CELC The Third Sunday in Lent

The Third Sunday in Lent – February 27, 2005

Psalm 95

Did you catch that rather challenging statement that came in the middle of Psalm 95 this morning as we read it? The opening words of verse 8 are: “Harden not your hearts, as your forebears did in the wilderness…”

That is a very powerful statement…”Harden not your hearts…”

For Israel, it was a reality. They did harden their hearts. They were in the wilderness and they camped at Rephidim. The folks begin to argue and quarrel with Moses because there was no water to drink. You might say they are a ‘hot’ bunch. Their lack of faith is showing. They think Moses and God have done them a bad deed leading them into this dry place, and now they were afraid they would die. High anxiety ensues and the folks begin to yell at Moses.

You know the rest of the story; it is the first lesson for this morning. Water is provided and Moses calls the place Massah and Meribah, because those words mean “to quarrel” and to “test or find fault.” Certainly the people of Israel had found fault with Moses and God, even if it was unnecessary.

The hearts of the people of Israel are set against God and Moses and the Psalmist reminds us that God said of those who let their hearts wander, “They shall not enter into my rest.” The Promised Land was not for the whiners and complainers. Have faith, says the Psalmist.

How about us? Have we progressed from the wilderness? Or do we still want to quarrel with and test God?

It is certain that we still want to test the leaders. Pastor Paul Walters and I have presented more than 30 workshops on leadership in congregations on behalf of our Bishop.

As we present the workshops we do an exercise where we have the folks break into smaller groups of three persons each. These groups of three role play what it means to be a leader. One person is the leader, another the complainer and the third observes what happens.

When we thought up three “complaints” that could be used so that all three people get to be the leader, the complainer and the observer we came up with these three complaints: First, “They never sing the hymns I like.” The second, “No one seems to know how to set the thermostat. I go to worship and either we are freezing or sweating. Can’t anyone get it right?” Third, “Who picked that terrible color they painted the fellowship hall? Hasn’t anyone got good taste around here?”

Now, you can laugh. But, shortly after we began doing this a member of one of the churches where we presented a workshop came up to us and said: “You talked to our pastor before you came here and he told you about us, didn’t he? He told you we have problems about hymns, the heat and the color of the walls in a classroom.”

Actually, the pastor had not talked to us, nor did we know. It is a matter of not getting out of the wilderness. Hearts everywhere are still being hardened and people are still quarreling and finding fault. It may not be about water, but the process remains. Not much has changed.

Still being in the wilderness it seems we can take one of two paths. The first path is to decide to fix everything. By whatever means you stifle any quarreling and fault finding, usually putting restrictions on others that alienate them rather than help them. So, you end up with the quarreling and the fault finding still happening, it just goes underground and manifests itself in general discontent in the congregation.

The other path is to open our lives to God. This path is a path of listening to God, hearing what God has done for us in the cross of Jesus Christ. You listen and know God’s love for you. This is not a path of hardening hearts, but is a path of trust and faith in God acting for us. The line which precedes “Harden not your hearts” in Psalm 95 is this: “Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!” And the voice the Psalmist speaks of is the voice of God.

Lent is an ideal time to quiet our hearts and open ourselves to listening more to God. Or are you off on your own path?

Listening carefully you can hear again the truth of God. St. Paul shares it with us this morning: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Paul speaks God’s Word to us. On the cross of Christ God died for us, forgiving us all our sin and transforming us. The cross is God’s love for you.

You can understand now why the Psalmist implores us, “Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.” Ah, yes, come before God singing and praising the One who dies that we may be forgiven and our lives may be transformed. When faith grasps that gift of love, then you just have to sing, to shout out in praise of God.

God speaks to us through the great and Good Shepherd, Jesus our Lord. Remember that Jesus tells us in the gospel of John that his sheep know his voice. Jesus calls us to loving God and one another, not to the hardening of our hearts as they did at Massah and Meribah.

Lent is about less being more. In having, doing, being less we have, do and are more. Perhaps the challenge for us today is to less hardening of our hearts and more of God’s love. Perhaps the challenge for us today is less of us and more listening to God. Perhaps the challenge for us today is to quarrel less and sing to the Lord more? Which path shall we take? Amen.

Pastor Robert F. Holley