March 26, 2011
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Testing God and being tested
I have a negative reaction to the word “test”. I don’t like tests of any kind. I love going to class and learning knew information but I hate being tested on it. I don’t like medical tests because I know they are going to reveal I haven’t been doing what I am supposed to do. I don’t like eye tests, I don’t like driving tests, I don’t like tests of my friendship, my character, or my faith. I don’t like tests because taking a test always implies the possibility of failure.
Knowing that testing implies the possibility of failure, does it not seem odd that the ancient Hebrews are described in the Exodus story as having put God to the test? What does that mean? Is it possible for God to fail the test? What would it mean if God did fail the test? Would God not be God, would the people be free to get a new god, or would they want their sacrifices back? When I read the story centuries later it is hard to understand how these people could doubt God’s presence with them. They had been brought through the Dead Sea by God rolling back the water to let them pass through. They had been provided a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them, bad water has been made clean, and they have been fed with manna and quail. Really, what more could the people want to know that God is with them and God has a plan?
It is so reassuring to know we have grown in our faith over the passing centuries and we don’t put God to the test. We are confident that God is God and that God has a plan for us so there is no need to put God to the test. The problem is the test the people had for God had nothing to do with God being God or even God having a plan. The people were testing God as to whether God would give them what they wanted today. It didn’t really matter what God had done in the past, they were thirsty today and wanted to know what God was going to do about it. When I read the story from this perspective, maybe we haven’t progress very much in the centuries since the time our ancestors of faith wandered the desert. God has provided for us abundantly. We have been given people who have led us as a people. We have had Rev. Elder Troy Perry who created a church where we are free to come and worship God just as we were created by God. We have been given people with the vision and the commitment to found a church here in Dayton and sacrifice so we can have this building for our worship and our ministries. We have had spiritual teachers that have fed us on God’s word and have provided us with clean water to refresh our parched souls. God has blessed this community in so many ways. As Paul said to the church at Rome, even when you didn’t deserve it God has sent God’s love to you in abundance. And still, when there is a challenge, we start questioning where is God? Is God going to take care of us? Is God going to do what we want done here?
We have these notions of what God should do and how God should do it to prove to us that God is God. I am pretty sure God is not concerned about passing our test. In fact, I think God most often responds by testing us. God tests our ability to live in God’s time, to trust in God even when we don’t see God doing anything. Too often, when we are asked to wait and trust we fall back on that favorite verse of ours, “God helps those who help themselves.” The problem is we cannot find anywhere in our sacred texts where God said that. In fact, what our sacred texts tell us is when we decide to take matters in our own hands, God says, “Okay, have it your way.” God permits our impatience and our doing it ourselves, but God rarely rewards it.
God desires that we have a faith that says I will trust in the leading of God to meet not my plans or my wishes, but that will lead me to achieve God’s plans and God’s desires for my life and know that this will be more satisfying than what I wanted. The story of Jesus and the woman at the well has a very different meaning for me than what I heard when I was growing up in Sunday school. I was told that Jesus spoke to the woman at the well so he could convict her of her immoral lifestyle. He was going to convert her from being this adulterous woman with many former husbands and now living with a man to whom she was not married. I no longer see that in the story. I see Jesus coming to the well and meeting a woman that he knew of her struggles in life. She is a despised Samaritan woman who would have been outcast by her people because of her many marriages and living with a man who is not her husband. I am told that she would have been at the well at mid-day because it would be the only time she would be safe from the taunts and condemnation of others at the well. Jesus speaks to her respectfully; he does not demand water as would have been his right as a male and a Jew. She is even surprised that he speaks to her considering her position in that society. Jesus then shares with her God’s abundant love for her and God’s desire that he is willing to give her God’s indwelling source of refreshment. I do not hear condemnation in what Jesus says to her, I hear compassion for what has been a difficult life for her trying to meet her needs on her own. I may be stretching here, but I think Jesus knew that her problems with keeping a husband was because she was seeking something another person could not satisfy. He knew she needed to know that God loved her before she would be able to love herself and then another person. Jesus said to her and says to us, quit trying to do it on your own, stop trying to quench your thirst with what the world offers and let God satisfy you. Stop testing God to see if God will give you what you want and let God give you what you need. Amen.
