually legal terms.  They imply that Moses and God are both on trial by the people.

Notice that in that moment of suffering and need, the people are not afraid to call God out.  And notice that no one is struck dead for questioning God.  No one is punished.  Instead, God tells Moses to take some of his elders and to go to Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai.  He is to take the same staff that he used to turn the waters of the Nile into blood during the Plagues on Egypt.  And then God said: “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.”  So Moses did as God said, and sure enough the rock became a spring.  People drank their fill.  Children splashed and played.  Old folks soaked their tired feet.

Now Moses could have named this new spring anything he wanted.  If it were me, I might have called it “Rocky Waters” or “Gushing Stone.”  But Moses called it Massah and Meribah which can be translated as: “Is the Lord among us or not?”

One might assume that by naming the spring for their doubts, Moses was sticking it to the people.  “I’ll show you.  I’ll name it after your blasphemy so that every time you come here to get a drink, you’ll be reminded of your shame.”  But I don’t think that’s what he was doing, because to say that implies that we have no right to complain or question or to expect that God will be God.

In the piety of my childhood, there were lots of things we were not allowed to do.  But one thing we were strongly encouraged to do was to be honest with God.  And if that meant a good argument with the Almighty every now and again, then so much the better.  Now, don’t just take my word for it.  Read the Psalms!  They are full of arguments with God; of deep and bitter disappointment with the way the world is being run.  They regularly entertain the question: “Is the Lord among us or not?”

I remember a time when I came to believe that the Lord was not among us.  I was a young pastor, struggling with so many things that I lost count.  They culminated in a crisis of faith so profound that I remember offering the Pastoral Prayer in church on Sunday and thinking that I was likely just talking to the air.  -- One night, this crisis reached a tipping point.  I was either going to have it out with God or just be done with God.  And so, unable to sleep, I lay in my bed and rehearsed all the things that God had not done for me in my suffering.  I won’t tell you exactly what else I said to God that night, but let’s just say, it wasn’t very polite.  And after I finished giving God a piece of my mind, just for good measure, I said: “And if in your divine justice, you decide to kill me during the night and throw me into hell, go ahead.”  And then I rolled over and went to sleep.

Much to my surprise, I woke up the next day – alive.  I was not only alive, but I was changed.  I had wrestled with the angel and I had prevailed.  I had argued with the Almighty, and I had survived.  I didn’t magically have all the answers, but my spiritual life began to take on a deepness and a trust and a realness that I had not yet experienced.

Oh, I still have doubts and fears.  But I have come to believe, with all my heart, that doubt and fear and anger are not the enemies of faith.  They are the practice of faith; sometimes, even, the result of faith.  We are doubtful and fearful and angry precisely because we do have faith in the goodness of God and we long to see that goodness in the world.  And when it is obscured or slow in coming or seemingly absent altogether, we demand an answer.

The children of Israel were pushed right to their limit.  And sometimes so are we.  I don’t know why faith works like that.  But it does.  I travel through the parched and harsh desert of life, again and again and again.  And every time I think that this time there won’t be any water, grace gushes from the most unexpected places, the most unexpected people.  Streams in the desert.  Bread and wine for my starving soul.  And I know again, if only for a moment, that the Lord is indeed among us.

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​ALMIGHTY GOD AND THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR

​THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GRANDMA

“Days pass, years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.”

"I have come to believe, with all my heart, that doubt and fear and anger are not the enemies of faith. They are the practice of faith..."

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ALMIGHTY GOD AND THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GRANDMA