Grace For A Complaining People
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
Bob Hope died in 2003 at age 100. Before Bob died, his wife Dolores asked him where he wanted to be buried. And Bob, in his usual comedic style, answered, "Surprise me!"
One night when Bob was in his prime he reported his activity for the day. "Today," he said, "my heart beat 103,369 times. My blood traveled 168 miles. I breathed 23,040 times. I inhaled 438 cubic feet of air. I ate three and a quarter pounds of food and drank two pounds of liquid. I perspired one and a half pints. I gave off 85 degrees of heat. I generated 450 tons of energy. I spoke 4,800 words, moved 750 major muscles, and I exercised seven million brain cells. My, I'm tired."1
The children of Israel were tired. Tired and crabby. Moses had led them out of slavery and set their feet on the road to freedom. It was a great moment in their history. But now Israel is in the wilderness. They had just traveled parallel to the coast and had come to the Wilderness of Sin.
The wilderness is a troubling place for Israel. The wilderness smells of death, for here the necessities for survival are lacking, and when the necessities for life are found wanting, there erupts a crisis of faith. Then, as the Children of Israel become acutely aware of inadequate food, water, and life support, this in turn brings on not only a crisis of faith, but also a crisis of leadership. The Israelites attack the leadership of Moses and Aaron, the deliverers out of bondage.
The anxiety of the Israelites distorts the memory of the recent past. How quickly they forget about opposition and abuse as slaves in Egypt and remember only the meat and bread they enjoyed.
Likewise, today in conflict situations where the stress level zooms upward in families, congregations, and society, it becomes a handy maneuver to glorify the past and demonize the present and future. "If only we had Pastor Love back, our congregation would be comfortable and at peace again." "Oh, for the good old days when ..." and so we rhapsodize, looking backward instead of trusting the grace and will of God to proceed ahead and lead us onward.
It's like the old timer who was discussing the changes in his church and how they were being received. "Yep," he says, "we've had a lot of changes in our congregation and I've been agin' (against) all of 'em."
Archie and Edith Bunker, in the sitcom, All In The Family, loved to sing, "Those were the days" - a duet yearning for the past. Memories they praised were of Glenn Miller, the Hit Parade, their old LaSalle, Herbert Hoover, and an independent, self--reliant lifestyle that proved "girls were girls and men were men." It's hard to accept that the past is to be learned from, not lived in.
Immediate needs block out all reason and, like Esau, who was willing to forego his birthright for a pot of food, Israel is willing to make an equal trade. Captain Moses senses mutiny from the "crew" who feel the freedom ship is going nowhere. The people murmur against Moses. "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" (Exodus 16:3).
Centuries later, Jesus would remind the multitudes whom he had just fed with five loaves and two fishes and who wanted to make him king, "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" (John 6:27).
An eagle escaped from the San Francisco Zoo, but it didn't get very far. Unused to fending for itself, it had lost its predatory skills and forgotten its natural enemies. Within twelve hours its keepers had lured the hungry bird back into captivity with little more than a dead mouse.2
In similar fashion, the Israelites, unused to the rigors of the wilderness, long for the familiar comforts of slavery even over the promises of freedom in a new Promised Land. Like eagles and Israelites in captivity, we, too, find the path of discipleship frightening and unfamiliar. We are tempted, especially in crisis to sell out for the "dead mouse." "It's easier," said the author Stainer, "to get people out of slavery than to get slavery out of people."
How easy it is to forget God's promises of grace to us in our baptism and to stray away and complain. Murmuring and complaining come naturally when we have lost our sense of purpose and are unclear of our goals and confused about our destiny.
The Jewish sages teach the truth of having clarity about purpose, meaning, and direction in order to avoid unnecessary murmuring.
