“Journey Mercies” (guest message by Suzanne Wall)

Today’s message reading comes from the book of Exodus in the Old Testament.

The word exodus basically means “getting out.”

Exodus records the story of a group of people who got out of a bad situation, and what their journey was like and how God led them. And it’s powerful because it’s not only a bit of history, but saved in the Bible as an up-close example of how God works. We can read about these people in the 15^th century B.C. and in a lot of ways it’s so recognizable for situations we find ourselves in today. And it gives a picture of how we can expect God to act.

Exodus tells how the Israelites got out of Egypt, where they were slaves, and made their way toward a better home. It starts by describing how bad their situation had become and how the people cried out for help. And God answered. Reading from Exodus 3:

⁷ The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey….”

The first few chapters of Exodus have the exciting story of how that rescue went down. The process started slow with lots of negotiations and then escalating pressure and finally the point where lives were really on the line and it was grab the kids and go go go. That’s the scary night we still remember with unleavened bread, because there wasn’t even time to let the bread rise, it was just take crackers and run. And then there was a chase, with the oppressors trying to get their slaves back, but God shut that down too and the horse and rider fell into the sea, as the song says. So that’s the story up to Exodus chapter 15, which has a song of praise for the successful rescue.

So with the escape over, the journey’s done and the book’s finished, right? Actually, no. There are 25 more chapters in Exodus and then the story keeps going in the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It took the Israelites about a month to escape the Egyptians. Then it took 40 years in the wilderness before they to finally got to their destination. Even though, if you look on a map, it wasn’t that far away.

And I think this is pretty relatable. Anyone who’s escaped from a domestic violence situation, after you grabbed the kids and got in the car and made it to the shelter, safe, what percent were you finished with the total journey to being fully out of the situation and settled in your new life? Anyone who’s gotten out of an addiction, when you’d flushed the drugs and done with withdrawal and testing clean and blocked those numbers that needed to be blocked, whew, escaped, how close were you to being done with your sobriety journey?

Isn’t it more like step 2 after a big escape is that you find yourself in a wilderness where your old life is gone but you don’t quite have a new one yet. There’s still a hard process of figuring out a lot of practical stuff just to survive, and changing as a person to be able live a new life. And that wilderness is hard, as we can see from how many people end up relapsing or going back to abusive relationships. There’s a song about this called “Painting Pictures of Egypt” by Sara Groves, and part of it goes

Familiar things are never easy To discard
I was dying for some freedom But now I hesitate to go
I am caught between the Promise And the things I know

I am painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out all it lacks, the future seems so hard, and I want to go back.

And that’s exactly the where the Israelites were in Exodus Chapter 16, which is the message text for today. At this point people were one month out from their big escape from Egypt, still traveling in the wilderness with no new home in sight yet, and reality was setting in.

I’m going to read the chapter, and I’m only reading it once so listen carefully. It goes quickly, and there’s a lot to notice. This chapter describes how God gave manna in the wilderness. Listen for what this says about manna, because it’s such an important example of God’s provision that we still talk about it.

Exodus 16

16 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. ² In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. ⁵ On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

⁶ So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, ⁷ and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. …

¹⁰ While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.

¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, ¹² “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

¹³ That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴ When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. ¹⁵ When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.

Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.

¹⁶ This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”

¹⁷ The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. ¹⁸ And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.

¹⁹ Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.”

²⁰ However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

²¹ Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. ²² On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omersfor each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. ²³ He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’”

²⁴ So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. ²⁵ “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. ²⁶ Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”

²⁷ Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. ²⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you^[c] refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? ²⁹ Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where they are on the seventh day; no one is to go out.” ³⁰ So the people rested on the seventh day.

³¹ The people of Israel called the bread manna.^[d] It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey. ³² Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the wilderness when I brought you out of Egypt.’”

So to summarize, what was manna? How did it help those people who had escaped from slavery, but still in the wilderness with a long way to go? I see three main points: it was food, it was a sign, and it was a lesson.

First, manna was food that helped people survive day to day. It looked like thin white flakes and tasted like wafers with honey, and could be boiled or baked. Because God gave manna, the people did not starve in the desert.

Second, manna represented a sign of God’s presence. When this strange thing to eat just appeared on the ground in the morning, day after day, people realized that God heard them and was there to provide. I noticed a few phrases that the chapter repeats four times each. Each phrase tells something important about the sign.   

