The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
September 25, 2011
Vol. 14 no. 37
We’re still wandering in the wilderness with the Israelites, and this time we are thirsty. The people naturally complain because while we can survive, so they say, for forty days without food, it is a mere fraction of those days without water. The Israelites were well practiced in complaining, fault-finding and murmuring and Moses is their target, along with God. The language is a little archaic, but after Moses famously nudged water out of a rock, he named the place a word meaning “Proof.” The reason was that the people were putting God to the proof – we might say ‘to the test’ today. Out loud they complained, “Is the Lord among us or not?” God is expected to prove to us whether there God is real.
It remains a real question for many, especially in the midst of the devastating earthquakes and hurricanes, famines and droughts, civil wars and nuclear reactor meltdowns. Is God here, at all?
Everybody has an answer or non-answer, and the voices are getting louder, especially those who either declare that God is Not Good or simply God is Not. We are aware daily of tragic situations in our world where God’s presence is not obvious to everyone. Some see God’s absence in the midst of death, destruction and cruelty; yet others standing in the same mayhem see the spark of life, hope and kindness.
We are always being pointed to the power of life to surprise death. Water comes out of a rock, bread rains down from heaven, the sea is divided in two – all as it shouldn’t be, but in God’s way life is resurrected again and again. In the midst of a conflicted and hurting world, it is our joy and our responsibility to pull life out into the open for all to see and feel.
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan