Dear Friends,
Do you remember those times when you were several hours into a long drive on your way to a relaxing summer vacation, when from the back seat, a little voice (or maybe two or more) started whining and pleading miserably? “Are we there yet? I’m hungry! Can we stop now? How much longer?” This kind of impatience and edginess isn’t limited just to kids, and it’s not a unique by-product of America’s fabled love for road trips. It happens everywhere, to all of us (even us adults!), and it’s been happening for a very long time. In today’s scripture reading, it was the Israelites who were complaining and whining in the back seat, though for them, the back seat was the desert.
Before we look at today’s reading, take a moment for this prayer for illumination:
Sustaining God, Let the wisdom of your Word rain down on us like manna and feed us, that we may be strengthened to do the work to which we are called for the glory and honor of your holy name. Amen.
A quick textual note about our reading. As you may recall, the first five books of the Bible, which Christians call the Pentateuch and Jews call the Torah, are a compilation of four different traditions, each with its own separate, complete, and coherent document. Though the documents were similar in many ways, they were not identical. The texts of these four traditions were blended together sometime between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, during or shortly after the Babylonian exile. Our reading for today combines two of these traditions, so it might seem like there’s a lot of repetition in the story. The repetition, however, isn’t word-for-word, and the nuances of each telling make the story more vibrant and real as they echo and resonate with one another.
So…let’s rejoin the Israelites now that they’ve miraculously escaped across the parted waters of the Red Sea and seen their Egyptian pursuers utterly destroyed when the walls of the sea closed around them. They’ve been wandering in the desert for only a month and have already begun to lose heart and started to complain and whine. The miracles of the plagues visited on Egypt, the Passover, and the parting of the waters are behind them and forgotten. Their feet hurt, their children are suffering, they’re hungry, they’re thirsty, and they’re pretty sure they’re lost. Things have taken quite a turn, and there’s a lot of very serious back seat whining and squabbling going on!
In truth, these are a people who suffer from much more than boredom in the back seat, and unlike us on our car trip, they can’t imagine a care-free vacation and have no idea what their future will be. They feel abandoned, fearful, and despairing. “The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.” (16:2)
But note that word: congregation. A change has occurred, one so subtle that they are completely unaware of it. No longer are they an assembly of twelve separate tribes, each with its own carefully-preserved traditions and memories, each in its place in the hierarchy of the Israelite people. They have become a congregation, which means a single group of people united in faith and sharing common rules.
The Bible identifies them as a congregation for the first time in chapter 12, but it’s almost lost in all the drama of that part of the story. Here’s a quick recap…None of the plagues that God had visited upon Egypt have succeeded in softening Pharaoh’s heart – not when God turned all the water in Egypt to blood; not the plagues of locusts, flies, frogs, and gnats; not storms of hail and fire; not darkness for three days – nothing convinced Pharaoh to let the captive Israelites go. But when God visited the terrible final plague on Egypt, that all the first-born will die, God instructed Moses and Aaron to “tell the whole congregation” (12:3) to protect their first-born by smearing the blood of a lamb on the lintel of their houses, so that the angel of death would pass over that dwelling. They responded not as twelve separate tribes but as a unified people. Indeed, they became a wholly new people: a congregation created by God’s act of salvation and liberation. The newly created congregation will remember and celebrate the festival of the Passover for all the generations to come.
As they wander now in the wilderness, however, they have a long way to go before they fully recognize their shared communal identity. They have forgotten much more than the miracles that brought them out of Egypt. They’ve also completely forgotten the brutality, terror, and misery of their captivity, so much so that they look back on a past that is pure fantasy, “when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread.” (16:3) They’re so miserable in the desert that they actually yearn for death. “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt.” (16:3) And they blame Aaron and Moses, their leaders and rescuers, for their current plight, complaining that “you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (16:3)
Once again, God steps in to save them, telling Moses that “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you. . .” (16:4) and “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.’” (16:12)
And sure enough, in the morning, “When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flakey substance, as fine as frost on the ground.” (16:14) This flakey substance was manna, which could be baked into bread; it would fill their hunger every morning. And “In the evening quails came up and covered the camp.” (16:13) The promise of meat in the evening and bread in the morning was fulfilled. And they would survive on manna and quail for the forty years they were to wander in the desert.