On a treadmill, several donkeys were harnessed to a big wheel, which they turned as they trotted around, thereby generating power. The donkeys wore blinders in order to block them from seeing the great wheel. Day after day they kept trotting around and around, but the blinders attached to their bridles tricked them into thinking they were going straight. One day the driver pulled off the blinders --- and the animals went crazy! "Even the dumbest animal," writes author Maurice Lamm, "cannot saunter purposelessly, going in circles all day and getting nowhere...."3
The number one spiritual need in America today, according to a Gallup poll taken in the 1990s, is this: It is the need to find purpose and meaning and direction in one's life. People are asking and wondering, "What is God's will for my life? Why am I here on this earth taking up space? What is my holy calling?"4
Dr. Victor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor and a psychotherapist, wrote a wonderful book titled Man's Search For Meaning. The book is now in its 73rd printing. It has been published in twenty languages, and the English editions alone have sold over 2.5 million copies. When asked about the success of his book, Dr. Frankl replied, "I do not at all see in the best--seller status of my book so much an achievement and accomplishment on my part, as an expression of the misery of our time; if hundreds of thousands of people reach out for a book whose very title promises to deal with the question of meaning in life, it must burn under their fingernails."5
Like children in the back seat on a family trip, we ask, "Are we there yet? I'm hungry, I'm thirsty. When are we going to stop? I'm tired."
When complaints against Moses are really complaints against God, how does God respond to crabby, murmuring Israel? Will God respond with punishment or grace, with discipline or mercy?
One other time when the Israelites traveled from Mount Hor, out by the way to go to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, they became impatient. They spoke against Moses and against God. "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water and we detest this miserable food" (Numbers 21:5). Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents and the snakes bit the murmuring, ungrateful people and many died.
But God does not send serpents or punishment in this situation. God graciously provides food - food from heaven. God gives manna, and in giving manna, God demonstrates grace and mercy to a cranky, rebellious people. The Hebrew expression, "What is it?" (man hu) translates into the word manna. Manna is white, like coriander seed, with a yellowish tinge and resinous appearance like bdellium, and tasted like wafers made with honey. According to Numbers 11:8 it was ground in mills, beaten in mortars, boiled in pots, and made into cakes.
Science describes manna this way: Various plants exude a manna--like substance, either emanating spontaneously from the plant itself or produced by the puncture of an insect. The tamarix gallica mannifera does so and grows in the Peninsula of the Sinai. The exudation is dirty yellow in color, but white when it falls on the ground or stone. It melts in the heat of the sun and its season is six to ten weeks long with June being the height of the season.
This food of grace - manna - becomes the food on which the Israelites would mainly subsist during the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness.
A modern experience of manna is told in the following way: "In 1932, a white substance resembling manna, one morning, covered a patch 2,100 feet by 60 feet on the farm owned by a Mr. Botha in Natal, South Africa. It was gathered and eaten by the natives."6
This account from Exodus lifts the natural phenomenon to the level of a sign, confirming Israel's faith. Here, and elsewhere in the Bible, manna becomes an amazing metaphor for God's grace and providence.
Manna pops up in several New Testament passages (see 1 Corinthians 10:3; 2 Corinthians 8:15; and Revelation 2:17), and it plays an important role in two events in Jesus' life. In the wilderness, Jesus rejects the temptations of the devil and clarifies his purpose for coming. That purpose was that as the Messiah he would once again supply his people with the heavenly manna. Jesus fulfills the manna sign by not only providing food for 5,000 and 4,000 people, but by being the very bread from heaven, the bread of life that lasts into eternity.
A second understanding is found in John 6 when Jesus refers to the very offensive picture of his followers eating his flesh. This, of course, is a sacramental reference to the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper becomes the Christian's way of participating in the redeeming death of Christ. God mercifully reaches out to the Children of Israel with grace and love. Manna is a sure sign of grace. Applied to the Christian, grace is always God's unmerited favor, mercy, and love by which we are justified freely.
A seminary professor in India noticed the interesting contrast the Indians have between grace and faith. They point to the cat and the monkey. The cat holds and carries its kittens with no assistance required from the kittens. It is pure grace. The little monkey has to hold onto its mother and this illustrates faith. Yet even the monkey is carried by its mother which brings us back to grace.
Even talking about faith as a "response" can be misleading and misunderstood. "Reaction" is an optional word to describe one's experience of a prior act of God by grace.
David Allen Sørensen, in Exploring The Yearly Lectionary, tells how difficult it is to accept pure grace. Just for fun, he decided to try a little experiment at a toll booth in Indiana. He rolled up to the booth just ahead of a fellow he had never seen before and handed the teller a dollar and said, "This is for me and that red Chevy behind me." Then David drove off. Watching in his mirror, he saw the guy in the car behind motion emphatically with his hands as he took far longer at the booth than other cars. Then the motorist punched the accelerator hard and caught up with David, snapped his head to the right, and glared - with anger!
