Whats That Green Stuff in the Back of the Refrigerator?

J im Benedict Union Bridge Church of the Brethren

Sermon for Sunday, September 18, 2011, Exodus 16:13-20


Need a good excuse? Like lots of other things you might need these days, excuses are
available online. With just a few clicks of the mouse, you can find lots of websites that offer
ready-made excuses for all sorts of occasions. For instance, several sites specialize in excuses
for calling off from work. Here are some samples:
Yourneighborcalledthewaterpipesbrokeandyourbasementisflooding.Gottoget
homeASAP!
Youchippedatoothwhataklutz!andyounowhavetomakeanemergencydentistvisit.
Claimfirstdegreeburnsinacookingaccident.Justbesuretosayitsonabodypartyoucan
easilycoverupforthenextfewdaysatwork!
Your accountant made some clerical errors on your taxes and you are being audited.


For those of you still in school, you can go to other sites to find homework excuses, such as:

I left it in the back of the truck when we went deer hunting.
I didn't do it because I didn't want to add to my teacher's heavy workload.
I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.
And there is, of course, always the classic, My dog ate my homework but only after I tore it
into little pieces and poured bacon grease all over it.

I cant guarantee that any of those excuses will work, by the way. In fact, being married
to a teacher, I feel safe in advising you kids not to try any of them. But here is one excuse for
lost homework that actually did work. A student in Texas was granted an extension after his
mother accidentally threw out his homework.
Of course, this particular homework was a plastic container full of moldy fruit. As part
of a biology experiment, the student had inoculated some pears with mold spores and was
watching to see how long it took the mold to develop under the conditions of refrigeration. He
was keeping the control sample, at room temperature, in his room. Mom was doing a routine
inspection of the fridge when she saw the moldy pears and did what any rational person would
dodumped them in the trash, no questions asked. A word of advice to all you young people
out there: if you going to do a science experiment in your refrigerator, you should probably
clear it with your folks.
Spoiled food is also a central element in the story we read this morning from the book of
Exodus. As you may recall, Moses had led the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, and the
people of Israel were wandering around in the wilderness. Food is not easy to obtain in the
wilderness, so the people complained and God elected to provide special food called manna.
Each night the manna would fall like dew, and in the morning the people would collect it.
But God attached special conditions to his provision of the manna. Only so much was to
be collected each day per person, and only enough for one day at a time. The exception was
that on the day before the Sabbath a double portion was to be collected. People, being people,
were naturally inclined to test those rules, and some of them collected more than the allotted
amount and tried to keep it for the next day.
Now, in a sense, who can blame them? I can understand not wanting to go out day after
day to collect this stuff. Wouldnt it be better to just get a weeks worth at a time? Or maybe
even a months worth? The stuff melted in the heat of the day, so if you had to go out every
day, that means you had to get up early every day. Maybe I want to sleep in sometimes. So if I
can get a couple days worth ahead, then I can hit the snooze button.
But when the people tried to get around the conditions God placed on the collection of
manna, they were sorely disappointed. The manna they tried to keep overnight, with the
exception of the manna for the Sabbath day, invariably went bad. It became full of maggots and
began to stink.
I suppose you could argue that God is God, and as such God is entitled to make any rules
or arrangements God wants. And you could also argue that since the people might have starved
otherwise, that they should have been thankful for food, period. But it still seems to me that the
arrangement with the manna is odd. Why didnt God provide something that could last a
while?
Well, I cant claim to know for sure, but I think there is a strong possibility that God
made the manna prone to spoilage for a reason. That is to say, if God wanted, God could have
made something that lasted a long time. If the military can provide MREs (Meals Ready to Eat)
that last at least a month, even at 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and five years at 50 degrees
Fahrenheit, God could certainly provide food that lasts as long. So if God didnt, its fair to ask
why.
And here is the answer I think makes the most sense. If you read the larger narrative of
the Exodus, youll discover that the people of Israel had a bad habit of not trusting God as much
as they should. I always pity poor Moses. The people were always coming to him complaining
about one thing or another. Even after all the miraculous plagues and the incredible dividing of
the sea so the people could cross and get away from the Egyptian army, the people still found
new reasons to complain and new reasons to wonder whether God would actually protect and
provide for them.
So the arrangement with the manna was as much about teaching the people of God to
trust God as it was about God providing them food. Each night, the people had to lay down to
sleep knowing that, unless God provided fresh manna, they would have nothing to eat the next
day. Each night, as they went to sleep, they had to remember that they needed Gods help. And
every morning, when they rose up from bed, God did provide and God did help. Night after
night and morning after morning, the lesson was taught. Day after day, week after week, month
after month the lesson was taught, until trusting God became second nature.
We should always remember that the time the Israelites spent in the wilderness was a
time of preparation. You dont go from being slaves for generations in Egypt to being able to
found and organize and operate a country of your own overnight. The Israelites in the
wilderness and through the experiences they had there were made ready by God for life in the
Promised Land.
Before they could be ready, they had lessons to learn, and one of those lessons was that
we cant escape having to trust God by piling up things, whether those things are manna,
money, cars, clothes, homes, weapons, ammo or anything else. At the end of the day any
given day all those things can be gone, evaporated, just like the manna. Or they can go bad,
become burdens instead of blessings.
This isnt meant as an excuse to be careless or wasteful, just because God always
provides. God calls us to be good stewards, or caretakers, of what comes into our possession.
But we are not to confuse the source of our security, which is God, with the things we can
possess. It is not the things we can possess that are able to save us; it is the One who is able to
possess us, to dwell in us, who provides for and protects us. Learning to trust God every night
when we go to bed, and to wake up every morning ready to see how God is blessing us on this
day is how we strengthen our faith our ability to trust. It is how we learn to live faithfully and
responsibly. And that is a lesson every generation of Gods people needs to learn, one way or
another.
In light of the lesson of the manna, there is a very special holiday coming up just eight
weeks from this Tuesday, on November 15th. Im not making this up November 15
th
is
Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. Its o.k., you dont have to get me a card. But do this --
the next time you find something green and growing in the back of your refrigerator, let it be a
reminder for you of the manna, and how the people of God learned how to trust God. Let it
remind you that we arent going to be saved by the things we possess, but by the God who
created and redeemed us, and who is able to provide for us, day after day, week after week, now
and forever.
Amen.