Modern Manna
Rev. Dr. Michael Stotts
Ex. 16:2-15
(Mt. 20:1-10)
So God provides food for God's people in the desert wilderness! Isn't this a fascinating story? Full of irony and hypocrisy? Here's a people delivered from years of crushing slavery, at the hands of the Egyptians. God has sent miracle after miracle to help them escape the Egyptians, culminating in the parting of the Red Sea. You'd think by now they had trust in the Lord!
But no, as soon as they find themselves in the wilderness do they trust that God will take care of them? Instead the complaints begin. First they blame Moses and Aaron, their leaders: "you've led us out here to starve!" Apparently they've already forgotten about God!
Clearly however, God knows their need, even before they ask--after all would a God who goes to such trouble to save the people, then leave them to starve. But no, the people don't trust in God to provide. Yet God does--the Lord provides not only meat from heaven, those quails, but a mysterious bread, that came to be called manna--a bread direct from God, that would sustain the people through years in the wilderness. But in the beginning, before they saw this bread, spread out like frost on the ground each morning and understood what it was, they had no trust in God.
What about you and me. I know after a week like this one with all the scary economic news, there are probably many reasons why we also worry about our security. Is that retirement money on which I count secure? Will the economy get better so I'll be able to get or keep my job? And enough to eat?
Yes, so--with all our doubts at a time like this--aren't we being a little like Moses' and Aaron's followers in the desert. God has blessed us as well abun-dantly, many times in the past. But like the Hebrew people in the wilderness--we, too, lose our faith in God to provide for us far too quickly. Part of the rea-son, I think, is our failure to look more often at all God has and, yes is doing to provide for us, right now. We don't look for God's gifts , and so lose faith!
In that regard, we're again like the Hebrew people in our lesson, who also apparently didn't look hard enough to see God's provision for them. It's interesting that the word "manna" in the Hebrew means "what is it?" When Moses' followers in the wilderness first saw the manna God had spread out before them after the dew lifted that morning, they didn't recognize what they had! "What is it?" they asked. God had now provided for them, but they didn't expect for it, and so didn't recognize it, when it was before their very eyes!
What are the blessings, and the ways God has fed you, even today, that you aren't seeing, or recognizing as God's providential care . . yes for you!
I think the first time I had my eyes opened and realized how much we as Americans are well fed, though we seldom think about or recognize it, was during the year I spent in India as a youth. Everywhere we went there were beggars who followed us, and the poverty, like on the streets of Calcutta when we visited there for a few days, was inescapable. People bathing in the gutters, little children carrying around babies on their hips--flies buzzing around the infants dirty faces, while the mothers had to be off somewhere serving as a servant for someone "rich enough" like us Americans, or the upper classes of the Indian people, people rich enough to afford the relative cheap salary (by our standards) of servants in that land, at the time. When my folks started working at the Methodist college there that year, they were shocked to hear they would have to hire a maid--a servant or aiya as they were called, who would come in and clean for them daily, and serve them their meals. My folks, though shocked at the idea, were told that those who had enough had a responsibility to hire servants for such menial jobs, because in that overcrowded land of India, that was the only way for the poor classes to survive.
And so it went in many ways during our year in the poor land of India. The country has come along way, as we all know from Indian operators we reach when calling about some customer service problem with many companies, yet still there is vast poverty there, and around the world. And those operators are hired, instead of Americans, because they're willing to work for much, much less. So we help to keep them poorer than you or me!
You see, though things might be tight for many of us financially, and we seem threatened by what's happening to the global economies with all the uncertainty, we need first of all, I think to look for the manna God has already given us. We shouldn't have to ask "what is it." We should look for, and recognize all the ways in which you or I are really very blessed!
Several years ago I ran across some figures from a world economist that makes this point vividly, showing us how indeed well off we are, though we may not think so. The figures are dated by now, I'm sure, but the point they make is still very valid. The economist said,
"if you live on anything other than a dirt floor home you fall into the top 50% of the most prosperous people on earth. If you have a door and a window and more than one room, then you belong in the upper 20% of the wealthiest people in the world. If you can read, have a change of underwear and pair of shoes and a choice between two or more foods when you eat, you belong in the top 10%, of the wealthiest people in the world. If you have some sort of refrigeration you fall in the top 5%. And if you have a car, a VCR, a computer, a microwave and a refrigerator, you are in the top 99th percentile of the wealthiest people of the world throughout its entire history."
