Don’t Complain About Blessings

March 23, 2014
Third Sunday of Lent
Exodus 17:3-7
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032314.cfm

Complaining comes naturally to most of us. Even if our circumstances improve, they could always be better, so we can find something to complain about. The ancient Israelites felt the same way. After God delivered them from Egypt with powerful, miraculous interventions, and after they had crossed the Red Sea and received the manna from heaven, they still find something to complain about: thirst.

Grumbling vs. Gratitude

You would think that a group of people just delivered from hundreds of years of slavery and hardship would have a lot to be grateful for. After God shows up in power and frees his people from the oppressive yoke of Pharaoh, you would think that their songs of joy and thankfulness would last longer than a moment. But gratitude is harder to cultivate than grumbling. As soon as the people feel a need—this time, for water—they confront their leader with complaints. It reminds me of a time I was going on a high school trip. The travel agent arranging the trip told us not to complain during our travels because “it makes the trip miserable for everyone—the one complaining and the ones listening to the complaining.”

The Israelites should have been constantly reflecting on their divine deliverance in an attitude of humble, grateful joy, but they give in to what is easier—to allow the inconvenient present to overshadow the glorious past. This kind of grumbling places all the emphasis on the here-and-now and loses sight of the bigger picture, the more important story, the great things that God is doing for his people. So complaining is an intellectual mistake, if you will. It emphasizes one thing, the present, at the expense of another, the past. It overplays the significance of “how I feel right now” versus the larger picture of life. Gratitude, the opposite of grumbling, embraces a truer version of the story. That is, gratitude focuses on the important theme, the hope-filled trajectory of the story, which encompasses past, present and future, rather than myopically zeroing-in on the present. Gratitude requires an outward focus on the larger truth, while grumbling embodies an inward-turning, selfish approach centered on the now.

Moses and the Rock

Moses takes the heat, as God’s representative to the people. How easy it is to excoriate those who lead us rather than focus on our own actions! When the people threaten him, Moses has the right response: he turns to the Lord. When we are intimidated by others, it is easy to simply give up or give in, but often the best response is to follow Moses’ example and turn to the Lord for guidance. In Moses’ case, the Lord steps in with a new level of miraculous intervention. He will not only send plagues on the Egyptians, hold back the waters of the Red Sea, and send mysterious bread from heaven, now he will give his people water to drink. They sought something God wanted to give them, but they asked for it the wrong way. Rather than humbly asking him for water, they attack his appointed prophet.

The Lord commands Moses to strike a particular rock with his famous staff. Notice that he asks Moses to do this in front of the people and with all the elders. It is a public event, a public response to the people’s complaining. The Lord is showing them his authority once more, that his power trumps their fears. He is pledging to care for his people, not to kill them as they had accused him. Notably, the ancient Jewish rabbis taught that the rock followed the people as they wandered through the wilderness. St. Paul alludes to this in 1 Cor 10:4, where he says “they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (RSV). So the life-giving rock of Horeb, which provided much needed water for the thirsty people, foreshadows the saving power of Jesus, who delivers “by water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). St. Paul uses the example of the complaining people to teach us not to “put the Lord to the test…nor grumble” (1 Cor 10:9-10 RSV). Rather than complaining about what we don’t have, we can rejoice in the salvation we do have and drink deeply of the spiritual water which the Lord offers us.

Massah and Meribah

This moment of “quarrelling” and “testing” is so important in Israel’s history that the place receives a special name, and the event is brought up by Scripture several times as an example of what not to do (e.g., Psalm 95:8). The place is given this name: “Massah and Meribah,” or “trial and contention.” These two words come from the same roots as the verbs used to describe the people’s “testing” and “quarrelling” against the Lord. Sometimes the Lord “tests” his servants like Abraham (Gen 22:1) or the whole people (Judg 2:22) in order to show and strengthen their faith. But we are not supposed to test him back. In fact, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16 on this point when he is being tempted by the devil: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah” (RSV). This command, which Jesus knew by heart, refers to this archetypal event when Israel tested the Lord.

Why is testing the Lord forbidden? Because testing implies doubt, a doubt about the Lord’s goodness, his generosity, his sincerity. We are the ones who are so often unreliable and in need of testing to help us see our weaknesses, but the Lord stands alone as the ultimately reliable one. While we might not find ourselves struggling with thirst in a desert, our complaints are just as dangerous to our relationship with the Lord as those of the ancient Israelites. If complaining and grumbling make us and those around us miserable, then perhaps we can try another way. Instead of grumbling, our hearts could brim with gratitude for all the blessings he has given us in his Son.

Scripture Speaks: To Quench Our Thirst

Gayle Somers

The story of the Samaritan woman at the well plants us deeply into the mystery of salvation—God’s great love for sinners.

Gospel (Read Jn 4:5-42)

The story of the Samaritan woman at the well plants us deeply into the mystery of salvation—God’s great love for sinners. During Lent, we take special notice of ourselves as sinners, spending time and effort to recognize the seriousness of sin and to rejoice in Christ’s victory over it. Our lectionary readings highlight both of these Lenten realities in a most wonderful way.

As the Gospel story begins, we see Jesus resting, in the heat of the day, at a well in Samaria. A woman approaches, and Jesus starts a conversation with her. In the Old Testament, wells were often the place where marriage betrothals began, because they were one of the few places where women appeared in public. Drawing water was women’s work, and there were always lots of women around wells. Two of Israel’s patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob, found their wives at wells, as did Moses. So, when the Church looks at this story of Jesus meeting a woman at a well, she sees a romance—God in search of His bride, the Church. Jesus expresses this desire in terms of His thirst: “Give me a drink.” God is thirsty for us, for sinners. Even on the Cross, Jesus gasped this out: “I thirst.” What an important truth to understand! Our sin can discourage us and lead us to despair without it. As we see here, it is Jesus Who takes the initiative. The Bridegroom seeks His lover.

