The Waters of Marah and the Allegheny

The Waters of Marah and the Allegheny

A few days ago Barrack Obama spoke an inconvenient truth. And as usual, the chattering class began to cluck and scold. How dare he say the people are bitter? How elitist! As someone who’s lived my whole life in rural Pennsylvania, I can say their faux concern is touching. If by touching, we mean in a creepy molesting kind of way. There is good touching and bad touching. This is bad touching. And it distracts from the truth no one dares speak. Sen. Obama has dared to name an affliction of soul that is generations old and terminal to the heart of our political process. To best understand it, we could go to the steel mills of Pittsburgh, the coke plants of Canonsburg, the carbon plants of Elk County, or the coal mines of Indiana County. But instead, let’s go to the Sinai desert:

"Then Moses ordered Israel to set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went for three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. That is why it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’ He cried out to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree; he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet."

– Exodus 15:22-25

The writer of Exodus draws our attention to the fact that the Israelites were three days into their journey. Moses had told Pharaoh that he wanted to take the people for a three day journey into the wilderness to worship and here they are three days later not worshiping but complaining. They are faced with a challenge that is echoed in this passage several times: their bitter slavery in Egypt, the bitter herbs of the Passover, and the bitter waters of Marah. And it is echoed in the bitterness of heart that is heard in their complaints. In his epistles, Paul warns of bitterness being like a root that springs up to cause trouble. It is something we must be warned against.

I remember election night 2000. We had stayed at Democratic headquarters until the early hours of the morning as the newscasters had first called the election for Gore and then for Bush. Emotionally and physically exhausted, I stopped at the only store open on the way home. I went into our local Walmart and made my purchase. The clerk, noting my Al Gore button, asked who won. When I told her it looked like Bush, she squealed with glee, "Oh goodie! Gore was going to take away my guns." You can't make stuff like this up. My own father, who had a good union job most of his life, watched as the whole plant was outsourced. Today, he's a greeter at Walmart, unable to afford to retire and yet no better paying jobs are available. And yet, despite not being politically active during most of his life, in 2004 he became a registered voter for the first time. He registered Republican. I have both family and friends who rely on Social Security and HUD. Without these government programs they would be living in cardboard boxes, yet they echo Fox News talking points – decrying big government. They praise the GOP at the same time the Republicans are doing everything in their power to relocate them to the aforementioned cardboard residence. Rural Pennsylvania, and indeed much of the country, is full of stories like this. Like the Israelites at the waters of Marah, they've forgotten the miracles of Passover and the Red Sea. Only a few short days into the journey, they grumble and complain at Moses, as if he is their greatest problem. And before long, they will say, "Why did you bring us out to the desert, at least we had cucumbers in Egypt." Their selective memory forgets the slave-driver's whip, but remembers the nice pickles they had. Unable to see the forest because all the damn trees are in the way, they are unable to discern the reality of the situation.

While it would be easy to think of their problem as mental or intellectual – something that more information will solve, the sacred writers see the problem as spiritual. And yes, they call it bitterness. A spiritual problem that requires a spiritual solution: "Moses cried out to the Lord." In the place of prayer, we can intercede for a bitter people - disillusioned and doubting, confused in heart and soul, unable to find hope in anything but those things which offer scant hope. Like a Native American ghost dance, they wait for the buffalo to return. They wait for the mines to reopen, the steel mills to fire back up. They cling to a nostalgia for the good ole' days -- forgetting how bad those days really were. They the remember the cucumbers in Egypt. And yes, they cling to guns and God. They vote against their own best interest, frightened of gays and aliens whose agenda is to change their way of life. And they vote against the democrats who will abort their babies and steal their bibles. And yes, they're bitter in soul and mind. It's a bitterness Republicans have been all to willing to exploit, distracting the people from the real cause of their misery. Getting them to blame big government, aliens, abortions, the ACLU, and the gay agenda. Much like the Israelites blaming Moses, the one man who seeks to liberate them. And like their spiritual forefathers, they murmur – a word drawn from a primitive root meaning to get stuck somewhere permanently. It is the inconvenient truth that politicians are not allowed to speak and that the people are unwilling to see in themselves. The most frightening verse I've read in scripture is John's observation that we "deceive ourselves." His grasp of human psychology, and the implication of the truth he speaks, is truly frightening: man's capacity to lie extends even to himself. A man will lie to himself and then believe the lie he tells, engaging in what Martin Luther King called, "willful ignorance." We must understand that such a state of mind and soul is essentially a spiritual problem and therefore can only be solved with a spiritual solution. I can only do what Moses did – he cried out to the Lord. Only in prayer can a solution come that can make the bitter waters sweet. Only God, the creator of the human spirit, can heal this bitter bent in a people's heart and soul. And only our intercessions can lay the spiritual groundwork for any natural changes that may follow.

Charles Spurgeon, sometimes called the prince of preachers, preached on this passage: "As soon as we have a prayer, God has a remedy. The remedy is near at hand; but we do not perceive it till it is shown us. "The Lord showed him a tree." The tree had been growing for years on purpose to be used. God has a remedy for all our troubles before they happen to us. A delightful employment it is to notice how God forestalls himself; how long before we reach the encampment, if there be the bitter well, there is also the healing tree."

What is the tree that makes the waters sweet? Metaphorically speaking, I believe it is the tree the sage of Proverbs observes - "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life." We begin by calling out to God and laying the foundation in prayer, but ultimately the waters will be made sweet when hope is no longer deferred, and the tree of life is cast into the brackish Waters of Marah...and the Allegheny, and the Susquehanna, and the Ohio, and the Mississippi...and all the way to the sea.