Home of Parrish W. Jones

Transforming Souls

by Parrish W. Jones, Ph.D.

©2005 All rights reserved.

 

Psalm 78:1-8

Exodus 17:1-7

Matthew 21:23-32

Last week it was food and now it is water. What is a God to do?

One more time the people of Israel start their whining. Why can't they just ask? Haven't they figured out that God provides?

I wonder what the people on the Gulf Coast are thinking now that another devastating hurricane has hit them. They may be thinking thoughts like, "Why is God doing this to us?" or "Why has the government told us to leave our homes only to leave us stranded on the highway with no gas and nowhere to go?" "Why is God doing this to us?" "We'd be safer at home than out on a God forsaken highway with no protection?" "Why has God done this to us?" "Just another example of how bad government has gotten, it can't get a little thing like evacuation right?" "Why has God done this to us?" "Maybe God really is mad at us for electing George Bush."

The conditions are not a whole lot different except in one case Pharaoh was the cause and in the Gulf Coast case a hurricane linked with what is apparently inept local, state, and federal governance is the problem. In one respect or the other that is the charge against Moses. The people ask, "Moses, didn't you have a plan? What kind of God leads a host of men, women, children with their livestock into the desert without a plan. In the particular case this morning, the question is, "Didn't you have a plan for water?" As the kids would say, "Duhhh!"

Notice what Moses does. He turns the complaint into a complaint not against him but against God. He does what leaders so often do. They try to stifle complaint against themselves by identifying their decisions, their actions, their leadership with God's. I have seen ministers do this and I have seen national leaders do this. During the 60's and the Vietnam era, many Christians took the position that since all authority, governments included, are ordained by God, then Christians could not protest the war or seek conscientious objector status. The decision of the government is the decision of God because they represent God.

This sort of arrogance is not uncommon. It is so common in fact that Moses rose to such arrogance. So then Moses goes whining to God about the people. Moses does not lament. In his mind the people are a failure and they are a problem, but not his problem anymore because now the people are "they". Moses says in so many words, "Hey, Yahweh, it's them against us. I'm on your side so help me out."

Such a response is so human and so common that we dance around it constantly in the life of the church, the community, the nation. We readily forget that our problems are our problems and not their problems. It would be easy for us to talk about something we have less control over like the failure of government to plan adequately for this double whammy on the coast. But you see, that is their problem and we do not need to assume any responsibility for their failures.

However, we cannot do that so easily as a church. I can't tell you how many times I have heard, "Why don't they do this or that?" in reference to the church. These words are uttered as if the persons were not a part of the church and perfectly capable of doing whatever it is they want or raising the question in the right forum so that a solution and a plan can be developed. In like manner the people of Israel do not seek out a plan for acquiring water, or ask Moses to appoint some of them to do so. Instead, they just whine. There is always room for one more person at the table of problem solving, planning and action. There is no more room at the table of those who just want to complain and gripe.

God gives Moses an action plan. It appears to be a miracle. Strike the rock and you'll get water.

The final verse suggests that we focus on the quarreling of the people and the testing of the Lord. The people and Moses had tried to invert the relationship of God to them. Instead, of God being the free and independent being who choses to respond to the people, the people demand that God be at their beck and call.

We are not so unlike them are we. We want God to be what we want of our doctors, our manufacturers and our churches. We want them to solve our problems, cure our diseases, and cater to us almost before we know what the problems are.

And so it has been especially in the area of technology. The software manufacturers amaze me by telling me I had a problem I didn't know I had and then trying to sell me the solution. About 90% of the problems I am supposed to be having I haven't had and the 90% of problems I do have have no solution. We could, of course, speak this way about nearly every area of life.

Fact is, the manufacturers have often come up with solutions to many of our everyday problems that make life easier. But notice that their advertisements are very much like the outline of our lesson for this morning. The problem is presented: loneliness, stress, bad odor. The product is presented as the solution. The person uses it and happiness returns.

The difference, of course, is that the product replaces God. Just as the people expected Moses to solve the problem and Moses presented himself in God's place, so the manufacturers do with their products. The scriptures teach that true life filled with joy, peace and happiness come only from God. Manufacturers tell us they can provide it.

And so we turn to the Gospel where the question is authority. The question is a similar one. By whose authority does Jesus do what he does? The lesson follows the triumphal entry into Jerusalem that initiates what we refer to as Holy Week or Passion Week. The religious authorities are concerned about this Jesus and his apparent popularity. So Jesus gets them wrapped up in the game children play. He won't tell them by whose authority he teaches if they won't answer where the baptism of John came from.

The point Jesus makes is clear. It is not in the telling that revelation occurs. It is in the living, the experiencing. The word may be a vehicle to experience but it is no substitute. That is why we teach in the Presbyterian tradition that we are not called to obediences to scripture but to Jesus Christ. The scriptures are the word of God in so far as they give witness to and point us to Jesus.

There are no substitutes. He does not say so here, but throughout Matthew the point is driven home that the sign of transformed souls is transformed living. Opinions matter, doctrine matters, theology matters, but it only matters if it is affirmed in one's way of being in the world. So the issues are the same. Where is God in your life?

Is God the candyman at your beck and call? or Is God free to be the transforming, reforming, moulding God that gives authentic life to you and me?