Myers Park Presbyterian Church
September 18, 2011
Dr. Steven P. Eason
"How Does Grace Show Up?"
Exodus 16:2-15
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2The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” 4Then 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 instruction or not. 5On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.” 6So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?” 8And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him—what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.” 9Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’“ 10And 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. 11The Lord spoke to Moses and said, 12“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.’“
13In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15When 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.
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The context for this story goes back to well over 1,000 years before Christ. Israel has left Egypt after inflicting ten plagues upon Pharaoh and his people – the last one being the most harsh, the death of the firstborn Egyptian children. Pharaoh gets up in the middle of the night and finally decides to let them go. They institute the Passover meal and after 430 years of slavery, 600,000 men, not counting women and children, the herds, the flocks, and everything else, move out of Egypt. It’s called the Exodus. But they don’t go straight to the Promised Land, do they?
They go out into the wilderness. In a sense, they go from one crisis to another. First lesson: A life of faith does not always rescue us from the challenges and difficulties in this world.
Years ago I remember attending a seminar where the chaplain of Duke Hospital taught a session on grief. He said, “Grief is the process of moving from the Somebody you are today to the Somebody Else you have to become in light of your loss.” In between your Somebody and your Somebody Else is a state of being Nobody. You’re neither the Somebody you were nor are you the Somebody Else you have to become. So, you are in a state of being Nobody. That’s the wilderness.
You wouldn’t think that Israel would want to go back to the Somebodies they were as slaves in Egypt, but they did. At least they had food and shelter and could chisel out some form of life. Out there in the wilderness they didn’t know what was going to happen. They were Nobodies. So, they complained, a lot. Who wouldn’t?
We complain when we feel like we deserve more than what we are getting. We complain when we feel like somebody’s not paying attention or taking care of business. We complain when we’re in new territory and uncertain of the future. We complain when we feel insecure or stuck and we can’t see our way out. There are hundreds of thousands of these people out there complaining in the wilderness. They have no food, no shelter, no idea where they’re going. I’d complain too. What else are you going to do?
Walter Brueggemann writes,
Wilderness habitation is a life at risk.
(New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 1, p. 806)
In other words, this story about manna in the wilderness probably wouldn’t register with somebody who is sitting on top of their barns filled to the brim, where life, at least for right now, is all good. Your only concern in that situation is worrying about the bottom falling out. That’s a different kind of anxiety.
The anxiety here is about deprivation. You’d rather go back to the past, even if the past wasn’t good. It’s an anxiety about the future, not because you have a lot to lose, but because you’ve already lost it. What’s going to happen to me now?
So, how does grace show up in the wilderness? How do you get help when there seems to be no resources to help you? There’s no food in the wilderness. There’s very little water. There’s no shelter, no work, no government, no education or healthcare. No military support. There’s no transportation, communication, or electricity. There’s no Wal-Mart in the wilderness. No Starbucks, Bank of America, Wells Fargo or even a Jiffy Lube. There’s not even a Belk’s in the wilderness (I just couldn’t resist!) It’s a real faith question; “How does grace show up in a wilderness? "
According to this story, not in the way you would think. They get bread!
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. (Exodus 16:4a)
No less than four times in this story it is reiterated that God has heard the complaining of the people. But, instead of chastising them for having very little faith or reminding them of the 24 things that were wrong with them, the Lord gives them bread, not just bread but quail meat, too. Second lesson: Grace often shows up in small ways. Don’t sit there waiting for something big to happen and miss the many small ways in which God is taking care of you.
They don’t get truckloads of food; they get just enough for the day. They have to share it. They have to trust that there will be some more tomorrow. The very way God dispensed grace in the wilderness sets up the opportunity for them to build community and trust. But that doesn’t always happen.
We all know that you can spoil somebody by giving them too much. It can build a sense of entitlement, exclusiveness, prejudice and pride. It can ruin somebody’s work ethic and set them up for a life of hoarding and greed. Too much manna can be a bad thing.
But God didn’t do that. God never does that. In the wilderness of our need and desperation we get our daily rations, with an invitation to trust that God will never leave us in despair. And yet, what did they do? They didn’t listen to Moses and some of them stockpiled all they could get and “it bred worms and became foul.” (Exodus 16:20b)
Third lesson: Grace has restraints and calls for some response on our part. Don’t take it for granted or try to manipulate it in some way. Grace comes with rules for a reason. Leave it to us and we’ll exploit it.
In wilderness situations we are tempted.
- We’re tempted to panic.
- We are tempted to complain, to go back to whatever life we did have, even if it wasn’t a good one.
- We’re tempted to accuse others for our situation – especially leadership. (And, sometimes it is a leadership issue.)
- We’re tempted to rely on our old models, that the only way you get bread is to work for it – the bread of production.
But what about the bread of grace that comes to us without any effort on our part? That bread doesn’t fit into our old breadbaskets.
- In the wilderness we are tempted to hoard what we have, as if no one cares about us, and God doesn’t know where we are or what we need.
- We are tempted to fill up our barns and worship our bread and quail meat.
- We’re tempted to ignore the Sabbath and the need for rest in the grace and providence of Almighty God.
- We’re tempted to fail to see God’s grace all around us, especially when it comes in the small natural ways in which it comes every single day. That’s a lot of temptation!
God hears their complaints and gives them bread but they don’t even know what it is. They ask, “What is it?” (16:15) We don’t always recognize the grace of God around us. Think of all those who are in the hospital this morning, or dealing with a serious illness. How’s grace going to show up in their lives? They don’t know and sometimes they can’t see it. Think of all the people who are stuck in the wilderness of a dry and painful marriage. How is grace going to show up there? Not easy to see. Or, how about our leaders in government? Wonder if any of them are complaining and looking for some grace? It may be right under their nose. We all had better hope it is.
Business, religion, education – you can’t think of a place that doesn’t often go to the wilderness. And, out there we all want to know how grace is going to show up. We are out of our resources. We can’t fix it. We’ve lost something, even if it wasn’t good, and we’ve got no idea what the future is going to hold. Is God out here? Will God provide for us? We can’t always see it.
I don’t know how it comes. I don’t know how it happens. It’s out there beyond me. But if the Scriptures are any clue as to how God behaves, we can trust in the fact that grace will show up in every wilderness of life, even if we don’t know what it is, or if our complaining is so loud we can’t hear God’s voice above our own.
Final Lesson: Moses tells them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.” (16:15) Just because you can’t see it or don’t know what it is, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Let us pray,
You are a God of great surprises and deep compassion for us all. Hear the cries of all your people on this day, and rain upon us your mercy and grace. Through Jesus Christ, the Bread of Heaven, we pray. Amen
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