• “he has heard your grumbling”
• “as much as they needed”
• “Then you will know that I am the Lord.”

Manna shows that God is a God who hears, even our grumbling, who gives as much as we need, and who is present to show that he is the Lord.

The people complained at the beginning of the passage, “did you bring us out to this desert to starve us to death?” Manna helped give them the answer — no, God brought you here, God is going to provide for you here. And that answer is something we can hold on to today as well.

A couple weeks ago, I heard David sharing a bit about the time right after their big car accident, when he woke up in the hospital bed and realized how much they had lost. And he said the thought he had to cling to through that time was: “God wouldn’t have brought us here if he didn’t have something for us. He did not bring us here to destroy us.”

That’s the faith that the Bible teaches us to have. You might ask David, did God give you manna in the wilderness after your car accident, and if so what did that manna look like? And you could ask the same question of anyone in this room has been through a hard journey.

God provides for people as a sign of who he is. Listen to what Jesus said, recorded in John 6:

³⁰ So they asked Jesus, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? ³¹ Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness. ³² Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” ³⁴ “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” ³⁵ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.  ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life.

Jesus taught us to pray “give us this day our daily bread.” Just like the Israelites got to gather their daily manna, we can ask God for what we need. That might be actual bread, or any other thing we need for life, from housing and clothes to employment and relationships. We can be confident taking that request to the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

And finally, manna was a lesson. Sure the Israelites needed calories to survive the desert, but also they needed skills to eventually get out of the desert and live a free life.

Remember these people had been slaves, ordered around a lot and not free to care for themselves or arrange their own work and rest. God used manna help teach them discipline for a new life. Manna taught them a rhythm of six days of going out to gather, and one day to drop everything and just rest.

I guess God could’ve made bread magically appear pre-packaged in the peoples’ tents. The people probably would’ve loved that. Apparently, they thought they remembered Egypt having all-you-can-eat meat pots that they, the slaves, could just sit around and take as much as they wanted. Right.

But out in the desert, God chose to put manna out on the ground where the people got to gather it for themselves, and then practice managing it. There were important lessons in taking what they needed and no more, sharing so that everyone had enough, saving up enough for a day of rest, and not hoarding.

Think about the mental state of people worried “how am I going to survive?” Those can be the people who go crazy trying to work nonstop and hoarding up everything they can. Manna forced the people of Israel not to do that, but instead to live with faith and with regular rest.

Manna, as in the little wafers, only existed for that one journey, and stopped when the Israelites reached their destination in Canaan. But the lessons of manna keep going. For example in 2 Corinthians Paul referred to manna when he was talking about money. He a thanked a church that was sending money to another congregation, and said

^“At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”

Most important, manna gave lessons in listening to and following God’s words.

Deuteronomy 8:3 says God humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

When we’re in the wilderness, we can look to God to satisfy our hunger and also for instruction that will do us good to follow.

Now I’m to the last page, and thinking what else does Pastor Steve usually include, when he’s doing a sermon. He usually does some side bars, to give us more to think about, and finally closes by summing things up with a hope and prayer for all of us.

So here’s my sidebar. I see that Exodus 16 shows the Israelites going on a good journey to where God wanted them to go, and God showed his blessing by supporting them with manna. Got that. But what if I’m on the wrong journey in a direction that God doesn’t want me to go? Is God still there, and what’s God’s mercy going to look like in that case?

The people who make the lectionary apparently also thought about this question, because there’s a second Old Testament reading for today and it’s from the book of Jonah. I won’t go into detail, but I suggest that you go home and reread Jonah. It’s such a funny and meaningful book and it gives an example of how God works with someone going the wrong way. In Jonah’s story, God’s mercies didn’t look like delicious honey wafers. They looked like storms, near shipwreck, getting thrown overboard, a big fish, hot sun, and a withered plant.

Just like with manna, these interventions gave Jonah what he needed to get on track. It’s good to remember that whether I’m getting a sweet surprise or being thrown overboard, either way it could be God’s mercy at work for my good.

And now finally, my hope and prayer for all of us is that we can come to Jesus, the true bread from heaven who gives life to the world. Thank you God that you are with us on our journeys, that you hear our grumbling, and that you are ready give us as much as we need, including the food we need and the lessons we need to learn.

Amen