Well, I can only assume aeer these two scripture readings, you have at least two queshons:

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Bryce Walters
5 years ago
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1 Sermon preached by Jenny McDevi4 at ARW in May, 2016, at Montreat Conference Center. or If you wish to reference this in your local congregagon, please do so with appropriate citagon. If you wish to use it in a broader context, please contact me. I ll probably say yes. Enough Exodus 16 (and a li+le Ma+hew 1:1-17) Well, I can only assume aeer these two scripture readings, you have at least two queshons: First, why? Why does she hate us? Why read a long recitahon of names and then read an even longer story about wandering in the wilderness, which is, generally speaking, a place no one wants to be so why go to a place like that when we are gathered joyfully in a place like this? And, second, perhaps even more bewildering, what the heck is an omer? Everyone was told to gather an omer s worth of food, we are told. Now it is possible that y all knew exactly what that meant, but I didn t. I had to do some research. And here s the clear answer: An omer is one tenth of an ephah. An ephah is the equivalent of 72 logs, and a log is the equivalent of one-sixheth of a maris. So an omer is about 12/100s of one full maris, which, depending on what ancient Middle Eastern measurement expert you are willing to trust, means an omer is possibly, according to our best guesses, somewhere between two pints and two liters. Maybe. Here s a clearer answer: an omer is always enough. Page 1 of 9

2 * * * 1 A friend once shared with me an old cartoon drawing that went something like this: On the fi8h day, God said, Let there be birds in the sky and fish in the sea, and there were birds, and fish. On the sixth day, God said, Let there be humans, and there were humans. On the seventh day, God rested. And on the eighth day, God said, Let there be problems, and there were problems. The Israelites are wandering in the wilderness, and the wilderness is where there are problems. It s where the unexpected happens around every corner, and life oeen goes unexplained. Y all know this: when the bible talks about wilderness, it s not talking just about geography. It s not talking about a place where we play games and roast marshmallows. It s talking about a condihon of the heart, an ache of the soul. Wilderness is where everything uncertain emerges front and center. It s where you can t make it on your own, and you are lee to wonder whether God is really paying a+enhon or not. The wilderness is what stretches between the dawn of creahon and our arrival in the Promised Land, or the arrival of God s promised day. The Israelites lived in the wilderness for forty years. Jesus stayed in the wilderness for forty days. If Jesus doesn t escape the wilderness well, God knows we won t. That wilderness can be found not in the woods, but in school and dens. SomeHmes in session meehngs and somehmes at dinner tables, somehmes on a conference call 1 Rev. Tom Are, Jr., who is friend and colleague, and the very best sermon conversahon partner. Page 2 of 9

3 somehmes in church pews and somehmes even in church pulpits. Here s something else you know: The wilderness is not an easy place to be. So the Israelites complain. They complain bi+erly. They all believed that God had brought them out of Egypt, out of slavery, out and away from all of the really bad stuff, the really hard stuff, but now they are hangry. There it is Ann Russ pointed this out in our liturgy wrihng class yesterday: hanger is an actual, biblical thing. They are hungry and they are angry about it. This is not the life they anhcipated. This happens all the Hme, doesn t it? In life and in the church, in big ways and small ways. We make our plans, and then those plans fall apart. SomeHmes it s simple enough. Like last fall, when my Kansas City Royals were in the World Series? For Game One, my DVR recorded nine innings of baseball but it took those boys 14 innings to secure the victory. I m told the last inning was a pre+y good one. But other Hmes it s not simple at all the doctor walks in the room and starts talking about chemo and radiahon and using words like prognosis and port and procedure. Or you walk in the room and are reminded, once again, that your parent no longer recognizes you, has lost all memory of you. Or the church you ve known and loved and served your whole life makes some changes, and you re suddenly not sure where to find your grounding anymore, Page 3 of 9

4 as you watch congregahons argue and splinter. Or the programs once considered tried and true, are now considered less essenhal or too expensive. I don t know you well enough to know what your experience of wilderness has been. I just know you ve been there. And I know that much like the Israelites, somehmes the wilderness is where our complaints come through. But I also know that more oeen than not, complaints set up shop right next to fear, because they speak the same language. It is into all of that complaints and fears alike that God sends manna, and tells Moses that everyone can collect an omer s worth. What follows is my favorite part of the story. Some collect more and some collect less, but when it comes Hme to measure against that omer? Everyone, somehow, has just enough. And when some of them try to think ahead, to store up some manna for the next day, well, God makes it clear that is not part of the plan. It turns ro+en during the night, or it melts in the heat almost as if God were saying, Learn to trust me. I will always provide for you. Don t worry. I will see you through to the next day. I could have chosen a story more like Jesus turning water into wine for today a story of unexpected abundance and all sorts of joy. It s an ARW story through and through, and abundance sounds like a lot more fun than enough. There is a book by Jim Collins Htled Good to Great. The book aims to help people break through barriers and become their best selves. Page 4 of 9

