Testing God
Scripture Readings: Exodus 17:1-7
Matthew 21:23-32
The congregation at Iglesia Monte de Sion was ecstatic as people lined up to share their testimonios.
“Even when Pharaoh sends his forces,” José proclaimed, “God will always make a way for God’s people.” He continued, “God delivered us from Egypt and brought us to the Promised Land.” The congregation responded with a resounding “amen” as José evoked Deuteronomy 8:4 noting that, “We never lacked food, water, or clothes on our journey.”
If you had wandered into this small Pentecostal congregation in central California that day, you might have assumed José was simply retelling the familiar story of Exodus: the Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt, passing through the waters, wandering through the wilderness, and journeying toward the Promised Land.
But José wasn't simply retelling an ancient story—he was telling his own story.
For José—and for others in this migrant congregation—the story of Exodus had become a way of narrating their own lives. When José spoke of “deliverance from Egypt,” he was talking not only about his spiritual redemption from sin through faith in Jesus, but also to his migration journey from Honduras to California.
And when he spoke of “Pharaoh sending his forces,” he wasn't simply referring to spiritual forces of darkness. He was making a drawing a indirect connection between Pharaoh and President Trump, and between Pharaoh's army and U.S. Border Patrol agents. And everyone in the congregation knew exactly what he meant. (1)
For them, Exodus wasn't simply something God had done thousands of years ago.
Exodus was a story God was still writing.
Which is why I think stores like today's story from Exodus is Good News to us today, because we still face situations like the ones in this ancient story.
It is Good News to those of us who feel we are left wandering in the desert…
to those of us seeking the comfort of a land of milk and honey…
to those of us thirsty for the waters of mercy and righteousness to flow like a mighty stream.
This Good News comes in the form of both an affirmation and a challenge.
In last week’s story, the people were hungry. They complained and they doubted, and they ask why God would lead them here to die.
God provided manna. God fed them. And and taught the people to gather and share that abundance equitably.
This week, the people are thirsty.
And once again, they complain. Once again, they doubt. Once again, they ask Moses: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”
But this time, their desperation is escalating. Moses fears the people may become violent, and he cries out: “Why do you test the LORD?”
The Hebrew verb here is נָסָה (nasah)—to test, try, or prove.
This isn't the first time that word appears in Exodus. Earlier, God tested Israel in the wilderness.
But here, the direction has been reversed: Israel is testing God, and we seem to learn that the people are not to test God.
The issue comes into focus in the question with the question that ends this scene: “Is the LORD among us or not?”
Now, we should be careful here. Because asking that question is not itself the problem.
Scripture is filled with faithful people asking God hard questions. And the Israelites have good reason to be asking questions.
They are in the middle of a wilderness without the most basic thing human beings need to survive.
So the Good News of this story is not just get over it and stop complaining and trust God.
Their thirst matters to God. That is why God makes water come from a rock.
That's the affirmation. Now here is the challenge.
Theologian Terence Fretheim argues that simply asking the question—“Is the LORD among us or not?”—is not, by itself, testing God.
Testing God means, as Fretheim puts it, “putting God to the proof.” It is trying to force God’s hand—to establish some condition God must meet before we will trust that God is really there.
Israel essentially says: If God is really with us, then God must prove it by doing this.
We might test God in our own ways.
If God is with me, I’ll get an A on this exam.
If God is with us, the election will go the way I want it to.
If God is with us, the cancer won’t come back.
And when the outcome is different from what we demanded, we conclude that perhaps God wasn't there after all.
To test God is to make our faith contingent upon the demonstration we have demanded. It is, as Fretheim says, an attempt to turn faith into sight.
But there is a real tension here, between faith and evidence.
And as Fretheim writes, “This tension is exacerbated by the truth that the Holy One does provide demonstrations, signs, and other tangible proof of presence, intervening care, and saving acts.”
This is the God who delivered them from Egypt.
The God who parted the sea.
The God who provided manna in the wilderness.
They have seen God provide before.
So how do you trust the God who parted the sea when you're staring at an empty water jug?
That spiritual tension between belived out of faith and becuase of evidence is at the very heart of this story. That is both the affirmation and the challenge.
Their trust has been built through experiences of God's saving power. But, as Fretheim warns, remembering what God has done can slowly become an expectation that God must always act the way we want God to act.
We try to make God the fulfiller of our desires, like a gumball machine that dispenses a piece of candy when we put in our 25 cents worth of prayer.
But this marks the differnce between faith and entitlement.
It is by faith that we remember who God has been and trust in who God is, even when we cannot yet see what God is doing. Entitelemnt make sus to belive that God is to blame when bad things happen, and the inverse (which is perhaps the more dangerous version), that every positive thing is a prize one by the strength of your faith.
That brings us to our Gospel reading.
Matthew's Gospel is filled with people asking Jesus questions.
The disciples ask who is greatest and how often they must forgive. Religious leaders ask questions about signs, taxes, resurrection, and the commandments—often hoping to trap him.
