Meditation on Exodus 16:2-15
First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY
Pastor Karen Crawford
Sept. 24, 2023
Dear friends, this a special day in the life of our ministry together. A year ago, we celebrated the official beginning of our ministry at my service of installation.
Do you remember that day? Does it seem longer than a year has passed? It does to me.
And at the same time, does it seem like yesterday? Me, too.
Tomorrow, I am celebrating another ministry milestone—the anniversary of my ordination on Sept. 25, 2011.
When I accepted the call to serve my first flock, Jim and I sold our home in York, PA, and moved to rural southwest Minnesota with two of our children and two dogs. We lived in a manse right next to the church. It was an easy walk, except in winter, when the snow was deep, and the ice was thick. It was safer to drive. I knew my way around the building, where all the light switches were in the dark. I did have to watch for bats, though. That was my first experience with church bats.
I never went hungry in Minnesota. They had plenty of potlucks, only they called them Hot Dishes. And every Sunday, after worship, we gathered around tables in the fellowship hall, and had what they called “a little lunch.” They drank black coffee and ate refreshments that people brought. Often the goodies included some kind of a dessert cut into bars.
The first time that I ever had rhubarb was in Minnesota! Have you ever had rhubarb? They made rhubarb pie, rhubarb crisp with a meringue topping, and rhubarb jam, and a sweet syrup for ice cream. I never quite got used to rhubarb! Food in every faith community is for comfort and friendship as much as nourishment, isn’t it? They used to serve a hot meal at funerals—scalloped potatoes and ham, buttered bread, coffee and cake.
They prepared a feast to follow my ordination service, but that day was especially memorable because I received a call that morning that one of my elderly church members was dying. The family asked me to come. After the morning worship service, I drove to the hospital, 25 miles away on country roads. When I arrived at George’s room, he had just taken his final breath. His sons, daughters in law, and their children were gathered around him.
The room was silent and still. I remember vividly the beauty of the loving expressions on the family’s faces—shining with tears. I felt the breath of God all around.
It was one of the holy moments of ministry, when the Lord God made God’s presence known and provided for all our needs in ways that sometimes took us by surprise.
It was the first of many holy moments to come.
The holy moment for Israel in today’s passage in Exodus begins with a crisis. A crisis of food will lead to a crisis of faith. Six weeks has passed since the Israelites fled Egypt and crossed the sea on dry land to escape the Egyptian armies. They have overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, including bitter, undrinkable water in the wilderness of Shur after the crossing of the sea. Moses cried out to the Lord and God showed him a piece of wood and told him to throw it in the water. Moses threw in the wood, and the water became sweet.
In the wilderness of Sin, where there’s no food, the whole congregation complains against Moses, saying, if only we had died, “when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread.” They longed for the comfort of the food that filled their bellies and meant home and family to them, the food of their community, though it would mean returning to cruel treatment under slavery. Six weeks after they fled captivity, they wanted to go back to Egypt. They wanted to go home.
When things go wrong, people begin to question if God is still with us, if God still cares, maybe even if God exists at all.
So the Lord says to Moses, “I’m gonna rain bread from heaven for you, each day.”
The Lord God listens to their complaints and doesn’t punish them. The Lord graciously responds by providing for their needs. Not only does God provide bread, the Lord sends quails to cover the camp in the evening. They have meat to eat!
The problem is that can’t always see the miraculous provision of God—that the Lord has helped them every step of their journey. This is part of Moses’ calling to help them see God and believe in God’s love. They are just beginning to learn what it means to be people of faith. The first time they see the fine, flaky substance, they ask one another, “What is it?” Moses says, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
God raining bread from heaven for the Israelites is a defining moment for them. The story is repeated over and over in the wilderness years and in the exile years in Babylon, when they are a long way from home, their faith begins to waiver, and they need encouragement. Under Moses’ leadership, they become God’s people in the wilderness, learning to trust in the One who feeds them and provides for their every need, every day.
Centuries later, Jesus will recall the miraculous provision for the Israelites when he teaches his followers to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
In the gospel of John, Jesus will use God’s miraculous provision in the wilderness to explain the new thing that God is doing in and through his body, with the promise of forgiveness and eternal life.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” Jesus says in John 6. “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
As I look back on 12 years of ordained ministry, I remember the kindness of people—the friendship. I remember the love and being invited to share in so many intimate, holy moments with God’s people.
Today, we have experienced a beautiful, holy moment in ministry with our welcoming of Stella Rae into the Body of Christ through Baptism.
I had a funny thought last night, when I was thinking of the mysterious plan that God has for every person. Most parents aren’t thinking, at their child’s Baptism, that their daughter or son may someday become a pastor. I am sure that my parents weren’t thinking, in the 1970s at my Baptism at age 13, that I was going to grow up to be a pastor. That was a big surprise to them—and to me when I heard the call of God to pastoral ministry in my 40s!
What if God wants Stella to pursue ordained ministry? Wouldn’t that be amazing?
We have no idea what the Lord has planned for our young people. But it all starts with Baptism! It’s up to us to nurture the faith of every child in our flock and treat each one as if their faith is going to make a difference in the Kingdom of God and in the world today. Because it will!
In my first year of ministry at Ebenezer in 2011, I often wondered what God was thinking. I was so nervous—afraid to make a mistake. I wasn’t sure that I was cut out for a minister’s life. I hardly slept on Saturday nights because I was worried that my messages weren’t good enough. But my first flock welcomed my gifts for ministry, and they showed me and told me what they needed from their pastor. They let me be the person that the Spirit was helping me to be. Their faith inspired me! I will always be grateful for my Minnesota flock. We experienced many holy moments together.
A couple of hours before my service of ordination and installation, I was in a hospital room, holding the hand of a longtime member who had gone home to be with the Lord. With the family gathered around, I prayed my first prayer of comfort after a death. It was my first death as a pastor. It would be my first funeral a few days later. A couple of hundred people came. We walked up to the cemetery in a long procession, the church bell tolling, again and again. Afterward, we ate scalloped potatoes and ham, buttered bread, coffee and cake.
Looking back, I only remember the feeling of peace that came over me and settled in the hospital room. The Lord God was there for us in our moment of need.
The Lord God who provided for Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness will continue to listen to our prayers and provide for our church family. We can trust the One to whom we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The One who sent the Son to be our living bread from heaven, the bread that he offers to all people for the life of the world.
The One who heard all the complaints of the Israelites and responded not in anger, but in mercy and grace,
“I’m gonna rain bread from heaven for you!”
Let us pray.
Holy One, thank you for your Son, our Living Bread from heaven who offers to all who partake and trust in him abundant and everlasting life. Thank you for your patience with us when we complain, like the ancient people of God, who only wanted the comfortable food from slavery and were suspicious of the new flaky substance on the grass. Help us to trust in your loving, daily provision for us—for all our needs, body, mind and spirit, when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And thank you for the children of our congregation, especially baby Stella, whom you claimed today in her Baptism. Grant us wisdom and creativity to nurture the children so that their faith will make a difference in your Kingdom and in this world. In the name of the Living Bread we pray. Amen.
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