Manna and Quail -- A Message for October 5, 2025

    

 Today is World Communion Sunday. Christians all over the world are making a special effort to partake in Holy Communion today. We meet our brothers and sisters in Christ, from every country and every continent, at Christ’s table and partake in Christ’s holy meal today.

All people love to eat. And, all people love to gather together for special celebrations. When Jesus instituted the Christian Church, he chose for us to share a meal together as one of our most important rituals. But, even before Jesus came to institute our holy meal, God shared God’s love and care for God’s people by sending food to them as manna and quail.

Last week, we recalled the event of Moses meeting God in the burning bush. God told Moses that he would be the person to lead the people of Israel out from captivity in Egypt to the Holy Land. Moses listened to God. He went to Egypt, negotiated with the Pharoah, secured the release of the people of Israel, and led them across the Red Sea into the wilderness. 

At this point in the story, the people had been in the wilderness about 45 days and they were beginning to run out of the food they brought for the journey. Whenever food is scarce, people begin to panic. And, the people were indeed beginning to panic.

Listen now to the story as we read from Exodus chapter 16, verses one through twenty-one.

Scripture Exodus 16:1-18

16 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 

2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 

3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 

5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, 

7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” 

8 Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”

9 Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”

10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.

11 The Lord said to Moses, 

12 “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

13 That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 

14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 

15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.

Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. 

16 This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”

17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 

18 And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.

19 Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.”

20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

21 Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away.

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let us pray…

Message Manna and Quail

“What is it?” ….the word Manna translates into the phrase “what is it?” in English.

This week, on the local Nextdoor page, a grandparent complained about the food in a nearby school looking unappetizing. They posted a photo of a hamburger and basically asked – What is it? 

But, like the manna, the important thing was that it was food, and fuel for the bodies of the people who had to eat it. And, sometimes the most delicious foods come in surprising packages.

When the Hebrew people left Egypt, they were rushing. They gathered what they could carry and rushed to follow Moses. Thire plan was that they would all leave Egypt and walk to the Holy Land – if you walked following the established trade routes, their journey should have taken a month at most. The walk is roughly 400 kilometers, or two-hundred and fifty miles. A healthy person can typically walk around 8 kilometers or five miles in a day. If you were walking all day long, even farther.

But, we know the Hebrew people didn’t take a direct route to the Holy Land. And, they had a lot of people with them…and a lot of issues they needed to work out before they arrived at their final destination. After 45 days, or so, they realized their food was going to run out and they were not there yet.

The people were hungry. They complained to Moses and Aaron. They despaired…they said things like: “It would have been better to just die in Egypt than it is to starve out here in the wilderness.” They didn’t bring their worries and complaints to God, but God overheard them….And, God responded.

The people craved meat – and probably needed protein. So, God sent them quail. The quail appeared weekly. And, six days a week, manna appeared on the ground in the morning.  I always imagine it like crusty honey. They gathered the food each day… and gathered extra on Fridays so they could eat on the Sabbath day when they weren’t allowed to gather or do work.

The food was unlike anything they had eaten before. But, it filled their bellies and gave them energy for the journey. The manna and quail sustained the Hebrew people for the 40 years they spent out in the wilderness, moving camp every once in a while and preparing for their eventual move to the Promised Land. 

When people live in captivity, they crave freedom. When teenagers dream about college life, they are excited to live free of the rules of their parents. They want to wake up when they want, go to bed when they want, eat what and when they want, and decide for themselves whether or not to do their homework. And, some kids are able to make that transition well and are responsible and mature about their new freedoms, and other kids can’t handle it, and move home, or leave school and start working. Some kids are ready for freedom, and others are not.

 The Hebrew people were not ready for the freedom afforded them in the Holy Land. They had a lot of “growing edges” – things they needed to learn or accept before they entered God’s Promised land. During their years of dreaming of freedom, when they were slaves in Egypt, they dreamed of waltzing into the Holy Land – the land of Milk and Honey.  They did not dream of camp life, in the desert, with crying toddlers and tired grandmas, and bugs, and empty bellies. 

So, they were unhappy. I always find their complaining shocking….they had survived 400 years of captivity, endured the 10 plagues that befell Egypt, followed Moses across the parted Red Sea, were following God leading them through the wilderness in a pilar of smoke by day and a pilar of fire at night, yet they were upset. They were afriad. They were fearful. And, they complained. Despite all of the ways God had come-through, God had rescued them, they were afriad God would let them down now. And, they would starve and die in the wilderness.

