God Cares for the People by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

     When I graduated from college I had a once in a life time experience. Actually it was an experience that most people will never have. I know I am so fortunate to have had this opportunity. I won a scholarship through the Rotary Foundation that paid for me to study abroad for a year. I went to the University of Durham England and lived and studied theology for a year before going to seminary. That year was one of the most exciting years of my life. 
 

But I was actually very insecure when I was in college. I know you will probably find that hard to believe, but it’s true. I suffered from depression and I was not yet getting any treatment for it. That’s another story for another day. I was a very functional depressed person, and so I got the scholarship and went to England. 

It was a really big deal for me to say good-bye to my parents, get on a plane in Dallas Texas, all alone and fly what seemed like half way around the world to another land. I didn’t know anybody in the place that I was going.  Even though they spoke English, it was not the same English we spoke in Texas. I felt a bit like the Israelites who left Egypt and ended up in the Wilderness. 

Everything was different in Durham, England. Now, there were other American students in Durham so there were times when we would get together, often sitting together in the dining hall. We would share stories of how we were adapting to this new place, which was actually a very old place. The buildings we were living in were older than the United States! 

I soon discovered there were two types of American students. There were those of us who went with the flow and tried to make the best of things, drinking in the cultural experience and being grateful for this amazing opportunity. 

And there were those who complained about everything. I remember this one guy who was on his junior year abroad from Harvard. He could not get over the fact that the hot and cold water came out of two different faucets in the sink. I kept trying to tell him, “Just put a stopper in the sink and let the hot and cold mix in the sink to make warm,” it was not that complicated, but he would have none of that. He complained that the milk was not homogenized, so the crème rose to the top. All you had to do was shake it to mix it up. He could not wait to go home for Christmas. I wondered why he had come at all.  What’s the point if  you’re going to complain the whole time. 

The rest of us, leaned into the tradition, even if they pulled us outside our comfort zones. After dinner, the graduate students and the professors would go to their senior Common Room for coffee, cheese and “biscuits” (their word for crackers). Once or twice I got invited as a guest. It was a bit like being on an episode of Downton Abbey. Very formal.  I was stepping back in time but I was also stepping into the culture from which the United States was born. It was not something I would want to do every day, but it was interesting.   So I just went with the flow.

There were times, for example, when I went downtown and walked into a local bakery, that I felt like I was in the wilderness. The locals spoke with an accent that I could barely understand. As a girl from Texas, I just had to point at the bakery case and say “I’ll have that one.” They would laugh at me and I hope they did not cheat me when they made change for me. 

I would get homesick sometimes. Even though I really was not happy in West Texas. As a feminist who wanted to be a pastor I really had no home in West Texas. I knew I would never go back there to live. But living in England, in a place so different from home, there were times I longed for the familiarity of even those awful rednecks back home.  It was strange.  You want what is familiar. 

My situation was just a little bit like that of the people of Israel when the left Egypt and went into the Wilderness. Because, you see, God had promised that they would go to the Promised Land, to a place flowing with milk and honey. But instead they found themselves wandering in the desert with no food to eat and no water to drink. They immediately began to complain. They said to Moses in one of my all-time favorite lines in scripture: “Did you bring us out here to die? Why didn’t you just let us die in Eqypt? At least there we had food to eat?”

It just took a minute for them to go from suffering as slaves to the point that slavery was looking pretty good. How soon we forget.  We human beings can be so fickle. Like that kid from Harvard that could not even appreciate that he was LIVING IN ENGLAND!   What an experience, what an opportunity.  

Walter Bruggemann writes that their “first task is leaving; the second task is believing."  (Quoted in http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/september-21-2014.html, Kathryn Matthews Huey, Sermon Seeds for September 21, 2014.) They had to put a great deal of trust in Moses in order to leave Egypt. Their second task, now that they are in the wilderness, was believing, to believe in Moses, and also to embrace God. They have to put their trust in God. They have to give themselves over to living in the way of God. 

It appeared that they were going to have to go through a period of testing in the wilderness before they would arrive at the Promised Land. Kathryn Huey writes: “life wasn't going to be suddenly easy… freedom itself provided huge problems” (ibid).

