The Next Moses (Part 5)

The Next Moses (Part 5)

Exodus 16

Within several weeks after leaving Egypt, the people were murmuring and muttering against Moses on several counts. Some people love to murmur in the church. It is part of the liability of leadership that people murmur from time to time.

The people murmured against Moses. Moses must have had a difficult time with all of it. Surely it was not easy keeping this procession going in the wilderness. It felt very much like trying to keep a whole host of balls in the air at one time. Somebody told me that life is like a chicken trying to lay an egg on an escalator. Just as she settles in, the bottom drops out. Moses must have known that feeling. The first weeks in the desert were simply awful.

The providing nature of God permeates the biblical narratives. The Israelites complained against Moses when the Egyptians were chasing them. They complained when they were thirsty. And then they complained that they were hungry. Certainly this incident reflects the hard-heartedness on the part of the people. They simply would not trust Moses to be leading by God’s will in this matter. They had crossed the Red Sea on dry land, and seen the Egyptian army drown in the sea. Yet they did not understand.

Moses turned to God in prayer. He prayed, not in frustration with God, but in frustration with the people’s complaints. He might have prayed something like this: “O Lord, what shall I do? How do I handle this situation? I have run out of ideas so what do I do now?” God responded to Moses. God would act. but He said that action would come in a very special way. God would act so as to both feed the people and teach them something about the meaning of discipleship. 

So, we come to the story of the manna. What was this manna? It was a “fine flaky substance” and “the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” Moses told the people simply, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.” But there was a catch to this wondrous gift of God. This is what the Lord commanded: “Gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer to a person according to the number of persons in your tents. Gather as much as you need for each person in your household!” That was the divine command. There was to be no greed, and no hoarding. If one person was stronger than another, he or she was not to collect more manna purely on the basis of extra strength. Each person was to collect an omer for each member of the family. An omer was about one and one-half quarts.

We are becoming painfully aware that unnecessary accumulation through power and/or greed clearly means serious deprivation for others. The earth supplies an abundance of enough for each of its inhabitants. But there is no overabundance for some without major life-threatening shortages for others.

The Israelites, of course, did not always comply with the restriction. Some of them took more than they needed, and tried to store it for the next day, but overnight the manna became foul and rotted. It did not last. The people were forced to learn to trust the providence of God. God, through Moses, was training them to trust day by day and morning by morning.

This story tells us that the only enduring value in life is faith and trust in God. For this reason of trust Jesus teaches us to pray in Matthew 6:11 “Give us this day our daily bread.” Some have tried to rework the phrasing to read, “Give us this day enough bread for tomorrow.” But I am convinced that such renderings destroy the original intent of the prayer. The disciple is to petition God each day for that day’s provisions. And tomorrow we petition God for tomorrow’s provisions.

The story concludes when the people create a symbol of God’s trustworthiness. “And Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD, to be kept throughout your generations.’” Here a jar of manna was to be a symbol on the altar of the Lord for all the years to come. When the children of the Israelites asked, “What does that jar mean?” they were to be told the story of how God provides.

What symbol works today so that when our children ask, “What does that figure on the altar mean?” we may similarly respond, “It is a sign that God is faithful. God provides enough for all.” If we can conquer greed, and if we can learn to live more simply, and if we can learn to trust, there will be an abundance of enough for all God’s children, day by day, morning by morning, throughout the journey of our lives.