Is God Among Us Or Not?

Texts: Exodus 17:1-7 | Matthew 21:23-32

Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, made an observation that has never left me. She said that our greatest problem is not doubt, or sin, or suffering. Our greatest problem is this: we live our lives as though God is absent.

Not that we deny God. But we live — practically, in the way we move through the realities of life — as though God is simply not in the room.

Both of our texts this week are about that problem.

The Israelites in the wilderness had seen more of God's direct action than most of us will ever experience. They witnessed the plagues. They walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. They were fed with manna and quail in the wilderness. The evidence of God's faithfulness was overwhelming.

And yet at Rephidim, there is no water — and their world collapses. "Why did you bring us out of Egypt? To kill us with thirst?"

Moses doesn't address the need. He says, essentially, "How dare you?" When the confrontation escalates, he doesn't pray for the people — he prays for himself: "They are almost ready to stone me." And yet God moves to meet the actual need.

God tells Moses to take the staff — the instrument of every demonstration of divine power Israel has already witnessed — and go to the rock at Horeb. "I will be standing there in front of you."

Horeb. That name should stop us.

Horeb is where Moses first met God at the burning bush. When Moses asked for a sign that God was really sending him, God gave an uncomfortable answer: "This shall be the sign: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain."

The sign would come after. Not before Moses acted. Moses had to act first, and the sign would be waiting on the other side of action.

And now here he is. At Horeb. With the people. God standing before him at the place where it all started.

Karen Armstrong, in her work on faith, puts it plainly: we can only know God once we act. The sign reveals itself in the acting, not before.

Water comes from stone. And the place is named Massah — testing — and Meribah — quarreling — because of the question Israel dared to ask: "Is the Lord among us or not?"

Scripture preserves the question. It is an honest record of what happens when we are so consumed by our immediate crisis that we lose sight of the larger reality in which it is held. God's presence cannot be stockpiled. It must be inhabited as an ongoing reality. We tend to live as though God is absent — missing the One who is standing right in front of us.

The gospel lesson presents the same problem in a different century.

The chief priests and elders approach Jesus in the temple: "By what authority are you doing these things?" These things refers to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple, the healings, the cheers. They are not asking for information. It is a trap.

Jesus exposes them with a counter-question about John the Baptist. Was his baptism from heaven or from human authority? They cannot say heaven without explaining why they rejected him. They cannot say human without losing the crowd. So they plead ignorance: "We do not know." Not humility. Strategic refusal to commit.

Then he tells a parable. In the first century's shame and honor culture, a father asks two sons to work in his vineyard. The first says no — publicly shaming the father. The second says yes, sir — publicly honoring him. Then the first son changes his mind and goes. The second never acts.

The Greek word for the first son's change of mind is metanoeō — repent — which means to change direction. A reorientation toward what is actually real.

Jesus forces the verdict: which son did the father's will? The moment the leaders answer, they have condemned themselves. The tax collectors and prostitutes — those who said no to everything the religious establishment valued — are entering the kingdom ahead of you. Because they turned. Because they acted. And in acting, they are inhabiting the dream of God.

Armstrong again: we can only know God once we act.

Matthew's gospel begins with Emmanuel — God with us — and ends not with an ascension but with a promise: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." The question the chief priests refused to engage is the Emmanuel question: What does it mean that God is actually, presently here?

The same question Israel asked at Meribah. The same question Teresa of Avila named as our fundamental challenge.

God's answer to Moses was not a lecture on faith. It was presence. "I will be standing before you." In the place where you are. Standing before Moses in the very call where it all started.

The invitation is the same for us. Not that we achieve some permanent spiritual clarity. But that we practice the daily work of turning — and discover that what we most need has been standing with us all along.

We are always being invited to turn.

And God is always already there.