Exodus 17:1-7: Drive-Thru Complaint Deprartment

 Presented to TSA Alberni Valley Ministries, 19 March 2023 by Major Michael Ramsay 

Do you ever get the idea that God is trying to tell you something? There might be something He is trying to teach me about Exodus 17:1-7. In a span of a couple of days, we read Exodus 17 in our family devotions, it was the text at a service we went to at the Gospel Hall, it showed up in my personal devotions, and was referenced in the lectionary when I was looking for texts to preach on the other week. With all of these hints I thought I should spend some time reflecting on this passage this week; so that is what we are doing today. And then this morning, if I was having any last moment doubts, as I was scrolling through Facebook while procrastinating reading through my message, I ran across this quote in my memories from 2017, "Great message today from Rev Deb Rapport at 77 River on Exodus 17:1-7." So here it goes...

 

The people are grumbling about God to Moses in Chapter 17 because they have nothing to drink. And In Chapter 16, they were grumbling about God to Moses because they had nothing to eat – Is God a waiter to bring them food and drink? Or is God the cook and Moses the waiter and the people have so many complaints about the food and the cook that they just keep complaining to Moses: ‘Take this back’, ‘I don’t like that’ ‘Tell the cook this!’ ‘Bring me that!’

 

I don’t think I am generally a whiny costumer, but I do have one story of being a little short with a fast-food restaurant’s drive-thru staff. A long time ago in a province far, far away, I was with my two little children going through an A&W Drive-Thru. Being that my children are vegetarians, I ordered them something with no meat: a grilled cheese sandwich, cheese on a toasted bun. The voice in the drive-thru box said, “I don’t think we can do that”. I replied, “sure you can: first you take the bun out of the package; then you toast it and then you put the cheese on it.” They did. My little children loved the episode immensely and still remember that incident to this day, even now as they are all grown up and moved away – the day we told the restaurant how to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

 

The Israelites here are being whiney drive-thru customers as they are travelling across the desert, telling Moses exactly what they want and how they want it. They are pretty dramatic about it as well: Chapter 16, about the food, verses 3-4, The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” And then after God and Moses give them meat and bread of Heaven in the very next chapter, Chapter 17:2, 'So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”'

 

And just before their whining and complaining about the food and water, just before these stories take place, is the parting of the Red Sea – remember how the people came to Moses about God then? Exodus 14:11-12: They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” And so it goes…Exodus 17:2, 'So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”'

 

The Israelites have developed a pattern of whining and complaining in their lives. If you look back at Chapter 16 you can see that people responded a little differently about the instructions they were given about the food: some obeyed, some did not; but it seems like the majority of them complained. And sometimes their complaints made me wonder, ‘do these people even believe in God?’ 17:7: “Is the Lord among us or not?” The fact that they are always going to Moses and/or Moses and Aaron with their complaints sound to me like they almost think that Moses might even be just making this whole God-thing up. You can see how Moses – and GOD – get quite upset with the people as recorded in the book of Exodus!

 

The people are so focused on the apparently bad things; the people are so focused on the difficult things (which they interpret as bad); the people are so  focused on the challenging things (which they interpret as bad); the people are so focused on an imagined ideal, comparing it to an imagined reality that falls short in their minds, so they are not happy and so they whine and so they complain about God and their leaders.

 

It is SO easy to do! …so tempting too! Whine and complain! Whine and complain about our leaders! I was able to see Pierre Poilievre, the Leader of Canada’s Official Opposition on Thursday. Gord Johns, our MP has agreed this week to appear on Heather’s TV Show (HTV: Heather’s Talk in the Valley); It is so easy to complain – either about politicians or in agreement with their complaints about other politicians or the government. Politicians are often simply people doing a difficult job and we often find something to complain about them – whether we have ever even met them or not! I remember being blessed to serve from the food truck alongside both Josie Osbourne (our MLA) and Gord Johns (our MP) at Christmas time and chatting briefly about just that: no matter what we say or do, someone will always complain! I know I can be frustrated by others complaining about me, both if I do something and if I don’t do the same thing… and so you think I would know better than to complain about others, but alas, I can still be tempted to complain about so and so, or this and that, and grumble and whine against our leaders or someone else… just like the Israelites

 

And this can be trouble. When we get into a habit of complaining and thinking negative thoughts, it can be hard to even see good in people we love. Whining and complaining about people in our lives and/or things out of our control can be all-encompassing and can really drag us down. We can get so that almost every thought is negative. Philippians 2:14: Do everything without grumbling or arguing

 

Do we ever get like this? Do we ever whine and complain? Do we ever get worked up about things that we know nothing about, things that are out of our control, things that are turning out just they way they are supposed to turn out, things that are turning out just the way they were always likely to turn out - and then do we whine about them to ourselves or others and in the process make life a lot more difficult for ourselves and everyone else!?!

