Exodus 17:1-7
Massah and Meriba: A call to be wary of the dangers of a utilitarian religion
The journey through the wilderness to the promised land continues
as the Lord had commanded. But there is no water again! The journey was not a
well-calculated or well-planned journey. The setting out of the exodus
happened in haste and was motivated by the people’s trust in the saving
kindness of God. The people are again in great distress as they lack the most
elemental resource that is required to sustain life in the wilderness. The
exodus instilled in them great expectations and now the journey gets harder and
harder by each day. They are turning their frustration and anger against the
leadership.
There are two heated exchanges between Moses and the people.
The first exchange questions the credibility of the leadership of Moses. It was
he and his brother Aaron who convinced these people for an exodus into the wilderness.
They promised them a better life outside the realm of Egypt’s brutal and
abusive power.
Moses wants to put the issue in a larger context of the
destiny of these people in God’s plan. He wants to tell the people that the
responsibility of the exodus and the reaching of the promised land is a
collective one. The whole group of the escaped slaves needs to show the
endurance and character appropriate for this long-lasting journey. He retorts
painfully saying “Why to blame me?” “Why test God?” The people need to trust in
the faithfulness of the God of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph in
the midst of this life-threatening crisis.
The second exchange between Moses and the people is more
outraged and the people are accusing Moses of causing death by instigating the
exodus. They might have been ready to take revenge on Moses by imparting
death on him for bringing them to the verge of death. Moses now turns to God,
his petition this time is not for the wellbeing of the people but for his own
safety. “What shall
I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”[1]
The best
part of the story is that YHWH is directly involved in the process of
resolution of this crisis. The God of the Exodus is not a distant God, who
control the affairs of the people remotely, but one who descends into the
miseries of His people to deliver them (Ex 3:8). Moses is asked to walk ahead
of the people carrying the staff that he used to strike the Nile, which is a
symbol of God’s guiding presence in the life of the journeying Israelite congregation.
It is not the personal grievances of Moses that is resolved but the crisis in the
people’s lives that is resolved.
The staff,
the rock, the courage of Moses, the witness of the elders, and the guarantee of
Yahweh all converge to work a wonderful deliverance for the people.[2]
Deliverance, therefore, is a continuing series of saving acts of which God is
consistently the subject.
Only Yahweh
can give the resources for life, but Yahweh will do so through the work of
Moses.[3]
God uses the human medium to manifest his life-giving wondrous acts. People
who holds the staff of authority entrusted by God Almighty must always be
mindful of this fact to become the life-giving medium for God’s gracious
incoming into the lives of the people whom they serve.
The
presence and power of Yahweh are perfectly capable of transforming rock to
water and death to life. The rock here represents the morbidity of death and
water the dynamism of life. Brueggemann notes the importance of this incident
being situated in Horeb by the biblical narrator. Horeb is the place where the “wasteland” of no importance was turned into a “holy land” of theophany for Moses. “It
is likely important that the rock is “in Horeb,” located in the peculiar
precincts where Yahweh’s presence is palpable and immediate. In the sphere of
Yahweh’s sovereignty, life is wrought in situations of death.”[4]
Moses calls
the place Massah and Meribah (Massah=“test” and Meribah
= “quarrel”), because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”[5]
The context is that of faith or unfaith. It is not the wonderworking power of
Yahweh is exposed here but the lack of faith of the people in spite of the
mighty acts that they have witnessed in Egypt.
The tendency
to test and quarrel with God for personal comforts arises from the practice of
a utilitarian religion. A utilitarian religion never allows God His
sovereignty. Brueggemann explicates it as an “inverted relationship” of the
people with God.[6]
Or in other words, people want to take sovereignty into their hands and YHWH
to obey and act in accordance with their desires. “The only evidence of
Yahweh’s presence that Israel will accept is a concrete action that saves. Thus,
Israel collapses God’s promise into its own well-being and refuses to allow
Yahweh any life apart from Israel’s well-being.”[7]
We all want
God to take out all the miseries from our lives immediately. But a spirituality
that limits God to the comforts of our personal life is going to be as
dangerous as it had been in Meribah and Massah. It will only create more hatred
and frustrations and no movement in life towards the purposes for which God
calls us collectively as the community of disciples.
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version.
(1989). (Ex 17:4). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[2]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 817). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[3]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 817). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[4]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 818). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[5] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version.
(1989). (Ex 17:7). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[6]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 818). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[7]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 818). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
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