I remember those days of yesteryear when our kids
were small and they had been weaned off of their Gerber products. Maybe you had or have the same problem in
your house. Every time we would introduce
a new food, unless we are describing a particular kind of new ice cream, the
new food is greeted with utter disdain.
“I don’t like it!”
“But
you haven’t even tried it!”
“I
still don’t like it.”
“Well,
try it.”
This is followed by the famous fake taste, where you
hold the food in your hands, pretend to put it to your lips, and then go
“Ewwwwwww!” before it even touches your taste buds.
Tracy and I were told that this resistance to new
things is written in to the DNA for our survival as a species—the species would
not last long if children were off trying the poisonous berry or the fatal
fruit. So perhaps it is human nature
that sometimes does not allow us to choose what is good for us. We get used to tasting foods, are inundated
with commercials that tell us something tastes good, so we prefer tutti-frutti
to tilapia or Captain Crunch to carrots.
Food matters, and how we understand food in relation
to our bodies, our health, and the earth, and how food is to be distributed and
shared are central to the ministry of Christ, the Biblical prophets, and the
Exodus and Wilderness story.
We continue
that Exodus story today with the Children of Israel once again complaining and
grumbling in the wilderness. The people
have begun to complain and grumble against Moses and Aaron, grumble against
God, wondering if they have been brought out into the wilderness to die. In their fear, they cry out for a return to
the food of slavery. Instead, they
receive something new. Manna and quail and
water from the rock are a sign that God is still with them.
The word “manna” literally means “What is it?” as
in, I want my good, old-fashioned comfort food, the way my mother used to make
it, the way they make it in my neck of the woods, and this is not any of those,
“What is this? Am I supposed to eat
this?” Not many of us like the food that
comes with a new place, when we are weary, and have to eat only what is
provided.
For a long time I thought the word “manna” literally
meant “bread from heaven”—an unmerited gift from heaven to sustain and support
life. And some of us still use the word
“manna” to convey good fortune in an unfortunate time. But manna literally meant, “What is
it?”
The Exodus story does not seek to make the Children
of Israel’s relationship with God one of wine and roses. The people are not immediately liberated for
life in the promised land. No, in fact,
the Bible tells us the people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years—40 is
Biblical code language for a mighty long time.
Indeed, Guatemalan refugees I worked with in
southern Mexico related their experience to the Exodus story by saying that the
Hebrews remained in the wilderness for forty years because it took them that
long to get organized. Though liberated
from slavery and bondage in Egypt, the Children of Israel may no longer be in
chains but the chains are still within them.
The Children of Israel have the habits and practices of slaves. If they are to be the children of freedom in
the promised land, they will have to work that out in the wilderness. They will have to get organized—develop other
practices and habits.
The Children of Israel are used to the food economy
they could depend on as slaves in the Egyptian Empire. They knew what Pharaoh would give them. They knew slave food. The Children of Israel had no idea what the
Living God would provide for them. They
did not know the food of freedom.
We see the influence of this story in the New Testament. As a Jewish person in first century Rome,
John the Baptist knew this story way down deep in his bones. Rather than eat the food provided by, traded
by, and processed by the Roman Empire, John the Baptist chooses to eat locusts
and wild honey. The Living God provides
for John the Baptist, maybe not as we would want God to provide (I hear locusts
are high in protein.), but as a way to show his freedom from Empire. John the Baptist, and later Jesus, do not live
on Roman meal, imperial bread, but on the alternative bread, on the shared
bread provided by God.[1]
Food is a great indicator of whether a people be
slave or free. Hebrew Scripture scholar,
Walter Brueggemann, finds great spiritual meaning in something as earthy, as
ordinary, and as everyday as food. And who provides and distributes that food
has greater significance than we may imagine. "What happens to our
bodies?" Brueggemann asks. "On the one hand they take in food. We
must eat. On the other hand the food that is eaten is transformed into loyalty,
energy, work, and care. The one who provides the food we eat governs the
loyalties we embrace." Whose food do we eat?
In his many reflections on this manna story,
Brueggemann often makes the connection between our loyalties and the source of
our food--is it Pharaoh and his system? Or
is it God, who gives in abundance but calls us to walk in faith, in trust, not
hoarding but sharing to make sure everyone has enough? Who feeds us?[2]
And through food, God begins to teach the Children
of Israel in the wilderness what it means to be free. And not free individually, as we most often
talk about within our culture, but free as a community and nation. In a slave economy, resources are distributed
regardless of need. Your house will
receive as much as this house, as much as this house, as much as this
house. Moses, however, tells the people
they are to collect the scattered manna as they have need.
