Loving God, not only do you hear our prayers, but you provide what we need and more. Help us to be aware of your providing, and teach us how to handle the human dividing, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            We have come a long way since last week, when Moses was just being sent to Egypt in order to lead the Israelites out of slavery.  Now, already it has been at least six weeks since they left Egypt, and they are out in the wilderness somewhere between Elim and Sinai.  Today’s reading from Exodus is already their seventh stop and their third complaint.  Surprisingly, it seems that already they have forgotten about God.  They don’t have enough food, and rather than looking to God for help, they complain to Moses and Aaron.  In fact, they don’t just complain.  Already they have a modified memory of what things were like in Egypt.  Apparently they were very well-fed slaves!

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 (Ex. 16:3).

        You can almost imagine God just throwing his hands in the air.  However, God exhibits incredible patience throughout this wilderness journey.  In fact, God not only hears the complaints of the people, but also responds and provides.  God lets them know through Moses and Aaron that they are going to receive bread from heaven each day, and that there will be quails to eat in the evening.  Each day they will receive enough for that day – their daily bread.

         So imagine that you are one of the Israelites, and you go out in the morning to gather about two liters of “man hu”, which means, “what is it?”  Man hu, or manna, is described as a fine flaky substance on the ground.  It was also kind of like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey (Ex. 16:31).  They baked it and boiled it in order to be able to eat it.  So you gather your two liters (which is about what an omer is), and do you take a little extra, just in case?...  Or, do you believe that God will provide for you again tomorrow?...

         In the verses that follow today’s reading, there are some people who try to take a little extra and keep it until the next morning.  “And it bred worms and became foul” (Ex. 16:20).  The one exception to this is the Sabbath.  On the day before the Sabbath, they gathered twice as much so that they could rest on the Sabbath.  “And it did not become foul, and there were no worms in it” (Ex. 16:24).

         In the midst of providing for the people, God was teaching them.  God was teaching them to share.  God was teaching them to believe and trust that God would provide for them each and every day.  God was teaching them to observe the Sabbath.  And God was warning them against greed and hoarding.  God also showed them exactly how much was enough.

         Imagine if, as soon as we brought home more than we needed, it would breed worms and grow foul by the next morning, no matter what it was.  So if you get a new phone that you don’t really need, “poof!” it’s oozing stuff and crawling with worms by the next morning.  And if you get some clothes that you don’t really need – same thing.  It all becomes unusable by the next day.  Is that what it would take in order to teach us what is enough?

         If we were to have a discussion here today about how much is enough for each of us to live on, how many different opinions do you think we would have?...  I would expect that not all of us would agree on how much is enough for each of us.  How many of us would be on the same page as 1 Timothy 6:6-8, where we read about bringing nothing into the world and taking nothing out of it, and therefore being content with food and clothing?  Of course, this is the same passage that talks about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil (6:10).

         At the same time, there are many passages in the Scriptures where God provides not only enough, but an abundance of what we need.  Think, for example, about the feeding of the 5000, where the disciples were sure that they could never have enough food for all of those people (cf. Jn. 6:5-14).  However, once they bring the five loaves and the two fish to Jesus, there is not only enough for everybody, but even twelve baskets of leftovers!

         One of the questions for us as we hear all of these stories about how God provides is what it would take for us to trust that God will provide.  Obviously, for the Israelites in the wilderness, it took a very long time, in spite of the fact that God provided for them over and over again.  In the New Testament, too, Paul writes about how God provides when he is trying to get the congregation at Corinth to send some help to the church in Jerusalem.  He writes,

God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work (2 Cor. 9:8).

He then goes on to talk about the blessings that accompany generosity.

         It is something that those who practice generosity have experienced over and over again – how when we are generous, God is even more generous.  Today then, on this Thanksgiving weekend, it is a wonderful opportunity to pay attention to God’s blessings and to remember all of the different ways in which God has provided for us.  For, approaching life with a thankful heart makes a huge difference.  Plus, our God not only provides food and clothing, but the living bread that came down from heaven – Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Pentecost 18 (NL 4) / Thanksgiving Sunday                              Exodus 16:1-18

October 8, 2017                                                                               John 6:51

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2017 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved