When you step back and think about it, can you believe what we have just done? We have jut read words written probably about 2500 years go about a people who were traveling through the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula over 3000 years ago. And now, we are going to say how what happened to them then may be relevant to us now.
Yet, this is what we believe – that God can speak a present Word to us through these ancient words. And this is why we come back again and again, week by week, to read, listen to, receive and reflect on God’s Word together. Is it any surprise that there are members of our family or good friends or acquaintances at work or school who are surprised that we believe and do this?
And yet, here we are. So what can this account written 2500 years ago about a bunch of escaped slaves on the run 3000 years ago have to say to us living here in the Lehigh Valley in 2024?
Let us look again at the people in Exodus 16. These Israelites are not a band of warriors; they did not fight their way to escape by armed insurrection. They are a band of slaves who simply ran, first with the Pharaoh’s permission, and then when he changed his mind and sent soldiers and chariots after them, protected by a fast-closing sea.
Next, consider their situation. They have left the only home they knew. They are in a wilderness, a strange and intimidating place they have never been before. They have no home, no safe place. There is no hope of returning to where they come from and they have no idea where they will end up
And now, they are hungry, even starving. Their very survival seems at stake so it is no wonder that they complain to Moses and Aaron. It is no wonder that they cry out to God. Even Egypt looks better at this point: they may have been slaves but amidst the cruelty and oppression they at least had a daily ration of food, they argue.
3000 years later, there are still people on the move fleeing cruel authoritarian regimes. 3000 years later there are still people who have lost their homes, whether due to war, or earthquake, or storm, and do not know how they will rebuild or where they will live. 3000 years later there are still people who are hungry and don’t know where their next meal will come from. Even in relatively wealthy areas like the Lehigh Valley, there are still people who are hungry.
That is why it is so important that we, as individuals and as a congregation, try to support refugees and the mission workers who serve them through Church World Service and our Presbyterian denomination. That is why it is vital that support feeding hungry people, whether clients of the Lehigh Conference of Churches, students at Sheridan Elementary, or villagers in Honduras or Malawi. And that is why it is not enough to give charity, and why we are also called to work for justice so that all might have the basic essentials of life.
But here is the thing about the Bible: it does not just give us lessons, instructions, and examples where we stay on the outside and look at the stories and texts from a distance as would-be helpers. No, the Bible invites us to step inside these narratives, to find ourselves standing with these hungry Israelites in that wilderness.
Indeed, there are people here, who at this moment, or at one point or another, have experienced food insecurity. But the wilderness is not limited to those who have fled oppression or lost homes or go to bed hungry. No, we can find ourselves in a wilderness any time we are in a new and unsettled situation; any time when the present seems dark and the future uncertain and even threatening; any time we cry out because we are anxious or lost or scared.
With that in mind, let us look back to Exodus 16. What happens when the Israelites cry out? God hears their cry and provides. Moses may have complained about the people’s complaining to him, but God does not. Instead, God speaks to Moses and tells him: “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’” (v. 12)
The meat we understand. Quail is a bird that often can be found on the ground and killed for food, although the arrival of quail in that wilderness is surprising. But the bread in the mornings is an even more astonishing development. This is food unlike any that the Israelites have seen before. The word they give to describe the white substance that appears on the ground as the morning dew dries is “manna.” In Hebrew, “manna” translates as “What is it?”
“What is it?” Scientists have various theories about what this manna is, including that it may be secretions from tamarisk trees or insects that can still be found in the Middle East. But laying aside those scientific speculations abut manna, let us return to the question the people ask, “What is it?” What indeed is this manna?
It is a gift from God, a mysterious, eye-popping gift. The people have done nothing to grow or cultivate it. They have done nothing to earn or qualify for it. And yet it is there, free for the taking.
As a gift from God, you might call it a miracle. But as far as miracles go, this one is pretty unimpressive. Small white stuff on the ground. It doesn’t exactly make for a grand feast. But it comes daily, morning after morning. So that all can be fed – not just Moses and his advisors, not just the rich and powerful. All. And, anyone who wants to accumulate more for themselves will have another surprise: it rots overnight. No one will enjoy a surplus at others’ expense. There is no incentive for hoarding. Heck, under these conditions, you might as well share what you have. In God’s economy, there is something for all. Day by day.
What is it? What is manna in our lives? How does God provide for us in the wilderness of our lives? I was reflecting on those questions in my own life this week. And I was thinking about those I have walked bedside in my ministry. More than any commentary on my bookshelf, these people have been my greatest teachers about God’s gift of daily bread in the wilderness.
