A Narrative Lectionary Sermon on Exodus 16:1-18
Exodus 16:1-18
The whole congregation of the Israelites set out from Elim; and Israel 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. The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 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 fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
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. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.” 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, 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?” 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.”
Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” 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. The Lord spoke to Moses and said, “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.’”
In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 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. 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. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer to a person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents.’” The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less. 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.
The Message
I have always loved this story, but I feel extra close to it because of how much I’ve been using DoorDash lately. I feel like delivery apps have given us the 21st century remake of this passage: I’ve been on the go all day. I’m hungry. I throw my head back to the heavens and complain, and then, all of the sudden, the food I need has popped onto my front porch. Out of nowhere! It really does feel like a miracle (at least until the credit card statement rolls in).
No, truly—I do love this story. And I think that’s because of how intense and how visceral it is. Our liturgy this morning emphasizes God’s generosity and God’s giving. God’s listening and God’s goodness. And to be clear, I see every single one of those things in this passage. I think the Holy Spirit is bringing us here today to witness to the generosity and giving and listening and goodness in God’s character. These are traits that we’ve seen in our God before, in scripture and in day-to-day life. These are traits that we know make our God unique. That we know as “grace.” These are traits that we can note, traits that we can celebrate, and traits in which we can take delight.
But I think the Holy Spirit wants us to go one step further this morning and remember why that generosity, that giving, that listening and that goodness are so important. I think she wants us to get a little uncomfortable and admit why grace matters so much. I think she wants us to remember just how high the stakes were for these people of Israel; how vulnerable this community was. They were physically vulnerable, of course, because they were subject to all of the elements in one of the harshest stretches of desert we know; but they were also raw, emotionally and spiritually. They were anxious and strained because they were leaving everything familiar to them—they were new to liberation and new to wandering and new to figuring things out on the go, with no apparent game plan.
Let’s try to put ourselves in their context for a minute here.
Literally a matter of months ago, these families were slaves under Pharaoh’s rule. And that was a life that they had known for generations. God was with them in that life, whispering promises of love and sustenance and resilience and subversion and impending freedom, but that freedom hadn’t become their reality yet. Their reality was systematic oppression.
The sole driver of their behavior was fear. On individual levels and group levels, they had been forced to internalize and live by the belief that they were sub-human, inferior to the Egyptians by birth and dependent on the Egyptians for everything. They had been forced to internalize and live by the belief that their value was related to one thing and one thing only: what they could produce.
There are so many pastoral care studies that coincide with psychological and biological studies to show us that this kind of internalization is more than just a state of mind. Prolonged stress and struggle can actually start to rewire cells and patterns and reactions in our bodies. That means that, just like joys and strengths and so many other positive things, trauma can actually be passed down in our family lines. The reason why healing is a lifelong process is because each of us comes into the world carrying more than just our own share of experiences. Think of how much God’s people must have been carrying that way, decades and even centuries into a communal life of forced labor.
I think the Holy Spirit wants us to remember this morning that for God’s people, liberation from Egypt wasn’t really a relief. It wasn’t a switch they could flip—a change they could enjoy and benefit from right away. Sure, liberation from Egypt might have been a victory, but it couldn’t have made life easier. It couldn’t have erased the effects of slavery in their minds or their bodies or their souls. After all, what did it take for God’ people to achieve liberation? More oppression. More struggle. More violence. When we enter into this story, the people of Israel have suffered plagues and slaughters. They have had to pack up their belongings and leave the only homes they have ever known. They have been let out of Egypt by their very hesitant Pharaoh; led out of Egypt by a strange, ambivalent Moses, accompanied by some terrifying pillars of clouds and fire; and then chased down by an entire army because their very hesitant Pharaoh changed his mind after all. They have witnessed the drowning of that army in the Red Sea. And then, they have been commanded to cross the same sea, trusting in a magic staff to keep the murderous walls of water up.
I can’t imagine that these people are relaxed. Or inspired. Or even thankful. They must be a little shaken. They must be confused. Disoriented. They must be exhausted. And now, they are hungry.
God comes to Moses and says, “I hear that. I don’t want that. I love my people. So here’s what I’m going to do.”
Mysterious, flaky bread covers the surface of the desert. Here’s a fun fact: “manna” is a play on the Hebrew “ma nah,” which is a question: “What is it?” It takes a little while for people to adjust to the idea of dewy sand-bread, and to adjust to God’s main rule surrounding it. It’s a funny rule, isn’t it? “Gather as much of it as each of you needs.”
