The Manna Jar

The Rev. Jeffrey A. Geary
Setauket Presbyterian Church

The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Exodus 16
July 14, 2002

Upon leaving Egypt and the oppressive rule of Pharaoh, Moses and the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness, and they grew hungry. So hungry that they began to crave the foods of Egypt. Better to eat the meager rations of a slave that starve in pursuit of freedom. Seeing their desperate need, God provided food for free, a soft, white substance upon which the people would feed for 40 years. They called the food manna, which means "What is it?" They would gather "What-is-it?" for breakfast and "what-is-it?" for lunch. God supplied their daily needs in abundance, but not for accumulation. Only as much as was needed for the day could be collected, and any extra turned to worms by morning. As a reminder of all that God had done for them, God told them to collect an Omer of manna, which is about two quarts, and to keep it in a jar before the covenant. Later the manna jar was carried in the ark of the covenant where the Ten Commandments were held.

It's a tiny story, popular in Sunday school, but with a huge impact throughout scripture. This free provision of daily food for each according to their needs and never more, became the basis of biblical economics. The Sabbath finds its first concrete expression in the day of rest from food collection, a day on which freed slaves would not work as a sign of their freedom. Remembering the sign of the manna, later generations added Jubilee practices to curb the accumulation of property and possessions within Israel, so everyone had what they needed and no one had more.

In the New Testament, Jesus picks up these images of God's abundance in his wilderness feeding of the multitudes, and in the passages of John's gospel where Jesus refers to manna as "Bread from Heaven" and to himself as the "living bread which came down from heaven". Jesus added that if anyone ate this bread, they would live forever.

But the manna jar is never mentioned again.

For several years, some of the members in the Tuesday Morning Bible Study have suggested that someone should preach a sermon on the manna jar of Moses. And further to ask the question: why don't we have a manna jar in our sanctuary? After all, God did say to Moses, "Let an Omer of manna be kept throughout your generations, in order that they may see the food with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt."

It's an interesting idea. A manna jar would be a visible reminder of God graces. But I think the question behind the question "Why don't we have a manna jar?" is "What are reminders of God's grace toward us, God's provision of our need, God's abundant

mercies?"

I'm always leery about speaking with newspapers because you never know what the paper will print: they have a way of hearing what they want to hear and not necessarily what you say. Well, with that in mind, Noelle and I were pleasantly surprised with the article that appeared in yesterday's Newsday. Did any of you see it? If you didn't see it, the focus was on clergy couples and the difficulty of balancing family life with professional life and the needs of multiple congregations. The Newsday reporter focused on three clergy couples, a Methodist couple from Flatbush, two reformed Rabbis from Brooklyn, and Noelle and myself. Despite the fact that the paper reversed our ages, lost six years of Noelle's ordained ministry, got my graduation wrong and referred to the Tuesday Bible study run by Elder Martha Porter as a senior citizens' bible study, all in all it wasn't bad.

Instead, the paper did faithfully represent what Noelle and I both think is most important in balancing vocation and family, and that is that nurturing our relationship is part of our vocation. All of Long Island now knows how we fell in love across a crowded room when our eyes met and we felt the world stop around us. As all of you already know yourselves, without nurturing your relationships with those you love, there is no other balance that really matters. That no amount of juggling professions, job, school, church can earn you the love of your spouse or the smile of your newborn, or the deep care of a true friend.

Marilyn McCann, who knows us pretty well, and knows Noelle as an avid reader of People Magazine, left this copy of People on our front step yesterday: "10 Star Couples and how they met and fell in love: at the bank, in seminary, blind date" (with our photo pasted in below).

It's cute, but Marilyn knows - Noelle's love for me is manna – for she shows to me a love, a grace, acceptance, understanding which exceeds my imagination, that I can do nothing to earn and that I so much need. She is a sign of God's grace to me.

What is your manna? What jar does it come in?

If it's manna, it can't be something that you can accumulate. It can't be something you can hold or possess. It must be something you receive daily, or at least when we need it, something that shows your dependence - for manna is the ultimate sign of our dependence on God.

In one sense it's kind of a painful reminder because when we look at the manna jar we not only remember the grace but we remember our dependence and our helplessness in times of crisis or despair when the only way through is when someone from the outside can open a door or reach out a hand and pull us out. The manna jar is a symbol that denies self-sufficiency.

For while it reminds us of God's care and abundance and faithfulness, it also reminds us of our continual dependence. And for those of us who like to secure ourselves or our families well-being on our own efforts or good market conditions or by living in the right place, the manna jar is the ultimate reminder that the only sovereign who is benevolent and dependable is God. It reminds us that we're not the sovereign. And so when we think about what we put in our manna jar, we have to touch that part of ourselves that is vulnerable, that is honest enough to realize that at some fundamental level we cannot provide for ourselves. And this is especially difficult for men who have traditionally thought of themselves as providers.

Perhaps we don't feel dependent on God the way the Israelites did. Perhaps it's only when we go through a personal or social wilderness that we understand how precious and essential God's grace is.

And I think the name manna is right, because we ask "what is this?" What-is-this thing that makes me aware of my deepest needs but also of the incredible love and sustenance God provides? What is this? And that's why manna is a sign of grace, because it is completely unmerited. It's a pure gift.

I've come to think that we no longer have a manna jar because we have replaced it with the baptismal font - symbol of grace, love and God's providential care. It's been said that infants are God's sure sign that God wants the world the continue. And yet, newborn children area daily dependent on us in a way that resembles our dependence on God. Here, we baptize infants to remind us that we all receive God's love and care at a time before we can speak or know what we are doing. The infants who pass through these waters remind us that life is a gift, that love is to be cherished and must be nourished, and that in the face of life and love we are all vulnerable to and dependent on one another.

When we are invited to remember our baptism, we are invited to remember a time, for most of us, before our memory - to remember that our lives are ultimately shaped by the presence of a God who was, and is, and has been us from the beginning.