I remember in the first year of my ministry going to visit David, a Deacon in that congregation. He was very much in a wilderness. His 20 year-old son had just been hospitalized after what we used to call a “breakdown.” The diagnosis was schizophrenia. David knew that the lives of his son and their family would never be the same, because David knew more than most about schizophrenia. He had grown up with two uncles who battled this mental illness. Talk about cruel life lotteries.
I think he could tell that this minister fresh out of seminary had no idea what to say to him. He was an engineer, a man of relatively few words himself, and a man who certainly did not wear his faith on his sleeves. But his words to me then are words that I have never forgotten: “I have never felt cut off from God’s love. That is what has kept me going, and keeps me going through these struggles.” And then he added, “and it is what helps me appreciate other people’s struggles.”
He knew about manna. He had tasted daily bread, the gift from God that keeps us going. Sometimes God acts dramatically, such as with miraculous cures. But more often, the daily bread comes like that Exodus manna, simple and plain. Not very impressive but sufficient. Often, God has a plan we never saw coming.
Daily bread – it can be more like turnips than turkey. I remember a man in another congregation talking about the time when he was teaching as a young man in a Christian school. He got paid once a month. His wife did not work since they had a 15 month-old child, and his family lived paycheck to paycheck. It was long before computers and for some reason there was a payroll glitch and the check did not arrive in the mail at the end of November. It was the check that would pay for the Thanksgiving dinner – and the only food in the refrigerator was milk for the baby.
He did have gas in his car and so he drove out desperately looking for work and saw a farmer picking up pecans. The farmer hired him for the day – and paid him with turnips. There were turnips at Thanksgiving – and nothing else. But it was enough to keep his family going. No wonder that at every Thanksgiving since, there has always been a place for a turnip dish on his Thanksgiving table.
Daily bread in the wilderness – the gift that God gives can come in unexpected ways in unexpected places – such as at a business meeting. I know a man, Mike, a faithful man, who was running a small business owned by another man. The owner had a stroke and was totally incapacitated for several months; there was no succession plan. Mike continued to run the small business but he knew that the family effectively controlled the future of his little company.
The the family called a meeting when the owner died, and told Mike that they would be closing Mike’s business. Mike later told me, “As I sat in that meeting and I saw where things were going, I started to think, what am I going to do? When it became my turn to speak, somehow out of nowhere, I said this is what I would like to do. I listed off an entire business plan that until that point had never even been a completed thought. And much to my surprise, everyone at the table seemed to agree to the plan.”
“Somehow out of nowhere” – manna in the wilderness. There was no miraculous business turnaround or profitable sale; but there was a business plan from nowhere and a business that kept going.
There is something we need to notice here in Exodus 16: we are near the beginning of the Israelites’ time in the wilderness here. I would like to be able to tell you that at the end of the chapter it says, “and they lived happily ever after.” But you know that is not what it says; they would travel through the wilderness for 40 years before hey could enter the promised land. You know that there are rarely quick solutions for the struggles we face, nor are there quick escapes from the barren stretches in our lives.
I remember talking to a woman, an elder. Her marriage had fallen apart: her husband had met someone else and no longer wanted to stay married. Her children were no longer at home. She had no parents or siblings she could lean on. It was a very dark place, she said. She could see no light, and the darkness lasted – and lasted.
Yet, despite the darkness, there was manna. Not enough to erase the darkness. But enough to keep her going. She put one foot in front of the other, trying to look ahead and not back. She kept working in her job. She kept serving in her church. She kept worshipping even when she did not feel like singing. She kept praying even when she did not feel like praying.
There were at least two years of darkness, she would later say. But also, two years of manna. Often that manna came in the form of friends, who stood with her, who sang when she didn’t feel like singing, and prayed when she didn’t feel like praying. She got what she needed, she later said. Not all at once, but day by day. Not a lot, but enough. Sometimes the manna God gives us comes in the form of other people. Sometimes we are called to be manna for other people.
Friends, you do not need me to tell you that there are wildernesses in life, times when it is not hard to find ourselves “in this story.” But let Exodus 16 remind us that we are always given a people to travel with through those wildernesses. And God always provides manna.
In a few moments, we will be taking communion. The portions are tiny; the setting very ordinary. But may we once again know in the eating of bread and drinking of the cup that God continues to give, continues to provide us with the bread of life, Jesus Christ, who gives us what we need.
Day by day.
Amen.
