Sermon: “What is it?”

Text: Exodus 16:2-15

25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

September 21, 2008

Scripture introduction.  Our second reading this morning takes us back to the journey of the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai.  By the power of God and through the leadership of Moses and Aaron, they have left behind their lives of slavery in Egypt.  But that is not all they left.  They also left the plentiful variety of food found along the River Nile.  Now they worried about just what they would eat in the wilderness, and they complained against Moses and Aaron.  God overheard the complaints and promised Moses that God would rain bread from heaven in the morning and meat in the evening.

The evening meat turned out to be quails, which were so numerous they fed the entire people.  The plentiful morning bread, which came in the form of something called manna, was, according to the book of Exodus, a “fine, flaky substance, like frost on the ground,” sweet to the taste, like wafers made with honey.  In the book of Numbers it was said to be like “coriander seed” and the color of “gum resin,” tasting “like cakes baked with oil.”[1]  When the people left their tents that first morning and saw the manna, they said, in Hebrew “Man-hu?”, that is, “What is it?”  And this is the derivation of the word “manna.”  Actually, the Hebrew has no verb in the phrase, so it’s more like “What’s-it.”  My favorite comment comes from the Jewish Study Bible, which refers to manna as “whatchamacallit.”[2]  When the people complained, God heard, and provided some “whatchamacallit” for their nourishment.

Sermon.  I decided to call this sermon “What is it?” because I love the play on words in Hebrew—and because it is so easy to imagine the Israelites’ surprised reaction to the manna on the first morning it appeared.  I suspect that, although we are thousands of years removed from the event, we moderns have the same question, “What is it?”  “What was it?”  A number of naturalists have attempted to explain the manna in terms of biological phenomena of the Sinai wilderness.  It so happens that there is a species of plant lice that live on the tamarisk, which is a shrub-like flowering tree common in parts of the wilderness.  For years the scientists thought that the tree exuded a sappy resin when its bark was damaged by the plant lice, which live by ingesting the juices of the tree.  Upon further study they decided that the substance was produced by the plant lice, an excretion to protect and nourish their eggs.  At any rate, even today the desert people collect this substance and use it in their diets.  When it is boiled and strained, it can be a substitute for honey.

It’s interesting to me that there is something in nature that so closely approximates the Bible’s description of manna.  However, I can’t say that it’s a satisfactory explanation of what the writers of Torah clearly understood as a miracle.  For one thing, the entire year’s production of the tamarisk substance in modern times is less than what the Israelites would have consumed in one day.  Even allowing for some changes in climate and the evolution of plants and insects, it does not appear that there ever would have been enough of this substance to feed the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness.  Moreover, as I told the children earlier,[3] there was something unusual about the manna: unlike the tamarisk substance, manna could not be preserved.  Whatever you gathered in the morning, you had to eat during the day; or it would become infested with worms.  That is, except on Friday, when the people could gather twice as much as they needed.  God’s law prohibited doing work on the Sabbath—Saturday—so the people were allowed to gather on Friday for their Saturday needs.  And it happened that on Friday, and only on Friday, the manna could be kept overnight without spoiling.

In Jewish tradition there was no question the manna was a product of God’s supernatural providence.  For example, in Psalm 78 manna was poetically referred to as the “grain of heaven” and the “bread of angels.”  In later years, the rabbis noted that the taste of manna was described differently in different parts of the Bible; so they concluded that in the manna were all the tastes of the world.[4]  If you wanted to taste meat, it would taste like meat.  If you wanted it to taste like bread, it would be like bread.  And, they said, you could cook it any way you wanted: boil it, and it would taste like any boiled dish; bake it, and it would taste like any baked dish you desired.

As we interpret these stories, we make a mistake if we attempt to find a natural explanation for them.  They are intended to convey a strong sense of God’s generous providence and protection for the people.  We are to understand that—despite the failings of the people of Israel—God continued to take care of them.  There were the plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the water that sprang from the rock, and the giving of manna and quails.  There is nothing wrong with attempting to find natural analogies to the miracles reported in Exodus.  Yes, it is true that strong winds sometimes blow back the waters of the shallow Sea of Reeds.  Yes, sometimes strong winds will force down great flocks of quail, who seek refuge on the ground.  But that is not the theological point of the story.  When we read about the Israelites in the wilderness, we are to be reminded of God’s care for them—and of God’s daily care for us.  Sometimes we do experience God’s providence as nothing short of miraculous.

That, I think, is the main point of this story—God’s providence.  But, if you will permit me to do it, I now want to make an interpretive turn.  What I’m about to say is not the main point of the story, but I think it is in there somewhere.  And here’s this second point: we should trust God to give us what we need.  It’s OK to pray for what we think we need—Scripture encourages us to do that—but we should always allow God room to provide something different and unexpected.

The Exodus version of the story about the manna clearly shows that the people did not trust in God’s goodness.  They said to Moses and Aaron, “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.”  I guess they had turned into a nation of “whiners.”  God’s negative assessment of the people’s whining may be implied from the Exodus story, but the book of Numbers is very explicit on this point.  God was furious that the people, having just been rescued from Egypt by the mighty and outstretched hand of the Lord, so quickly lost faith in God’s providence.  How about this line from Numbers: God said, “You shall eat [quail] not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you—because you have rejected the Lord who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”[5]

In Amanda’s family they tell the funny story about how Amanda’s grandmother—who lived with them and often planned the meals—came up with an unusual salad one evening.  It had canned baby green peas, small cubes of cheddar cheese, home-made mayonnaise, and fresh tomatoes.  The whole family complimented Amanda’s grandmother on the recipe.  What they did not expect, and what in fact happened, was that the salad appeared on the table almost every evening for the next few months—until finally someone had the courage to say they were tired of it.  Too much of a good thing can be boring and even oppressive.

Wouldn’t the same be true for the manna?  If you read the rest of this morning’s chapter, you can see that the Israelites ate manna for forty years, up until the first day they at the bread from the Promised Land.  In a perverse kind of way, the Israelites got exactly what they prayed for—no less and no more.  Isn’t this echoed in the very name “manna”—“What is this?”  Can you imagine getting up every day of your life and eating the very same thing over and over and over again?  No wonder the rabbis imagined that the manna could taste like anything you wanted it to be!

So, here’s how I get to this second point.  The people of Israel (and let there be no doubt that as a matter of interpretation we are to understand that we are the people of Israel) were not thinking grandly enough about the generosity and providence of God.  The plagues of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night—none of these—had convinced them that God’s willingness and ability to bless them was beyond imagining.  They expressed their needs to Moses and Aaron, who were their intermediaries with God; but they did so in the most pedestrian way.  “Give us meat; give us bread; why did we ever leave our Egyptian masters?”  And God did provide a form of meat and of bread.  God was faithful.  But I can’t help wondering: what was God’s original plan?  Could God have had even better things in mind than manna and quail?  Did the people in some way limit God’s plans because they prayed for the wrong thing, or didn’t allow God room to bless them in unimagined ways?

So, while the basic point of this morning’s story is the generosity and providential love of God, a second lesson is that we should be faithful when we do our asking.  Our prayers should not be only for daily bread, but also that God’s will be done—however that might happen.  The essence of faith is trust in God’s goodness and good intentions toward us, no matter the circumstances.  As the people of God in this place, I hope we will always ask God for what we believe we need, yet do so with an open and trusting spirit, allowing God room to bless us in ways we could never imagine.  If we ask in this spirit, then our question “What is it?” will not be suspicious like the Israelites, but rather like a child’s exclamation on Christmas morning, unwrapping a present that is unknown but surely good. 

“What is it?”  Let’s unwrap it and see!