5 This is the opening line: Good is the enemy of great. His basic argument is that if we are content to se+le for what is good, we ll never achieve anything great. He may be right. But I have learned that the opposite is true, too: great can be the enemy of good. And if we are so focused on finding great, of accephng perfechon and completeness and abundance and nothing less we might not even nohce when there is good, Good News right in front of us. So maybe more than anything today, we need to be reminded that an omer is just enough, but that enough is guaranteed to get us all the way home. * * * Rev. Michael Curry is the presiding Episcopal bishop here in North Carolina and he tells the story of his parents a+ending church together back when they were dahng. This was back in the 1940s. They visited an Episcopalian church, and when it was Hme for the sacrament of communion, they watched as everyone came forward, took bits of bread, and then drank from a common cup. The Currys were black. The church was all white. Right in the heart of segregated America, where black people and white people didn t drink from the same water fountain, never mind from the same cup. And yet they went forward. They stood before the priest, who hesitated, uncertain what to do. And then he lowered the cup to them and said, 2 The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for you. 2 Rachel Held Evans shares this story in her book Searching for Sunday, p. Page 5 of 9

6 Is that the Promised Land? No. It isn t racism eradicated. But it is manna in the wilderness. It is bread for the journey. It is enough to keep you going. * * * And there s the story of my friend Lindsay, who was born with a passion in her heart for street people, her preferred term for folks who are experiencing homelessness. Lindsay has a habit of befriending these folks, of hearing their stories, and so she learned that one of their greatest challenges is carrying around everything they own, all day, every day. It makes it harder to interview for a job, and it creates anxiety to wonder, constantly, whether your few belongings are secure. So Lindsay created a sort of coat-check, or bag-check, situahon at her church, so that street people could leave their belongings at the church for a few hours every day, where they would be held safely. It gives them, even just for a short while, a somewhat lighter load to bear. Is that the Promised Land? Nah. But it is manna in the wilderness. It is enough to keep you going. * * * And then there are Hmes manna shows up at a Session meehng. This is actually a story of two Session meehngs. At the first meehng, a group from the congregahon had asked Session to take a public stand on a controversial issue. From the first minutes of our discussion, Page 6 of 9

7 it became clear that we were not of one mind. By the Hme the meehng was over, feelings had been hurt and one person had walked out in anger. Because it was a Presbyterian church, discussion was tabled so that further study could be done. A vote was to be taken at our next meehng. So at that next meehng, we began with Bible study, and a reminder of how to speak to one another in love. AEer speaking to one another in love for 45 minutes, we voted we voted not to vote on that parhcular issue. When the meehng ended that night, I stood talking to someone who had been fervently against this proposal, and looked up to see the woman who had been passionately in favor of it headed our way. She had not spoken a word during the meehng, and I could see in her eyes that there was good reason for this: she had been storing it all up for this moment. I confess to you that I started praying: Sweet Jesus, if you are really coming back, if you could come back before she makes it across this room, that would be good Hming. She made her way over to us and she said, There are a few things I need to you to understand. She said, I am not pleased by this outcome. I am not sure I ve ever been so disappointed by a decision. But then she said, But I also need you to know that tonight, I learned a lot about love. Tonight, I am disappointed by a decision my church made, but tonight, I could not be prouder of the way that decision was made. I have never, she said, seen a group of people care more for each other through hard conversahon. Page 7 of 9

8 By the Hme I made it home that night, she had sent an to the enhre Session. Thank you, it said, for teaching me what love looks like. Manna in the wilderness. It is enough to keep you going. * * * And finally, Terence Fretheim, a scholar of this story, he would tell you the story of the tamarisk tree. There is nothing supernatural about manna, he would tell you. Even today in the Sinai Peninsula, when a common type of plant lice punctures the fruit of the tamarisk tree it excretes a substance from the juice. What you end up with is a yellowish-white flake. It disintegrates during the heat of the day. It has a sweet taste. It is shll gathered by nahves of that land, who bake it into a kind of bread, 3 and they call it manna. Manna in the wilderness, it seems, absolutely comes directly from God God working with everyday, ordinary materials. Everyday, ordinary materials, which includes people like you and me. Which means, I suppose, that you and me? Against all odds and against all predichons WE are enough. If any of you are anything like almost every other human being I have ever met, it is easier for you to believe that bread falls from the sky than it is for you to believe that you are enough. 3 Terence Fretheim, Exodus, p Page 8 of 9

9 Good enough. Skilled enough. Smart enough. CreaHve enough. PaHent enough. Faithful enough. So do your best, every day, to believe this word that is trustworthy and true: you are enough to keep this story going, you are enough to keep this church thing on the move, you are enough for whatever life asks of you, if for no other reason than that God s grace comes to us, omer by omer, like a gie straight from heaven and from the tamarisk tree. Pray with me: Lord we believe; help our unbelief. In Christ s name we pray Amen. Page 9 of 9

SERMON: "THE DISCIPLINE OF DAILYNESS" SCRIPTURE: EXODUS 16:1-15 DATE: SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

SERMON: THE DISCIPLINE OF DAILYNESS SCRIPTURE: EXODUS 16:1-15 DATE: SEPTEMBER 21, 2014 1 SERMON: "THE DISCIPLINE OF DAILYNESS" SCRIPTURE: EXODUS 16:1-15 DATE: SEPTEMBER 21, 2014 Exodus 16:1-15 (NIV) The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between