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Exodus 16:9-21
Our story for today is from the 16th chapter of Exodus. In chapter 13, after the plagues, the pharaoh finally lets the Hebrew people leave Egypt. In chapter 14, the pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army after them, but God parts the Red Sea and the Israelites escape. In chapter 15 they celebrate, then travel three days and come to a bitter stream, which God makes pure for them to drink. Then they spend some time at an oasis before moving on into the desert. And that’s when life gets hard. In chapter 16 the people are complaining because they are hungry and thirsty. They say “It would have been better if God had just killed us while we were in Egypt. At least there we had pots of meat and could eat our fill of bread.” Of course it wasn’t like that. “Battered by hunger and baked by the hot desert sun, the Israelites’ memories begin to play tricks on them. . . . In their minds, Egypt’s ‘house of bondage and land of death’ turns into some kind of Sandals Resort. While Egypt was the place where the Israelites were so exhausted they hardly had the energy to eat, now it’s the land of never-ending all-you-can-eat buffets.”[1] In their battle for survival, they mis-remember the past, and somehow wind up begging God “to swap [their] freedom for slavery.”[2]
In response God tells Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people will go out and gather enough for that day.” I’m reading starting at verse 9:
Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for God has heard your complaining.’ “And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. The Lord spoke to Moses and said, “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.’”
In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer to a person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents.’ “The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed. And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.” But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul. And Moses was angry with them.
They were only supposed to gather enough for one day, except on the sixth day when they could collect twice as much so they wouldn’t have to work on the Sabbath. But some of them just couldn’t help themselves. They kept more than they needed and tried to hoard it. And it spoiled.
When I was in training to be a foster parent back in Connecticut, they warned us about a lot of the behavioral issues that might come with a child in the foster care system. One of them was hoarding. A child who has gone hungry could be overwhelmed by abundance, and since in the past they didn’t know when they’d get their next meal, they might hide extra food in their room, just in case. This might have been what was driving the people of Israel. They had been starving, so if there’s more food than they need, they sure weren’t going to throw it out regardless of what their foolish leader said. Besides, “These people might be justified in worrying that this god, whom they have only recently become acquainted with, may not be the steady and reliable type.”[3] After all, according to the Bible they had suffered in Egypt for hundreds of years before God “heard their cries” and did anything. Surely Moses understood this. And if not, surely God did. God knew the people were hungry. Couldn’t the all-knowing One have predicted that hungry people will hoard? Why did the manna have to go bad so quickly?
To answer those questions we need to consider what God was doing, or at least what we think God was doing, with the whole wandering through the wilderness thing. The Israelites’ wilderness period has been described as a “liminal experience. Taken from the Latin word for ‘threshold,’ liminal is defined as an an ‘in-between place,’ a rite of passage as one moves from childhood to adulthood.”[4] The wilderness was their in-between place—the place where they had to unlearn all the lessons they had learned in Egypt so that they would be ready for what awaited them in the Promised Land. The wilderness was where they could learn how to live free, not as slaves. The wilderness was where they would learn to trust God. The fact that their manna would spoil after one day–this was actually part of God’s provision. In slavery they learned that food could be given or withheld, at the whim of the overlord. In Egypt they had learned hoarding, looking out for themselves, doing anything to survive. Their old ways of receiving bread were inappropriate in the wilderness. They had to change their whole way of getting food. They had to lose the taste of Egypt that still lingered on their tongues. They had to share equitably with one another. They had to learn the meaning of “enough.”
As one scholar says, “There are lessons aplenty to be had here for us 21st-century, first-world folks. In response to YHWH’s provision we grab more than we need, reaching for what we want, and leave others to get what they need, if they can. However, in our world God is not inclined to stop our greed, and our more finite resources are divided unfairly among those of us who have full access to the goods and services of this world and those who do not. We luxuriate while so many of our human companions struggle for their daily bread, if they can find any at all.”[5] We pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” but we don’t mean daily. We want our annual bread. We want our 401k bread. Humanity still has not learned the meaning of “enough.”
