Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Moses displays his own short-term memory as well as his narcissism, interpreting their
outcry as a threat on his own life. Had not God also protected him? But faced with the
possibility of mutiny, Moses utters his own complaint to God.
While Moses' response centers on the conflict, God's reaction delivers compassion. In this
text, God never condemns the grumbling Hebrews. God simply instructs Moses to gather
the elders, take them to a rock at Horeb, and strike it with the staff Moses had used to
perform so many other miracles in Egypt. Moreover, God grants Moses the reassurance of
the Divine Presence: "I will be standing there in front of you" (verse 6). In response to the
people's petitions, God becomes present and provides.
The passage concludes with Moses naming the place Massah and Meribah. The term
Massah reflects the Hebrew word "to test" while Meribah derives from the word translated
as "quarrel."Both terms appear in verses 2 and 7, forming a literary framework around the
passage. On the surface, this linguistic framework seems to confirm a reading that
caricatures the Hebrews as selfishly stubborn, quarrelsome testers of God. But the
existential question--"Is the LORD present among us or not?"--reminds the reader that
these emancipated slaves faced a very real threat. God's actions of presence and provision
supply the answer needed by a fearful community.
Perhaps when we pay attention to the character of Moses and God's response to the
situation, the text has more to say to leaders of communities of faith than it does to the
members of those communities. It may be tempting to disregard the cries of our
parishioners as the whining of people who lack faith. It may be easy for us to pit ourselves
as leaders against those whom we lead or who we feel are resistant to our leadership.
Perhaps in the Lenten season as we reflect on the human condition, we must ask how we
can demonstrate God's compassionate presence and provision to those who cry out from
under the burden of real, and sometimes extreme, hardships.