Exodus 16:2-15
Audio version.
Is there anything better?
Fresh baked bread?
The rich smell of grain and yeast …
Step into a bakery early in the morning …
Bake a loaf of bread at home …
Slice off the heel, slather it with butter – um uh … that’s really good! A little peanut butter, and some raspberry jam; now that’s even better!
Bread …
The Wonder Bread of the Fifties … you can roll it up in a ball and throw it at the wall, and it’ll bounce.
Can’t do that with whole grain bread … sturdy and crunchy it is … and good for ya’, too.
Bread …
Every good romantic movie has a scene with a fresh baguette, a bottle of wine, and a wedge of cheese … on a candle-lit table … dreamy-eyed lovers …
And who can forget pictures of starving children barely able to grasp a crust of bread …
Give us this day our daily bread … said Jesus.
The disciples knew exactly what Jesus was saying … the story to which Jesus was pointing … the Exodus story, the story of bread in the wilderness … manna it’s called … a flakey crust found in the morning … tons of it … enough for everyone … when the people first see, it they exclaim, What is it? … and in Hebrew, that sounds like manna? What is it?
What is it? remains a question for biblical scholars and biologists … google “manna” and read about it in Wikipedia … and you’ll get all sorts of answers for what it might have been.
But let’s back up for a moment …
Let’s see if we can shake the cobwebs of literalism from our brain … and read the story as we might read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
Was there ever a Captain Ahab?
Or an Ishmael?
Or a great white whale pin-cushioned with harpoons and twisted in rope?
No, it’s just a story.
But what a story it is.
Ahab’s obsession.
The whale had taken his leg.
And now, the only thing that counts is revenge.
Obsessed to the point of insanity.
Ahab drives his men and takes the ship on a perilous journey …
Nothing else matters … a man consumed by revenge.
It’s just a story, you say.
But what a story …
Like a mirror … there’s nothing in a mirror except our reflection … but what a gift the mirror is … the pants and shirt don’t go together … there’s a wisp of hair out of place … hmmm, I’m getting a little bulgy around the waist …
A mirror tells us a bit about ourselves …
And so does a good story.
To see something we might otherwise miss …
Melville’s story is a mirror … we find ourselves in it … and who hasn’t been an Ahab now and then … obsessed with something that hurt us; a person who insulted or cheated us …
Great stories help us see who we are.
Let’s just say for a few moments that much of the Old Testament is a collection of stories … tall tales - metaphors, allegories, fables and fiction …
For some, it’s important that these stories be literally true.
That a whale actually swallowed Jonah …
Or, as someone asked,
Is Jonah the tale of a whale, or
A whale of tale?
Let’s take a look for a moment:
Who hasn’t been a Jonah now and then?
Running from life, running from responsibility?
Running from God?
Ya’ can run, but ya’ can’t hide!
Not even death covers Jonah’s tracks.
Jonah prefers death to life. That’s how hard he’s running from God. When the storm hits, Jonah volunteers: “It’s my fault. Throw me into the sea. You can sacrifice me.”
So the crew heaves Jonah overboard.
But a whale takes a gulp, and you know the rest of the story.
God saves Jonah.
In the guts of a whale.
Puked up on the beach a few days later.
It’s not easy for God to save us.
Nor easy for us to be saved.
A story played out a millions times a day …
It’s a whale of tale … all about grace.
Let’s think for a moment …
Much of the Old Testament as we have it today was put together during the Babylonian Exile … and in the difficult years that followed.
The Hebrew people were strangers in a strange land… Jerusalem in ruins … the temple destroyed …
Babylon the winner.
The enemy victorious.
People wondered: Did Yahweh fail?
Are the gods of Babylon bigger and better?
Did we hang our hat on the wrong peg?
Did we bet on the wrong horse?
Did we misunderstand something?
The 1997 film, Life is Beautiful … about a young father and his little boy in a Nazi concentration camp … sad and wretched, but the father tells his boy, “This is game we’re all playing. We’re going to have fun.”
He shields his boy from the horror of it all.
Just like a parent anywhere.
If much of the Old Testament was written when the Hebrew people had little to go on …
They told stories of better days and grander things … they told stories about people like Abraham and Sarah … and great kings like David and Solomon … and heroes like Gideon and Deborah and Esther.
They told funny stories about talking donkeys and crazy Samson.