You see, the people had to make a shift in their thinking. Even though living as slaves was horrible, they had been slaves for a long time. It was all they knew. It was familiar. So, in the story, the people have to make a choice for freedom. Kathryn Huey suggests that in this story Pharaoh is not just a “long-dead historical king.” He is “everything that traps us and keeps us down and draws us into a system that mangles the "system" of God.”  By contrast, God tests us, and challenges us. If we are truly going to live as free people then we must answer the question: “Will we put our trust in God?” (ibid).

Walter Bruggeman writes that the manna represents a connection between our loyalties and the source of our food. Are the people going to keep living under the tyranny of Pharaoh’s? Or are they ready to be loyal to God? God “gives in abundance but calls us to walk in faith, in trust, not hoarding but sharing to make sure everyone has enough?” “Will we share with one another? …[we are] strangely trapped and tied to the systems that oppress ... We find ourselves comfortable with that system, whether we realize it or not: are we people of Pharaoh, or people of God? Brueggemann warns, then, that "we must pay attention to what we eat and to who feeds us” (ibid).

The people had to decide if they were going to trust God to provide enough manna, or bread for each day. We didn’t read this part, but the story goes on to say that they were told that on the sixth day, they should collect a double portion for day six and seven. Because as we all know, on the seventh day, creation is supposed to rest. They were told that the food would not spoil and it did not. But some people did not obey Moses and on the seventh day they went out and tried to gather manna. So God said to Moses: “How long are you going to disobey my commands and not follow my instructions? Don’t you see that God has given you the Sabbath? So on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. So, each of you, stay home. Don’t leave home on the seventh day.” So the people quit working on the seventh day. Having this emphasis on the Sabbath in this story shows that this time in the Wilderness was about teaching the people what it means to be in relationship with God. They had lived as slaves for so long. They had forgotten what it meant to be God’s people. 

This season was necessary so that the people would re-form their bond with God. They had spent all those years in an unhealthy dependence on Pharaoh, expecting him to provide for their needs. Pharaoh was a cruel parent. But he was all they had.   They had forgotten God.

Now they were free, but they did not know how to live free. They did not know how to live in a trusting relationship. Have you ever seen this with anyone? They have been treated badly for so long, that when they are in a relationship with someone who wants to treat them well, they don’t know how to function, so they end up sabotaging the relationship? This is what could have happened with the people of Israel. But God stayed with them in the Wilderness, teaching them, and caring for them.

There are at least two important lessons in this story. God provided the food that they needed. And God reminded them that a day of rest is crucial. The food was provided for the day of rest. Pharaoh certainly never gave these slaves a day of rest. They probably had no idea what to do with a day to rest in God and to enjoy the beauty of creation.

Do we? What would happen if we really took one whole day a week to rest in God and to enjoy the beauty of creation? Not to shop, or do housework, or home improvement projects, or run errands, or get more work done for our jobs to make more money so we can buy more stuff. Kathryn Huey writes: “Ironically, we're in a wilderness of too much rather than too little - and not just of food and other necessities and luxuries as well, but of too many electronic screens, too many emails, too many social media calling to us...distracting us from ourselves, in a sense, hindering our ability to be still, to be quiet, to be open to God” (ibid).  

That time in the wilderness for people of Israel called them to see their dependence on God. While they were free from slavery, they still needed God. 

We all need God. We have all been slaves to something. Slaves to the illusion that we are in charge of our lives. Slaves to our work. Slaves to idea that there can be a perfect relationship that will make us feel whole. Some person who will complete us. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband, and I am glad to have a life partner. But it is too much to expect any human being to meet all my needs. 

But We need God. That time in the wilderness showed the people that they needed God. During our wilderness times, we turn to God. When we are out of our element, like I was in England, it is a test, a chance to see if we will embrace the adventure and trust God, or just spend the whole time complaining and wishing we can go back to the bad old days.  How stupid is that?   Why would I ever want to go back?   

Moses invited the people, standing there in the wilderness, to see the Glory of God. And they did. God fed them. God gave them just what they needed. And they learned to trust God on their journey to the Promised Land.

How about us? When we go through seasons of wilderness, and we find ourselves complaining, can we pause, can we take a Sabbath day to listen to God? Can we take a walk in God’s beauty and remember that we are surrounded by God? Can we look at the food we eat and give thanks that God provides bread? A season of wilderness is an invitation to put our trust in God. We are never far from God. God is right there in the wilderness with us, providing for us. We just have to be still and trust God.