Our Daily Wonder Bread
Exodus 16:1-15
Corey Fields, Associate Pastor

I’ve always been a fan of cute clichés.  You probably know the one that says, “The grass is always greener on the other side.”  There’s another related one that says, “The grass may be greener on the other side, but it still has to be mowed.”

As you probably know, our current congressional representative is Nancy Boyda.  Congresswoman Boyda puts out a regular newsletter that I receive (in order to stay informed and active in what’s going on around us).  In the most recent newsletter, she began her remarks like this: 

“Just about everywhere we turn lately we hear another conversation centered on the sad state of affairs. The weather; Hurricane Ike has caused devastating loss in Texas and flooding in the Midwest. The volatile stock market; analysts are very concerned. Home foreclosures. High gasoline prices. The cost of health care. Food prices that are through the roof. The list goes on and on.  And those doing the talking are pretty much right on the money – no pun intended. Things have been pretty grim. We can’t ignore the state of the economy. People are hurting. It’s something I’ve talked about more than a few times in my weekly letter to the Second District.  Please know that I am doing all I can in Congress to turn the tide.”

There are plenty of people out there to remind us that the grass is getting pretty brown.  I kind of like the analogy of the desert for those tough times in life.  And not just the tough times of the nation or the world, but in our individual lives and families.  We walk through deserts, so to speak.  When it can seem like it’s going to be forever before we get a cold drink or something good to eat.  (Now, there are many people in the world who go through this kind of thing literally.  For this context, I am speaking figuratively).  Deserts, where we long for the familiar, the comfortable, the routine.  Deserts, where we long for a place to call home but are instead just setting up camp along the way.  Deserts, where it seems like there’s nothing ahead of you but desert.

In the passage we read today, the Israelites were in the desert.  What has happened is somewhat interesting.  They are in the desert somewhere between Egypt and what is now Israel, the promised land.  It was not a short journey.  Many hundreds of miles on foot, with complications.  Earlier in Exodus, God had sent Moses to free them and lead them out of slavery, because God had “heard their cry.”  They were being oppressed, they wanted to be free.  God sent them a deliverer.  NOW, they are saying to that same deliverer:  “We were better off back in Egypt!”  At least back there we knew where our next meal was coming from, they said.  At least things were familiar.  At least we had shelter.

They are finding out that, even though the grass was greener on the other side, it still has to be mowed.  Or to put it another way, I’m reminded of what Caz McCaslin, the founder of Upward, always says:  “If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.”  God heard the Israelites prayer.  They wanted freedom.  They got it.  But it involved a lot more than they bargained for.  It works that way with a lot of things we might ask God for.  Have you ever prayed for patience?...  It’s not to say that the Israelites WERE in fact better off as slaves.  Of course freedom is better.  But it’s hard work.  Of course patience is a good thing to have.  But the process by which we acquire patience can be hard work.  Of course marriage is a wonderful thing…  Of course raising children is a blessing…  Of course it’s great to be one of the best churches in Topeka…  In the movie Evan Almighty, the sequel to Bruce Almighty, Morgan Freeman plays the part of God.  At one point in the movie, Evan’s wife, played by Lauren Graham, has been getting frustrated that God isn’t answering her prayers.  She’s eating in a restaurant when God, posing as a waiter, pays her a visit.  Here’s what he says:  [[Play EVAN ALMIGHTY clip]].

So the Israelites complain and say “we’re starving, we were better off back there.”  Then the passage we read tells how God provided quail for them in the evening, and then some kind of flaky bread for them that was leftover after the morning dew.  Wonder bread.  What was this bread?  Well, we’re not sure…and neither were they.  It was called “manna.”  Manna is a Hebrew word that means, “What is it?”  Now can’t you just hear that conversation?  “What is it?”  “Yup, that’s what it is.”  “What?”  “What is it!”  “That’s what I asked you!”

Notice what God did NOT do.  Couldn’t God have just transported them to the Promised Land “Star-Trek-style” without a 40-year journey in the desert?  Couldn’t God have treated them to some fondue every once in a while?  Couldn’t he have made the desert into a lush and cool garden?  Supposedly He could have.  But He didn’t.  God just doesn’t work that way, does He?  God doesn’t snap His fingers and do magic tricks.  He’s not a celestial puppet-master, it’s just not what He does.  There are some who will tell you that if you just pray the right way, the right number of times, with the right amount of faith, God will do something for you that He wouldn’t do for someone else who hasn’t figured out the magic brew.  I wish it were true.  I wish that God would just lift His finger and take that cancer away.  I wish that God would just lift His finger and repair your family.  I wish that God would just lift His finger and stop war, fix Wall Street, and prevent natural disasters.  But He just doesn’t seem to work that way.

But what DID God do?  What did God give them?  First of all, He gave them the opportunity for a Sabbath.  Here’s what verse 5 says:  “On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”  God commanded them to rest on the 7^th day of every week.  Sabbath.  When is the last time you took a Sabbath?  God built it in.  He did Himself after creating the world.  Day 7, He rested.  I have to wonder how many of our prayers would have a different result and how much more productive we could be if we all took a Sabbath for rest and worship.  We’re built for it.  God designed the world that way.

But besides that.  God gave them just what they needed to make the journey themselves.  The bread, quail, water, Sabbath; even the parting of the Red Sea.  God equips people; He doesn’t do it for them.  Earlier I was being facetious when I said ‘why can’t God just teleport them,’ but let’s pretend He did.  If there was no hard journey, it would have had no meaning for them.  It was precisely because the Israelites made such a huge leap of faith and sacrifice that the Exodus came to be the foundational story of the Judeo-Christian tradition.  You don’t value something that you don’t work for, and you don’t learn anything when it’s done for you.  In our weakness, God shows His strength.  Through struggle, God shapes and forms us into the mature and complete human beings that He wants us to be.  God does not cause struggle and suffering, but He uses it…He provides just what He need, walks with us all the way, and shapes us into His creation.

And not only this, but later in the Bible we read that many of the original slaves in Egypt never got to personally see the promised land.  They didn’t get to reap all the benefits of their struggle and sacrifice…but their children did.  God has a plan for us, but he has a plan for our children too.  God will still be at work when we’re not around.

Will be obey?  Will we trust that God is at work through our struggle?  Will we let Him shape our lives, and all the while blaze the trail for future generations?  He WILL give us just what we need to make the journey ourselves.