Sermon- August 5, 2018

Pentecost 11B- August 5

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

            I’m not a real lobster lover. I know many of you probably think that’s weird. I like shrimp & crab & many kinds of fish; but lobster just doesn’t “do” anything for me. But earlier this week I read something about lobsters that I found interesting. You see, from time to time lobsters have to leave their shells in order to grow. They need the shell to protect them from being torn apart; & yet when they grow, the old shell must be abandoned. If they don’t abandon it, the old shell would soon become their prison–& ultimately their casket.

            The tricky part is the brief period of time between when the old shell is abandoned & the new one is formed. During that terrible, vulnerable period, the transition must be scary to the lobster. Currents cartwheel them from coral to kelp; hungry schools of fish are ready to make them a part of the food chain.  For a while, at least, that old shell must look pretty good.

            And that’s where we find the congregation of the Israelites in our 1^st Lesson today. They too had left behind an old shell–years, generations really, of slavery in Egypt. It wasn’t a good life; but it was life. It was bad & hard; but at least it was a place where they understood the rules, they knew what to expect. It may not have been a land flowing with milk & honey; but at least there was water to drink & food to eat & a roof over their heads. True, they were slaves–but then again, it was steady work.

            Here in the desert, in the wilderness–nothing was certain. Everything was wide open: they had no jobs, no crops, no storehouses, no overseers, & no certainty about where the next meal would come from. No wonder they were grouchy & complaining. Truth be told, in their shoes, we would be too.

            In this state of exposure & uncertainty & anxiety about the future, the past began to look pretty good. They began to look back on their time in Egypt as the “good old days,” reciting fuzzy memories of those years. “The tricky part,” as I read about the lobster, “is the brief period of time between when the old shell is discarded & when the new one is formed.” That was true for the Israelites; & it is true for us.

            American Christianity is in that time between shells. We’re walking through the desert without the security & safety of the old ways of doing things. Sometimes it feels like we’re being forced to reinvent ourselves on an almost weekly basis; & in the midst of being blown about by the winds of change we are tempted to look back on the way things used to be & think how much easier it would be if things never changed. We can find ourselves wishing for more stability, for more security, for “now” to go back to being like “then”.

            The congregation of the Israelites complained about food; & God gave them food. In chapter 17 they complained about water & God gave them water. As time goes on they complained about other things. Sometimes God got angry, sometimes God didn’t; but God always responded to their need & provided for them; because God knew that lack of food, water, & other things wasn’t what was really bothering the Israelites. It was all that freedom, all that uncharted future in front of them.

            So it is with us. We too face an uncertain & uncharted future. We too are often guilty of succumbing to the fatal allure of the familiar. We too look at the way the world is changing & become frightened. We too look to the past for assurance: We cling to the old hymns & the old liturgies, as if we can only pray & God can only hear in those words, in those ways. Sometimes we think, “It was so much better when things were like that.” And maybe it was. But the fact is, it will never be that way again; & we must be the church in the world as it is–not as we wish it were.

            And the story of the manna is our assurance that God is with us in our wilderness, God is leading us through this time of uncertainty & growth, God is providing what we need, not necessarily what we want. We may not recognize the manna God is sending us—after all, manna literally means “What is it?” But we do know God.

            The writer of Exodus refers to the manna as a test. Sometimes we forget that testing is an educational tool, a tool to help us discover those places where we need to learn more & grow more. God isn’t trying to trip the Israelites up, not trying to see if they measure up to being the “Chosen people”–God already knows that they don’t & that such measuring up is beside the point. God is using this test to teach them the lesson that faith isn’t about what we know or about what we are capable of doing.

            Faith is about trusting God in those times when we’re without even the vestige of a shell of outward protection; when we are bereft of anything except our sheer & utter dependence upon the goodness of God. To go out to pick up manna & to take only enough for one day is to trust that God will provide again the next day, & the next day after that, & yes, even the next day after that. May we have that level of trust in God day to day. Amen.