Two Sundays ago, we heard about the Passover and the Israelites’ desperate flight from Egypt. In the meantime, the Israelites have crossed the Red Sea, and today they find themselves wandering in the Sinai wilderness. Like so many who start out on a new endeavor with a rush of excitement, their adrenaline has waned, and the magnitude of what the Israelites have done by fleeing Pharoah hits them like a wave. At least in Egypt they were housed and fed. Now, they are exposed and hungry, frantic and afraid. An ambient anxiety pervades them. The Israelites do what people do in such circumstances, then and now: They cry out, complain, murmur in furtive desperation because they don’t know what else to do. The Israelites are hungry, in every way.
And then one morning, Exodus tells us, “There was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘Man hu?’ For they did not know what it was.”
Man hu. That’s Hebrew for “What is it?” And that’s what they call this miraculous stuff: What is it?—Man hu—manna. All the Israelites know is that it is sweet and edible, and they aren’t hungry anymore.
As with so many other stories in the bible, we quickly become preoccupied with its factual details at the risk of losing its meaning: Where did Cain’s and Abel’s wives come from? Where did Noah’s Ark hit land? How did Jonah survive in the belly of that fish for three days? And similarly, we ask Man hu? What is manna?
The twentieth century entomologist F.S. Bodenheimer posed a hypothesis. Bodenheimer said the most plausible explanation is that manna was “the sweet secretion of desert aphids that live on tamarisk trees in the region. The aphids exude the excess sugar they obtain from the trees in the form of droplets that, when dried in the desert air, become flaky sweet crystals.”[i] (Mmm…delicious.)
If that nugget of information is the important thing in this story for you, go with it. But lest we forget, the Israelites were probably the engineers who built Pharoah’s pyramids. They were not primitive people of childish understanding. And yet, the nature of the manna was not what was important to them. They were content to call this food that rained from heaven “What is it?” because what was important to them was not its organic properties. What was important to them was that, when they were in such deep need that they knew only apprehension, confusion, and anxiety, God rained bread from heaven.
We understand that intuitively, I think. We know it in our own lives. When we are lost in life’s wilderness, some signpost suddenly appears that points us in a new direction. When we are floundering, a hand as from nowhere reaches out to steady us. When we are overwhelmed by anxiety, a phone call or the direct gaze of a friend catches us, and for a moment the anxiety melts. Sometimes these saving graces come through human mediation. Other times, we experience them directly from God. Pause here and think specifically of an instance in your life when this has happened, when were you in need—great or small, persistent or passing—and God provided something or someone to sustain you. Like wispy flakes of manna, by themselves and to an outside observer, each of these instances is insubstantial, ephemeral, maybe even unnoticeable. But to those of us who have experienced them, we know that they can feed a starving soul. We know that they are bread from heaven.
I’ll share one such instance from my own life. I’ll say at the outset that I don’t understand it any more than we can understand manna. (Professor Bodenheimer notwithstanding.) I had not yet received my cancer diagnosis, and the near-crippling issues with my back had not yet emerged. It was the summer of 2019, and something in life felt off, like when a tire is ten pounds under-inflated, or when music is a half-note flat. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I walked through my days with an increasing sense of foreboding. Familiar landscapes took on the look of wilderness. Do you understand what I’m talking about? Can you relate in your own life?
And then, one weekday morning I was driving down Waugh Blvd., about to turn right onto Memorial Drive to head into downtown Houston. John Denver’s song “Rocky Mountain High” was playing on Spotify. Denver sang the line, “I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky,” and the world was suddenly…different. For a few moments, the veil dropped. The wilderness scattered, and the concrete urban jungle was infused by God. I don’t know how else to say it. (Trust me, I’ve tried.) By the time I reached the Cathedral, the veil was back in place. The world had resumed its usual character. But bread had rained down from heaven. The gift of grace had been given. I could not have known what challenges were coming in my life any more than the Israelites could have conceived of what was coming in theirs, but God gave me manna when I needed it, and I thank God that God did.
What do we do with that? That’s the question, isn’t it? When the manna appears for us, unexpected and undeserved, how do we respond? Today we launch our fall Stewardship Campaign, and our Stewardship Council has selected as this year’s theme St. Peter’s counsel in response to that very question. How do we respond to God’s gift of manna from heaven? St. Peter says, “Use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”[ii]
We scarcely need Peter’s instruction, because the impulse to be stewards is actually part of the gift. When God sends us a sign, we want to point others to it. When God throws us a lifeline, we want to cast it further. When God rains bread from heaven, we want to feed others.
Stewardship is not about guilt. It’s not about duty. It’s not, ultimately, even about the material needs of the church (as important as those are). Stewardship is about the joy of acknowledging God’s gift to us of manna, and then sharing those gifts so that others may be fed.
We receive and share the infinite variety of God’s grace through our worship, our friendly fellowship, our sweaty service, our ardent prayer and faithful teaching. And, undoubtedly and with equal joy, we pass along God’s grace through our financial commitment to the church.
For the next six weeks, this is our faithful work. Pledge packets were mailed out this past week, and they include a booklet that shares with detailed transparency Saint Mark’s financial needs for 2024. Our ministry budgets have not received increases in years; we have deferred maintenance needs on our campus; inflation has ratcheted up our fixed costs just to keep the lights on. Funding these things could seem burdensome, except that we have received God’s grace as manna from heaven, and sharing God’s grace is our response in joy!
This year your Stewardship Council and Vestry are asking that parishioners who have not pledged in the past make a financial pledge to the parish as your response to God’s manna. For returning pledgers, we are asked to consider a Matthias Gift in addition to a regular pledge. The Matthias Gift is named after Matthias, the 13th Apostle who was added to the original Twelve. The Matthias Gift is a “13th payment” on a twelve-month pledge. Our stewardship material explain how this works, and I encourage you to read it with care. If we increase our pledge base by 10% and our returning pledgers stretch to make a Matthias Gift in addition to their pledge, then we will meet our budget goal for the ministry of this amazing place in 2024.
In joy, I report to you that Jill and I have already pledged and committed to a Matthias Gift for 2024. With even greater joy, I report that 100% of our Vestry have also already pledged for 2024. That’s remarkable leadership and hopefully is both inspiration and aspiration for all our parishioners. How do we make sense of God’s grace, God’s manna? What is it, exactly, we ask as the Israelites asked. It is mysterious and inexplicable. But we know, and we commit to share, that it is bread from heaven.
[i] Kass, Leon R. Founding God’s Nation: Reading Exodus, pg. 228.
[ii] 1 Peter 4:10
God in the Midst of the City 