Interrupted by God - Mid Week Lenten Worship
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
March 11, 2026
Back in time Moses and the people were liberated from
enslavement under Pharaoh in Egypt, led through the Red Sea even though they
were being chased by an army and brought to dance with Miriam and her
tambourine on the far shore of the sea on the way to the land God had promised.
Come let us sing to the Lord! We’ll be singing that a little later.
But if you’ve ever made a road trip to an exciting place
that seems to take longer than you would like, you know “aren’t we there yet?”
When we’d travel with our girls to Florida in the car from PA, right about
South Carolina the complaining would start. And once you get really grumpy,
then everything feels awful. Once our younger daughter was sick and tired of
the car seat and kept spitting out her pacifier, testing all our patience as
only an exasperated toddler can, finishing with a diaper blowout and no rest
area in sight.
Well, after dancing on the way to their destination, the
people of Israel start the wrestle with the idea that Moses is leading them not
to the land we already know, but a place we cannot see. They need to be led by
God in trust. Psalm 95 recalls that “Come let us sing to the Lord” was followed
by “let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation!” What’s was that all
about? The people of Israel knew physical wilderness and also spiritual
wilderness on the way more than once. Once, they didn’t have any water and they
complained. God provided water but then they complained about the taste. They
were given food, but it was boring so they wailed, “we have no food and we hate
this miserable food!” But then they reached their “South Carolina” moment.
Thirsty again and so angry they are threatening to stone
Moses in their dispute. Seeing their trust level is zero and not wanting them
to die, God tells Moses to go a little way past them and strike a rock with his
staff, the same staff that parted the Red Sea. The places are named Meribah
which means “dispute” and Massah which means “testing.” This time, God makes
water gush from one of the very rocks that could have killed Moses. That rock
becomes the rock of salvation, saving their lives in a parched place. Then people
remembered “this is our God and we are the people of God’s pasture and the
sheep of God’s hand.” God IS here for us.
But now coming back to our psalm, we get the second part
which we do not hear very often, but we probably should. The turning point is
that after all this praise of God and the reasons why, just as the people in
another day now bow to God, God speaks back.
Imagine it- in the middle of worship, suddenly we heard a
voice not our own saying “Oh that you would listen to the voice of God.”
Why is this here? Because the truth is that long after
the rock of salvation, people find other reasons to dispute and mistrust and
test each other and God. People who are grumbling and confused made life so
much harder. Even though we are provided for in ordinary and miraculous ways,
we can still manage to become bewildered and even turn away from God. If the
front part of the psalm is praise and its reasons, the back part is summons by
God and its reasons. The best translation of “Oh that you would listen” might
be “Oh that you would recognize God’s activity today.”
Our hearts can be hardened by this world. We can become
jaded. Sometimes we say the words and go through the motions, but they just
flow on by. Maybe we cannot focus, so on autopilot we are working on the
grocery list in our head. Unintentionally our praise then is not really doing
much for us or God. Maybe we need a recall and a re-set to connect.
Other times we are indeed struggling. Doubts and
anxieties are real and fierce. We too wonder “Are you here, God?” “Are you
really among us?” Sometimes God as our Maker and Protector feels distant. Just
because we are physically here does not mean we have entered a God space in our
hearts and minds. It’s one of the reasons it helps to remember that Jesus knew
well the feeling of wilderness where he was too only being sustained by words
of Scripture. Whether ours is a wilderness of trials or apathy or disillusionment,
we all sometimes need help to trust.
The generation in the wilderness in the Hebrew Scripture
turned away so often that God finally decided they just needed to wander. God
didn’t desire that but let them grumble and murmur until another day. They didn’t know rest until another day when God’s
people WERE willing to listen and to trust and to follow. I wonder if at some
point the words of the stories and prayers finally sank in and hearts softened again
to the presence of God. Maybe us too.
I know this can sound like a platitude or an empty
exhortation. So I want to lead us back to praise grounded in our recognition of
God’s activity. It will look like different things. Rousing us from resignation
or lethargy, calming our troubled souls.
And “Oh, that you would pause the soundtrack of exasperation” long enough to
experience our holy and life giving God.
This week’s news of dispute and testing and confusion
makes my heart sad, and yet at the same time, while one desert region is in
turmoil, another is in bloom. Death Valley, the driest and hottest part of the
United States is experiencing the most flowers in bloom in over a decade. After
a decade of hot and dry wilderness that is historically so profound the Valley
is called “Death” there is life abundant. Don’t tell me that is not God. It’s
like a rock broke open with salvation. And it had nothing to do with us and
everything to do with God.
A record amount of precipitation interrupted the pattern
and not only watered the seeds, it also washed off their husks so they can
sprout stupendously and grow toward the light. And maybe this is us- those who need the husks
of life washed off to restore for life and help us grow toward the light. While
we work and pray for devastations to cease, we need to be renewed and restored
by returning to the God who wants us to hold on in faith and not dispute or
despair. Sometimes it takes God interrupting to help us. At its best,
worshipping God does that.
In a picture from Death Valley in the midst of a sea of
pink wildflowers there is one renegade sunflower. I love that random
interruption. It reminds me that God is, and that in God’s hands rest
everything from the depths of the sea and darkest valleys to the heights of the
mountains and the greatest wonders. God’s heart longs for ours to recall where
God has been, look for where God is, and trust a bigger vision than the small
view that doubt and fear can create when disputes test us in ways beyond our
capacity. So let us come before God’s presence with thanksgiving, remembering the
promise of God’s care forevermore here to give our hearts what we need to keep
walking in trust.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2026 All rights reserved. May
not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
Sermon Text: Psalm 95
A Call
to Worship and Obedience
1 O come, let us sing to
the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise
to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise
to him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is
a great God
and a great King above all
gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the
mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and the dry land, which
his hands have formed.
6 O come, let us worship and
bow down;
let us kneel before
the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of
his pasture
and the sheep of his hand.
O that today you would
listen to his voice!
8 Do not harden your hearts, as at
Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in
the wilderness,
9 when your ancestors tested me
and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a
people whose hearts go astray,
and they do not regard my
ways.”
11 Therefore in my anger I swore,
“They shall not enter my
rest.”
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