When Leaders Fail Us…

We all have our stories. Times where we have put our hope in leaders only to be disappointed. Times, when we as leaders, have disappointed others.

In the current political climate of America, one does not have to look far before feeling discouraged. It’s not a new sentiment.

The upcoming lectionary texts, for the third Sunday in Lent, parallel two leaders and those who followed them. One fell short, the other exceeded expectations.

- lectionary links from the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

Make _____ Great Again

In Exodus 17 we find the Israelites wandering in the desert. At first glance, one might wonder why the Israelites complaint is portrayed so negatively. After all, water is a basic necessity for life. Living in the dry climate of the Chihuahuan Desert, I know how quickly one can get dehydrated. When we first moved here I was 8 months pregnant with our youngest. Though it felt as though I was always drinking water, I ended up in the ER dehydrated. Dehydration, beyond being uncomfortable and life threatening, causes fatigue, confusion, headaches, muscle cramps, and other complications for nomadic life. A request for water was not a ridiculous request.

The problem was the grumbling. The problem was their short memory.

Suddenly, the Israelites remember the land they were freed from. They want to make Egypt great again. For them, that meant returning to the oppressors from whom they were freed in exchange for a cool cup of water. The saddest part of all is that this follows the provision God has already made for them. In Exodus 16 their need for food had just been met, after they had made the same argument. They were remembering an Egypt with “pots of meat and all the food they could eat.” They had conveniently forgotten they were enslaved.

Psalm 95:8-9 says, “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.”

They had seen His goodness. They had tasted His provision. And yet they asked to return to what was rather than seek that which was better.

How often do I do this in my own life? Faced with a difficult situation do I automatically grumble? Do I look to those in leadership to solve my problems? Or do I remember how God has already provided through previous hardships?

The Israelites went to their exhausted, overtaxed leader and complained. They didn’t just complain! Moses felt a revolt coming and he cried out to God for help.

God answered.

He told Moses to take the staff, the one in which he had struck the Nile, the one that would stand as a reminder to the people of all they had been rescued from (the same staff that turned into a serpent, the same staff that parted the Red Sea, the staff that Moses had held as far back as the burning bush). With this staff, Moses is instructed to strike a rock and water would pour forth. The staff was a reminder of the power of God. The mana, the water, and the staff were reminders that there was no going back but only forward.

God had just provided. They need only ask.

Mistakenly they forgot who was providing. They cast blame on Moses directly to the point that he grew weary as their leader. One chapter over, his father-in-law Jethro joins Moses and those he has lead from slavery. He sees a leader overworked and mentors him towards better management of time and resources.

God provided Moses with respite in the form of good advice. He needed to only listen.

Moses was a man with limited resources, limited strength, and followers who relied heavily on him. At times they placed all of their hope in him. They came away disappointed, hungry and thirsty… yet again.

Hope/Joy/Peace Is NOT Found In Man

There are many parallels to the story found in Exodus 17 and the one found in John 4. Water is a central theme. Water that is life-giving and in constant demand. Water that satisfies and that which leaves us empty.

Jesus arrives at a well, at noon. He is alone until a Samaritan woman comes to draw water and he asks her to give him a drink.

She is surprised that he would ask her to draw water for him. Surprised that he is even there. She came to the well, at the hottest time of the day, to avoid the crowds. A Samaritan, despised by the Jews, and a woman who had had 5 husbands and now living with a man who is not her husband. By cultural standards of the day she was the marginalized, the outcast.

Every commentary on my bookshelf refers to this woman’s illicit sex life, her living in sin, and Christ calling her out on it.

If this were true why doesn’t Christ say “Go and sin no more,” as he does in John 5:14 and 8:11?

Samaritans followed the Torah as did the Jews. This means that their rules regarding marriage were the same. While I am lacking in a fluent understanding of marriage customs of the time, my understanding comes from those same commentaries on my bookshelf as well as stories such as Genesis 28. Only a man could divorce his wife. If the husband were to die the wife would be cared for by her son. If there is no male son she would marry her brother-in-law, if he died without leaving her a son (as shown in Genesis 28) she would then marry the next brother, and so on. Either this woman had been divorced multiple times or widowed without a son. In a patriarchal society, she was in survival mode (not unlike Ruth).

Christ isn’t calling out her sin. He is saying “I know you.”

He is speaking to her figuratively about water and her response shows her understanding to be literal. So he replies with, “I know who you are and what you’ve been through. I know what you really need and it’s me.”

Suddenly, a woman who comes to the well at midday to avoid others, a woman who has been cast aside is shown acceptance and runs into town (those same people she was avoiding) to announce that the Messiah was sitting at their well! She doesn’t repent, she proclaims this man KNOWS ME, this man knows everything I have ever done and accepts me, come and meet him!

The women at the well had been rejected by her community, by the men in her life, and was at her lowest. Christ came to her and said I know what you need you don’t even have to ask. Her leaders had failed her and he was standing before her saying I won’t disappoint or leave you.

Leaders Fail, Christ Does Not

When the Israelites looked to Moses to meet their needs they grumbled and complained. They saw a fail in leadership. An inability to meet their basic survival needs. They wanted a leader to anticipate the basics and they put their faith in a man when their eyes should have been on the one supplying bread from heaven. When the Samaritan woman met Christ at the well, at her lowest point, he knew her true need. He knew her and offered her fulfillment in him.

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