This week’s lectionary readings play with the conceit of the rock that Moses struck to provide the newly liberated Israelites with fresh “living” water. “Strike the rock,” God says, “and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” (Exodus 17:6b-7)

“Is the LORD among us or not?” seems like a perfectly reasonable and non-rhetorical question. Some questions are mysteries to sit with and ponder, invitations to meditation, but this is the kind of question that demands an answer. It’s one that God answers when asked, even when the answer isn’t what the people expected. It’s one that Jesus answers even when he’s not asked. God wants us to know joy in “the rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1), and hope “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts” (Romans 5:5), and then to pass on this knowledge. Jesus tells the woman at the well that if she “knew the gift of God” she would have approached him asking for a drink, instead of the other way around (John 4:10). He tells her that this living water will become in those that drink it “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Then he tells her everything she’s ever done and who he is, and she tells everyone else.

She and they and we become springs fed by the source: the rock that was struck.

In uncertain times, Gwendolyn Brooks names our desire to just be told what to do to so that everything will be okay. At first the answers given seem equally simplistic. Wear your boots [read: wash your hands!] and you won’t get sick! But then at some point — I’m not sure which point; I imagine it’s subjective by design — the simplistic answers seem to acquire a simple wisdom and move from the immediate to the important, from the actionable to the true and actual.

“One Wants a Teller in a Time Like This” by Gwendolyn Brooks   –  photo by Jenn Cavanaugh

[I couldn’t help but notice that not even the famous poets and poems are secure]