It pays to complain (to God first)
A Sermon on Exodus 16:2-15 by Jill Friebel 18 September 2005.
© LaughingBird.net

Moses with the assistance of Aaron has guided and led the Israelites through the political manoeuvrings that eventually won the liberation of the Israelite people. He led them through the Reed Sea and all of them were overawed by God’s power and protection. But it didn’t take long before they ran into difficulties. They were thirsty and only bitter water could be found. God heard their complaints and gave them sweet water and date palms and rest through the action and obedience of Moses. It wasn’t long before the next crisis loomed upon them with a shortage of food. It is not surprising as this desert was a barren place and this was a large group of people numbering about 2 million. They did what most people do when they face change, or difficult circumstances – they idealise the past. They forget that life in Egypt was slavery and oppression. At least they had food and water. Their rescuers Moses and Aaron are made to share the blame for the present conditions.

God hears and answers the people through Moses, there will be a supply of bread that will be “rained” from heaven every day. The people are called to trust that God will continue to provide enough for each day.

To trust God means not to trust someone or something else. In Egypt they served Pharaoh, and now they are called to serve God. This was a calling to be a faith community that obeyed God and in this relationship they would discover the Creator God is the giver of life and all good gifts and would supply for their needs. But God demanded their willingness to trust and obey. Their release from captivity meant they became captives to God; it wasn’t a freedom-for-all to do their own thing. The difference lies who they were captive too. God had said to the people before they started their journey, “If you listen, listen obediently to how God tells you to live in his presence, obeying his commandments and keeping all his laws, then I won’t strike you with all the diseases that I inflicted on the Egyptians: I am God your healer.” Their health and salvation was tied up with listening to God and living in his presence, obeying his commandments.

These ancient stories reveal to us the character of God. The cries of his people do not go unheard; God does not turn a deaf ear or a blind eye. There were probably years of anguish in Egypt when they really doubted if anyone cared or listened. But at the right time God spoke to Moses and called him to be the one through whom he would liberate his people, an unlikely choice from the Israelites perspective. Liberation is a partnership, God does the calling, humans the responding and God liberates. There was no liberation without human response and action.

The Israelites lived among other nations who did not worship God and who used their power to oppress and subjugate others who were a threat. The world still largely does not humbly seek God and we find ourselves threatened and hurt by others. We get led into our own desert experience through circumstances which come upon us that we would never choose. It seems as though the world is closing in, it is dark and seems to be no point and no way out. Disappointments can come so quickly and unexpectedly leaving us depressed and powerless. Desert experiences are the times of transition of getting from place to another, of change and revelation and learning to trust. They are times when we realize how helpless we are to help ourselves until we cry out “We come to you to save and help us for alone can make us whole.”

God heard the Israelites complaining again and sent them manna or bread in the morning and meat at night. Every new day they would be reminded of God’s creation, his care and love, protection and guidance. At this point the people turn towards the glory of the Lord in the wilderness, they turn their faces away from Egypt. They needed to refocus on what was the important thing in their lives as we do at times when our focus in is other directions. The wilderness which began to feel to the Israelites as a place of death has become a place in which God nurtures and cares for them. It is interesting to reflect how the constant themes of God as redeemer and creator are present in these passages. They are not separated as has been the case at times in Christian theology in which the emphasis on the redemptive acts of God through Jesus Christ have taken the major focus and God as creator has been ignored.

Here in the desert they learnt to Receive, Give thanks, break bread and share.

This has echoes of the Eucharist meal. Years later Jesus was challenged by the Jewish leadership about who he was, and they demanded a sign to prove it. Moses they said had proved who he was because God had sent bread from heaven to feed the people. Jesus replied that he was the true bread sent from heaven and unlike the manna sent to their fathers anyone who ate of this bread would not hunger or thirst any more. When you are led into your desert and you think there is no way out and you are left complaining bitterly it here in this place Jesus hears your cries and says “come and trust.”

Receive, give thanks, break and Share – the words of the Eucharistic meal.

There is an entire spirituality experience of Christ in these four eucharistic words: Receive, Give Thanks, Break and Share. What does this mean?

