Cherith Fee Nordling—Year A Proper 20
Anthony: Let’s move on to our next text. It’s Exodus 16:2–15. It’s the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 20 in Ordinary Time, September 20. And it reads:
2 The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. 5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.” 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?” 8 And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him—what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.”
9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites: ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’ ” 10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11 The Lord spoke to Moses, 12 “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”
13 In the evening quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.
So, Israel’s complaint against Moses and Aaron reflects a longing for Egypt despite their deliverance. What, if anything, does this reveal to modern people about the challenges of living between redemption and the fulfillment of God’s promises?
Cherith: Oh, boy. It reveals, if anything, and there’s so much, right? So, we’ll pick one thing. Two things. Again, as we’re reading this and hearing this with Jesus, I’m amazed that in the, I’m thinking of John’s Gospel in particular right now, of all the ways that Jesus is going to put in his own mouth the I Am, right? That everything that we’re reading of the Lord, capital L-O-R-D, as you and I are seeing it in this translation, is the unspeakable name, right? The name they won’t say at the point that Jesus is alive and hearing these read in the synagogue. But it’s the name of Yahweh who is the Lord of Hosts, is the transcendent one, and the I Am That I Am who has met Moses.
And Jesus starts putting the I Am in his own mouth, and one of the I Ams that says, “This is, if you really want to know God, you do not keep his laws and think he is a taskmaster who will give you a good report card and keep you alive and bless you. You find out by my life what your Abba, who is the Lord,” the unspeakable name looks, “and he is your bread. I am your bread from heaven,” right? “And I will be the one who feeds you.”
And yet the only prayer that Jesus gives us for being the one who seems to be praying more than anybody in the New Testament, certainly in the Gospels, even though they are, you know, their daily rituals of prayer ― Jesus gives us only one prayer, and in the middle of that prayer is himself, right? Again, which is, “Ask me for your daily bread.”
Anthony: Yes.
Cherith: Don’t ask me to give you enough to store up in your barn, because then you will stop looking at our Father in heaven and ask what his will is.
Anthony: Come on.
Cherith: And walk in it, and find your delight by walking in his will and knowing his ways, right? You will not look for the intersection of heaven and in earth, which is actually where you live, because the Spirit has birthed you into this new covenant in my blood, and that is the space that you just asked about, right? It’s the place between redemption and telos, which is already, you have been marked by the Spirit of resurrection, who is the one who raised Jesus from the dead. So, when you want to know how this turns out, you look at the one who is the one who makes himself your daily bread to feed a world that he loves, to see if by you partaking of him, you might be strengthened enough and look enough like him to actually be able to recognize his voice and to go with him in your day, where he would invite you to come alongside him in where he would want you to be the bread of the world, right?
Because you are his body. We are one body, one loaf, to be given for the world. So, I think in some ways it’s like if we cannot keep our eyes on him, who is the host of our table, who lays himself down as the host of what we eat at the table, by which we are fed and made into his image at the table, empowered to go into the world by the Spirit, having partaken of him at this table, if we are not people of his presence who see his face across the table, and those of our neighbor, and everybody sitting next to us as our neighbor, and we’re like, “How the hell did they get there?”
And Jesus is like, ” everybody gets the same invitation,” and so that he might ask you, “How did you get here,” right? “Everybody just gets here because I am here, and everyone comes with me.” And somehow everything about what it means to live the life in between is to say Jesus is, like, “Ask me how I did this, in the power of the Spirit, knowing my Father in heaven as Abba, and also the creator and ruler of the universe, as I am,” right?
“But I am revealing to you that God is humble, and with the marginalized, and with the weak, and with the ones who cannot store up great barns for themselves, and usually doing it on the backs of others,” right? At the expense of others.
But also, he just doesn’t do that. He’s, like, “No, I am enough. I am more than enough for every day. And then what would happen if you actually took that bread and gave it away, and trust that I could multiply it so that there would not just be enough for you and your neighbor? It’s not that I want you to go hungry at your neighbor’s expense, it’s that I have … I am bread. Could you go be that and see miracles happen in your midst in the most ordinary and extraordinary ways?”
