What is it? Given that the Israelites were far from home and hungry, and what was available to them was a peculiar flaky substance left behind by the dew after a flock of quails invaded their camp, that seems like an entirely fair question. Moses attempted to reassure them by saying “it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.” But I’m not entirely convinced by that. Not the Lord giving it part, but rather the bread part.
That flaky substance, what exactly was it? If we continue reading Exodus, we’ll discover that it melted in the midday sun, and bred worms if kept overnight. The obvious perishability of the bread, such as it was, invites a natural explanation. Some have speculated that it was lichen, which can fall off leaves and branches in flakes. Of it might have been the sugary resin of the scrubby tamarisk tree, or even the bodies of a scaly insect that was known to feed on this tree. But whatever it was, it was clearly quite palatable when it was fresh: “like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” The house of Israel called it manna, we learn, which is a word that actually doesn’t mean bread. Rather—faithful to the people’s curiosity— manna simply means “what is it?”
Would you eat something called “what is it?” When my children were little, I was often guilty of attempting to trick them into eating things they didn’t want. You know that parenting drill because you or your own parents probably did it too: things like grinding up zucchini into spaghetti sauce, or mixing chopped mushrooms—my older son Amos’ nemesis—into burgers. Hoping that they wouldn’t notice the camouflaged vegetables, of course. I was regularly caught in my ruse, though. “Mom, what is this?” they’d ask with obvious disgust. It was a fair question, born out of a certain kind of legitimate mistrust of maternal good intentions. Just to share the blame, though, I will say that my daughter in law still tries to sneak mushrooms into Amos’ pizza.
There was a lot of that—of mistrust—going on in the Sinai desert. Did you bring us into this wilderness just to kill us of hunger? the Israelites complained to Moses. That wasn’t so much a question as an accusation, which I recognize because we’re hearing plenty of the like our own time. The past 18 months have been a kind of global wilderness experience, and the pandemic is far from over, as some friends visiting from Bangkok reminded us last week. There’s almost no vaccine available there, and even though they got vaccinated in the US, they’ll have to quarantine for two weeks when they return.
Lordy: did we go through all that just to have to keep wearing masks and keep distant from our friends? Or even more ominously, did we go through an election that wasn’t fair, or are we being mandated to take a vaccine that isn’t safe? These kinds of accusations undermine our public health and tear at the very fabric of our democracy. What we learn from Exodus, however, is that they’re nothing new. People on their way to freedom—on their way to being beloved community—have always argued with God and their leaders.
Which is why I love the question “what is it,?” enshrined forever in the name of the desert manna itself: the bread that wasn’t recognizable as bread. Unlike my own children—who evidently weren’t hungry enough—the Israelites actually ate what was given to them. They tasted, and saw that it was good. But God was doing more in this story than making miraculous food out of lichen or insects. God was teaching them the table manners of the kingdom. In which there is enough for all of us if: we each take our fair share, and don’t try to hoard the extra.
And of equal importance, the Israelites learned a lesson about learning itself. They asked an open question—”what is it?”—they tested their assumptions, they tasted. That’s the scientific method, my friends. They didn’t begin with a complaint, they didn’t go to the internet to confirm their existing biases, but rather they practiced a genuine curiosity. And because of that, they learned something new and radically reassuring about God’s faithfulness. Bread doesn’t have to look like bread to be a gift from God.
What do we do with the bread that doesn’t look like bread? Or with any of the gifts from God that we don’t understand? The problem with miraculous bread—and any if its contemporary equivalents—is not just that we don’t recognize it. That’s going to happen whenever we encounter something new. The problem comes when we stand in a posture of judgement rather than curiosity. What if this thing we didn’t recognize—maybe didn’t even want—turns out to be just what we need?
You know, I wasn’t sure I wanted the Revised Common lectionary this summer. That is, the assigned cycle of scripture readings that many of our churches—both Catholic and protestant—read in worship every Sunday. That may be news to those of you who come from a tradition of free or independent churches. Unlike their preacher, I am not really at liberty to choose a topic to preach on Sunday; I have to work with texts that someone else chose.
And there’s plenty of scholarship and wisdom that informed the choice of biblical texts we hear each week. Most of the time, I am grateful for that structure and discipline. But every third summer, we get to hear a full five weeks of readings from the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel. God help me! How many different ways can a preacher talk about Jesus and bread? Which begs the obvious question. What is this?
It takes a while for new things to sink in, no? For new manners, habits, and ways of understanding to become authentic to us. It takes time for genuine curiosity to be satisfied, for values to be clarified, and for the deepest hunger of our souls to be filled. That’s why the beleaguered Israelites had to wander in the wilderness for forty years, why Jesus had to spend his own forty days in the desert, and why we observe forty days of Lent. Forty of anything is a long time, as Hebrew numerology teaches us. Time enough for us to be renewed as people who trust God’s faithfulness, and share God’s nourishment.
So I find myself wondering this week if these five summertime weeks of bread stories might be doing something similar for us right now. That is, preparing us to recognize anew the bread that does not look like bread, and to hear the central ‘what is it?” question of Christian faith.
Last week, when we heard John’s version of the feeding of the five thousand—a magnificent story of plenteous bread—we also heard the complaints of the disciples despairing on a storm tossed boat. Does this sound like a familiar pattern? God’s liberating providence, followed by the people’s fear and complaint, and then God’s reassurance coming in a very unexpected way. In last week’s lesson the reassurance came in response to the unvoiced question of “who are you?” Echoing the great theological “I AM” that Moses heard, Jesus answered “It is I. Do not be afraid.”
What do we do when we’re afraid? What do we do we don’t get what we expect, or what think that we need? We can always stay curious. We can ask what it is, and who it is that we encounter on the way. Even when the way feels like a walk in the wilderness. We taste and see if it is good. And if we remain openhearted in our inquiry, we might just hear Jesus himself assure us once again. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.”