And now the chief priests and elders ask: “By what authority are you doing these things?”
Here we need to zoom out to see what they are talking about.
It is middle of the Passover. Jesus is in Jerusalem for the holiday, and by now he has already made quiet a rucous.
Jesus has ridden into Jerusalem as crowds waved palms and shouted “Hosanna! Save Us!”
He has entered the Temple and overturned the tables of those taking advantage of the poor.
He has performed healings in the Temple. Some children are so excited to have witnessed this that they began running around the temple singing at the top of their lungs—"Hosanna! to the Son of David!"
Now imagine if some kids started running around this sanctuary yelling! I personally would love it, at least for at the beginning. Imagining your own reaction might help you understand why the priest were so annoyed.
It's now the next day, and Jesus has again returned to the Temple to teach. To the religious leaders, his presence is more than disruptive—it is an occupation.
This scene reminded me this week of the story out of Minnesota. On Wednesday, demonstrators with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee gathered at the State Capitol Tuesday to unveil the massive "MN Stolen Neighbors" quilt. More than 150 people labored over six months to sew together over 11,000 quilt squares – each square representing a Minnesota immigrant taken by ICE from the start of the second Trump term to the end of Operation Metro Surge.
Leaders explained that the blanket was created to spotlight ongoing local detentions and to pressure Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to sign an executive order restricting 287 G agreements, between sheriff departments from collaborating with federal immigration officers, just like the one we have here in Laramie County.
To some this felt like an occuption. To others it was a act of faithful witness.
Back in Jerusalem, the religious leaders confront Jesus: “Who gave you permission to do all of this?”
Their question is self-serving, and so we might assume that they are only protecting their own authority. However, there is also something more complicated at foot.
Jerusalem is occupied by the Roman Empire. The authority of the priests and scribes in the Temple is provisional, dependent on maintaining a careful alliance with the occupying force.
The Passover is always a rowdy time, for it celebrates God liberating the Israelites liberation from Egyptian slavery. And now crowds of people are celebrating Jesus using royal, messianic language: “Son of David.”
This language could be seen as an threat to the Emporers own "divine authority." Such revolutionary hope could be dangerous for people living under Roman occupation.
Jesus also seems aware of the political dynamics at play—they've put him into a sticky situation—and so he answers their question with one of his own.
He asks, “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
Before answering Jesus, the leaders huddle together to discuss their answer. With one question, Jesus has put them into their own sticky situation.
They worry, "If we say it came from heaven, Jesus will ask why we didn't believe him."
But if we say it was merely human, the crowd might turn against us—for the people considered John a prophet.
Notice that the priests and scribes do not ask what is true, rather they are searching for an answer that will protect them and their status quo.
Finally they tell Jesus: “We don't know.”
The challenge has failed, but Jesus is not done teaching. So he tells them a story about a father, his two sons, and a vineyard.
The imagery is familiar: Scripture is filled with stories of rival brothers, and the vineyard itself is an ancient symbol for Israel.
By evoking such rich imagery, Jesus is asking these leaders to locate themselves within the story of God's people.
The father asks both sons to work in the vineyard.
One says, “No.” But later he changes his mind and goes.
The other says, “Yes.” But he never shows up.
And so Jesus asks: “Which of the two did the will of his father?"
His questions forces his listeners, including us, to ask ourselves which one are we?
Do our words and our actions match?
Jesus' authority is revealed not merely by what he says about himself, but by the fruit his life produces.
And so let's look at what his authority produces.
The sick are healed.
The hopeless are filled with hope.
The excluded are welcomed to the table.
Those oppressed are set free!
As one scholar puts it, “If religious practices and scriptural interpretation do not serve to heal and restore people to right relationship with one another, Jesus abandons them.”
And perhaps we should be willing to ask similar questions of the religious practices and scriptural interpretations of our own day. We might even ask them of the laws and institutions that govern our common life—for in our strange mix of a post-religious and hyper-religious culture, these are what we consider sacred and beyond question.
They leave us with our own affirmation and challenge
The affirmation is this—God is among us.
God hears the cries of people who are thirsty.
God provides manna in the wilderness and water from the rock.
God meets people the world labels “sinners” and welcomes them to the table.
God is still making a way out of no way.
But the challenge remains. We do not get to determine what that way must look like.
We cannot rely on things to go how we want them to as proof of God's presence.
And we cannot simply say “Yes, Lord” while refusing to do what God asks us to do.
We must ask ourselves, do our words and my actions match?
Are we acting as peacemakers?
Are we serving those who are thirsty, hungry, imprisoned, excluded or afraid?
Are we loving our neighbors as myself?
The truth is that God is among us. The challenge is to live like it matters.
(1) - "Exodus Testimonios: Migrant Pentecostal Spirituality in the U.S./Mexico Borderlands" in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America, accessed September 26, 2026. https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/exodus-testimonios/.
Sermon preached by Rev. Delaney Piper on 9/27/26.
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