Numbers 20 - Miriam dies
and the well dries up
the people complain - they are thirsty and afraid
God tells Moses to take his staff
assemble all the poeple
and SPEAK to the rock
tell the rock to yeild water
But Moses - once again - doesn't trust that words will work
back in Exodus chapters 3 and 4 (3:11 and 13 and 4:1, 10, and 13)
Moses told God five times
that he (Moses) wouldn't know how to talk to Pharaoh,
that he couldn't do it,
that no one would listen to his voice, his words.
God continues to tell Moses that He (God) will provide the words
and He asks Moses, out of exasperation, I think,
"Who has made man's mouth?
Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind?
Is it not I, the LORD?
Now go!
And I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak."
But Moses asks yet again, "Please send someone else."
Moses does not believe that the words God gives will be enough.
Spoken words enough to free a people?
Spoken words enough to create water in a desert?
Words spoken to Pharaoh will have power?
Words spoken to a rock - an unyeilding force - will produce what is demanded?
What power could words have?
Moses does not trust that God will honor His own words
"tell the rock"
or that God will honor the words that Moses speaks.
This whole existence is a story of words.
God created the whole world with words - by the WORD - remember?
"Let there be light."
And there was light.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
All things were made through the Word.
In Him was life - life that is the light of humankind.
(Genesis 1:3 and John 1:1-4)
God made covenant with the ancestors of Jesus and people of ancient days with words. He made shifts in their names that changed their destinies.
"Words are events, they do things, change things." (Ursala K. Guin)
If you lose faith in words, you lose power and your future changes.
Moses lost faith in words and his future changed.
When Moses continued to doubt the words of God,
the words of God's promises did not carry Moses to the fertile promised land;
Moses did not speak the words God offered to supply,
and he lived out his life in the barren desert.
I don't want to discount the power of words. I want to take care with God's Words. I want to trust His Words.
I want to speak truth and life and living water with my words.
What promised lands may be opened or closed to me and to others because of what words I believe and what words I speak?
Moses did not speak to Pharoah as God would have empowered him to do.
Moses did not speak to the rock as God would have empowered him to do.
He missed opportunities to use the power of language.
May we be blessed with the clarity we need to chose powerful words.
May we build a safer and stronger and more righteous world
for ourselves and those around us
with life-giving, life-affirming, intentional words.
May we have the faith to speak to what seems immovable,
and may we have the joy of watching life-giving water gush forth from the Rock
by the power of our words.
May it be so.
Amen.
.. . . . .. . .. ... . .. .. ... .. ... . .. . . ... ... . . .. . . .. ... . . . ... .
and a nod to Jericho Vincent {@thealef on instagram}, for the thought-provoking series "The World's Oldest Bookclub"