They told creation stories … formation stories … victory in the midst of suffering … God’s special interest in them … and not even the gods of Babylon are going to deplete our character, destroy our identity, quench the fire of hope. We will not give up, nor give way.
When our people were in the wilderness in a far away place, in a time long ago, it was wonderful … it was a game … we were hungry, so God gave us manna in the morning, every morning … except the Sabbath … because we don’t work on the Sabbath … it’s our day of rest, because God rested on the Sabbath Day.
It was really something to see … there it was in the morning … we had no idea what it was, so we called it manna.
Amazing stuff: we could kneed it and press it; we could bake it and boil it; we ate it hot, we ate cold – we made dinner with it, and we snaked on it.
But we couldn’t save it.
We couldn’t put it away for a rainy day.
If we tried to stash it, it got wormy.
It turned ugly.
Except the day before the Sabbath – then we collected enough for two days, and then it didn’t get wormy.
It was a miracle.
Can you see a child’s eyes open wide in the telling of such a tale?
Can you see the parent’s heart lifted a little bit in telling the story of long ago days when God did miracles?
And maybe the child will believe … take heart and grow strong.
One day we’re gonna get outta here, and our children will carry on, and they’ll carry on with faith, hope and love.
Bread …
Give us this day our daily bread.
Teach us how to pray, said the disciples.
Have you noticed - prayer is the way we see life?
It’s been said, “Look at someone’s checkbook, and you’ll see how they live.”
Listen to someone’s prayer, and you’ll see how they look at the world.
Our Father who art in heaven …
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
How do you see life?
Is life a gift, a wonder, a miracle?
Even when life is hard?
When you’re stuck in the wilderness?
When you get up in the morning, is there manna for you?
Do you have the eyes to see it?
Can you see the gift close at hand?
How do you see yourself?
Guided, protected, sustained?
Even in the worst of times and places?
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
These stories were composed in the toughest of times, by parents who love their children, by pastors and preachers (priests and Levites) who had a vision of life.
I want to pay attention to these stories.
These are stories to shape the soul … mold our character … living-giving stories … energizing stories to keep us going when the going gets tough … to get us up and out when the spirit wants to crawl into a hidey hole and never come out again … stories to give the soul a song; cheering our spirit and putting a little lift into our steps.
There’s manna out there.
In the wilderness.
There’s grace to be had.
Give US, our daily bread.
I would rather Jesus had said, “Give me MY daily bread.”
But Jesus puts us into the human community … we’re all in this together …
When the human community is broken; when some have a lot of bread, and some hardly have any.
When gaps open up between races, between religions, between nations, between rich and poor, evil marches into the gaps, into those empty places - a demilitarized zone; a no-man’s land … evil takes root undisturbed; fear and anger grow into hideous forms …
The manna story tells us something profound – there’s enough bread for everyone … enough to go around …
Those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.
There will always be enough … enough to go around … enough to satisfy …
To counteract the primal temptation – the original sin, the original lie: There isn’t enough, and you’d better scramble for it now when ya’ can, and if you don’t get it, someone else will. Grab the apple now before anyone else does!
Haves and have-nots …
Winners and losers …
Management and labor …
Immigrant and native-born …
First world, second world, third world …
The division of the human community …
Too many gaps …
Too many places for evil to grow …
Those who collected more than they needed, it turned rancid and grew maggots …
Greed …
I want it now, and I want a lot of it.
Barbara Kingsolver writes:
Want is a thing that unfurls unbidden like fungus, opening large upon itself, stopless, filling the sky. But needs, from one day to the next, are few enough to fill a bucket, with room enough to rattle like brittlebush in a dry wind [High Tide in Tucson, p.13].
It takes a lot of discipline to manage our wants … because our wants are reinforced ten thousand times a day … want is the energy of the world economy … want is the dark angel of war!
Flip want over like a pancake, and we find fear and resentment on the bottom side … the haves fear and resent those who have not, and the have-nots fear and resent those who have.
Fear and resentment are the acids that corrode the souls of persons and nations.
Fear and resentment might have overwhelmed the Hebrew people … but they told stories of God’s kindness and mercy … they wanted their children to be free of these demoralizing emotions … they wanted their children to be confident and courageous.
So they told stories …
Remarkable stories to remind us … we are recipients of grace …
Give us this day our daily bread.
And don’t forget to share.
Amen and Amen!
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