Exodus 17:1-7, John 4:7-15

How much have you complained or had a good grumble this week? At a guess if you are anything like me you have had something uncomplimentary to say about the weather, muttered about all the potholes flourishing in just about every road we travel and quite possibly had a good old moan about the state of the country or the world in general.

And as a follow up question how much have you stopped and said a thank you to God when the sun shone, the daffodils planted alongside so many of our roads have been opening to display their full beauty and that our own personal world is one of peace and filled with innumerable blessings?

I may be wrong, I hope I am,  but I think there may have been more complaints, grumbles and moans than words of thanks and praise According to one report I read we are tending to become increasingly a nation where we can be quick to voice our complaints and our expectations of what we think is our due are definitely on the increase. Over the course of 2025 the poor old, battered NHS received a total of   two hundred and fifty-six thousand, seven hundred and seventy- seven written complaints which represented a six per cent increase on the previous year. Of these only twenty-five percent were fully upheld. A figure which suggests that quite possibly a number of those complaints were in fact time wasters and their complaints largely unjustified. And as perhaps an extreme example of  this type of complaint I was told this week by our amazing complaints team who have the task of responding to each and every one from the genuinely serious to the most trivial that they had just received one complaining that no vegetables had been served up with one of their  meals and sending a photo to prove it!!!

Which brings us to those complaining Israelites out in the wilderness after God had liberated them from their lives of slavery, their lives of being downtrodden and always answerable to their Egyptian owners. A life when baby boys were taken from their mothers and killed and they were subject day in and day out to backbreaking toil and harsh punishment. A life which gave them every reason to express justified complaint. But now God has seen all that suffering, all that brutality, all that complete lack of freedom and he has acted on their behalf. He has sent ten terrible plagues upon the land of Egypt the last of which saw the deaths of all Egyptian first born both human and animal. He has led them to the banks of the Red Sea where the vociferous whining arose that they were now caught in a death trap between the sea and their pursuers but of course that was not God’s intention and he protected them from the Egyptians by a blanket of cloud so that they could not be seen. Next, he parted the Red Sea so that they could safely cross on dry land and once over allowed the waters to flow back and engulf all the chariots of their pursuers.

And having brought them into freedom his care and protection did not cease. When they encountered bitter water which caused another outbreak of ‘O woe is me’ , he showed Moses how it could be made sweet and drinkable. Then oh goodness me next thing we know the Israelites had no food and all the litany of  accusatory whinging started up again and Moses and Aaron their leaders took the brunt of it and were accused of bringing them out into the wilderness to die of hunger. A hunger they had apparently never known in their lives of slavery where according to them they had eaten their fill. And in response God rained bread from heaven upon them and they feasted on manna and quails.

 And now in today’s Old Testament continuing   account of the Exodus, we find those Israelites at it again this time angrily moaning that it was water they lacked and grumbling like mad about their thirst.  And once more they vented their spleen, their frustration on poor old Moses and Aaron this time accusing them of deliberately bringing them to this place to die. And here I reckon if anyone had a justifiable cause for complaint it was those two leaders who bore the brunt of all that dissatisfaction.

And hearing all this we surely cannot help wondering where their faith was, where was their trust in the Lord? One moment they are singing ‘The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation;’ and the next, when any sort of difficulty is encountered, they are in despair and wishing themselves back in Egypt where apparently everything was just perfect!

What a contrast to that of Bishop Andrew who knowing he was imminently facing his mortal death could justifiably have said ‘why is this happening to me?’ but instead quoted in his last e-mail to his senior team the words of Paul to the Corinthians

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For our slight, momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, for we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal’.

What an example to all of us of what true unquestioned faith is. Is our trust, our faith as strong or, if we are honest, had we been in that wilderness whenever things appeared to go wrong, to go against us, started up yet another litany of complaint? Knowing how I personally complained in no uncertain terms when we kept having all that rain I suspect I would have done. Forgetting that we have goodness knows how many times been given the opportunity to drink the water that Christ alone can give us, namely the water of eternal life; the water which will always refresh our faith, renew our trust in God’s bountiful presence to lead, protect and guide us. This is the water that without a doubt Bishop Andrew drank and we are called to follow his example.  Follow his example no matter what befalls us, always aware that above the grey clouds is God’s blessing of a clear blue sky. Just as God did indeed respond to those grumbling seemingly never satisfied Israelites giving them the water Moses struck from the Rock of Horeb so we can always assuage our thirst for the love that is God alone by seeking that spiritually refreshing water that Christ our rock provides.  

We will, being human and fallible, continue to complain re the weather or the lack of vegetables on our plates I am quite sure but I pray too that we can learn to recognise that having faith, having trust in God’s fatherly and unremitting care for us his children is what is truly important as we try to live out our lives in the  manner of Jesus Christ our Lord as demonstrated by Bishop Andrew.  Lead our life pilgrimage trusting implicitly in the words   of Teresa of Avila that ‘anyone who truly loves God travels securely’.