 

When we are in a difficult spot, do we look to God expecting a miracle and wondering what it might be and how He might do it? Or do we complain about our leaders, our circumstances, and/or God? Do we ever whine and complain so much that if people read stories about us, like we do about the Israelites in the desert, that many of the stories would be about how much we whine… about our government (Trudeau this, Liberals, NDP, or Conservatives, that) … about our church leaders (Headquarters! or Major said this or did that!), our bosses (That Major again!), or one another (so and so always does this or never does that; why do I always have to…) do we ever whine so much that people might ask of us, “Is the Lord among them or not?” and/or “do they even believe in God?”

 

Whining and complaining can certainly come across to others as if we don’t believe in God. If we are always complaining about our lives, it certainly does look like we don’t believe that the Lord will and is taking care of us; it certainly looks like we don’t have faith in God.

 

Even worse than how it might appear, complaining can actually get in the way of our relationship with one another and with God. It can pull us away from a life of peace. Grumbling and complaining is destructive and it can be addictive like any drug or any other bad habit and it can be very destructive to our soul, our mental health, our spiritual well-being. We find what we look for: the more we look for bad things in our lives to complain about, the more we find them; the more talk about the bad things in our lives, the more we notice bad things in our lives, the more we listen to (and so encourage others to talk about) complaints about bad things in others’ lives, the more we focus on the bad things in their and our lives. And when we complain about the bad things, it is easy for us to be overcome by those bad things. But, on the other hand, when we focus on God; when we look for what God is doing in the world and in our lives, when we look to see how He will deliver us through our challenges, when we have faith in God, He can deliver us from anything, even a grumbling and complaining spirit. Jesus is, after all, the Prince of Peace.

 

God and Moses wanted the people to be free of the grumbling spirit that was trying to tear them from Him. You notice that all through the Exodus story, God never gives up on the Israelites. He keeps providing food for them even though they complain about it throughout. Even though they complain along the whole journey and ask, “Is the Lord among us or not?”, He continues to lead them, loving them so much that He hopes and encourages them to be free of the rain cloud of despair and complaint and to experience His Peace instead.

 

And He wishes the same for us. The temptation to grumble can certainly be strong. God knows that. And even though it seems like our complaining can be all-encompassing, tortuous, and must be exasperating even to God, He does love us, and He does want us to be free and at peace. We have that opportunity today so I encourage us all to give our worries and complaints over to Him for when we do then indeed even we can have our spirit at peace, for Jesus Himself is the Prince of peace.

 

Let us pray

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Matthew 6:12: “… as we forgive those who trespass against us”

Presented to AV Ministries, 20 March 2022; Original version presented to 614 Warehouse pm service, 22 October 2017 by Captain Michael Ramsay

 

Click here to read the original 2017 Toronto version: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2017/10/matthew-612-as-we-forgive-those-who.html

  

            I don't know how much people remember the sermons I preach over the years but one theme to which I keep returning is forgiveness. It is central to Christianity, to following Christ, and it is the most powerful way for us to remove hate and fear from our lives. Hate and unforgiveness kill us and unforgiveness, as I have often said, is a self-inflicted wound. So-and-so may have hurt you when they did that terrible thing to you but you hurt yourself over and over again when you do not forgive them. They aren't necessarily hurt by your unforgiveness. They might not even know you are mad at them but if every time you think about that person if your heart hardens, your mind tightens, and you stomach and back ache, then your unforgiveness is killing you. We actually have the power to forgive and be released from the pain we are suffering but it is not easy.

It has been a difficult time in the world. It is interesting. When things are difficult it can really be an eye opener. I remember when I was just coming off of a very trying time personally, years ago now, we went to The Global Leadership Summit in Toronto. There were many good speakers.

