Shalom Mennonite Church
Sunday, January 23, 2011 – Stewardship Sunday
The Freedom to Give and Receive
Texts: Psalm 100, Exodus 16:1-12, and Matthew 6:7-13
Eric Massanari
“the practice of enough”
[reading of Exodus 16:1-12]
As the story of the exodus continues,
we learn that the Israelites have a tough time following
the instructions that God has given.
In the morning, when the people wake up
they find the ground covered with
a fine flaky substance, like frost.
In the scriptures it is called manna,
from the Hebrew mān hû,
which literally translates as a question: “What is it?”
Which is the question the people ask
when they see it on the ground.
It reminds me of the old commercials
for the candy bar the Watchamacallit.
What do ya call it?
Whatchamacallit.
I know, but what's the name?
Whatchamacallit.
And on and on . . .
What do ya call this stuff all over the ground?
What is it.
Exactly, what is it?
What is it.
And on and on . . .
No doubt the name manna arose
some time later, through the telling of the story.
Whatever they might have called
that flaky, frosty stuff at the moment
they found it on the ground,
the people are reminded of the divine command
to collect no more than one omer per person, per day.
An omer is about two liters,
or roughly seventy ounces.
This is the daily ration of manna
for each woman, man and child.
God's instructions are for the people to go out
and collect their omer of manna each morning,
eat it that day, and not save any for tomorrow.
They were supposed to trust that there
would be manna provided the next day -
today's manna would be enough for today.
If they tried to collect more than their share,
or save some leftovers for the next day,
they found that the manna quickly spoiled
and became infested with worms.
An exception, however, was made on the sixth day.
On the sixth day the people were to go out
and collect two omer of manna,
one for that day and one for the next – the Sabbath.
That way everyone could rest on the Sabbath.
And, miraculously, they found that
what was saved over night for the Sabbath
did not rot or get infested with worms.
Well, the Israelites were human,
and they were hungry,
and they were scared,
and they were short on patience.
God's provisions may have seemed a bit lacking.
Some were so overwhelmed they complained
that they would have been better off staying in Egypt.
Some tried to collect more than their share,
and others attempted to store some away
just in case God did not provide as promised.
Still others went out on the Sabbath day
to see if they could collect a bit extra,
but they found that there was no manna
on the ground on the morning of the seventh day.
The lesson of the manna was learned
once the Israelites let go of their fear,
their attempts to control the situation.
The people needed to grow to trust
that God would indeed provide as promised.
The lesson of the manna was the lesson of enough -
God promised they would have enough,
no more and no less.
At the end of this part of the Exodus story,
God asks Moses and Aaron to collect
one extra jar of one omer of manna -
the very amount that was enough for a day.
The jar was to be carried by the people
on their journey through the wilderness and beyond.
The jar of manna becomes
a symbol for the people of
God's providence and fidelity.
It is a reminder that God will provide.
This stuff I have here in the jar isn't manna;
I have yet to find a supplier for that.
Maybe manna looked something like
these instant mashed potatoes - “potato buds.”
These happen to be one of my favorite
snacks to take with me on
multi-day backpacking trips.
At the end of a long day of hiking,
especially if its cold,
it's a treat to mix up some hot
mashed potatoes with a bit of butter and cheese.
It's a perfect warm-up and re-energizer!
Something I learned early on
when traveling in the wilderness
is that it is important to carry enough -
enough to keep you fed, warm, and dry.
Too much, and you are carrying too much weight
and needlessly wearing yourself out.
Too little, and you can find yourself
in a whole heap of trouble!
After being out for a number of days,
you tend to stop complaining about
what you don't have -
pizza, a bed, a toilet -
and you come to appreciate
what a gift it can be to travel
with just enough for each day – no less and no more.
Granted, a backpacking trip
is something entirely different
from a forty-year sojourn in the wilderness!
The Israelites knew hunger,
exposure, and the pain of exile
in a way that very few of us
have ever known on our journeys.