The conversation that follows shows an eagerness in Jesus to reveal Himself as the Messiah to this woman that we don’t see in any other New Testament story. He wants to give her the “living water” that comes from faith in Him. He repeatedly directs her attention away from the water in the well to the thirst He knows she has in her soul. What was it about this woman that moved Jesus to push so hard to make Himself known to her as the Messiah, when usually He wanted everyone to keep quiet about it and not say anything?

This Samaritan woman was an outcast among outcasts. Being a Samaritan, she was an outcast from the Jews, who considered Samaritans to be half-breed Jews, perverting the true religion of Israel. Being a woman, she was a non-citizen in a culture that often viewed women as chattel. Being a woman with a “reputation,” having had a string of husbands and lively loosely with yet another man, she was an outcast even from other women. “Good” women didn’t want to associate with her. She was at the well alone, at high noon, the “devil’s hour,” when no one thought of doing any work.

What better person could Jesus have chosen to show the world that he came for sinners? The woman, representing all of us sinners, has nothing at all to offer Jesus except her own thirst for God. She had questions, she had thirst. Just as Jesus knew about the husbands, He knew about the thirst. His thirst met her thirst, head-on. “The woman said to Him, ‘I know that the Messiah is coming…when He comes, He will tell us everything.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am He, the One speaking with you.’”

The woman got it! She leaves her water jar at the well (not thinking about that kind of water anymore), and she goes into town to tell others (not thinking about her reputation anymore) about Jesus. Her life would never be the same. She has already started to taste the Living Water.

Look at what happens next in this story. The disciples return and want Jesus to eat—they assume He is starving. Is He? “But He said to them, ‘I have food to eat of which you do not know.’” The disciples are baffled by this, but we shouldn’t be. It isn’t water and food that Jesus is looking for—He’s on the hunt for sinners who are, even without knowing it, looking for Him. He is satiated by the exuberant faith of a helpless, outcast sinner. The Bridegroom rejoices in the Bride

Possible responses:

Jesus, You are always looking to give me what I often look elsewhere to get. Help me quench my thirst with Your Living Water.

I am here today feeling the weight of my sin. I need to remember that I am just the person you are looking for.

First Reading (Read Ex 17:3-7)

The reading in Exodus gives us the history of the first time God gave His people “living water.” As Israel left Egypt and headed towards the Promised Land, they experienced the terrible thirst of traveling in the desert. Look at their reaction to the lack of water. They grumbled against Moses, God’s appointed leader, and accused him of wanting them dead. In grumbling against Moses, of course, they were grumbling against God. After all the miracles they had seen God do to deliver them from slavery, instead of humility and trust, they arrogantly wanted God to prove He was really there. This kind of doubt about God’s character goes all the way back to the Garden, when the serpent convinced Adam and Eve that God wasn’t really looking out for their best interests. No wonder Moses was exasperated with them!

Nevertheless, God gave these people water from a rock. When Moses strikes the rock with his staff, water flows out. In the New Testament, St. Paul looks back on this episode (read 1 Cor. 10:1-4) and sees the rock as a pre-figuring of Christ on the Cross, Whose side was struck by a soldier’s lance and both water (signifying the Holy Spirit) and blood (signifying the Eucharist) flowed out. In the desert, at a well in Samaria, and on the Cross, God desires to give Living Water to sinners.

Possible responses:

LORD, forgive me when I doubt that You know or care about my situation. Thank You for being faithful even when I’m not.

Father, grumbling comes way too easily to me. Help me change my grumbling to gratitude.

Psalm (Read Ps 95:1-2, 6-7b, 7c-9)

When we read the Exodus account of Israel’s grumbling and doubt about God, we are tempted to be repulsed and ask, “How could they be so ungrateful and obnoxious?” Instead, it would be better for us to heed the psalmist’s exhortation: “If today you hear His Voice, harden not your hearts.” The story of Israel is our story. What we see in their hearts lurks in ours, too. As we follow Jesus, the New Moses, on our way home to Heaven, we will face trials, difficulties, and deprivations, just as Israel did. We might be tempted to say to God, “Where ARE You?” We might think He’s out to get us. Trials should never lead us to say to God, “Prove You are here.” Instead, our posture should be one of praise (“let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation”), worship (“let us kneel before the LORD Who made us”), and trust (“we are the people He shepherds, the flock He guides”).

Possible response: The psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings. Read it again prayerfully to make it your own.

Second Reading (Rom 5:1-2, 5-8)

Leave it to St. Paul to put all of this in graphic perspective for us. Do we want to know how much God loves us? We can ask ourselves a simple question: Would I be willing to die for those ungrateful wretches in the wilderness, who grumbled against God and tested Him? Well, I might be willing to die for someone as good as Moses, but for those folks? Never! God, however, proves His love for us in that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Nothing—not even the worst we can dredge up from our hard, self-absorbed souls—can stop God’s love for us. Nothing will quench His thirsty love for His creatures but the likewise thirsty creatures themselves. This is why St. Paul confidently writes that, in Christ, we have “peace with God” and that He wants nothing more than to pour into our hearts the Living Water of the Holy Spirit. Amazing!

Possible response: Lord Jesus, will I ever understand how much You love me? Will I ever be willing to love other sinners as much as You love me?