So, I just feel like even the manna story, if we just sit with him as the revelation of that, it reorders us into that already-not-yet space that says, “Oh, I am tempted to move out of the storyline, but there is no other story. There is no other story. I’ve got a lot of fake stories that I could act out, but they’re not true and they’re killing me,” right? “And there isn’t bread there. It’s temporary snack, and I’m willing to let it satisfy me for the moment. But it is not life, and I’m dying if I just have that diet.” So, yeah, there’s just so much there.
Anthony: There is. And the imagery, the way I sometimes think of it is, this daily bread notion, is we really want our bread from Sam’s Club or Costco, don’t we, in bulk …
Cherith: Yep.
Anthony: … where we can store it up and have enough for our people, my people, that we’ll eat well for weeks and weeks. But it is relationship, so it is dependence. It is trust. And there’s something about recognizing our need every day in a way that we don’t live often, here in the States anyway. That’s really powerful. Give us this day our daily bread, Lord.
So, God responds ― speaking of bread ― to Israel’s grumbling, not with punishment, but with provision. So, that’ll preach. So, tell us more of how this points us to the ultimate provision in Jesus Christ, beyond what you’ve already said.
Cherith: I just think the Lord is just gracious. I used to read these texts. I remember sitting as a girl in church and just being like, “What is their deal?” “What does God have to do?” And then I would re-preach the sermon on the way home. My parents would tell me this, too, “You would sit your brothers in the backseat, and then you would say all the things you thought the pastor should have also said.”
And he said, “And then by lunchtime, little Pharisee that you were, knowing the Scriptures oh so well, but you were just brutal on your little brothers and I would just be like, ‘Oh, yeah.’” There’s this way of kind of knowing but not knowing and I just think it’s so funny that I was that person who could read these things and be like, ” I would not be like that.” And my parents were like, “Oh, honey, we’re all like that, and you were like that within about 35 minutes after church.”
And I think I have to just, at this stage of my life, laugh at how many seasons of my life I have grumbled or been …
[00:44:00] Anthony: Yeah
Cherith: … pissed off, or reluctant priest, or the whatever.
Anthony: Yeah.
Cherith. And just have to have Jesus really sit me down and almost look at me face-to-face so that I can see how hard he is trying hard not to laugh. But really not at me …
Anthony: Sure, sure.
Cherith: … but just, like the older I get, the more kind of childish and childlike all at the same time. And then at the same time, the humor in those eyes, there’s so much compassion that is part of that, because whatever laughter of God is at the ground of the world’s being, because there’s just joy, there also just has to be so much compassion. And I just keep recognizing that actually there is a difference between my daily orneriness and tiredness or whatever else is, and the places where I’m like, “Why can’t I just…”
And instead of being ashamed of that, I just hear his compassion saying, “Cherith, I know the answer to that question. You don’t know the answer, if at all, but I do know. I know what has formed you. I know all the influences that have been on your life. I know the things that have shaped you. I know the country that you live in, the time in history in which you live, in the country in which you live, that is different than had you been born in another country at the same time, let alone a different time. That this time in which you live, people died all the time 100 years ago. People didn’t have enough to eat all the time in your country 100 years ago. But right now, that is not normal for you. And so, even your very framework has been shaped by a sense of ease and entitlement and privilege that assumes so much. And I understand that, and I have compassion on you for being someone formed in convenience instead of hardship. And I have compassion on those who have been formed in hardship. I know what brings you to these moments.”
And so, I think the invitation is always there, and then the invitation becomes one of, “Would you like to see more? Would you like to know what is troubling your heart really?”
And come into a place that confesses that, to just acknowledge, “Oh, this is the sin working on me, that I didn’t even know exists in my deep heart. And you, Lord, are always the Lord whose character is to have mercy and to have compassion. And so, how do you help me realize that what you really provide for me is the love and the mercy that I need to keep entering into the promise of life with you, and not become afraid of you, or not trust that you are one who keeps a record of wrong, or all the stuff?” There’s just a deep call to who he really is as the Lord of compassion and mercy, which he’s been before I ever met him, right? And before I ever recognized him. Yes.
Anthony: Amen and amen. Yeah. Thank you.