Text: Exodus 16:1-18

Once again, God is paying attention to a moaning and groaning and complaining people. God is compassionate and patient and promises abundance, saying, “I will make bread rain down.”

Now, the image that first came to mind for me was a book that was very popular when I was a child, which became a movie that was popular when Naomi was a child, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. In that book and movie, the town of Chewandswallow doesn’t have regular weather, they have cloud-bursts of orange juice, gusts of spaghetti and parmesan or whatever. Until there comes a point when the food from the sky gets out of control and they need to escape on boats made of toast.

That is not so much the story for the fleeing Israelites. In fact, even though God promises that bread will “rain down,” what actually happens is much different. Not even two months after their dramatic escape across the Red Sea, the people are groaning again. They are hungry and fearful and while my response may be frustration and annoyance that they don’t remember that God has got their backs, God hears and responds.

In some ways it is no wonder that the people are complaining and fearful and looking backward. They have escaped, but mentally they are still stuck in the trauma and fear that they were constantly feeling in their life in Egypt. In Hebrew, Mitzrayim, the word for the land of Egypt, literally means, “the narrow place.” The people experienced it as small and constricting and closed. It’s related to the word for ‘limitations.’

Even though they’ve technically left, they have no imagination for what a liberated life in God’s care can possibly look like. How could they? They have only known limitation.

I just finished reading the book James by Percival Everett. I won the Pulitzer Prize this year and a whole mess of other prizes and awards. It takes the character Jim from Mark Twain’s books about Huckleberry Finn. In his effort to escape enslavement fleeing north along the Mississippi, and to buy back his wife and daughter, James encounters – and must be wary of – many enslaved people who, like the Israelites, are still beholden to Pharoah. They are fearful or even profess to prefer their situation. Unlike James, whose face is determinedly turned toward freedom, such a life is unimaginable and dangerous to them.

For the Israelites, though they have been promised a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of such abundance that there is enough and more than enough for many peoples (this is before any talk of conquest or displacement) they are still looking back at the food of the narrow place. The broad and open place that waits for them is so unimaginable that they think it would have better that they died with full bellies in captivity.

So Aaron speaks to them:  “‘Draw near to Adonai, who has heard your complaints.’ As Aaron spoke to the whole Israelite community, they turned to look toward the desert, and just then the glorious presence of Adonai appeared in the cloud.” (I can’t quite help but picture this as one of those sunbursts where you see the rays bursting out of the clouds!)

As the people turn toward the wilderness, so turns the story. This turning toward God, who is before them in the wilderness, marks a turning toward liberation, toward abundance, toward mutual thriving. They begin to experience and practice what it means to have enough. 

When we say the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples we pray

Our Father in Heaven,

Hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread,

and forgive us our sins 

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil,

for the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours

now and forever. Amen.

Give us today our daily bread. I very clearly remember learning in seminary from Mary Shertz that the Greek in this prayer is worded kind of oddly. It’s literally, “Give us our bread for today, enough for today.” Or something like that. 

It’s about a radical acceptance of God’s provision for each day and it echos the invitation to the Israelites, who instead of raining bread, experience and new and unknown substance called manna. Manna literally means, “What is it?” 

They are invited to take as much as they each need but no more. Even for each day. And “when they measured it out by the omer, the ones who had collected more had nothing left over, and the ones who had collected less had no shortage. Everyone collected just as much as they could eat.”

I had always read it like God was the one who was miraculously leveling the cups. I pictured God like a parent seeing two kids who haven’t shared the can of soda equally between their two cups and pouring a little from one into the other until they’re even. God’s teaching the people what it means to share.

In this reading of this pretty familiar story I thought, this could also be saying that when it came time to sort out everything that had been gathered, it was the people themselves, who now that they have their faces are turned toward the God of liberation and to the idea of abundance and enough and new life each day, they naturally began to take care of each other. They ensured that those who hadn’t gathered enough had what they needed and those who had too much shared from their plenty.

When I go pick blackberries with my kids, what sometimes happens is I pick faster, so my container gets full. And the kids pick slower, which is both discouraging and you don’t get to eat as many, so I dump some of my berries into their buckets. That means I can pick a little more and they can pick a little more and we can all enjoy all the berries we want.

This kind of mutual aid, the practice of offering a little of the extra that I have to my neighbor who doesn’t have as much for whatever reason, is an old idea – as old as the Bible – that’s gaining strength in the now times. The world is shifting and the networks of care that we have depended on are breaking. Mutual aid will become more and more important. Whatever the reasons that people couldn’t gather as much quail and manna, disability, age, other responsibilities, straight-up slow- or laziness, their community took care of them. Those are still reasons that people get left behind now, among others. 

It’s actually something that the Mennonite Church has some practice at! Everence used to be literally called “Mennonite Mutual Aid” for goodness sake.  Just this week a Mennonite congregation in Texas made up mostly of immigrants called on Mennonite Church to practice the mutual aid that is in our DNA – share our money and resources, skills, time with them and other immigrant communities who need the church to turn our faces toward the God of enough.

Pastor Diane of Roca de Refugio wrote to Mennonite Action participants this week:

We at Roca are so grateful for your support. Every time someone from outside our community prays for us, sends a message of hope, sends funds or items to donate, or visits us, it sends a clear message to our immigrant families. They matter, someone does care, their lives and their struggles are seen and held, they are not alone. Especially now, that remembering is vital in the face of so much felt experience to the contrary. Thank you for being a voice of love.

She went on to share specific ways the church could support them. And I’m 100 percent sure that the immigrant churches in our conference have similar needs. I can find out and I’ll share in our eMemo this week.

In a moment we are going to share Communion. This meal that commemorates the last supper Jesus had with his disciples before he gave his own body over to the powers of death, is a celebration of the life he shared with them and with us. The communion table is a celebration of the abundance of life and the gifts of God for the people of God.

Just as the prayer that Jesus taught echos the experience of his ancestors in the wilderness, the meal that he shared also echos it. We each receive a portion, enough to remind of of who we are as the body of Christ. Enough to call us together as followers of Christ. Enough to invite us to turn toward liberation and salvation. Let us share the bread of life, as we reorient toward enough.

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