God Provides

October 5th, 2025                          “God Provides”                       Rev. Heather Jepsen

Exodus 16:1-21

          This morning, we continue our reading of the great story of the Bible, the story of God’s growing relationship with God’s people.  Last week we read about the call of Moses.  God appeared to Moses in a burning bush and commanded him to help lead God’s people out of slavery in Egypt.  Moses declined the invitation over and over again.  Perhaps because he knew how hard leading a reluctant people would actually be.

          Today we find the Israelites on the edge of the wilderness.  We have skipped over the chapters of Moses demanding freedom from Pharoah.  There have been plagues and feats of power and magic.  When Pharoh says “no” a final time, God provides the Passover.  An angel of death moves through Egypt, killing all the firstborn children, but the Israelites are passed-over by the plague.  In fear the Egyptians send the Israelites away.  Pharoah purses them into the desert, but when his forces are swallowed up by the red sea, he lets them go.

          Today’s reading finds the Israelites wandering in the desert.  It’s been about 6 weeks and people are getting hungry and tired.  They have had enough of this wandering and all the food and water they brought with them from Egypt has run out.

          The people are hangry, and they start to complain and fight.  “I wish I had died back in Egypt!”  they shout.  And they blame Moses for cursing them with such conditions.  “In Egypt we could eat whatever we wanted!” they cry, forgetting that the cost of Egypt’s food was their own slave labor.

          Moses is exhausted too, and he reminds everyone that there is nothing he can do.  “All your complaining against Aaron and I is useless.  It is God who brought us here and so it is God you are complaining against” he says.  Luckily God hears the cries of the people and devises a plan to feed them.

          At night quails will descend upon the camp.  Everyone will be able to get one and the community with have meat to eat.  In the morning, a magical dew will be upon the ground.  This will be the bread of heaven, and it will feed the people for a day.

          When the people awake, they are surprised to see this bread.  They ask “what is it?” which is man hu or manna in Hebrew.  Moses explains that they are to gather what they need for the day, no more and no less.  Another miracle ensues when each person gathers the perfect amount, all measuring one omer per person, which would be about 10 cups.  If someone gathered too much, it still measured as 10 cups and if someone gathered too little, it also measured as 10 cups. 

          God makes clear that this food is also a test.  If someone tries to hoard the food, to keep more for another time or to save it up for tomorrow, then it spoils and has worms.  The only saveable food appears on the 6th day so that no one has to work or gather on the Sabbath.  It is a miracle from God, meat and bread straight from God’s hand, and it will feed the Israelites until they reach the Promised Land.

          We have talked about the various authors as we work our way through the first books of the Old Testament.  Today’s story comes from the Priestly author which we haven’t heard from since the creation story.  Remember that this author focuses heavily on the priestly lineage and the religious rules of the Israelites.  We can see that here, with the inclusion of Aaron in a place of great importance as Moses’ right hand man and mouthpiece.  Aaron is the start of the priestly line, so he is the most important character in this story.  We can also see the priestly themes of clean and unclean and order and separation, in all the rules surrounding the manna.  How much each person can gather for which days, and the emphasis of the sabbath even before it has been given as a commandment, are all clues to the authorship of this portion of the story.

          In today’s story the Israelites are in a transitional time.  There are literally in the wilderness, wandering in the desert outside Egypt, but they are also emotionally and spiritually in the wilderness.  The time between bondage and well-being is ripe for a crisis of faith, and that is what the people are having.  In their hunger, all they can remember are the good things about Egypt.  Their anxiety at their present situation distorts their memories of the past. 

This happens for all of us.  When we leave something behind, when we make a leap of faith into something new, we often find ourselves in a time of struggle.  Freedom and change are hard and scary.  Whether we are leaving a job, a marriage, or an addiction; freedom leads us into the wilderness.  When kids grow up and leave, or when we become seriously ill, we find ourselves in a wilderness time.  When life changes, we are often wandering and bereft and our anxiety for our present situation clouds our memories of the past.

I know in my own struggle to accept my amputation this past year I was surprised to see how much I have forgotten about the time before I lost my foot.  Looking through old sermon videos I happened upon the last sermon I gave before my surgery.  I was shocked to find myself sitting in a chair to preach instead of standing in the pulpit.  I literally had no memory of sitting for that sermon.  In my mind, I was totally healthy and comfortable right up to the day of my surgery.  Like the Israelites, I had completely forgotten the reality of my bondage and in my current times of pain could only see a rosy past that I had left behind.

In the wilderness we learn hard lessons about trusting God.  The manna is God’s provision for one day.  Will the Israelites trust that God will provide again tomorrow, or will they try to store and hoard things?  Our culture trains us to be self-sufficient and rely on no one.  I know I would have stored up that manna for the next day and been the tent with worms in the food.  I have anxiety about having enough for tomorrow, and I struggle to trust God to provide what I need for each day.  In the manna God asks the Israelites to receive blessings outside the patterns that they are familiar with.  We are trained to live with anxiety, oppression, and hoarding.  Relying on God’s economy instead of the slave economy of Egypt is a challenge.

The miracle of the manna is that God always gives us what we need for each day.  In the wilderness time, life is not normal.  The Israelites long for God to take them back to Egypt or to take them straight to the promised land.  They want to be anywhere but in the wilderness.  And God won’t do it.  God doesn’t shorten our wilderness sojourn, and God doesn’t remove our hardships.  Instead, God gives us sustenance for the journey.

I see this in my amputation story too.  It’s been one year since I lost my foot and in many ways, I am still grieving and in the wilderness.  I am still struggling to accept my disability and the limitations it places on my life.  I had imagined God would make it all easy for me.  And the reality is that the suffering, especially during the first few months, pushed me to the brink of despair.  God was there with manna.  Just enough to get through each day, just enough hope and courage and faith and healing to make it through one day at a time.  God provided what I needed, but not necessarily what I wanted.

Today is World Communion Sunday and we celebrate today remembering all God’s blessings through the ages.  We are using our historic communion set from 1896 so we can wonder about what those folks envisioned the church would be like.  What wilderness challenges did they face?  Did they worry about the future?  How did they experience the providence of God as an everyday blessing?  Could they even imagine a church in 2025?  And yet day after day God has provided just enough to keep this church going over the years.  It’s as much of a miracle as the manna was.  And so, God will provide just enough for our future too.

Our world is also in a time of wilderness sojourn.  Not just in the United States but the world over we are in a time that defies normalcy and order.  Will the world turn to God and accept manna for today?  Or will we keep trying to hoard what little we have as individuals and nations until we have storehouses full of worms?

My friends, God has always provided enough.  God always will provide.  The struggle we feel is not about a lack of resources or goodwill.  The struggle is about trusting in God.  Will we trust in God’s economy of just enough for everyone in the community?  Or will we continue to allow ourselves to be controlled by our fear and anxiety?  Amen.