God didn’t poof them into the Holy Land when God heard their complaints. It wasn’t a Star Trek transporter moment when they were instantly taken from the desert to the Holy Land. God sent them food….God sent them plenty of food for their daily needs…but God didn’t send them a delicous, variety of every-changing culinary options. God provided for the people, but God didn’t remove the hardship of desert life, of camp life, of nomadic life.

And, God only provided enough food for daily needs to be met….they got no extras….they had no emergency stores of food. They had just enough for their daily needs.

The people had to participate in God’s saving work on their behalf….God didn’t send the food directly into their bowls and pots. Every day, the people had to spend time gathering their own food….picking enough manna in the morning for them to eat the rest of the day. And, when God sent the quail each week, it didn’t fall into their pots slaughtered, cleaned, plucked, and already cooked. They had to do the work to kill and prepare their weekly ration of meat.

We often fall into the trap of being disappointed and complaining when what we expected to happen doesn’t live up to what we get. When we were living through the pandemic, we thought things would be so much better when it was all over…..the moment we got a vaccine, we could toss off our masks and start going places again and everything would return to normal…people would go back to work and kids would go back to school and the church will fill up with people and everything would be as it was, or even better than it was. 

But, it took the former slaves 40 years to make it to the Holy Land….and it will take us a few more years before things get back to “normal.” And, the normal that we clamored for during the pandemic will not be the “normal” we get. Things are different….things will be different. 

The Hebrew people needed to adjust. And, so do we. We must work to accept our current reality. And, make the best of every day. The former-slaves didn’t get leeks and fish and delicious culinary delights….so they needed to be creative when they made their manna into cakes. We will not get our former, pre-pandemic schools, and jobs, and churches back, so we need to be creative and figure out ways to make our current jobs, and schools, and church more and more like God’s realm here on earth – we must work to be loving towards each other…we must worke to be open-minded….we must work to be accepting of each other…we must work to be supportive of each other. We can’t be who we were in the past, but we must be the best refelctions of Jesus we can be in the here-and-now.

Let us work to become a more and more faithful representation of the body of Chirst. Amen. 

The Burning Bush -- A Message for September 28, 2025

    

 Last week, my friends, we focused on a few stories from the life of Jacob, the son of Isaac, and the grandson of Abraham and Sarah. Jacob inherited the Covenant God made with Abraham and Sarah and was promised to be blessed by God and to become the father of as many children as the stars in the sky. Jacob got a good start on the many offspring promise – he had 12 sons and a daughter. 

When his sons were adults, there was a famine in the land of Israel and Jacob and his descendants all moved to Egypt. Initially, they lived in the region of Goshen which was perfect for grazing their sheep. And, Joseph, Jacob’s son, was a powerful figure in the Egyptian government, so his family was protected and safe. But, over the decades and centuries that followed, Jacob’s descendants became slaves in Egypt – they were resident aliens and the Egyptians started to exploit the labor of the foreigners in their midst. 

The Egyptian government, led by their Pharaoh, became fearful of their slaves. They made them live in substandard housing, allowed them smaller and smaller food rations, gave them unreasonable work quotas to fill, and finally told the midwives who worked with the slaves to murder all the boy babies born to the Hebrew women. The Egyptians wanted to control the population of the outsiders who lived in their midst.

Moses was born to a Hebrew family when things were very difficult for the slaves. The midwives had been ordered to kill the boy babies by throwing them into the Nile River – so when Moses was three months old, his mother placed him in a basket and put the basket in the river – a bit of malicious compliance. Moses’s basket was discovered by an Egyptian princess who adopted Moses. He was raised in the royal palace among the princes and princesses, but always knew he was different – he was a slave adopted by the royal family.

When he was a young adult, Moses killed an Egyptian man who was tormenting a Hebrew slave. Afterwards, the Hebrews still viewed Moses as a privileged overlord, not one of them, and the Egyptians wanted to kill Moses for being a murderer, not one of them. So, he ran away to the country of Midian, married the daughter of a priest, and became a shepherd. Once again, he was a foreigner living as an outsider in another strange land.

Today, we read a portion of Moses’ story….his calling by God to become a prophet and leader of the Hebrew people….

Listen now to our Scripture reading, starting in Exodus chapter 2.  

Scripture Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15; 4:10-17

23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 

24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 

25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 

2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 

3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 

6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 

8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 

9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 

10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,
    the name you shall call me
    from generation to generation.

