Manna in Anxiety September 21, 2008

Exodus 16:1-15
Matthew 20: 1-16
This has been a hard week, a week of great anxiety and fear.
The Yankees left The House that Ruth Built, and the Mets Chose Buffalo over Syracuse!
For the last two decades we have seen our homes as protection against the forces of inflation.
Stocks and Bonds may fluctuate, hurricanes and terrorism may effect the price of Gas and the global economy, but as long as I wash my windows and mow my lawn, my mortgage investment is growing. Housing had been assessed up in 2000, again in 2005 and is planned for reassessment again in 2010. Ten years ago we witnessed the Dot.Com Bubble surface, everyone trying to get on board, then POP. But that was new technologies, faith in ideas that may have had no reality.
Throughout the last year, we have seen the sale not simply of houses, but of homes slow to a standstill; yet still there were the securities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers and AIG, foundations of our economy, some going back to WWI. Those of us who normally go about our daily routines, found ourselves sitting in front of our computers checking the hour listing of stocks, helplessly watching as the price per share of our future vanished. The Republicans blamed the GREED of Wall Street financers, the Democrats blamed the ADMINISTRATION, and no one had a solution. Then came the weekend, the Markets closed for a time of Sabbath.
The buzz throughout the last 48 hours has been whether and how the Government can underwrite all Bad Debt, what legislation and policies must be created to enstill trust and assuage anxiety. Acording to the news, when the Federal Reserve Chair finished addressing Congress, they were no longer considering what pork and special projects they could hide in the legislation, but there was honest fear and absolute quiet, as the repercussions sank in. In a time of SABBATH REST everyone takes a step back, unable to act, unable to respond, waiting.

The Old Testament describes three periods in the history of Israel. The time of Wandering in the Wilderness when there was great fear and anxiety; and the time of the Monarchy, when people became complacent and lax; the Exile in Babylon where they mourned. Our ANXIETY, our FEARS of Whom and What to Trust, what authority to believe, link us to the Wilderness Wandering People of Faith.

We love to recall the Great Patriarchs of the Genesis Stories: Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but the people of Israel had for as long as any could remember been slaves, property belonging to Pharaoh, possession of Egypt. Treated as beasts of burden, worked and bred, bought and sold like oxen, they worked from sun up to sun down, every day of their lives, stretching every muscle to build the Pyramids, to serve the Pharaoh, in payment for which they received subsistence: bread and water, and the promise that tomorrow would be the same as yesterday, acceptance that our children's children would have the same life as our parents' parents. Not a hope of freedom, of improvement, or a better life, but simply a slave's existence, being sold which was thought better than being killed off.

In the miracles of the Passover and Crossing the Red Sea, the slaves, the Hebrews, were suddenly FREE. But freedom does not feed your child. While the dream of Freedom may motivate, Freedom cannot make the ache of starvation cease. The people turn to Moses saying, “You led us against Pharaoh, You won, You now are the new Pharaoh, You own us and You are responsible for us. What must we do as slaves of Moses to be fed?”

Before Moses can plead their case to God, God provides for God's people. The story of Manna from heaven, is a tale of the ABUNDANCE of GRACE, every day there is more than any could gather, enough to fill and satisfy.

But even more, MANNA from heaven is declaration from God of a GREAT REVERSAL with God. Pharaoh demanded that we work and sweat in order that we might be fed to survive, not piecemeal, that the more you produce the more you earn; not time and a half after a 40 hour workweek; not through the purchase and sale of what we inherited, bought and created, because everything belonged to Pharaoh.
God declared to Moses that Creation, the Land itself, would provide daily bread.

No one truly knows how the people of Israel were fed for 40 years in the wilderness. There are storms and winds that take whole flocks of birds, like quail, and after buffetting and carrying them from differing points across Africa drop thousands of exhausted birds miles away in a different place. One interpretation is that as there were Quail covering the fields at night and a sticky powder like substance on the fieleds at dawn, that Manna was equated with the droppings of Quail. The people could have easily gone out and picked this and the birds up for meat. There are also ANTS that bore into the Fruit of The TAMARISK plant, and the fruit drain a sticky paste, which in the morning dew covers whole fields with a flaky flour like substance, that inidigenous people still harvest and which can be baked or fried as bread. This bread is high in protein and carbohydrates, but with little preservative capability. The Point of MANNA from HEAVEN is that rather than being OPPRESSED and ENSLAVED given Pharaoh's bread for subsistence; Manna from Heaven is there from God as part of Natural Creation, every day, our daily Bread. We must gather it, we must share, if you are greedy, or hoard too much the Manna will sour and be filled with worms. But GOD's DESIGN is that there would be daily Bread for us, and a DAY of SABBATH for all Creation, an order to God's creation, where we need not be anxious, fearful or filled with anxiety.

To suspend our ANXIETY, to Trust God, we must give up worrying about what our neighbor has. The question for most of us has shifted from whether we can survive, or even whether our children have the opportunities we have, to whether we and our children have as much as our neighbors. Property Assessments are based as much on the value of your neighbor's home, as on what you may have put into yours, and despite the Tax Bill, the value of the property does not exist unless and until you are willing and able to give it up. Stock prices/home values all are Monopoly Money, Winning at Anxiety, in which true value does not exist until you are ready to cash in and quit for ever. A dozen years ago, I bought a home in this community for $163,000 and because my neighbor's homes have been bought and sold in recent years for $400,000 mine must surely be worth as much. The story of the Laborers Hired to Work in the Vineyard, just as Manna from Heaven, are that everyone is provided for, everyone has enough. In the Parable, the Laborers who were hired first could have been paid first, with those hired last paid last, and none would have been the wiser; but the householder has the manager pay the last first so the others will see they are provided for. And those who have instead worked all day, grumble that they should have been paid more though they were provided the fair daily wage they had agreed to in the first place. This is not sound Economic practice, nor good Human Relations Personnel Management, but is a statement of God's love in Divine Judgement, the true worth of our lives.

A rich young man came to Jesus, possessing everything, he had mastered education, his beauty, his acomplishments and experience and references and wealth, his wisdom, all were to be envied. Yet he longed to have something more, something still was missing from his hollow life. He inquired of Jesus, “So, what should I do?” and Jesus said “Go sell everything and give this to the poor, then come follow. The man went sorrowful away, and good old Simon Peter who consistently is portrayed as jumping to conclusions, says “OOOH Ohh OOOH! We did that! What do we get?” And Jesus tells this parable, as much as to say “You are already part of the community, having this life, what more could you really need? Have compassion on those that want to labor in the vineyard, but come later.”

It matters not whether baptized as an infant, or coming to faith as a more mature believer, but that those of us who are part of the Church have compassion and find new ways to include those who other wise might not believe.