Friday, May 2, 2014

Friday, May 2, 2014

Exodus 16: 23-36

“Give us this day our Daily Bread”

We’ve known that line since we were first taught to pray.  The older we get, the more we recognize our complete helplessness without God to feed us in the barren places of our lives.  So, we pray.   

Exodus 16 continues the story of Moses and the Children of Israel as they literally wander in a barren place, without food.  But their first response is to complain.  After only 45 days of travel, they want to go back to the familiar slave food available in Egypt.  

It always amazes me that this group reverts to complaining, ignoring Moses’ leadership and ignoring God’s instructions.  They experienced the plagues of Egypt, including the First Passover – which their first-born babies survived.  Then, after decades in bondage, they were released from slavery to freedom.  They witnessed the parting of the Red (reed) Sea and the drowning of Pharaoh’s army.  A pillar of fire went before them to guide their way.  Any one of these incidents would seal the faith of most people forever, but these folks suffer from serious short-term memory loss.  At every turn, they whine and complain like selfish children.  They blame Moses and Aaron, who remind them that their complaints are not against them, but against God himself.  God responds:

“How long will you [people] refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?”

Moses, trusting in God, declares that the Israelites will be fed.  So, they find quails for meat in the evening and manna in flakes on the ground the next morning.  God’s instructions are clear – take only an omer (3lb–1.4kg) per person.  But instructions are ignored.  Some take too much, some not enough.  Yet, amazingly, those who hoard food, find the excess full of worms, and those who took too little, find they have just enough – another miracle…!  

And God wants them to take double on Friday, so the Sabbath will be free for worship.  They are to bake and boil what they need: miraculously it does not go bad on the Sabbath.  The hand of God touches every part of this story, yet the people ignore these signs and revert to selfish human habits.    

In spite of clear instructions, some people still go out to gather on the Sabbath.  Moses is forced to repeat the instructions yet again.  And to remind the people – should they continue to forget, Moses has Aaron place a jar of manna in the Arc of the Covenant.  Apparently, that jar was preserved into the Land of Canaan.  But the real miracle was God’s daily bread.  As the scripture says:

35 “The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled;
they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan”

I examine this story, many centuries later and it causes me to wonder: do I also slip too easily into selfish complaining about my life?  Do I wish things were like they were in the past?  Do I too forget that the Lord freed me from slavery?  How many miracles do I have to see before I simply obey? Do I really need to see pillars of fire and seas parting to give my obedience to God?  Is the birth of a child enough of a miracle?  How about successful cancer surgery?

There is another part to this story that I often forget.  The manna dissolves in a day.  The unused quail meat goes bad.  When God feeds his children, he attends to them EVERY DAY.  So, when I learned to fold my hands in my bed as a child, and pray to God for my daily bread, I was also learning to keep in touch with God on a daily basis.  I prayed for the members of my family by name.  Later, I prayed for my friends – saying their names out loud.  Eventually, I prayed for the horrible things in the world that I could not help.  I prayed for God to be there – through others.  And when disaster came, and I found myself in a barren place – empty, I had learned through years of practice, not to complain, but to open my hands and beg that once again I would be filled.  And I was.

-Peter Mansell  Easter, 2014