The manna got spoiled if the people tried to hoard, and I wonder what would happen if my closet did that. If the clothes I haven’t worn in the last year were to “go bad,” would I think to give them away sooner? I shudder to think of how many people could have been fed this year alone by the food I let spoil in my refrigerator because I didn’t feel like making a salad or the blueberries were hiding behind the apples or I’d already eaten that soup twice and didn’t want it again. It spoiled because I had too much.
What does that cost us? Not just in money, although that’s probably significant. I mean what does having too much cost our peace of mind? Would simpler lifestyles give us less to worry about? When do our possessions become burdens? When does “stuff” weigh us down?
This story is told in many forms, but a familiar version tells of a nun who lived a very simple life, with few possessions and dwelling in a cave. Every morning, she would take her alms bowl to the nearby village to collect just enough food for her one meal of the day. She had plenty of time to meditate, study, and teach what she knew to others. When she returned from alms round one morning, she saw a hole in her spare robe, so she found a small piece of cloth and hand sewed a patch onto the robe. She’d done this before. You see, in her cave lived a family of mice, and they liked nibbling her robes. While sewing, she thought that if she had a cat, then there would be no mice, and she wouldn’t have to spend so much time sewing patches. So the next day, she asked the villagers for a cat, which they gave her. The cat needed milk and fish, so the nun had to ask the villagers for these extra items every morning. One morning she thought that if she had her own cow, then she wouldn’t need to keep asking for milk to feed the cat. So she asked one of her wealthy supporters for a cow. Then she had to beg for grass to feed the cow so she arranged to get a field. Then she needed a boy to look after the field. Then she needed a hut to house the boy. Finally, someone came to her for spiritual advice, and she said, “Sorry. Not now. I’m too busy. I have to check the hut being built for the boy who looks after my field to graze my cow that provides the milk for my cat that keeps away the mice so that I don’t need to keep patching my robe.”[6] She owned only one possession. And it owned her.
And what about our busyness? Our society teaches us to wear our busyness like a badge of honor. An article in the New York Times opinion pages called “The ‘Busy’ Trap” says, “If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: ‘Busy!’ ‘So busy!’ ‘Crazy busy!’ It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: ‘That’s a good problem to have,’ or ‘Better than the opposite.’ Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve ‘encouraged’ their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.”[7]
Is that why we do it? Why do we hoard food, possessions, money? Why do we carry the burden of too much on our plates, too much on our calendars? Do we actually think that gives us value?
Although I’m definitely no expert, I think maybe it comes down to one thing: fear. We are afraid of not having enough, of not keeping up. We are afraid of losing the race to success, for ourselves and our children, We are afraid that if we slow down, we will realize that what we’re racing after isn’t even worth catching. We are afraid that if we slow down, we will have time to get to know ourselves, and we might think we’re not even worth knowing. We are afraid that, when all is said and done, we are not worthy, we are not lovable, we are not loved.
We are afraid, and the problem with fear is that fear leaves no room for peace. Fear leaves no room for love. 1 John 4:18 tells us that love casts out fear. Perhaps it’s the only thing that does. What do you have too much of? Too much stuff, too much activity, too much stress? Lay it down. “There’s rest for the weary—rest that endures. Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can’t cure.”[8]
[1] https://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/proper-20a/?term=Exodus%2016
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1066
[4] https://blogs.baylor.edu/truettpulpit/2017/08/16/exodus-162-15/
[5] https://www.patheos.com/progressive-christian/on-having-more-than-enough-john-holbert-09-15-2014.aspx?p=2
[6] https://www.facebook.com/LovingSangha/posts/ajahn-brahm-a-good-nun-lived-a-very-simple-life-with-few-possessions-and-dwellin/10155652032599297/
[7] https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/
[8] Song “Come as You Are”