Pastoral Letter 30
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
It has been more than six months since we gathered last for Sunday service on March 15 and now as we come to the end of September, there is only three more months until the end of the year. A year which was full of twists and turns, from bushfires to a pandemic. At the start of the year we were looking forward to a great year with so many programs organised and dates booked for special celebrations and trips. And now, hoping that the situation gets better, we look to 2021 with faith and anticipation. Hopefully we will enjoy one of the most expected Sydney New Year’s Fireworks again, as the NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, is urging not to cancel the event, but have it with safety restrictions. Indeed, it will be a good thing to put behind us the year with all its problems with the spectacular fireworks and have a fresh start in the new year.
Speaking of the NSW Premier, I am sure you heard by now that she celebrated her 50th Birthday. Some of us have sent her congratulatory notes and wished her well, as she continues to lead the state.
The Elders and the Church Council will meet on the 7th of October and revisit the matter of reopening our church doors for worship and fellowship. In the meantime, we keep doing the same and this week it will be my 30th Pastoral Letter with the message. Please join the other members tomorrow morning in worship, following the Order of Service. Please light a candle and give a little more time for your personal prayers and pray for others. Especially remember those who are in pain, suffering, isolated, vulnerable, lonely and under constraints. If you have any prayer points, please let me know and I will include them in the next week’s letter.
You will notice that in this week’s Order of Service we have 6 hymns. Thanks to Mark for suggesting hymns. The majority of the hymns are his suggestions, with the exception of two. I hope you will enjoy the opening hymn, which is arranged by my dear friend Rev. Nerses Balabanian from San Francisco. Currently his placement is in Fresno. The Hymn is the well-known “Joyful, joyful we Adore You”. It is with a little fast tempo, if you can’t catch up, just listen. Nerses plays the instruments and Tim, who is a member of the church, sings with him.
A big thank you to Mark and Nerses. Nerses will be sending more hymns for us to include in our services.
Be well and safe and if you need any kind of help or support, please do not hesitate to ask and let me know.
Continue to pray and remember the following points in your prayers:
1. Pray seeking God’s help as we go through the difficult time of pandemic.
2. Pray for those who are struggling financially, lost loved ones, in pain, not well and lonely.
3. Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.
Krikor
What Am I To Do with These People?
Exodus 17:1-7
Doubt is something that troubles us all from time to time. In the middle of the Exodus story this morning the people of Israel ask the question: “Is the Lord really among us or not?” We’ve probably all asked this question at least once in our lifetime. This is an enduring question of all human beings.
But why were the Israelites asking this question? At this point, God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, walked them across a sea on dry land, and destroyed Pharaoh’s army; it would seem that they should know better. And maybe they should, but again, the Israelites were not asking a question that hasn’t been asked a million other times by a million other people down through history. So, what was going on with the Israelites at this point in their history that caused this uncertainty about God’s presence with them?
As you know, the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for many generations. Now, they have been delivered from slavery in Egypt, but they find themselves wandering in the “wilderness,” where there are inadequate supplies of food and water. Something they have counted on and now their stomachs begin to rumble and their tongues dry out, they start to grumble against Moses, wondering if he had just brought them out of Egypt to die in the middle of nowhere. Now that God has brought them out of slavery, they are wondering why God isn’t continuing to take care of them.
It seems a little strange to think that the Israelites couldn’t grasp God’s continuing presence with them after God had managed to get them all out of Pharaoh’s grip. But it seems that coming out of a life of slavery, it would be difficult to trust in anything, much less anyone. Certainly, thirst is the presenting problem here in this time of wilderness wandering, but there was a greater issue among the Israelites, a problem of trust. The Israelites felt abandoned and betrayed. They couldn’t believe that God would provide for them what they needed, and so ultimately, they started testing God because they couldn’t trust that God was even with them.
The Israelites dealt with their problem of trust not by going go to God with their complaint, but they started complaining to Moses. They felt they had put their trust in a faulty leader who had led them in the wrong direction. After all, God had not promised them a dry, desert land with no food and water. God had promised them a land flowing with milk and honey! How could they ever be hungry or thirsty in such a place? So, they concluded that they were in the wrong place. And so, in their tired, hungry, thirsty, miserable state, the people rebelled. They decided that Moses had led them astray, and not only that, they decided trusting in God was a big mistake, too! So, the Israelites did what we all do when we are tired, hungry, thirsty, and feeling lost, they started whinging and complaining.