Some people receive God's grace like that, too. They don't trust God. They question the reality of pure grace. Most of us want to do it ourselves.
An oft--told story comes to mind about a pillar of the church who died and went directly to the pearly gates. Saint Peter met him and said, "It takes 1,000 points to get in, so tell me about yourself."
The pillar confidently reported, "well, until I was 21 years old, I never missed Sunday school, unless I was sick in bed. I have a string of perfect attendance medals that almost reaches the floor. I was an acolyte, active in the youth group, and I often worked around the church, cutting grass and doing other odd jobs."
Saint Peter said, "That is extremely good. Congratulations. That gives you one point. Tell me more."
The pillar said, "I am 75 years old. I attended church regularly, served on the board many times, sang in the choir, and gave ten percent of my income to the Lord."
"My, that is truly remarkable, another point for you," said Saint Peter. "Tell me more."
The man, growing a bit concerned, said, "I tried to live the Christian life, obeyed the Ten Commandments, and welcomed strangers."
Saint Peter said, "That is wonderful and that is another point. Go on."
By this time the man was becoming desperate and a bit irritated, and he blurted out to Saint Peter, "Look, at this rate the only way I'll ever get into heaven is by the grace of God!"
At that, Saint Peter lit up and exclaimed, "That is worth 1,000 points. Come on in!"
Saved by grace. Nourished by grace. Manna - gift of God, the bread of life sent down from heaven. Thanks be to God.
____________
1. J. Wallace Hamilton sermon, "Are You Tired?" Sermon Publication Committee, Pasadena Community Church, St. Petersburg, Florida, copyright 1964.
2. Sources unknown.
3. C. Neil Strait, Pastor ... Be Encouraged (Kansas City, Missouri: Beacon Hill Press, 1996).
4. Arley K. Fadness, Six Spiritual Needs In America Today (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 1998), pp. 6ff.
5. Faith At Work, Volume 106, No. 1., January/February, 1993, p. 3, Faith at Work, Inc., 150 South Washington Street, Suite 204, Falls Church, Virginia 22046.
6. The Westminster Dictionary Of The Bible (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Westminster Press, 1944), p. 375.
One night when Bob was in his prime he reported his activity for the day. "Today," he said, "my heart beat 103,369 times. My blood traveled 168 miles. I breathed 23,040 times. I inhaled 438 cubic feet of air. I ate three and a quarter pounds of food and drank two pounds of liquid. I perspired one and a half pints. I gave off 85 degrees of heat. I generated 450 tons of energy. I spoke 4,800 words, moved 750 major muscles, and I exercised seven million brain cells. My, I'm tired."1
The children of Israel were tired. Tired and crabby. Moses had led them out of slavery and set their feet on the road to freedom. It was a great moment in their history. But now Israel is in the wilderness. They had just traveled parallel to the coast and had come to the Wilderness of Sin.
The wilderness is a troubling place for Israel. The wilderness smells of death, for here the necessities for survival are lacking, and when the necessities for life are found wanting, there erupts a crisis of faith. Then, as the Children of Israel become acutely aware of inadequate food, water, and life support, this in turn brings on not only a crisis of faith, but also a crisis of leadership. The Israelites attack the leadership of Moses and Aaron, the deliverers out of bondage.
The anxiety of the Israelites distorts the memory of the recent past. How quickly they forget about opposition and abuse as slaves in Egypt and remember only the meat and bread they enjoyed.
Likewise, today in conflict situations where the stress level zooms upward in families, congregations, and society, it becomes a handy maneuver to glorify the past and demonize the present and future. "If only we had Pastor Love back, our congregation would be comfortable and at peace again." "Oh, for the good old days when ..." and so we rhapsodize, looking backward instead of trusting the grace and will of God to proceed ahead and lead us onward.
It's like the old timer who was discussing the changes in his church and how they were being received. "Yep," he says, "we've had a lot of changes in our congregation and I've been agin' (against) all of 'em."
Archie and Edith Bunker, in the sitcom, All In The Family, loved to sing, "Those were the days" - a duet yearning for the past. Memories they praised were of Glenn Miller, the Hit Parade, their old LaSalle, Herbert Hoover, and an independent, self--reliant lifestyle that proved "girls were girls and men were men." It's hard to accept that the past is to be learned from, not lived in.