What could be the reason for this rule? Scripture tells us that God devises it as a test. But a test of what? It’s definitely not a deprivation exercise. It’s very important to God that God’s people end up full and satisfied.
Here’s where I think this rule came from: God is feeding a people who have been taught that dependence is a prison. That dependence is a trap. That dependence is suppression.
In this manna, God is reminding the Israelites that dependence is the very crux of God’s shalom vision—God’s vision of holistic peace—for the cosmos. In this manna, God is reminding us, the readers, that dependence is not supposed to be a weapon.
Dependence is supposed to be an expression of God’s love. Dependence is supposed to be safe for the giver and the receiver.
And that’s our good news this morning, friends. We have a God who helps us reframe and remember “dependence.”
Why are we conditioned to believe that being dependent is a bad thing? I think it’s because our culture is built on two myths:
The first myth is that dependence means the exact same thing as weakness. That the opposite—independence—means the exact same thing as strength.
Friends, “dependent” is a morally neutral word. So is “independent.” We’re the ones who have charged “dependent” with negative, needy, parasitic connotations. When I really sit down to think about it, I wonder if true independence is even possible, much less good.
Think about those accomplishments of yours that make you proud. Think about those moments when you did something amazing. Those are absolutely accomplishments and moments worth noting. Worth celebrating. Worth delighting in. But are they really yours, alone? Aren’t there a million little nooks and crannies in those accomplishments and in those moments where the lives and work and contributions of other people helped you get there? Could a butterfly have flapped its wings and started a miraculous chain reaction? I think so. And I think that makes everything you do all the more beautiful. Your uniqueness shines through in your accomplishments; in your proudest moments; but it is enhanced by your community. Enriched be being shared. Incredible and interconnected.
The second myth we have been taught is that dependence is one-sided. That we live in a zero-sum world where the giver holds all of the resources and the taker simply depletes them.
There are scholars who say that this story in Exodus shows us that God’s love turns the Protestant work ethic upside down—that it reverses the order of things and the power dynamics that we know. They say that God’s love turns dependence on its head. I would argue the opposite. The Protestant work ethic is what messed things up. God’s love has been around since the beginning of time. God’s love has only ever wanted us to thrive in community with all of creation. God’s love only ever made dependence and interconnectedness safe.
When I worked as a financial advisor at a faith-based broker dealer—and when I still had a commute to the office—I used to take three minutes in my parking spot every morning to pray for forgiveness over the irreconcilable day that was coming. My entire job was to make sure that people were independent. My entire job was to ensure that no matter what direction their lives went, my clients could adapt and adjust and carry on, protected, prepared and impervious. My entire job was to perpetuate those two myths about dependence. That it is weakness. That it is one-sided. My role was to help people do self-sufficiency—which is a convenient euphemism for capitalism—and do it better.
I regret nothing about that. But I still repent. This message about dependence is so deeply troubling for us to hear because all of us have had self-sufficiency—capitalism—taught to us and reinforced and taught to us again and reinforced. Independence is the water we’re swimming in. The call to live a Christian life is literally impossible in our context. It’s irreconcilable. It’s a paradox.
Luckily, friends, we have a God who thrives in paradox. We have a God who embodied paradox, even. Just like Jesus died to defeat death, Jesus became what is impossible to make all things possible.
When God made it so that Jesus was, at once, fully divine and fully human, God blew our knowledge of and our familiarity with and our myths about everything out of the water. And that includes our knowledge of and our familiarity with and our myths about dependence. The person and the relationship we have in Jesus is the only thing that can make sense out of the nonsensical. It is the only thing that can whisper a way forward in what would otherwise be an impasse.
What can you do today, friends, to call on God? To subvert this paradox we live in? To reclaim the Godly meaning of “dependence?”
What can you to this week to remind yourself of your beautiful dependence on God? And what is one, small and surefire way you know you make somebody else feel safe depending on you?
This sermon was authored and delivered on October 10, 2021.
Helpful influences included:
“Commentary on Exodus 16:1-18” by Alphonetta Wines (October 10, 2021)
“Commentary on Exodus 16:1-18” by Julianna Claassens (October 8, 2017)
“#462: God Provides Manna” episode of I Love To Tell The Story: Working Preaching Narrative Lectionary Podcast (October 10, 2021)
P A S T O R ( I S H ) 