Sermon Title: - “I Smell Bread "
Grace and peace to you from the God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Even saints become sinners when they are late for their dinners,” wrote playwright Berthold Brecht. In today’s lesson we see the people o Israel hungry and complaining. They gladly left Egypt, slavery, and poverty. They followed Moses, saw God demonstrate his awesome power by sending 10 plaques onto the Egyptians, and just when Pharaoh’s army had cornered them by the Red Sea’s edge, Moses lifted up his rod to part the sea. All had been eye witnesses to these things as well as the drowning of Pharaoh’s army. Yet they whine “If only we
had died in Egypt when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill us with hunger.”
This is a classic example of what psychologists call “selective recall.” They were also beaten in Egypt, forced to work building pyramids, roads and other public projects, and they have romanticized their Egyptian menus completely. Slaves eat gruel, grains and broth, they rarely eat meat. Yet, here we see them only remembering the good times.
Certainly, we can relate can’t we? The past always gets the “golden glow” doesn’t it? There was always more snow in the winters of the “year’s gone by.” Children were better behaved. People were “godly-er” We put rose colored glasses on to look backward, and most importantly we forget to give thanks.
Today’s lesson reminds us too that in the present we tend to absolutize the troubles of the present also. Whatever is happening to us in the present is the worst that it gets. We forget God’s faithfulness in the past and we let doubt and our need assail us – “We’re going to die of starvation out in this desert you brought us to God”. We were so much better off in Egypt. If the picture of human behavior we see in today’s scripture weren’t so believable, it would seems fictional. Yet we can see ourselves in it.
Perhaps you’ve been without a job for awhile. When our security is threatened, we all tend to panic. Whether you’ve worked, three years or thirty, being between jobs brings out the crises in us. Its funny isn’t it that in English we use “bread” as a slang word for money. If not ”bread” then “dough”. Value in some respects, is tied into eating. Eating represents security in no small way. We do the same thing with our health. We are healthy probably 99% of our lives, yet whenever we are sick we absolutize that experience and time. Will we get well from this “whatever” we’ve got? This virus, infection, you name it, could be the one to take us. Like this Israelites in the desert, we forget all too quickly the countless blessings and the innumerable times God has saved us.
We have met the Israelites and they are us. If we had been out in the desert with them and Moses, we probably would have whined for the “flesh pots” of Egypt too. Yet, our lesson has more to say to us than simply revealing the Israelites’ sin and ours. The story is a beautiful story about grace. Though they whined, complained and were ready to march back into Egypt and slavery, God forgave them and put food on the table. Not just bread, but meat too. God sustained them in their desert wanderings not just 40 days but 40 years and the word manna has become a synonym for the unmerited, underserved love that God poured out, and pours out.
Where is the manna in your life?
Manna for me is the taste of raspberries and peaches. It is my 18 year old daughter talking to me about her wedding day and imagining me walking down the aisle with her. Manna is Debbie, my wife, cooking my favorite meal not because I asked for it but because I am always in her mind. Manna for me is having a wonderful parish to serve and visitations from the Holy Spirit when I’m trying to put together sermons. Manna is the tear I see in the eye of someone I’ve just prayed for.
Manna, you see, is direct revelation of divine love that you can feel, and hear, and see, taste and touch. Manna is the outpouring of grace and life that comes in a never ending stream from the hands of a loving God who constantly has us in mind. Manna is simply the Word of God that comes in a myriad of ways, words like the 23rd Psalm which says “thou prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, my cup overflows”. Even in the presence of my enemies, I will lack nothing, I will be safe. My future is secured because I live in Christ and Christ lives in me. Death is behind Jesus, it is also behind me somehow. Manna is being able to live without fear because Jesus has destroyed all that could hurt us.
Oddly enough, when the Israelites were safely settled in the promised land, planting their own crops, growing their own wheat, free and enslaved to no one, they looked back on those days living in tents as nomads in the desert and
saw them as their best days. Part of that was the selective recall bit, but the other part was the clear memory that God showed them in the wilderness that they needed nothing else but Him.
When they needed water, Moses touch a rock and water poured forth.
When they were hungry, God gave then quail and manna – they never hungered.
One of the beautiful things about being a Pastor is that you get to know the prayers of other traditions. There is a beautiful one from the Swedish church which goes like this. “Blessed be God who is our Bread, may all the world be clothed and feed”.
God is our bread.
God is our security
God is our present home and our future one.
Be at peace: you have nothing to fear
In Jesus’ Name, Amen
Who We Are