This is the Bread: Exodus 16:1-18 - 17th Sunday after Pentecost

An 81-year-old church member was scheduled to undergo a hip replacement. Prior to the surgery, they ran some routine tests, which turned up some issues with her heart. They determined that she needed open heart surgery right away. 

I visited her the day after her surgery, which was successful. Just as I arrived, her lunch was delivered, and she was glad to get it, because she hadn’t eaten in several days. But she nearly burst into tears when she saw she’d been served deep-fried chicken tenders that were doused in red pepper. The order slip indicated she’d been served what they called “Chicken Strips of Fire.”

What she wanted was the comfort of a nice, gentle bowl of chicken noodle soup. 

Hospitals are not known for their delicious meals. Sometimes, the perfect medicine is for a friend or relative to sneak in a hamburger or a chocolate bar. Not exactly nutritious, but something to lift your spirits. 

Photo credit: churchart.com

Still, there’s something worse than bad-tasting food, and that is no food at all. 

This is the crisis Moses faces as he leads God’s people through the Sinai desert. They’ve run out of food, and as far as they know, the only place they can get food is back in Egypt, where they were slaves. They rage against Moses and Aaron, accusing them of leading out into the desert to kill them with hunger. 

As much as I’m inclined to be angry with them for complaining, hunger makes you anxious and desperate. They actually believe that they enjoyed bounties of all the finest foods back in Egypt, which, of course, is a gross exaggeration. Still, they were in a dangerous situation. Life cannot flourish in the desert, unless you’re a snake or a scorpion. Moses and the Israelites needed a miracle, and God gave it to them, but not in a way any of them had anticipated. 

God said to Moses, “At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning, you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”

The next day, they awoke to find quails everywhere, as well as a fine, flaky substance covering the ground.

When they saw it, they said “what is it,” which is the exact translation of the Hebrew word manna. But you couldn’t simply eat it off the ground. It could only be gathered in the morning and you had to bake it immediately, because it was extremely perishable. If you tried to store it, it would quickly rot. How did they know this? Because God said so. 

All told, the manna was not the miracle. In fact, you can travel to certain parts of the Sinai desert today and find manna on the ground, just like the Israelites did, and people still eat it. The miracle was God teaching to them how to use what was already there; what they already had. 

If God had not spoken, or if Moses and the people paid God no attention, they would’ve perished. They wouldn’t have known that God’s provision was at their feet. 

God’s Word was their bread. God’s Word was their salvation. But do we treat it as such?

The greatest spiritual tragedy of our time is our neglect of God’s Word. There’s always time for social media, Netflix, sports, shopping, cable news. But are these things life-giving? If the thought of losing any one of these things sends chills down your spine, that’s all the proof you need that you are enslaved to them. 

We’re not content with daily bread. We want wealth. We want power. We want prosperity. We want to be loved and adored and envied. Why? Because we fear the wilderness. What is the wilderness? It’s suffering and grief. It’s failure. It’s rejection. It’s uncertainty. It’s losing control.  Fear is the great slave-master of our time. Not only does fear keep you in bondage to the cares of this world, fear fuels prejudices and hatred. And fear is what holds you back from trusting God through your wilderness journey.

Nothing kills the life of Jesus in the heart of the believer more than fear. And there is much to fear of right now. But God is not absent in this wilderness of chaos and calamity. God sees your suffering. God hears your cries. When God speaks, the wilderness becomes a place of blessing. It’s in the wilderness where repentance happens, where transformation happens, where new life begins. It’s in the wilderness where God becomes your all in all, because there’s nothing else to get in his way.

Therefore, we open the Word, we open ourselves, we listen for instruction, we pray for inspiration and wait for God to speak. God has brought us this far through many dangers, toils, and snares. Our cups are not empty. So many of the gifts we need are already at our feet. When they’re not, we wait for God to speak, we wait for God to act. Even though the Promised Land is a long way off, there will be grace for every need, comfort for every affliction, and healing for every hurt. God speaks, and there is bread.

Exodus 16:1-18 (NRSVue)

16 The whole congregation of the Israelites set out from Elim and came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. ² The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. ³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. ⁵ On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.” ⁶ So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, ⁷ and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?” ⁸ And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him—what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.”

⁹ Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites: ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’ ” ¹⁰ And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. ¹¹ The Lord spoke to Moses, ¹² “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”

¹³ In the evening quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴ When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. ¹⁵ When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. ¹⁶ This is what the Lord has commanded: Gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer per person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents.” ¹⁷ The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less. ¹⁸ But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.