Yes, "what is it?" Manna? Though we don't often realize it, or recognize it as such, we are well-blessed indeed. God has provided for us abundantly.
Well then, if God has provided for us, why, you might ask, is there still such poverty in so many places in the world, and why do our struggling economies right now, give us such a feeling of insecurity. Well here I think we can answer those questions by one word. It's one we hate to use about ourselves as a people in this country, and yet it unfortunately has become the engine that drives our whole economy--and that word has been "greed." Yes, pure and simple, greed. Was it not greed that caused the current economic turmoil?: too many banks wanting more and more income, with ever rising interest rates, and therefore writing far too many risky mortgages, for people wanting homes many couldn't afford--homes which by the way were often much more of a house than they really needed. When was it written that every new home built had to have both a living room and a family room, and a two car garage, and, and . . . Yes greed. When did we get to the place where the meaning of our lives was to work hard so that we would always have far more than we have al-ready--instead of how God intended us to live--to simply have enough, enough to survive comfortably, and to feel content and blessed with what we have.
In the lesson today, as God provided the manna for the people, it was exactly enough to feed them all. Then they were told that on the day before the Sabbath, there would be twice as much manna, so they wouldn't have to labor to gather their food on the Sabbath. So if they got greedy, and consumed too much on that day before the Sabbath, then they would starve.
God does provide for us, and has given us enough--but not more than enough, so if we consume more than enough, someone starves. Economists have shown that every day there is enough food grown in the world to feed every many woman and child on earth comfortably. So, why, then are there more than a billion people in the world who go to bed hungry every night?[Statistics from Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, by Ronald Sider].
God provides, yes, but expects us to share--instead of practicing the economy of greed. One example of how addicted we are to the ways of greed is the staggering amount of money spent every year on lotteries. They're the ultimate example of our always wanting to get more--and indeed, if we can, something for nothing. That lottery kind of greed is perhaps even worse because we don't even earn it. And in fact the irony is, with lotteries, as with all other situations where we have more than need, we're never really satisfied! For the same thing that makes us by a lottery ticket, makes us think we never have enough!
A fascinating study was done not long ago, of people who had won the lottery. The study found that the vast majority of those responding reported that winning the lottery had made their lives worse, not better. For suddenly everyone wanted their attention. Everyone suddenly loved them because of their money--not because of who they were. Families became divided over the money; with the money came more responsibilities for there was more to pro-tect; and so forth. Hence, unhappiness for the majority of lottery winners.
If then greed does not satisfy, is it not clear that the teachings of our faith are right on target? That instead of greed, we need to shift to economies based on sharing, and love, and making sure that we all have enough? While recognizing that our real blessings are those of family, and a caring community, and knowing and sharing God's love in the midst of such communities.
Yes, so then if being satisfied and happy is what we seek, what our lives need to focus on are not our possessions and getting more and more with our economy of greed, but rather we should focus on our real blessings which are loving families and communities, and the times when instead of being greedy, we seek to share and give to one another.
The late Mahatma Gandhi, India's revered leader, had the right idea about possessions and belongings. Instead of a work ethic of greed, his was one of sharing and helping others--helping his people in every way he could. He was one who tried to help the poor, for example, in many ways, clearly seeing that what he had didn't belong to him alone, but to everyone, as God's gifts to be shared. For example, when he boarded a train one day, a sandal slipped off his foot and landed beneath the train. But the distinguished Indian leader did not have time to retrieve it, so quickly Gandhi removed the other sandal and threw it back down the track in the direction of the one he'd lost. When asked for an explanation, he replied, "The poor man who finds the shoe lying on the track will now have a pair he can use."
Yes, almost naturally, Gandhi showed us an ethic, not of greed, but of caring and sharing that should be ours as Christians, for that's the ethic Jesus taught as well.
Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ--we are called as Christians and children of God, who is the one who provides all that we have, we are called to have a different kind of economic ethic--an ethic of sharing and caring and community, rather than an individualistic ethic of greed, and everyone for themselves. The latter will never satisfy and only leads to misery for the poor, and unhappiness for the rich. But Christ's way leads to abundance--to seeing a modern Manna--to a discovery of all that God has already fed us --- fed us all-- if only we'll learn--to care and to share. Amen.