The Waters of Meribah (Numbers 20:1-13)
You don't see water gushing from a rock every day. At least not in the desert. But God had been supplying a steady diet of rock water for the Israelites along the way. Suddenly, however, we come upon this narrative in the middle of the book of Numbers and everything changes. God tells Moses where to find water, Moses taps a rock, and suddenly all bets are off. Moses, and all of his cohorts including his sister and brother, are expelled from leadership and told that they will never step foot inside the Promised land because of their disbelief.
What happened?
Actually, we can't forget that the Jewish people had these scriptures long before Christians, and even through 2000 years of Christian history and interpretation, there is a wide variation of thought and understanding about what happened at Meribah.
Some point out that Moses did not follow God's commands specifically. Others see here a microcosm of the people as a whole (but it's the leaders who must be bear the brunt when the community fails). Others see this story as an example of leadership gone awry, or burned out, or used up (time for another leader!). And still others notice that Moses fell back into the "habit" of tapping rocks for water, when God had asked him to take a different approach.
Regardless, these lessons are still with us today. Leadership is important. Leaders do need to change from time to time. Communities of faith can be faithless. And we can never forget that God always wants to do a new thing.
Leadership is very important. Without a leader everyone wants to run things the way they want. Which turns into complete chaos. And then we know what happens. No order, total disorder, nobody knows what to do and eventually down comes the establishment. (in some cases that's not so bad). In most situations no leader equals no establishment.
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