Today’s message is unusual. You may recall the folks who went on the summer mission trip to Cherryfield had a fund-raising auction in March. I offered a “custom written sermon on the topic or lesson of your choice,” with the caution that the high bidder couldn’t tell me what to say AND wouldn’t get a refund!
The high-bidder, who asked not to be mention by name, gave me this prompt for today: Topic: the flow of change – life moves on and so do we. We may say “I Wish that hadn’t changed, but it has…” If you really wish it were different, if you want the good old days, you could work at reversion. Some do. Certainly in church life; Some politicians think they can turn back the clock to a simpler time – put the genie back in the bottle, if you will. True… life was simpler.
There are many things we can anticipate – we know they’re going to happen: life passages, transitions in our kid’s lives… How curious that we act surprised when they actually come to pass! Our lives are most often defined by these changes. The things we remember most: births, deaths, moving, graduations, etc., are all changes that help us define who we are.
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Exodus 16:1-21
Do you ever wish for “the good old days?” Reading the headlines and watching the news, it’s tempting to list all the dangers, toils and snares, and then sum it up by saying “sure wasn’t like that when I was young.”
Nostalgia sells. There’s money to be made in marketing to baby boomers. Look at the retro look of various cars; aftershaves and perfumes that came and went and have come back again; so too for various food products and their packaging.
Many politicians sound like Archie Bunker singing “Those Were the Days.” They claim they can turn back the clock. Why do you suppose there’s so much nostalgia – not among church folks certainly, but out there in the world?!
1) Maybe because yesterday really was better in some concrete way. In the post-war years we had a middle class of hard-working people who could buy a modest home, raise a couple of kids, take two week’s vacation every year, and live with dignity all on dad’s salary from the factory of store. Except it wasn’t better if you were in the minority – if your skin was dark, or you were Irish Catholic, or your dad couldn’t keep a job. Then the good old days weren’t so good.
2) Or maybe yesterday seems better because our memories tend to round off the sharp edges and soften the pain that may have accompanied the experiences. Most things aren’t as bad in looking back as they were at the time. And the good times may seem even sweeter.
3) And that, I suspect, points us to a major reason we get nostalgic for yesterday: looking forward is pretty frightening while looking back proves we’ve survived. Sitting here in worship this morning, able to muse about the good old days, means you made it literally and figuratively. No matter what life was like for you yesterday, or decades ago, you got out of bed this morning and made it to church and here we are.
Winston Churchill once said: “I’ve had many troubles in my life… most of which never happened.” So maybe we get nostalgic because whatever may have happened didn’t get the best of us. And many things we anxiously imagined might happen never did!
Every one of us has been bruised; we may have lost a loved one; we’ve all endured the death of a dream; many are weary; only have a feel financially secure; we may have been underemployed or jobless; we may have been treated shabbily; we may be disappointed in our kids. We all have messed up in a major way at some point – though we may have forgotten how bad it seemed at the time!
But here we are. God has brought us safely this far. Thanks be to God!
Of course, some exhibit that rock-solid faith that says: “God always comes through and I don’t have a worry in the world.”
Others certainly see God’s presence in the past but find it very hard to project it into the future. That’s the heart of faith – that God will be as present and active in the future as in the past. That’s also where we join the Exodus story in today’s reading.
The Children of Israel had fled Egypt under the mighty leadership of Moses. They’d crossed the parted waters of the Red Sea. They were free and they were wandering in the Sinai wilderness. They were tired and hungry. They were afraid of starvation and of the unseen dangers that stalked them day and night.
So they murmured and complained to Moses that back in slavery at least they knew where their next meal would come from. God heard their complaining and sent them a blessing: manna, the “bread of heaven.” The Hebrew word actually means “what is it?” It’s described as something like a pasty bread. It’s a gift from God, a gift of grace. And it’s enough to sustain life.
When M. Scott Peck wrote a sequel to his huge best-seller and called it The Road Less Traveled and Beyond, he told of a young man from the northeast drove to the South for the first time in his life. By the time he arrived in South Carolina, he was famished and stopped at a roadside diner. He ordered scrambled eggs with sausage, and was surprised when his breakfast came. There on the plate was a white blob of something he’d never seen before. “What’s that?” he asked the waitress. “Them’s grits,” she replied. “But I didn’t order grits,” he said. “You don’t order grits,” she responded. “They just come.”
So with God’s gift of manna; and so with grace. Notice, God didn’t act like the parent who waits until her son’s 21st birthday and dumps the trust fund into his inexperienced hands only to watch him squander it. God gave the manna fresh every morning – just enough to sustain life. If the tribe tried to gather and hoard it, it rotted. They could eat their fill but then had to wait and do it again the next day. God would provide. They just had to trust.
That’s the hard part. On the one hand we look back – maybe with nostalgia or maybe with gratitude – and we see that God kept God’s promises. But looking ahead – facing forward, don’t we still doubt? Like the Israelites we mutter: “O yeah, God. You came through for me before, but how do I know you will in the future? Did you bring us out here just to let us die? Is this it, curtains?!”
And God has an answer. It’s always been true and will always be true. It just doesn’t change. God says – “I’ll give you what you need; you can trust me completely. If you choose not to trust me you’re choosing instead to let your anxious worries tie you in knots and squeeze the beauty and joy out of life.”
So it is. God gives us what we need fresh every morning. The author of Exodus says God gave manna as a test to see if the people would obey. Human nature is to grab everything we can and hoard it, or stock pile it, or barter with it, or put it in the refrigerator, or in the bank.
God warned us that if we tried to do that we’d lose it all – it will rot and leave us with nothing. “Give us this day our daily bread,” we pray without thinking. And God does: enough for that day, fresh every morning.
When we look ahead we have reason to fret.
When we look back we know it’s been enough.
Because here we are, having come safe this far.
We can trust completely because we know God keeps promises.
Amen.