DATE: September 28, 2014
SCRIPTURE:
Exodus 17:1-7 Full text follows the sermon.
By
Michael Hendricks
For those of you fortunate enough not to recognize me in this setting, my name is Michael Hendricks.
I use the word fortunate, not out of some sense of humility, false or otherwise, but out of a real recognition that for three years in a row, if you saw me standing up here, it meant you were about to hear my Stewardship/Giving Team reflection for the pledge drive. Rest assured this morning, your wallets and pocketbooks are safe.
Earlier this year, Alison and I spoke and she thought that anybody who hit that particular three year sequence should have the opportunity to speak at least once about … well, almost any other topic. Today that bill comes due – and the topic arose out of another conversation Alison and I had about our congregation’s experiences over the last three years.
That being said, though, should any of you, on seeing me up here experience a sudden, inexplicable, irresistible, even Pavlovian, urge to give something somewhere, I believe the Building Team would graciously step forward and accept your contributions.
Will you pray with me.
Holy God, gracious God, loving God, as we approach the end of our time away from our church home, we give thanks that during this time, we never had to be homeless, but instead, this congregation that seeks to be welcoming, itself found a place of welcome. Amen.
It is very tempting to look at this morning’s Bible passage and think that our congregation’s situation since the fire that devastated our church home back in November of 2011 could be compared to the wilderness wanderings of the people of Israel following the exodus from Egypt.
In this story, the people looked around and saw that they were lacking something essential for their very survival. In the case of the Bible story, something as basic as water. In our case? On one level a building – offices where the work that holds our congregation takes place, classroom space where we teach our children our stories and also provide room for myriad 12-step groups to transform lives, nursery school rooms, choir room, meeting space, fellowship space, and, most of all, our beloved meeting house that we also call our sanctuary. On a deeper level, though, we have been without what all these rooms – and if you want to throw in our beautiful façade, our presence of being the church on the hill, go ahead – what our building symbolizes and that is our sense of identity.
No water. No identity. No existence. No wonder people get frightened.
In the case of the Bible story, there is no getting around the incredibly real need for water the people of Israel were aware of. Two weeks ago, you heard about the Mission Trip our High School Youth Group participated in on Navajo Nation land in New Mexico. I was lucky enough to serve as a chaperone on the trip. It was the first time I’d been to our nation’s southwest, and I can’t help thinking of that terrain in regard to this story. Wide open expanses of land as far as the eye could see. Enormous big skies. Then rising up out of the ground, spectacular mesas unlike anything that exists on the East coast. And nowhere, in all the time we were out there, did I see anything that looked even remotely like water in a natural setting.
On the Mission Trip, we were fortunate to have access to well water that we could bottle and bring with us. But in light of this story I can’t help thinking, what would have happened if we hadn’t checked about the well before the trip. If we hadn’t brought bottles. If we’d gotten out on the Mission and the kids got thirsty and they turned to us for water, and we didn’t have any, and didn’t have any way of getting any, and, worse yet, didn’t have any way to get home either.
I can’t help thinking what I would feel if those extraordinary young people turned to the adults, turned to me, and asked, “What were you thinking? Why would you bring us here? We trusted you. And you let us down.”
Those are the faces I think of when I think of what it must have been like for Moses. Only instead of it being 14 young people, it was an entire nation of thousands. That was the feeling of hopelessness and despair and deep self-doubt that I can’t help thinking Moses must have felt. That feeling that the mantel of responsibility is on your shoulders and you are just not up to the task and the consequences must now be faced not just by you but by those in your care.
Do any of you remember talking to our Lay leaders in the first days and weeks after the fire? When they had to promise that everything would be okay. Even though they had yet to learn even what the first step would be. Even though they had no idea if any clergy candidate would have the courage to take on the senior pastor position we were still seeking to fill. In light of the incredible achievements that have taken place these last three years, it is easy to forget where it began. But think what it must have been like for those lay leaders to ask for our trust at the beginning.
It was at that point of greatest doubt and fear in the Bible story – when there was no hope left – when the ordinary physical world had exhausted its ability to sustain existence – that God steps in and the miracle takes place. Water suddenly, impossibly springs not from a hidden well or oasis, but from a dead, arid, hard rock. And the people of Israel are saved.
Like I said, it is tempting to see parallels in this story with our own congregation’s feelings of wilderness wandering these last three years.
Especially now when our return to our Church home is imminent and the realization is beginning to sink in that through the grace of God, the contributions of many, and the exhaustive work of a few, we are going to survive this ordeal.
I am, however, going to resist the temptation to draw these parallels.
I am going to resist this temptation, because, despite the similarities, in some crucial and pivotal ways our recent experiences, difficult and unsettling as they have been, really don’t parallel the experiences of the people of Israel at all.
Forgive me, now, for a moment if I re-write the Bible just a little. It’s probably a dangerous habit I’ve fallen into after all these years of working on Story Tent.
