In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today, we turn to the fourth of our five themes in the Kairos Water Campaign. So far we have explored water as the gift of life, water as a sign of hospitality and water as a sign of miracles all in relation to the campaign to prevent the privatization of water. This morning we are going to explore water as a sign of faithfulness by looking at our passage from the book of Exodus chapter 17.

As we have progressed through our campaign, I have become much more cognizant of how I use water and any news report that deals with the issue of water grabs my attention.
On Friday, there was a report on CBC news that indicated that water shortages in Washington State would continue to grow more acute in the future. It seems that the water in the mountains is melting more quickly than usual as a result of global warming. This leaves the people in the late summer months with not enough water. They have now experienced six years of water shortage.

British Columbia because it is further north is not experiencing the same problems. As a result the Americans are taking a greater interest in Canadian water and hope to renegotiate the Columbia River Treaty which was signed by Canada and the United States in 1964. Water, who has it and who does not is becoming a significant issue on the international stage. It seemed to sneak up on us but it is a problem that is no longer confined to the supply of water in the Third World. It is now having an impact on us as well.

With every passing day, our demand for fresh water outstrips its availability and thousands more people are put at risk. And if present consumption continues, two out of every three persons on Earth will live in water stressed conditions by 2025. Right now, at least 1 billion people (women) must walk three hours or more to obtain drinking water. In 19 years two thirds of the world’s population may be doing this and possibly living in conditions like those found in our reading from Exodus chapter 17.

“They camped at Rephidim, but there was not water to drink.”
“But the people were thirsty for water there,”
“They said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?’
The Israelites are a people on the way moving towards a promise, but the promise is not enough to satisfy their cravings for the gift of life: water. Because of their thirst, they begin to quarrel with Moses. Moses in turn cries out to the Lord who responds not with advice on how to deal with the people’s complaints but with directions on how to find water.

Taking along some elders as witnesses, Moses is to take his trusty staff and strike the rock and Horeb and water will come out of it for the people to drink. So following the Lord’s instructions Moses strikes the rock, water flows and the people’s thirst is relieved. God is faithful to his people in time of hardship, and the water is a sign of that faithfulness. Now I should just end right here but the question in v.7 leaves me puzzled.
Is the Lord among us or not?

It seems a strange question when we consider what the Israelites have experienced thus far in simply getting out of Egypt. The story begins with Moses and his famous encounter with the burning bush. God then makes himself know through a series of events. A stick turns into a snake in the Egyptian court. Ten plagues devastate the country. The Red Sea divides so the people have an escape route. Once in the wilderness the people are fed with manna from heaven and water from a rock.

All of these divine experiences culminate in the revelation to the people at Mt. Sinai. God personally comes down, descending on the mountain in fire and speaking to the people in the divine voice. And finally in Exodus 34 we have Moses seeing the actual form of God on Mt. Sinai. For the exodus generation, God is depicted as a known fact. A cloud leads them by day and a pillar of fire by night for forty years. God is real and close.
And yet after all of that we have the question, Is the Lord among us or not?

Man, if we had only half of those experiences I am sure the question would not even cross our minds. If we had even the experience of a cloud by day and fire by night I am sure the question would not even be considered. The question seems to belong more appropriately to our time, to our context.

For it was in the twentieth century after two world wars, the Holocaust, science and technology that we as a society have come to feel the disappearance of God so consciously and so intensely. Now I don’t simply mean that there are more atheists and agnostics around, though it seems there are. What I mean is that we can believe deeply in God and still, like Isaiah say, “You are a hidden God”
Certainly, we may not want to agree that God is hidden or has disappeared for we believe that we have experienced God but what I am talking about is public appearances. And we can acknowledge that the sense of awe, wonder and even meaning has disappeared or at least diminished dramatically. For example, as I have said before water, the gift of life, the sign of faithfulness is no longer seen as sacred. It is becoming simply a commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder.

Now this societal feeling or sense of God’s hiddeness is unique to our age but there is scriptural evidence for it. The Old Testament scholar, Richard Friedman writes that the Bible begins with God actively and visibly involved. Gradually through the course of the Old Testament after the book of Exodus God appears less and less to humans in a public way, miracles, angels and other signs of divine presence become rarer and finally cease. Until finally in the end God is hidden.

We find this same theme in the Gospels. They begin with miracles galore but in the crucifixion we have Christ’s words, why have you forsaken me? God is hidden 
You perhaps find this idea shocking.

But it speaks to our developing relationship with God. Think in terms of your own role as a parent. When the children are small, you are constantly present providing for their needs, simply spending time with them. However, as the children grow and mature our responsibilities change this is true but we find ourselves stepping more into the background as our children mature into adulthood. This doesn’t mean that our children will never need us again or don’t love us but the dynamics of the relationship has changed.
We move from the physical to persuasion in the hope of bringing about change. God, our divine parent is allowing us to grow up, to mature and take more responsibility both for ourselves and for creation itself.

Is the Lord among us or not? Of course but often in ways that we do not perceive because we continue to look for God in fire and smoke and the starry heavens above. God is faithful and water is a sign of that faithfulness. But that faithfulness cuts both ways. In the waters of baptism, we take vows or our parents took vows on our behalf. And with those vows come responsibility. The responsibility to mature in our relationship with God, to grow to be whole human beings who live lives that are marked by freedom, compassion, peace and love both for our neighbour and for creation.

More specifically, the solutions to our water situation is primarily our responsibility. What attitude we take towards water and subsequently our use of it is up to us. Whether we share it justly is up to us. The hidden God calls us as his people, seeks to persuade us to take responsibility in this world come of age. 
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.