            One such speaker was Immaculee Ilibagiza. She is a favourite author of mine. She said, “Forgiveness is possible in every situation”; she said, “God is always right; whatever our Lord tells us to do is right. And God tells us to forgive.” Immaculee is a Rwandan and she is a Tutsi. Do we remember the Rwandan genocide?

            In the late 20th Century people in Rwanda were required to carry ID cards – but instead of showing your vaccination status, these cards showed whether you were a Hutu, Tutsi, Pygmy, or another race. This is reminiscent of South African Apartied, American segregation, or the star European Jews had to wear during WWII. In 1994, the president of Rwanda's plane was shot down and this unleashed the brutality that had apparently been building up for years. She remembers now hearing radio programs promoting hatred and violence against the minority Tutsis by the majority Hutus for years before the genocide but she never thought much if it. We hear wakkos and even mainstream reporters and politicians spreading hate on our TVs, radios, and social media every day and every minute here now. We are encouraged to be Anti-This, Anti-That: Everybody seems to hate somebody for something. She didn't think much of it then - just a few Hutus publicly hating Tutsis. But then with the death of the president it unleashed a genocidal wave that wiped out about a million lives in about 90 days. The people on the radio were calling for Hutus to not merely malign their Tutsi neighbours on social or other media (like is happening to high-profile Russians and others here today); the people on the radio were not merely calling for Hutus to to turn people into the authorities to deal with (like so many of our anonymous call lines do here today); but then and there people on the radio were really encouraging the Hutus to actually hunt down their Tutsi neighbours and kill them… themselves. I remember reading the horror stories in the news at that time of neighbours hacking apart neighbours with machetes. There but for the grace of God go we. Really.

            Immaculee remembers her mother, her father, and her brothers sent her away when this began. They wanted her to be safe. They sent her to hide in the house of a Hutu pastor. She remembers that she was put in a bathroom, 3ft by 4ft, and told not to leave the room and not to make any noise. She remembers saying or thinking, 'I can't stay here it is too small; Then two more girls came to live in that room and then two more and then more and then soon the room was jam-packed with girls and they couldn't leave in the daylight and they couldn’t make any noise at all - if anyone knew they were there they could, they would, be killed.

            Immaculee remembers one day a death squad came to search the house. A chain of people surrounded the house so that if they found any Tutsi in the house they couldn't escape. Then the searchers came into the house. They searched in closets, they searched in the halls, they searched in the ceiling, they searched in the floor. They even searched in suitcases in case someone might be trying to hide a small child in one. They were looking for Tutsis and if they found one, even a child, they would kill her.

            She remembers when searchers were close to their hiding place, a part of her wanted to run out and defy them and a part of her wanted to remain hidden. She is Catholic and she prayed, "God, if You are who You are, please don't let them look in this room" and then she fainted. When she came to, the evangelical Hutu pastor who was harbouring them said that they were by the door when one searcher said, ‘Mr. So-and-So, you are a good man, you wouldn't have anyone in your house’ and they left.

            They stayed three months jam packed in that washroom. They had nothing to do so they asked that a radio be placed where they could hear it and on it they heard day after day the government inciting people to hate and kill them and day after day people were. One government official even encouraged the Hutu to kill Tutsi children saying, "the child of a snake is still a snake," Hate is powerful; When you hear people plotting to kill you and your loved ones it is easy to grab onto hate and try to get through this time by hating your enemies and plotting a real or imagined vengeance… at the expense your soul. Now to make her soul an even more fertile ground for hate to grow, on her first night of the 90 nights she spent in that washroom, pressed up against all of the others, she heard the news that her mother, and father, and brothers, were hacked to death.

            Whether in that room or afterwards I do not remember, she had her Rosary beads with her. When God answered her prayer and the searchers did not come in her room she knew God was real more than she ever knew before and so she would pray her Rosary prayers all the more. One of the prayers on the Rosary is the Lord's Prayer. She would pray it regularly but then she would get to the part that says please forgive our trespasses (our sins) as we forgive those who trespass (sin) against us. But surely God didn't mean me? How can I forgive the sins of what has been done to me? How can I forgive my enemies – when they killed my mother, my father, my brothers, and my family? She got to the point where because she knows God is real and He knows everything, she wouldn't even say those words in the Lord's Prayer – forgive us our sins as we forgive others - she would skip them over because she didn’t want to forgive them but then, of course, all-knowing God knows she is skipping those words. She came to realize this and so she opened her Bible to find some relief from this conviction to forgive her enemies. She opened her Bible and it said:

·       Pray for your enemies, so she closed it and opened it again,

·       Pray for those who persecute you, close,

·       Forgive your enemies!