The Bible rewrite I would like to put forward would not be a change to the water from the rock story that we have read this morning. That’s a really good story on its own and any input from me could only serve to lessen its meaning and power.
No. The Bible rewrite I propose, the one that would truly parallel our experience, would actually be the inclusion of an event that’s never mentioned, but when you think about it, with 40 years of wilderness wandering, almost undoubtedly happened. And maybe in its own way would be just as miraculous as the story we read today.
What if, I wonder, if somewhere maybe before or maybe after the story of the water from the rock, the people of Israel found themselves again getting a little thirsty. Only in the story I’m proposing, this time, before their thirst became truly threatening, while they were still in their wanderings, instead of finding themselves alone in the middle of nowhere, they found themselves next to another tribe, a tribe that happened to have water of its own.
Now, I know, in a lot of Bible stories when one tribe runs into another, there’s often some serious trouble that soon follows. But not this time. Not in the story I’m proposing.
In the story I’m proposing, the thirsty people of Israel run into a tribe that has water, and the tribe looks into their eyes, sees their thirst, and says, “Come. We have water. Drink.” They overlook the differences that other tribes take note of and start holding their weapons a little closer, and instead say, “Welcome.”
The Story Tent writer in me screams out here, “Wait a minute. The people of Israel were thirsty and somebody gave them water and they moved on? Where’s the conflict? Where’s the story?”
And that’s why, though I’m sure some variation of this story undoubtedly happened, I’m not surprised that nobody thought it important or dramatic enough to record it. But, sisters and brothers, I can’t help feeling that, in its own way, this might be the greatest story never told.
And, with regard to Saugatuck, this would be the wilderness story that most closely resembles our experience.
Because before we ever got anywhere near thirsty enough to feel threatened, before the lack of a place to meet for worship ever came close to dispersing us, our friends at Temple Israel said to us, “Come. We have space. We can figure this out. Worship here.”
For that, we owe a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid, and because of that we share a bond that I hope continues as long as both congregations exist.
As most of you know, there was a time when the congregation of Temple Israel was welcomed to celebrate their services at Saugatuck Church. And while I am proud, but not surprised, that Saugatuck was the Church that opened its doors to our neighbors of a different faith tradition, I confess that I am unable to see the symmetry in our now being welcomed to worship here.
From where I sit, sadly, there is simply no comparison in a church allowing the symbols of Jewish worship through its doors, and a Jewish temple allowing the symbols of Christian worship to enter theirs.
The history of the last 2,000 years, the history of the last 100 years, very understandably and more regrettably than I can ever express, may, for some, have lent an aura of threat and violence to the symbols that for us read as nothing but pure and holy love.
Nevertheless, these last three years, we have taught our stories to our children in the same classrooms that the Temple uses to teach their stories to their children. We have met on the Sabbath to worship God in the same space that the Temple meets in on Shabbas to also worship God.
And I can’t tell you how powerful and how humbling it has been for me these last three years that we have been welcomed to celebrate Christmas and Easter – think about it, Christmas and Easter – in Temple Israel’s sanctuary.
In fact, this last Christmas, I ran into Lisa Goldberg who has done so much to make this relationship work, and she said that she was staying for our Christmas Eve service because the music brought tears to her eyes.
Neighbor helping neighbor. Reaching across the things that separate to lend the helping hand that is needed at the moment.
In its own way, is there a more needed miracle in the world today? Maybe even in the entire history of the world? It almost makes the water from the rock miracle seem easy.
God bless Rabbi Orkand, Rabbi Shapiro and Rabbi Friedman. God bless Rabbi Mendelsohn Graf and Rabbi Schwartz. God bless Cantor Silverman and Cantor Sklar. God bless Lisa Goldberg. God bless Greg Jones and Troy Golding. And maybe most importantly, God bless all the members of the Temple Israel congregation who never got the chance to work with us or get to know us, who maybe felt threatened by our presence in their holy place of sanctuary and, by the grace of God, welcomed us to worship here anyway.
Your generosity and courage saved us from ever really having to face that threat to our existence that the people of Israel faced in their wanderings
You have written yourselves a place in the history of our congregation that we can never forget.
You have taught us a lesson in true welcoming that we had better not forget.
Thank you.
Amen.
Scripture Texts
Exodus 17:1-7 (Jewish Study Bible)
1 From the wilderness of Sin the whole Israelite community continued in stages as the LORD would command. They encamped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. 2 The people quarreled with Moses. “Give us water to drink,” they said. Moses replied to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”
4 Moses cried out to the LORD, saying “What should I do with this people? Before long they will be stoning me!” 5 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pass before the people; take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take along the rod with which you struck the Nile, and set out. 6 I will be standing there before you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock and water will issue from it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 The place was named Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and because they tried the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD present among us or not?”