However, there are a great many people
in the world today who could identify
with the plight of those Hebrew vagabonds.
There are millions in this world
who do not have enough -
enough food, potable water, or shelter.
Many do not know whether there
will be enough for this day.
And heavenly manna
seems to be in short supply.
Perhaps God is waiting for the rest of us,
those of us who have more than enough,
to provide the manna today.
One of the challenges seems to be
that we have some very different notions
as human beings in this world
of what constitutes enough.
This Christmas, my son Noah received
a book from his great aunt.
It's entitled, Material World, and perhaps
some of you have seen it before.
It was created by photojournalist Peter Menzel,
and he said the inspiration for it came
back in 1992 when he was listening to a
National Public Radio story about the release
of the pop star Madonna's tell-all book.
For weeks the self-proclaimed “material girl”
rode waves of publicity and hype.
And Menzel decided that if another book
was to enter the world, it needed to be a reality check.
So, he began taking pictures of families,
and households of all kinds around the world.
He invited them to take all of their material possessions
and collect them in the yard, or in the street,
just outside their homes, or huts, or shanties.
Then he took a picture picture
of the householders next to their possessions.
The differences in the pictures
are sometimes quite shocking.
In some photographs you see the people
more than the stuff, because there are few possessions.
In other photographs, the people are dwarfed
by piles and piles of things.
The images evoke many questions, including:
What is enough?
Is enough when you can fit all of your stuff
into the back of a pick-up?
Is enough when you've maxed out
one, maybe two, climate-controlled storage units?
Is enough when you have one sack of rice
and one jar of beans available for the week?
Is enough when your cupboards, your pantry,
your fridge and your deep-freeze are all stocked?
What is enough to have set aside for a rainy day?
What is enough for your retirement savings?
(which is something a large portion of the human
population does not have the luxury of thinking about!)
What is enough when it comes
to our hurried lives and the commitments of our time?
There are many people out there ready to tell
us how much is enough, and quite often they
are the ones hoping to sell us something more!
You and I live in a society -
here in North America –
where we seem to think that one can never get enough.
The earth has never seen more ravenous consumers than us!
And the earth – and other human beings - suffer our consumption.
And while one might presume that
when you have lots, and more than enough,
it becomes that much easier to be generous,
the evidence overwhelmingly seems to
point in the opposite direction.
The wise writer of the book of Proverbs
seemed to understand this.
On the back of the bulletin this morning you find these words:
Give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise I may have too much and disown you
and say, “Who is the Lord?”
Proverbs 30:8-9
Or say, “Who is my neighbor?”
Generosity does not necessarily flow from abundance.
We may have a lot of stuff and resources at our disposal,
but it doesn't follow that we will be inclined to share.
Generosity flows much more freely from gratitude -
from an abiding sense of gratefulness
for life and the gifts of life that sustain our own living.
Generosity flows also from an awareness
that life is intertwined, that my own abundance
is inextricably linked with another person's hunger.
When we know gratitude, and when we practice
an awareness of how our life is linked with others,
we are better able to determine what is enough for us
and better able to see what we have to share with others.
To conclude I want to return again to the
bare-bones prayer that Jesus taught the disciples.
The prayer itself stands as a caution about
knowing when enough is enough.
Jesus tells them:
“Don't heap words on words when you pray
just to sound good to yourself, or others, or God.
God doesn't need lots of fancy words!
When you do that it is more about you than it is about God!”
So pray this way:
Our Father who is in heaven hallowed be your name.
(Praise)
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
(Radical hope and trust in God's fidelity)
Give us this day our daily bread.
(a prayer of enough)
It is a prayer that hearkens back to the
Israelites in the wilderness
and the one omer of manna
that was enough for the day.
It is a prayer that says:
“God may we have enough to satisfy our needs,
though, not so much that we assume ourselves
to be protected against any hardship.
Let it be enough that we need not despair.
Let it be enough that we can be generous
with the richness of our lives.”
Give us, Lord, - all of us in this world -
our daily bread.
And free us to give as we are able.
Amen