And then she remembered God, Jesus on Cross. It is almost Easter and it is almost Good Friday: do you remember what some Jesus' last recorded words are - about those who have put him up on that cross to die? Jesus said, "Father forgive them" and then Jesus said, "for they do not know what they do". Jesus forgave his enemies. Jesus says, "Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." Jesus himself told us to forgive others as we want to be forgiven.

            Immaculee says, “Forgiveness is possible in every situation and God is always right; whatever our Lord tells us to do is right. God tells us to forgive.”

            And if Jesus forgives those who put him on a Cross to kill him and if Immaculee can forgive those who killed her family and extended family and the people she loves then surely we can forgive those who hurt us.

            In the conference we were at, we were invited us to think of a person who has recently hurt us. We were invited to think of someone who when we think of them our muscles tighten and our hearts harden. We were asked to forgive them and free ourselves from the pain of unforgiveness. I know that is not easy but forgiveness is possible in every situation; God is always right; whatever our Lord tells us to do is right. God tells us to forgive. And only when we forgive can we possibly be free.                                                              

Let us pray

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Gen 11:9-12:1, Mt 5: The Means are the Ends

Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 06 March 2022 by Captain Michael Ramsay

To read the original Toronto July 2016 version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2016/07/genesis-119-121-matthew-5-means-are-end.html

  

We have done some long driving tours before covid-19 struck. Hopefully sometime soon we will be able to go see some places again. Travelling reminds me of the Old Testament. There is a lot of travelling in the Pentateuch.

 

When God calls Terah, he travels 950 km from Ur of the Chadeans to Haran en route to Canaan (Ur to Haran is about the same distance as from the Valley here to Banff). Terah doesn’t exactly take the most direct route either; if you look at the map Haran really isn’t on a straight line to Canaan and he never quite makes it to Canaan, Terah stops in Haran (present day Turkey).

 

Then God calls Abram to continue his father’s journey to Canaan, but God doesn’t take him on the most direct route either.[1] God takes Abram all the way from modern day Iraq on the east of Palestine through the Promised Land all the way to Egypt which is to the west of the Promised Land before he comes all the way back east to settle in Canaan. This journey on foot is around 2000 km (which is about the distance from here to Indian Head, Saskatchewan, just east of Regina).

 

A generation or two later God takes Jacob all the way from Canaan to Mesopotamia (Iraq) and back to Egypt where he dies.

 

Then, of course we know the story of Moses: instead of walking straight from Egypt to Canaan, the Israelites do laps around the desert. They even get right to the border of the Promised Land where God and Moses say, ‘no you can’t go in’; so they spend 40 years doing laps, wandering around the desert.

  

God is with all His people in the journey: Terah, Abram, Jacob, Moses and more. It is that time spent with God that we know about much more than what the destination looked like because the journey with God is so important.

 

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. points out that life is not as much about the destination as it is about the journey.  In much of his writings there is a related point the reverend keeps coming back to that really resonates with me. His opponents accused him of being a communist. Of course, in the USA during the Cold War this was often an accusation rich people would toss out at civil rights activists because Americans were genuinely afraid of communism – every time they turned around it appeared one country after another was throwing off the yoke of imperialism; they were afraid a worldwide revolution might strike America.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. did come in contact with many people who were instrumental in liberating their countries from capitalism. He fought for a lot of the communist-embraced values to which the US at that time was opposed: equal rights for women, equality for ethnic minorities, significant economic reform... [3] When people pointed out to MLK though that, as far as the USA was concerned, these were communist ideas; MLK would reply that he differs from the communists in one key way. “Lenin” [Vladimir, not John], he said, “believed that the end justified the means.” As a Christian I can never believe that the ends justify the means because God reminds us that the means are the end – what you do on the journey reveals who you are in the end. This is true. Do the ends justify the means? No, never. That is not even possible because the means are the end.