It may surprise you to learn that even today, manna and quails are natural phenomena in the Sinai Peninsula. When the fruit of the tamarisk tree is perforated by plant lice, it emits a whitish substance that thickens into a ball in the cool of the morning. Loaded with sugar and carbohydrates, it can be baked into a bread. Indigenous people in Sinai eat it to this day and call it “manna.” And after a full day of flight, migrating birds occasionally fall to the ground, worn out by battling the strong head winds that blow over the desert. They can easily be captured by hand, providing the meat for an evening meal.
Becoming a congregation, as I pointed out above, involves sharing a faith and also following shared rules. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instructions or not.’” (16:4)
Asking only for obedience, God is abundantly generous to the hungry struggling Israelites as they wander in the wilderness from one source of water to another. But will they follow his wishes? Will they be obedient to his instructions and gather no more than what is needed? They had followed his instructions when the last plague came, and the angel of death passed over their households; surely that taught them how important it was to follow God’s word. Now God cautions them to gather only enough bread for one day, except on the sixth day, when they are to gather enough for two days in order to preserve the sanctity of the Sabbath, the day of rest.
If you read further in this chapter, you’ll read the second tradition of this story, when some, apparently not believing that there would be enough manna, disobey God’s instructions and gather more than they need for a single day. Though they’d been liberated from the Egyptians, they were not liberated from their inevitable human tendency to question authority, and so, not trusting that God would continue to provide the manna, they put some aside. But the leftovers rot and melt, becoming inedible. The only leftovers that remain fresh and sweet are the ones they gather, as instructed, to put aside for the Sabbath. And those people who fail to gather enough for the Sabbath are left hungry, because God, always true to his word, provides no manna on that seventh day. God keeps his promises and rains bread from heaven. God feeds the people and also teaches them the power and value of obedience.
In his book, Bread for the Journey, Henri J. M. Nouwen shares these thoughts to sustain and inspire us on our journey with God:
“God is a generous giver, but we can only see and enjoy God’s generosity when we love God with all of our hearts, minds, and strength. As long as we say: ‘I will love you, God, but first show me your generosity,’ we will remain distant from God and unable to experience what God truly wants to give us, which is life and life in abundance.”
It’s easy to trust in God when all is going well, when the seas miraculously open for us to make our way to safety, or when the angel of death and despair passes over us and we find unexpected strength and healing. It’s much harder to maintain that faith and trust when we’re consumed by anxiety and fear; when hopelessness and despair find their way into our souls; when, like now, the whole earth is subject to a vicious plague.
But we are not alone; we are part of a great congregation of faith. We share our belief; we hold one another up in the face of fear; we lean on the protection of common rules and familiar liturgy; and we remember that we can rely on our generous and loving God.
The Israelites in the desert were just beginning to understand their shared faith and their shared obligation as a people of faith. Their relationship with God was growing, just as our relationship with God continually emerges, develops, and matures over the years. Like the Israelites, we are only human; we are subject to lapses of faith, missteps, and failings that are part of our humanity. Our relationship with God is a dynamic one that involves stops and starts, times of great insight and understanding and times of confusion and separateness. To find our way again, we have only to listen for the word of our patient God, who sustains us as authentically as manna nourished the Israelites.
May we recognize and be thankful for the abundance that God shares with us in our life journey.
Let us pray together:
O God, who knows our every need before we can even ask, you provide all our needs and even some of what we want as well as what we need. You bless us all. Make us truly thankful, and empower us on our journey to understand our obligations to you and to one another. Enable us to bless others with the gifts you have given us, for the glory of your name. Amen.