Immediate needs block out all reason and, like Esau, who was willing to forego his birthright for a pot of food, Israel is willing to make an equal trade. Captain Moses senses mutiny from the "crew" who feel the freedom ship is going nowhere. The people murmur against Moses. "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" (Exodus 16:3).
Centuries later, Jesus would remind the multitudes whom he had just fed with five loaves and two fishes and who wanted to make him king, "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" (John 6:27).
An eagle escaped from the San Francisco Zoo, but it didn't get very far. Unused to fending for itself, it had lost its predatory skills and forgotten its natural enemies. Within twelve hours its keepers had lured the hungry bird back into captivity with little more than a dead mouse.2
In similar fashion, the Israelites, unused to the rigors of the wilderness, long for the familiar comforts of slavery even over the promises of freedom in a new Promised Land. Like eagles and Israelites in captivity, we, too, find the path of discipleship frightening and unfamiliar. We are tempted, especially in crisis to sell out for the "dead mouse." "It's easier," said the author Stainer, "to get people out of slavery than to get slavery out of people."
How easy it is to forget God's promises of grace to us in our baptism and to stray away and complain. Murmuring and complaining come naturally when we have lost our sense of purpose and are unclear of our goals and confused about our destiny.
The Jewish sages teach the truth of having clarity about purpose, meaning, and direction in order to avoid unnecessary murmuring.
On a treadmill, several donkeys were harnessed to a big wheel, which they turned as they trotted around, thereby generating power. The donkeys wore blinders in order to block them from seeing the great wheel. Day after day they kept trotting around and around, but the blinders attached to their bridles tricked them into thinking they were going straight. One day the driver pulled off the blinders --- and the animals went crazy! "Even the dumbest animal," writes author Maurice Lamm, "cannot saunter purposelessly, going in circles all day and getting nowhere...."3
The number one spiritual need in America today, according to a Gallup poll taken in the 1990s, is this: It is the need to find purpose and meaning and direction in one's life. People are asking and wondering, "What is God's will for my life? Why am I here on this earth taking up space? What is my holy calling?"4
Dr. Victor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor and a psychotherapist, wrote a wonderful book titled Man's Search For Meaning. The book is now in its 73rd printing. It has been published in twenty languages, and the English editions alone have sold over 2.5 million copies. When asked about the success of his book, Dr. Frankl replied, "I do not at all see in the best--seller status of my book so much an achievement and accomplishment on my part, as an expression of the misery of our time; if hundreds of thousands of people reach out for a book whose very title promises to deal with the question of meaning in life, it must burn under their fingernails."5
Like children in the back seat on a family trip, we ask, "Are we there yet? I'm hungry, I'm thirsty. When are we going to stop? I'm tired."
When complaints against Moses are really complaints against God, how does God respond to crabby, murmuring Israel? Will God respond with punishment or grace, with discipline or mercy?
One other time when the Israelites traveled from Mount Hor, out by the way to go to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, they became impatient. They spoke against Moses and against God. "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water and we detest this miserable food" (Numbers 21:5). Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents and the snakes bit the murmuring, ungrateful people and many died.
But God does not send serpents or punishment in this situation. God graciously provides food - food from heaven. God gives manna, and in giving manna, God demonstrates grace and mercy to a cranky, rebellious people. The Hebrew expression, "What is it?" (man hu) translates into the word manna. Manna is white, like coriander seed, with a yellowish tinge and resinous appearance like bdellium, and tasted like wafers made with honey. According to Numbers 11:8 it was ground in mills, beaten in mortars, boiled in pots, and made into cakes.
Science describes manna this way: Various plants exude a manna--like substance, either emanating spontaneously from the plant itself or produced by the puncture of an insect. The tamarix gallica mannifera does so and grows in the Peninsula of the Sinai. The exudation is dirty yellow in color, but white when it falls on the ground or stone. It melts in the heat of the sun and its season is six to ten weeks long with June being the height of the season.
This food of grace - manna - becomes the food on which the Israelites would mainly subsist during the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness.
