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The Big Yes Exodus 17:1-7;Psalm 95;John 4:5-15[16-42]/ThirdSunday inLent Our Old Testament story puts Israel in the wilderness between slavery and the land ofpromise. Israel has a rich and embarrassing memory of the wilderness, about how Israel conducted itself in a time of danger and deficit. The theme of wilderness is an appropriate one for Lent, for Lent is about being in thin places without resources and being driven back to the elemental reality of God, the reliability of God, and our capacity to trust God in the thin places where there are no other resources. The theme of wilderness—by way of Lent—is a useful one for us now. Indeed, the context of the U.S.—in our long season of fear, anxiety, and violence—is being driven back to wilderness questions about the reality of God, the reliability of God, and our capacity to trust God in the thin places where there are no other resources for life. I The scene is at Rephidim in the wilderness. Nobody knows where that was. It is simply a place with a lack. It was a dry, hot place, and they had no water. Imagine, no water, the most elemental requirement for life, the scarcest commodity in the wilderness, and they had none. They could not produce any for themselves. There were no wells. They had no adequate substitutes for water that could possibly sustain them. The focus is upon their deep need and upon the way in which the deepest question of faith is connected to the deepest material reality oflife. (Likely you know that even now the scarcity of water is an acute one around the world, so that it is quipped, "The next great war will not be about oil but about waterP) So they complained, thinking they were entitled to water. They argued with Moses who was supposed to assure the water supply. Finally they must come face-to-face with God, because they have no alternative. That is what Lent is about, is it not? . . . to come face-to-face with God in need 137 because there is no alternative. Lent is not about guilt or even about repentance or giving up some convenient extra. It is rather about the raw, deepest need in our life. What happens in this transaction is that the water question (material , concrete support for life) is turned into the God Question concerning the one who "leads us beside still waters . . . " As a result they dared to ask the question, "Is the Lord among us or not?" The Bible does not everywhere assume that God is present, but knows about the dry places where God's absence is overwhelming. They asked the God question about the water problem, because they knew they were up against it in their need and had no alterative. The Israelites, in their quarrelsome challenge, articulated the song of Eliza Doolittle to Freddie in "My Fair Lady," "Don't talk of love, show me!" "Don't talk of water, show me." Don't give me theological formulations, do something concrete. This is a demanding, quarrelsome engagement, but the Israelites in their anxiety were exceedingly practical. They did not want a God who would not deliver on the real stuff needed to make life possible. II And then quite tersely, God, with an assist from Moses, answers the anxiety of Israel: 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 of Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink, (w. 5-6) God hears the cries of Israel. God answers decisively. God gives water. God gives the water of life. And when God gives water for life, Israel's deep question is answered: Yes: The Lord is among us! Yes, God has the capacity to transpose wilderness into an arena for life. Yes, God is reliable. Yes, God is faithful. Yes, God is an adequate source for life in a context of scarcity and anxiety. This is the "Big Yes" of God, the one about whom Paul writes: As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been "Yes and No." For the Son of God,Jesus Christ, whom we 138 [18.117.153...

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