Exodus
17:1-7
Place
names often have stories behind them.
Around here many towns trace their names to colonial taverns – like Blue
Bell or King of Prussia – or landholders – like Pottstown or Downingtown or
Coatesville. Paoli was named for a
general who tried to kick the French out of his native island of Corsica in
1768. Wayne was named for Mad Anthony
Wayne who fought the British in the Battle of the Brandywine and the Battle of
Paoli. The source of many names is
conjectural, like 84, PA. Some people
say it’s from a mile marker on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and some people
say it was from the year that a post office was built there.
Massah
and Meribah is a place mentioned in Exodus, the story of whose naming is
provided – and no wonder, because if you translate those words into English,
you find out it was named “Test and Quarrel”
“because the Israelites quarrelled and tested
the Lord,
saying, ‘Is the Lord among
us or not?’” [Exodus
17:7]
An earlier incident in the Israelites’
wanderings sort of set this one up. That
was what we heard about last week, when they were hungry and complained to
Moses, who complained to God, who sent them (on a regular basis) quail in the
evening and every morning a sort of bread they called manna. This time, though, they weren’t hungry. They were thirsty. They came to a place named Rephidim (which
means “beds” or “places of rest”, so it could be interpreted appropriately
enough as “campsites”)
“…but there was no water for the people to
drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to
drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test
the Lord?’ But
the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses
and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and
livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this
people? They are almost ready to stone me.’” [Exodus 17:1b-4]
Word for word, it’s pretty much parallel to
what happened with the bread and quail.
Like
the other incident, too, God provided what was needed.
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘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 at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water
will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’” [Exodus 17:5-6]
What makes this incident different, however,
isn’t the people’s faith but their attitude.
They sound almost entitled. ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’”
[Exodus 17:7]
God’s mercy is such that he gave them what they
needed, but along with it came a new place name as a reminder and an implicit
warning. When you start ordering God
around, even if you are telling God to do what he wants to do, “Resting Places”
turn into “Test and Quarreling”. You may
find your physical needs provided for, but your inner peace displaced.
You
don’t have to be a great theologian or sage to see what happens. P.J. O’Rourke, a comedian, criticizes rock
bands that turn angst about the state of the world into commercial
success. In his words,
“Any religious person – whether he worships at a pile of gazelle bones
or in the Cathedral of St. Paul – will tell you egotism is the source of
sin. The lust for power that destroys
the benighted Ethiope has the same fountainhead as the lust for fame that
propels the lousy pop band. ‘Not every
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ Let alone everyone that saith sha la la la la
and doobie doobie doo.”[1]
Honestly, we all fall into that at some
point. I’ve seen a picture on the
internet multiple times of a sign outside a café someplace that says something
like,
“Coffee $2.50
Coffee, please $1.50
May I have a medium
coffee, please?
Thank you. $0.75”
Perhaps
God isn’t so unlike us on that score. Maybe
in our prayer life, as in any other part of life, things might not go
differently but would go better if we would simply maintain a proper level of
the most basic respect. Don’t toss his
name around idly or turn it into a curse word.
Say, “please” and “thank you”.
Don’t assume you always know what he has in mind or that he has no idea
what he’s doing if you aren’t consulted.
If we all did better at that, there might be
more places named Providence.
Moses Striking the Rock by Luca Giordano
(from Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art)
[1]
P.J. O’Rourke, “Fiddling While Africa Burns” in Give War a Chance (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1992),
101.
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