Andre Dubus says “My belief in the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on the flesh, and that touch is the result of monologues, the ideas, the philosophies which led to faith, but in the instant of touch there is no place for thinking, for talking, the silent touch affirms all that and goes deeper.”

These words receive, give thanks, break and share help us understand the flow of life within God. To receive can be explained by the following story.

“A man was once part of a hunting expedition in Africa. One morning this man left the camp early, by himself, and hiked several miles in to the jungle, where he surprised and eventually bagged two wild turkeys. Buckling his catch to his belt, he headed back for camp. At a point, however, he sensed he was being followed. With his senses sharpened by fright, he stopped, hands on his rifle, and looked around him. His fears were dispelled when he saw who it was. Following him at a distance was a naked and obviously starved adolescent boy. The boy’s objective was food, not threat. Seeing this, the man stopped, unbuckled his belt, and, letting the turkeys fall to the ground, backed off and gestured to the boy that he could come and take the birds. He ran up to the two birds but, inexplicably, refused to pick them up. He was, seemingly, still asking for something else. Perplexed, the man tried both by words and by gestures to indicate to the boy that he could have the birds. Still the boy refused to pick them up. Finally, in desperation, unable to expel what he still wanted, the boy backed off several metres from the dead birds and stood with outstretched and open hands….waiting, waiting until the man came and placed the birds in his hands. He had, despite hunger, fear, and intense need, refused to take the birds. He waited until they were given to him; he received them.”

That simple story is a mini-course in fundament moral theology. It summarizes all of Christ’s moral teachings and the entire Ten Commandments. If we, like this boy, would always wait until life was given to as gift, as opposed to taking it as by right, seizing it, or raping it, we would never break a single commandment. Moreover we would have in our lives the first and most important religious virtue of all, the sense that all is gift, that nothing is owed us by right.

We receive from God through Creation and are able to enjoy all the gifts of life given to us so freely. God comes to us sacramentally through Creation and we need to have eyes to see God in the these gifts. What happens you look into the face of a baby, when you gaze at a sunset or stand on the shore – God is there touching you but you may not stop long enough to feel it or closed to the possibility through unbelief, anger, hurt or pain. God comes to us in the friendship of others and in the mouth of the stranger. But God has come even closer to us in Christ. The gift of touch in the sacramental form of bread, bread that does not satisfy the physical hunger as it did for the Israelites but touches the deepest parts of you. It is a gift that comes to touch you in a way you may never have noticed before. Jesus comes to us in response to our cries in the desert.

Receive, give thanks, break and share.

My own experience of the Eucharist was transformed when I was sitting in a theology class discussing the variation of Christian beliefs and understandings about the Eucharist. I had been raised to believe that it was simply a remembrance about the death and resurrection of Jesus and because that was what I believed that’s all it ever was to me. I have to confess that it had been quite tedious and boring week after week sitting in rows passing little cups along and pretending to be spiritual when most of the time I was feeling anything but spiritual. But this particular class spoke about things that I had previously been told were pagan or unbiblical. This new way of understanding and possibility opened up a deep longing to experience what it seemed many others for generations had experienced and I hadn’t through unbelief and ignorance. Let me read to you another way of believing by Ronald Rolheiser that Jesus spoke of himself and also Paul.

“Like that of Dubus, my belief in the Eucharist is also simple: the Eucharist is God’s physical embrace of us, God’s touch. Nowhere is the body of Christ so physical, sensual, carnal and available for deep intimacy as in the Eucharist. Lest this type of talk scandalize, it might be well to read St. Paul’s thought on the matter. Speaking of our union with Christ and with each other within Christ’s body, Paul points out that it is as real, as physical, and as sensual as is the union of sexual intercourse. Today we do not take seriously enough this radical physical and sensual character of the Eucharist. Rarely do we risk understanding the Eucharist in the earthy terms which I propose here. We are the poorer for it.”

Soon we will celebrate the Eucharistic again, its good and right to bring your complaints to God, come close and allow Jesus to touch you as you heed his invitation to “receive, give thanks, break and share.”