From the Rector
Dear Friends in Christ,
Sometimes parish ministry during the pandemic has a bit of an Exodus feel.
"So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, 'What are we to drink?'" (Exodus 15:24)
"In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 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.'" (Exodus 16:2-3)
"They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink." (Exodus 17:1b)
"So they quarreled with Moses and said, 'Give us water to drink.' Moses replied, 'Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?' But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, 'Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?'" (Exodus 17:2-3)
"Then Moses cried out to the Lord, 'What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.'" (Exodus 17:4)
Now, before we get too far with this analogy I am aware that I am no Moses. I find myself grumbling right along with everybody else. I find myself, as Moses said, putting the Lord to the test.
Just this morning, I read of another COVID-19 variant. I couldn’t believe it.
But of course I could—for that is the time we are in. As in Exodus, I’m sure they couldn’t believe when they yet again didn’t find water. But of course they did, really, for that was the time they were in. A people in the wilderness were making their way by faith in the Lord. Even if they were testing that faith and found it tested at times.
Ultimately, the lesson of Exodus is less about the destination than it is about trusting in God along the way. Moses doesn’t even get to make it to the promised land—his role is simply to follow the Lord’s leading and walk with the people where they’re being led.
The journey is one of trust. The journey is one of learning to rely again and again on God. The journey is one of recognizing how little people can control and how much the faithful need God.
Exodus contains my favorite line that always makes me chuckle when read at the Easter Vigil. “They said to Moses, 'Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?’” I love the exasperated cheekiness of it!
Of course, though, the graves were not the end of the story. The psalmist writes of the Lord feeding his people:
"He spread out a cloud as a covering,
and a fire to give light at night.
They asked, and he brought them quail
and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
like a river it flowed in the desert." (Psalm 105:39-41)
Just before this happens in Exodus, Moses grumbles to God. “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” (Exodus 17:4)
God provides. God restores the trust with his people. He renews the confidence that the people and Moses have in one another. The people, indeed, make it to the promised land. The covenant holds firm.
All we can do, in this time, even with new variants and perhaps especially with them, is trust in God. Renew our commitment to follow him. Prepare ourselves to be a community committed to love and live as a covenant people. The journey may provoke all sorts of grumbling along the way but the graves and the losses are not the end—and with Christ they never are.
Hope is always our end, our beginning, our life, and our strength.
Yours in Christ,
—Fr Robert