Amanda McMillen, “What Is It??”
Pentecost 17: September 24, 2023
Christ Episcopal Church
Amanda McMillen
What Is It??
Lately, I’ve been going to the grocery store hungry. Huge mistake. I haven’t gotten into a rhythm of having a regular day and time for shopping so I tend to do it when the fridge and pantry are basically empty and I am in need of groceries ASAP. What happens when I go to the grocery store hungry? Well I’m sure it’s the same thing that happens to you if you’ve ever made that crucial mistake. I end up buying 4 bags of potato chips and eating some amount of them in the car on the way home, without fail. Hunger is a powerful experience, and when it strikes it becomes the only thing that matters.
In our passage from Exodus today, the Israelites are hungry. They have been wandering the wilderness after their rescue from slavery in Egypt for a few weeks now, and they have run out of food provisions. They are hungry and they are getting desperate. They are saying to God - why didn’t you just let us stay in Egypt where at least we had enough food? (By the way, they probably didn’t have enough food because they were slaves after all. This is a kind of Israelite revisionist history.) Well God hears their complaining and says to Moses, tell the Israelites, I will rain down bread from heaven for you, and you shall gather it up each day.
In Genesis, after Adam and Eve disobey God by eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God curses humanity. He says, “by the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread”. This is the way that satisfying hunger works after the Fall - we must work for our food. But in this passage in Exodus, as the Israelites are wandering the wilderness after their rescue from slavery in Egypt, God promises to provide manna from heaven for his people each day. This is bread from heaven as opposed to bread from the earth. This is provision entirely by God’s own doing. This is a miracle in the middle of a curse.
In verse 15, the Israelites see this bread from heaven, which has covered the ground like frost, and they ask “what is it?” Or in Hebrew, “man-hu”? This is a fun play on words. The bread from heaven is called “what is it”? Their provision is a mystery - it is not something they grew on their own. It is “what is it”? It is manna from heaven. It is provision from God. A mystery. We did not grow it, from the sweat of our brow - what is it?
A lot of the food in our pantries might be classified as “what is it” food. Think about the food you eat - did you grow it? If you grew some of it, how much? If not, where did it come from? Mine comes primarily from Food Lion, and when I’m feeling fancy, Trader Joe’s. I have no idea how it got there. I do not know who Joe is and why he makes the best snacks. There are many people involved in the making of my food that are not me. “What is it?” I don’t know! I am dependent on others to figure that out for me.
My point is that we are intimately connected to one another, to the earth, and to God, for our health and provision. As poet John Donne put it: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
The Israelites receive what they need when they admit their vulnerability and their true dependence on God. They cannot do this without God. They need God’s mysterious provision. God always knew this, and now they know it too. They are realizing that they are not individuals completely capable of providing for all of their needs. They are realizing that they are dependent on God. And it can be so scary to realize that we are dependent on anyone other than ourselves.
But God wants the Israelites to trust him in the midst of their experience of hunger. God wants us to trust him in our hunger too! God is saying - have faith! As I provided for the Israelites, so I will provide for you. A mystery from heaven will come for you, too.
This kind of faith is so much easier said than done. The problem with having faith in God’s provision is our hunger. Hunger is undeniable. And when we feel hungry, we really feel it. We become hangry (that’s hungry and angry). We become insatiable. Remember me going to the grocery store hungry and buying out all the potato chip varieties, a fear in my heart that they might be gone next time I go so I better stock up now. Hunger is innate, it’s undeniable, it’s deeply human, it pushes out all other concerns and it completely takes over. Hunger is not something we can ignore.
Of course, for those of us with some level of financial security, hunger is something that we tend to remedy relatively quickly. We hate the feeling, it takes over, and then we grab a snack or pause our work day long enough to eat a sandwich, and it goes away until later, when we satisfy that feeling again. For some, of course, hunger is not just an inconvenience that happens every so often. It’s a constant experience. For those who are hungry every day, who rely completely on SNAP benefits and soup kitchens, hunger is an unwelcome constant companion.
Our hunger for food illustrates so many of the other hungers of our lives. If you are experiencing financial insecurity, perhaps you hunger for some stability. If you are a parent of young children, perhaps you hunger for stillness and quiet.
If you have a family member that drains your energy and brings constant conflict, perhaps you hunger for peace and understanding. If you are lonely, you might hunger for connection. If you are anxious, for calm. What do you hunger for right now?
Our hungers drive our actions. That’s why the Israelites in this passage, after having just been miraculously saved by God from the Egyptians as the Red Sea split into two (I mean, truly the definition of a miracle) - they are rewriting history and wishing they were back in slavery in Egypt. They are hungry. They assume they will die of this hunger. And their hunger is all-consuming. Their hunger is giving them a rosier view of the past than it actually was - they were slaves, after all. They did not have elaborate feasts back then. Their hunger is making it impossible for them to see the miracles of God’s provision for them so far in this journey. Their hunger is all they can see. Our hungers make it so much harder to look forward to the future with any sort of hope. Our hungers make us desperate. They remind us of our dependence on God, and on some level, we resent that dependence.
When our hunger for security, for peace, for connection, for calm consumes us, faith in a future relief from those hungers might feel impossible. We are human - our hungers drive us. But God still provides for the Israelites, in the midst of their lack of faith. God’s provision creates their faith, not the other way around. God’s provision finally satisfies their hunger long enough for them to consider what God has just done for them.
This manna, this “what is it?” mystery bread, brings life and it brings faith. It comes exactly when it’s needed, every day, twice as much on the 6th day so that the Israelites can rest on the Sabbath. This manna satisfies their hunger, until tomorrow, and then another day’s worth rains down from heaven.
What is it? It is “what is it?” It is a mystery. It comes not from the toil of man, but from God’s own provision. You did not grow it on your own. You did not make it by the sweat of your brow. It is provision you didn’t see coming. That it to say, it is grace.
Each week when we gather together in church, we eat our own bread from heaven. We remember Christ’s death and resurrection, and we take the bread of life given to us. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ disciples, trying to suss out who this guy really is, ask him, “Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness - what will you do for us?” To which Jesus replies, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger.”
Whoever comes to me will never hunger. Not only will the hunger be satisfied for today - it will never return. Can you imagine? The same God who rained down bread from heaven to satisfy the Israelites’ hunger came down from heaven himself to satisfy yours. Jesus satisfies us by giving of his own body, our bread of life.
By coming down from heaven, Jesus experiences our same hungers. He knows exactly what it is that we long for. And by his death, all that ails us, all of our hungers that keep us from rest, are satisfied on the cross. Our hungers find their end in Jesus. It is a mystery, it is a “what is it?” kind of bread from heaven. When we take the bread and wine at the eucharist, we are joining in the mystery. We do not know when exactly we will feel the satisfaction of those hungers. But we know that God specializes in miracles in the middle of a curse. A miracle of satisfaction in the middle of the curse of our hungers. A miracle of resurrection, of life, in the middle of the curse of death. So we come in faith, we come in desperation really, and in full dependence on God. “Whoever comes to me will never hunger.” It is finished. Our only rational response then is to come to Jesus, as quickly and as often as we can, hands open to receive. Amen.