In a slave economy, resources are hoarded because
those who rule, rule by creating an environment of scarcity.[3] So Moses must warn the Children of Israel
that they are only to take what they need for each day. “God will provide,” Moses says, “and there is
manna and quail for everyone. Do not
hoard the resources you are given. The
manna will melt in your hands, rot if you do.”
Though we might think the ecosystem created in the
wilderness is one of scarcity, it turns out to be an environment of
abundance. There is plenty to eat—but values
of sharing, rhythms of Sabbath, and attention to the particular landscape must
be observed.
Hoarding is
a signpost of your slavery. The Empire
never has enough. Remember that Pharaoh
never had enough. Pharaoh always had to
have more, always demanded that you make more bricks, that you work harder,
work longer, and bring your children. So
whose bread will you eat? Who feeds you?
Slavery also has the Children of Israel working
every day of the week. A day of rest
shall signal your freedom. On every
other day, the manna melts in their hands.
On the day before the Sabbath, the people are to collect twice as much
so that they do not have to work for their food on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is hailed as the crown of creation in
one of the Genesis creation stories. In
the giving of the Law to the Children of Israel, God declares that not only
shall you not work but also your children, your slaves, your animals,
and your immigrants shall not work. God
is declaring, “In giving birth to you as a nation, you shall not be the new
Egypt. Rather, you shall be a new
people, a different people, a holy people.”
You shall not be the new Empire to arise in the land.
There are values, practices God is asking from the
Children of Israel to show them as free people, to maintain who they are as
free people. Practices of sharing
resources according to need, creating an environment of abundance, not hoarding
the resources given to you, and fasting from work to be free to rest on the
Sabbath mark the Children of Israel as free people. They shall have to “live in” to those values
and practices to be people fit for the promised land.
As you can hear from the comparison, the
juxtaposition between Pharaoh’s food economy and how God would have the
Children of Israel live, the Exodus story is a blazing critique of materialism. In our country that gets downright scary,
doesn’t it? As we hear the news about
huge corporate bailouts, the rental crisis, the world food shortage, and the
pandemic leading to ever-greater poverty, and on and on, how can we not
possibly be a little fearful of what will happen next? Meanwhile, the already colossal fortunes of
America’s 643 billionaires have skyrocketed by an average of 29% since the
start of the pandemic.[4] Does our economy more closely resemble a
slave economy or a free economy? And how
often is the word “free” used as doublespeak to divert us? I know I am constantly eating the imperial
bread, hoping the bread line does not run out before I get to the front,
sometimes checking my own privilege when I get angry that someone else seems to
have cut in line.
God is asking me to share my resources according to
need, to create an environment of abundance (recognizing that there is enough
for everyone), to not hoard what I have, and to find a sacred and holy time to
rest from work. The story teaches these
as the values and practices and rhythms that make me a free person.
But the pull to the imperial bread is strong. Its fear, anxiety, and desperation beckon
me. I find myself eating imperial bread
much too often.
As Walter Brueggeman writes, “There are no gifts to
be given, because there is no giver.”[5] We would rather eat the Pharaoh’s bread and
hope that we make it than eat bread from heaven and trust in God that we
will all
make it. “What is it?” we ask. It is bread from heaven, to be shared, enough
for the entire community, eat as you have need, and see that God has provided a
Sabbath for you, a place of rest. For
the Living God desires, so deeply desires, that we all be free people. Amen.
[1] Kate Huey, “Tension in the
Wilderness,” Bible Forum, Bible Blog, http://i.ucc.org/StretchYourMind/OpeningtheBible/WeeklySeeds/tabid/81/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/99/Tension-in-the-Wilderness-Sept-1521.aspx
[2] Ibid, quoting Walter
Brueggemann, Patrick D. Miller, Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope: Contested Truth in a Post-Christian World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000).
[3] Walter Brueggemann,
Patrick D. Miller, Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope:
Contested Truth in a Post-Christian World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), pp. 70ff.
[4]
Rupert Neate, “Wealth
of U.S. billionaires rises by nearly a third during the pandemic,” The
Guardian, September 17, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/17/wealth-of-us-billionaires-rises-by-nearly-a-third-during-pandemic.
[5] Ibid, p. 72.
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