As they complained to Moses, he had no other choice, but to go to God with this question:
“What am I to do with these People?”
In today’s reading we see that Moses, the one whom God had called and instructed to get the people of Israel out of Egypt and out of their bondage, reluctantly went to God.
It is clear that the duty of the leader is to do the best they can to lead the people who have been entrusted to their leadership in the right path. In the case of a spiritual leader the challenge is to make the people listen to God and obey His commandments, as was the case with the people of Israel.
In the passage we read today we see that the whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin and travelled from place to place. We are sure that the journey was not an easy journey. They did not have traveling facilities of modern times, easy accommodation, many means to cater the people with food and drinks stopping at rest areas. On the contrary, we see here that there was no water for the people to drink.
Water is one of our basic needs, we have to quench our thirst and not get dehydrated. The need for water by the people of Israel was a genuine request. But the issue here is the way they tried to handle the situation.
We see that the first thing they did was to quarrel with their leader Moses and demand saying, “Give us water to drink”.
Quarrelling and blaming others, when the problem was a matter of trusting or not trusting the Lord God, who had done so many things for them before the Pharaoh let them go. They had seen what God did to the Egyptians with the plagues and in particular with the Passover when God literally spared the first born of Israelites and killed the first born of the Egyptians, including the Pharaoh’s.
In this short passage we see three things:
1. Quarrel and demand
In verse two, we see strange behaviour from the people, they quarrel, in other words, they argue and express their demand. Instead of being thankful for all the things that God had done to them, they want to have more. By arguing with Moses, they were in reality questioning God and testing him. Moses said: “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?” People have acted in a similar way at other times too. Regardless of what God does, people are not satisfied and demand more and more. The situation has not changed much since that time. Sometimes we do the same, we demand more and more. We do not have a grateful heart to all God has done to us during the years, as individuals and as a community.
2. Grumble
After they quarrelled with Moses, they grumbled against Moses, God’s chosen, who had accepted the difficult task of leading the people of Israel, first out of Egypt and then through the desert. God chooses leaders to take care of His people; and the chosen ones struggle until they are ready to accept the challenging task of leading the people but the people grumble and question the service rendered under the instructions given by God. In this case even they question Moses saying: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
God does incredible things in our lives, but we still are not satisfied. Just as we face difficulty and a new challenge we grumble and question him.
I am reminded of a good song I used to sing in youth group many years ago. The chorus starts “Oh, they grumble on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, grumble on Thursday, too!”
Grumbling is not a laughing matter to God. The Israelites were wandering through the desert for forty years, because they did not trust God enough and yet, God still provided for them. He supplied them with manna for food, their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.
It is so easy for us to shake our heads in disgust at their response to God’s provision. But we must confess, we often grumble about our circumstances, too. If we are not careful, the grumble song could become a reality for us. We might easily miss God’s blessings if we concentrate on our problems. Instead of following the bad example of the Israelites, we need to follow Paul’s teaching in I Thessalonians 5:18 “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
3. Moses goes to God
“What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” Moses seeks God’s help. He went to Him with the question. He was desperate and tired of the complaints, so he went to God. He even believes that they were planning to kill him, because they were not happy with the situation. Some years ago, I had an interesting conversation with a couple from USA, who had a situation in their church and said: “We are good at sending ministers away when we are not happy with them”. The story is the same at the time of Moses and then when the church was established in the first century and now at present.
Moses, God’s servant goes to God seeking advice and help.
4. God’s solution
As Moses seeks God’s help; God resolves the matter. When the servant of the Lord goes to God seeking help, usually God handles the matter. As long as we are ready to go to God and ask for help, He will act and solve the problem. As we read earlier, Paul said: “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe… God makes things grow” (1 Corinthians 3:5). Similarly, we don’t have the ability to resolve the issues. Only God holds the keys and has the answers. In this situation, God commanded, Moses obeyed, and the people got the water they needed.
If we read the Old Testament more carefully, we see that God’s people were not ready to follow the commandments and always questioned God and chose other Gods. They sinned and alienated themselves from God. As Paul says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). To regain the righteous status, we need to reconcile. And this reconciliation happens only with a sacrifice, which was done through Christ our Lord and Saviour.
We should be faithful people.
We should follow His commands.
We should put all our trust in Him.
We should not put God to the test.
We should do what He says.
We should not question God and listen to what He says.
Otherwise we will be like the Israelites for whom Moses said: “What am I to do with these people”.
We should be God’s people who trust and obey Him.
Amen!