 

For example, if we want to end excessive incarceration and violent oppression by violently throwing off our oppressors and incarcerating them then– intentionally or not- we will naturally find ourselves becoming the violent oppressors.[4] Anyone who has ever seriously studied patterns in world history will note that this is true whenever a remnant survives. This is one reason why the Middle East is in tumult, and this is one reason why the US is in so much turmoil that countries with large black populations even prior to covid were officially warning their citizens not to travel to the USA.[5] Look at Ukraine today. Violence breeds violence. The ends do not justify the means. As Gandhi, whom MLK loved to quote, said, ‘an eye for and eye makes the whole world blind.’ Do the ends justify the means? No, the means are the ends [5.5]. If we want the world to see the truth, then we need to help our adversary see! Not pluck out his eye! For if we pluck out his eye; as he is able, he will do the same to us and then we will be left as a couple of blind bullies. Gandhi, like Tutu and Mandela after him, is a great example of helping our adversary to see. A society at peace with its former oppressors was created in a way it never would have been through violence. The means of violence always brings the result of violence. The means of peace is what brings the result of peace. And Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

 

Do the ends justify the means? No, the means are the ends. Oswald Chamber says, ‘God is not working toward a particular finish - His purpose is the process itself.’[6] Returning to one of our examples from the Pentateuch where God is walking miles upon miles with people who never reach their destination: The Israelites of Exodus. They whine and complain a lot about their travels. They want a different means to achieve their ends. They want the direct route. Sometimes they get so upset at the means by which God is leading them that they just want to abandon God’s means and ends altogether because it is too hard, they think, to achieve His ends.

 

Do we remember Numbers 14, the story of the Israelites right on the precipice of the Promised Land: it was theirs for the taking?[7] God had provided the end. God just wanted them to join Him in the means. The Israelites refused the Lord’s means. God responded, therefore, Verse 30: ‘Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua...

 

There is more to this story too. After they reject God’s means to the end of the Promised Land, the Israelites attempt to obtain that very same end, by their own means, without God.  Numbers 14:41: But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the LORD’s command? This will not succeed! Do not go up, because the LORD is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, for the Amalekites and Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the LORD, He will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.” And they did. The end in and of itself, even when it is God-ordained like here, is not by itself the important part; an important part is the God-enabled means. Matthew 16:26: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:26, Luke 9:25). Do the ends justify the means? No. The ends are the means.

 

Jesus tells us very much the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount. To transliterate through the lens of means and ends the pericope we read earlier, Jesus said,

 

You all know the goal, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But let me tell you about the means to that end: don’t even walk down that road; anyone who even gets angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

 

And you all know that, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who even starts to explore those means by so much as looking at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 

You all know about an ‘eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This is the means by which you will rid yourself of your enemy. If you act like an enemy, you are an enemy. If you act like a friend, you are a friend. The ends don’t justify the means. The means are the ends.

 

You all know the end ‘Do not break your oath but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But the means here is the important part: you should not even need to swear an oath.  You should be honest in every part of your life so that whatever you say - whether you say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or anything else - it is just as good as an oath even on the Bible or on your mother's grave. The person who tells the truth is an honest person. The person who does not is a liar. Do the ends justify the means? No, the means are the ends.

 

If we walk along the path of sin hoping to reach holiness we will be sadly disappointed. Conversely if we never walk towards sin, we will never arrive at sin. Do the ends justify the means? No. The means are the end.  Oswald Chambers again: ‘God is not working toward a particular finish - His purpose is the process itself.’

  

He who walks in the darkness does not see the light and she who walks in the light does not get lost in the darkness. Do the means justify the ends? No. The means are the ends.

 

This is true in our daily lives with each other, and it is just as true with our relationship with God. Jesus and Salvation aren’t about a destination, an end of going to heaven when we die; Salvation is the means of how we live with God from today unto eternity. Salvation isn’t an end, a destination to arrive at; it is a means, a way of life. So, can we do evil as a way to try to enter heaven? No. Do the ends ever justify the means? No, the means are the end. The means, which is ultimately our very relationship with our neighbour and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is all that matters. He is with us and He wants us to walk with Him and talk with Him both now and forever. And that is the means by which you and I can live the most blessed life both for now and forever.

 

Let us pray.

 

 

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