Sept. 21, 2014, 15th Sunday after Pentecost
Exodus 16:2 – 15 (16 – 30)
When you and all your people have been slaves for a generation you forget how to look after yourselves. You may be excited by the idea of freedom, but when you face the hard life of the newly liberated you may not be so sure freedom is worth the effort. Forced labour was tough, but it led to a meal every night. You knew where you were when you woke up in the morning, and you knew what was ahead of you, day after day. As long as you did your job, kept your head down and your nose clean, you could get by.
When you’re tired out from walking, fed up with scrounging for food, weighed down with your few belongings and your growing children, you can actually forget the feel of the whip on your back. All you want is a full belly, a night’s rest, and a day off the road.
And how about some relief from a distant, dictatorial leader who makes you wonder if he really knows what he’s doing?
Please read at least to verse 30. The lectionary cuts the story of the birds and the bread and the bellyaching too short. We only hear of the quails once, but we can imagine a flock of noisy little birds descending on a crowd of people who have to try to catch them in their bare hands. Back in Egypt, there were nets strung between trees or just thrown in the air to catch migrating birds. In the wilderness there are no trees. No nets. The Hebrews are builders and field hands, not hunters.
Birds from the air and bread from heaven. One they know, but they have to work to get. The other just appears, there for the taking. It’s new, and strange, and they have to trust there will always be enough. We don’t know how well they do with the quails. The manna (literally, “What is it?”) doesn’t come pre – cooked but comes with a promise. There will be enough both to feed their bodies and to help them renew their souls by keeping Sabbath. They accept the gift but not the promise.
They’ll have to get used to the manna. It will be their staple for 40 years (v.35), a measure of their lack of trust. Later on, a measure of manna will be preserved in a jar as a reminder. Not of its colour, texture, or flavour (honey), but of the faithfulness of the One who gave it. Not the gift, but the promise.
How often do we avoid facing today’s distress by retreating into nostalgia? Days past become the good old days, especially when we choose to frame change only as loss. We’ll never find hope for the future if we don’t engage the present, face on, full on. If we only look back to what we’ve known we won’t recognize the resources God provides for us in new days and unknown places.
How often do we see the favour, not the faithfulness, in the gifts we treasure? We believe grasping the gift means holding on to God. Even if the gift is rotting away like weekday morning manna in the breadbox where we keep it. Long after a practice loses its flavour and nutritive value we keep on doing it. We call it faithfulness. We believe our determination demonstrates trust.
We know how and what God has provided for us in the past. We think we know how and what God provided for our grandparents. We look for God to repeat what we trace as a pattern of faithfulness. But the pattern fades as fast as manna melts in the noonday sun. We stand in the sun, looking down at what we’ve lost. We don’t look around to see the new thing God is already doing, how and what God will provide for us.
What is it? Bread from heaven.