10 Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 

12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

14 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. 

15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. 

16 He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. 

17 But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”

Here ends this reading of the Word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let us pray…..

Message The Burning Bush

Moses was a reject. He was rejected by the people of his birth – the Hebrew people saw him as one of the Egyptians, the people who forced them into slavery and who constantly tormented them with added labor. The Egyptian people saw him as a Hebrew – perhaps he had been adopted by an Egyptian princess, but he was still not one of them. He wasn’t born as an Egyptian, and therefore, he would never fit in, he would never be one of them. Moses was rejected by both the people of his ethnic background and the people of his adopted background.

After he murdered an Egyptian bully, Moses was hated by each group. And, the Egyptians totally were against him – they wanted to execute him for being a murderer. So, Moses ran away. He ran away to Midian.

There, he found refuge in the family of a priest. Good to know that a minister overlooked the problem of Moses being an outsider, a refugee from Egypt, someone born into slavery. In Midian, Moses found hospitality, found welcome, found acceptance, and found a family. 

As the son-in-law of Jethro, Moses also had a vocation. He became a shepherd and tended to the family’s sheep. Perhaps this was a demotion from being a Prince in Egypt, but Moses finally had a place to which he belonged.

And, then God appeared.

God interrupted Moses’ finally calm life.

God sometimes appears in very strange ways – a whisper – a baby –  a pilar of cloud and fire – a dove…. And in a burning bush.  Moses saw the bush burning…there was explanation for how it caught on fire. And, the bush was not being consumed.

When he walked over to investigate, God began to talk to Moses. God told Moses that God had work for Moses to do. God was going to send him to Pharaoh to appeal on behalf of the Hebrew slaves.

And, Moses threw out a bunch of excuses. He wanted to continue his safe, calm life as the son-in-law of Jethro in Midian. But, God didn’t allow Moses to turn down God’s proposal. God would send Moses, accompanied by his biological brother Aaron as his spokesman, to appeal for the release of the Hebrew slaves. 

This is a lengthy and complicated story. But, we know Moses answered God’s call – he fulfilled God’s command. He went back to Egypt. He negotiated with Pharoah. He eventually got the Hebrew slaves to be released. When Pharaoh changed his mind, God parted the Red Sea and the Hebrews crossed into safety. Moses led the Hebrews through the wilderness for forty years and to the Promised Land.

Again, this is another example of an unlikely person who was put into an important role to further the Kingdom of God. Moses was an outsider….a reject…a murderer…a refugee…an immigrant…a lowly shepherd. And, God used him to negotiate with the powerful Pharoah, lead the Hebrews to safety, guide and lead them for forty years, and nurture them until they were prepared to enter the land of Israel. 

Sometimes, we are uncomfortable when people say they are changed for the better. We are suspicious when people who have been convicted of crimes say they are reformed, that they are ready to turn over a new leaf. If we know what they have done in the past, we are always suspicious they will commit the same crime in the future, will behave the same way in the future or worse.

Yet, in the Bible, God repeatedly uses people who have made terrible mistakes to do God’s work. Moses was a murderer. David was a murderer. David committed adultery. Abraham lied about his relationship with Sarah. Rahab was a prostitute. Paul encouraged the killing of Christians. Jonah ran away from God. Mary Magdalene has been accused of having an unsavory past. 

God repeatedly uses people who have made terrible mistakes to do God’s work.

This is a reminder for us. If we feel unworthy, remember God uses broken people to do God’s work. God uses people with sad and terrible pasts to do God’s work. God uses outsiders, and refugees, and liars, and murderers to do God’s work. God uses us, and people like us to do God’s work.

This story is also a reminder for us to treat each other with grace and compassion. We can be judge-y. We discriminate against people who have stains in their pasts. We struggle to accept when people say they have changed, that they have turned over a new leaf. We must remember that with God’s help, everyone is capable of transformation. With God’s help, everyone is able to start over again. With God’s help, all people can change for the better. So, when people tell us they are different now, we can still be cautious, but let us be open-minded and allow them to show us. And, when people show us that they have changed, let us work to forgive them.

God uses broken people to do God’s work. People like Moses. People like us. Let us work to listen to God’s guidance in our lives and do the work God calls us to do. 

Amen. 

Jacob Steals A Blessing -- A Message for September 21, 2025

  This morning, we return to the early stories of our faith. Last week, we focused on the story of the difficult choice Abraham was forced to make – whether or not to sacrifice his young son. 