A modern experience of manna is told in the following way: "In 1932, a white substance resembling manna, one morning, covered a patch 2,100 feet by 60 feet on the farm owned by a Mr. Botha in Natal, South Africa. It was gathered and eaten by the natives."6
This account from Exodus lifts the natural phenomenon to the level of a sign, confirming Israel's faith. Here, and elsewhere in the Bible, manna becomes an amazing metaphor for God's grace and providence.
Manna pops up in several New Testament passages (see 1 Corinthians 10:3; 2 Corinthians 8:15; and Revelation 2:17), and it plays an important role in two events in Jesus' life. In the wilderness, Jesus rejects the temptations of the devil and clarifies his purpose for coming. That purpose was that as the Messiah he would once again supply his people with the heavenly manna. Jesus fulfills the manna sign by not only providing food for 5,000 and 4,000 people, but by being the very bread from heaven, the bread of life that lasts into eternity.
A second understanding is found in John 6 when Jesus refers to the very offensive picture of his followers eating his flesh. This, of course, is a sacramental reference to the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper becomes the Christian's way of participating in the redeeming death of Christ. God mercifully reaches out to the Children of Israel with grace and love. Manna is a sure sign of grace. Applied to the Christian, grace is always God's unmerited favor, mercy, and love by which we are justified freely.
A seminary professor in India noticed the interesting contrast the Indians have between grace and faith. They point to the cat and the monkey. The cat holds and carries its kittens with no assistance required from the kittens. It is pure grace. The little monkey has to hold onto its mother and this illustrates faith. Yet even the monkey is carried by its mother which brings us back to grace.
Even talking about faith as a "response" can be misleading and misunderstood. "Reaction" is an optional word to describe one's experience of a prior act of God by grace.
David Allen Sørensen, in Exploring The Yearly Lectionary, tells how difficult it is to accept pure grace. Just for fun, he decided to try a little experiment at a toll booth in Indiana. He rolled up to the booth just ahead of a fellow he had never seen before and handed the teller a dollar and said, "This is for me and that red Chevy behind me." Then David drove off. Watching in his mirror, he saw the guy in the car behind motion emphatically with his hands as he took far longer at the booth than other cars. Then the motorist punched the accelerator hard and caught up with David, snapped his head to the right, and glared - with anger!
Some people receive God's grace like that, too. They don't trust God. They question the reality of pure grace. Most of us want to do it ourselves.
An oft--told story comes to mind about a pillar of the church who died and went directly to the pearly gates. Saint Peter met him and said, "It takes 1,000 points to get in, so tell me about yourself."
The pillar confidently reported, "well, until I was 21 years old, I never missed Sunday school, unless I was sick in bed. I have a string of perfect attendance medals that almost reaches the floor. I was an acolyte, active in the youth group, and I often worked around the church, cutting grass and doing other odd jobs."
Saint Peter said, "That is extremely good. Congratulations. That gives you one point. Tell me more."
The pillar said, "I am 75 years old. I attended church regularly, served on the board many times, sang in the choir, and gave ten percent of my income to the Lord."
"My, that is truly remarkable, another point for you," said Saint Peter. "Tell me more."
The man, growing a bit concerned, said, "I tried to live the Christian life, obeyed the Ten Commandments, and welcomed strangers."
Saint Peter said, "That is wonderful and that is another point. Go on."
By this time the man was becoming desperate and a bit irritated, and he blurted out to Saint Peter, "Look, at this rate the only way I'll ever get into heaven is by the grace of God!"
At that, Saint Peter lit up and exclaimed, "That is worth 1,000 points. Come on in!"
Saved by grace. Nourished by grace. Manna - gift of God, the bread of life sent down from heaven. Thanks be to God.
____________
1. J. Wallace Hamilton sermon, "Are You Tired?" Sermon Publication Committee, Pasadena Community Church, St. Petersburg, Florida, copyright 1964.
2. Sources unknown.
3. C. Neil Strait, Pastor ... Be Encouraged (Kansas City, Missouri: Beacon Hill Press, 1996).
4. Arley K. Fadness, Six Spiritual Needs In America Today (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 1998), pp. 6ff.
5. Faith At Work, Volume 106, No. 1., January/February, 1993, p. 3, Faith at Work, Inc., 150 South Washington Street, Suite 204, Falls Church, Virginia 22046.
6. The Westminster Dictionary Of The Bible (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Westminster Press, 1944), p. 375.
