Eighth Sunday after Pentecost 2003

Speaking Index

Delivered 4 August 2003, the Saturday service based on the readings for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost.

We have come from our homes, our gardens, some from golf games, some from our labors, to gather beside the waters of baptism, to gather at the foot of the cross. We are called here to worship together. It is good that we are here.

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Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and from his son Jesus the Christ, and from the Holy Spirit. Amen

Bitch, bitch, bitch. Does it ever seem like the children of Israel spent all their time whining and complaining about their lot in life? They complained about living as slaves in Egypt, and now they're complaining about their empty bellies.

I suspect that the conditions of some, maybe most, of the Israelites in Egypt had been pretty bad – it looks bad in the movies, the actuality of making bricks in the hot sun as the overseers' whips rose and fell was probably far worse than what Hollywood portrays.

The Lord heard the people, and commissioned Moses to lead them out of the promised land. It was a messy exit, but they made it across the Red Sea. But about a month into the wilderness their food had run out. The foraged as they went, probably grabbing some locusts and wild honey from time to time, but again they complained.

Again the Lord heard the people, and being more compassionate than I am, had a solution. He sent quail and manna. I'm always surprised that the text glosses over the quail so readily. Manna is treated with careful detail, it comes with the dew, it melts away in the sun. The people were to gather one omer of manna each day, anything more would spoil. Did the quail fly away after dinner? It says the camp was covered in quail. Can you see thousands of quail running off, with their little top-knots bobbing up and down? How many did they eat? Joy of Cooking recommends one quail per diner, but that presumes you will also have a salad, vegetables, a roll, and maybe a potato. Did they just toss the bones on the ground after dinner? Let the feathers blow away? We have no clue.

Of course, we don't have much more clue about manna. Nor did the Israelites – what we read as "manna" is from the original "Man hu", Hebrew meaning "What is it?" There have been some amazing attempts to suggest a natural source for manna, none of which is satisfying.

And how did they gather it? It fell with the dew, like frost on the ground. It looked like coriander seed. They're in the desert, right? If it fell in piles like snow, so they could easily scoop it up with their hands or bowls that would be different. But like frost? They were told to gather one omer of manna for every person. My dictionary says an omer is 3.7 quarts, almost a gallon. It's hard to imagine these people kneeling on the ground with tweezers picking up that many seeds.

There is one great shortcut mentioned a few verses after the text we read. No matter how much manna each person collected, when measured it was the right amount. I wonder how far they pushed that once they found they couldn't keep any extra? This was a test, after all, of whether or not they would follow instruction.

Those that were greedy, or lacking faith that fresh manna would arrive in the morning, tried to accumulate the stuff found that it spoiled overnight. Not just that it wasn't good to eat. Oh no! It writhed with worms and stank. Except on the sixth day. On that day, the people were to gather a second omer of manna so that they had enough for the Sabbath. No manna fell on the Sabbath, but the measure of manna from the sixth day was unspoiled.

We don't know if anyone tried to save a few quail for the Sabbath. We don't even know if the quail came after the first day, although we read that the manna continued for forty years, until the first morning in the promised land, when no manna came. They were probably pretty sick of it by then, anyway.

We learn in Numbers that "the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium. The people went about and gathered it, and ground it in mills or beat it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made cakes of it; and the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil." The King James says "cakes baked with honey." I don't care how good it was, after forty days I'm sure I would be carping and moaning about the menu, let alone forty years, and Israel got sick of it. Later in Numbers, which, by the way, is titled "In the wilderness" in the Torah, we read "The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.""

The real point of today's lessons is that though manna was a gift from God, though it sustained the tribes during their long sojourn in the wilderness, though it kept them alive; it wasn't the bread of life. It didn't satisfy for the long haul. It was met with great relief, and it tasted pretty good, at least at first, but it wasn't what the people craved.

The same applies to the feeding of the five thousand in John's Gospel. Sure it was a pretty neat trick, and the people probably talked about it for years, but it seems like the bread and fish were just there as contrast to the central message.

After the feeding of the five thousand, there was another miracle. The disciples had gone off in their boat, and had rowed three or four miles when Jesus just walks up to them in the storm. And again, there may have been yet another miracle, because as soon as Jesus got into the boat, the boat arrived at Capernaum. We have no idea where they started from, so it's not clear if that three or four miles of rowing had gotten them most of the way or not, but the Sea of Galilee is big enough that they could have traveled two or three times that distance, some of it by miraculous propulsion.

Some of the crowd got into boats and followed. They challenged Jesus, saying that Moses had given them bread from heaven, apparently not understanding that they had just seen a huge volume of bread from heaven.

But as we come down to the end of the Gospel text, we reach the central point for which the manna and the miracle of the loaves and fishes are contrast, Jesus says "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." The manna that fell with the dew fed the Israelites for only a day at a time, the people on the hillside above the Sea of Galilee were probably hungry by the time the storm came up, but the Son of God nourishes us for all time.

In the wilderness, the wandering tribes ate the bread that God showered on their camp each day, and they died. We eat the bread that God gives us in Christ, and we live forever. In these early chapters of John's Gospel we have Jesus preaching on a range of old testament texts. In the first chapter, John makes the distinction very clear: Moses gave the law, but Jesus brings grace and truth. One is sufficient for the day, the other is sufficient for eternity.

I'm probably about as curious as you get, my first instinct is to want to know how something happened. We read the Genesis story of creation, and I wonder how the universe was made, and how humans came to dwell on this blue-green ball spinning through space. Through long and diligent study, we have learned incredible things about how God created the cosmos, it's really rather wonderful and in no way reduces the magnitude of the miracle, nor does it question the identity of the creator.

There are those who attempt to explain manna as the excrement of certain lice that feed off the bark of the tamarask tree, a substance that is called manna and is sometimes eaten by Bedouins in that region even today. There are those who want to claim that the feeding of the five thousands was just that everyone had brought a little lunch with them and only pulled it out of their packs after the loaves and fishes were offered up. This feels completely different to me, not at all the healthy curiosity that leads us to investigate the creation of matter and worlds. They are denying that there was a miracle taking place, denying that God is God.

I am curious about the manna, what is it and how did God deliver it three thousand years ago. I would have liked to see how the loaves multiplied two thousand years ago. But I'm not too curious. I worry that if I start to wonder how God will provide my next meal, I might start to get nervous like the Israelites in the wilderness. Wondering how God provides our next meal could easily lead us to wonder whether he will provide our next meal, for we certainly don't deserve it. That will let doubt grow in our hearts, and if we have trouble believing that God will provide tomorrow's lunch, how can we believe that He will also provide for our lives for eternity?

The answer is, by grace. The law of Moses has been replaced by grace. By the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we do believe it. Jesus said it, John recorded it, we believe it. Jesus is the bread of life. Come to the Lord and you will never hunger, believe in Him and never thirst. Amen.