Today we will focus on a story of events that occurred later in Isaac’s life. Isaac married his cousin Rebecka and they became the parents of only two children: fraternal twins Esau and Jacob. Esau was born a few minutes before Jacob. Even though the boys were twins, their birth order made a big difference in their lives.

In Ancient Israel, when an estate was divided among the heirs, it was divided by the number of sons plus one. The oldest son received the extra share. In the case of Esau and Jacob, this meant Esau expected to receive two-thirds of his father’s estate. As the oldest son, he also was supposed to receive a special blessing from his father. Blessings like this were considered legally binding and were considered prophetic – whatever was said during the blessing was believed to be able to predict what would happen in the future.

In a very silly moment, Esau told his brother Isaac that he would trade his special birthright as the oldest son with him in exchange for a plate of food. Brothers and sisters joke around with each other. But, this joke was so absurd that Esau probably assumed Isaac would regard it as a joke, not a binding covenant. Isaac was a trickster, though, and things did not work out in Esau’s favor.

So, let us turn to the story of the two brothers at a crucial time, when Isaac was prepared to bestow his special, binding blessing on his oldest son.

We pick up the story at Genesis 27….listen now to the word of God….

Scripture Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17

27 When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.”

“Here I am,” he answered.

Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death. 

Now then, get your equipment—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me. 

Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”

Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 

She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. 

Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.

He went to his father and said, “My father.”

“Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?”

Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”

Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”

“The Lord your God gave me success,” he replied.

Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”

Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 

He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him.

The hairy hands were enough to convince Isaac incorrectly that Jacob was Esau. Another absurd occurrence in the midst of a very serious situation.

Esau discovered the betrayal almost immediately….as soon as Jacob was blessed and left his father, Esau walked in with his specially prepared food. Isaac couldn’t undo the blessing. Instead, he gave Esau a lesser blessing. Esau was so angry he vowed to kill Jacob. 

Jacob believed Esau was going to kill him. So, his mother helped him flee – she sent him to live with her brother who lived a several days' journey away. On the way to safety, Jacob had a strange dream. Listen now to the story of the dream:

Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 

When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 

He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 

There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 

Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 

He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let us pray….

Message Jacob Steals a Blessing

In the dream about Jacob’s ladder, God blessed Jacob…God blessed Jacob and extended the Abrahamic covenant to him and his offspring, even though Jacob had behaved badly to his brother and father. What does this say about God? Why would God reward such a flawed person?

Jacob’s family is the epitome of toxic. His parents had favorite children. His mother connived against his father and his brother. The boys were pitted against each other by their parents. Their father was raised by his grandparents to be the fulfillment of all of their dreams…yet his grandparents had their own share of dysfunction. 

Jacob left one toxic family system and entered another. He sought protection and rescue in the family of his mother’s brother, Laban, who used him for labor, tricked him into marrying a wife he didn’t want or pick, and later had to flee with his 12 children and four wives from the wrath of his uncle-slash-father-in-law. Jacob’s own children tried to kill each other, sold one of their brothers into slavery, and one of his sons raped his own sister. Not an ideal family-system.

Yet, these messed up people and this messed up family is blessed by God. These are the people who are our ancestors in the faith – the patriarchs and matriarchs of Judaism and Christianity.

We believe in a God who blesses imperfect people. I hope none of us come from families of origin that were as terrible as Jacob’s, but there are people in this room who have come from toxic families. We may be currently navigating relationships with people who are not easy to get along with or with whom we don’t feel safe. And, we know stories about our friends and neighbors and know that people we know have troubled, messy lives. 

The people in the Bible, like Jacob and his family, are examples of how God uses imperfect people. The example they set for us is that no matter how unworthy we feel, no matter how flawed we believe ourselves to be, we are still capable of doing helpful and just and useful and Godly actions in our lives. We must not let our pasts define us. We must not allow our pasts to predict our futures. God loves us. God needs us to do God’s work in the world. We are called to be attentive to guidance of the Holy Spirit – maybe the Spirit is speaking to us in our dreams, or in the quiet times of our days, or when we are walking around our neighborhoods clearing our heads. God has work for us to do. And, God will use us to care for God’s creation, to love God’s people, and to work on God’s behalf to repair our broken world. 

So, take heart, and remember, no matter what kind of family we are part of, no matter what mistakes we have made, no matter what we haven’t done yet in our lives, we are being called by our God to do God’s work in the here and now. So, let’s listen to God pulling on our heart strings. 

May it be so. Amen.