Peter Carey, Guest Preacher, Church of the Redeemer, Bryn Mawr
13 August 2006, Proper 14 B
Psalm 14; Deuteronomy 8:1-10; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:37-51
What are the tricks that you use to remember things? When I was a kid, my grandmother used to say that tying a string around your finger would help. The problem with that is that all I would remember is that I forgot something. In the Harry Potter books there is a magical device called a “remembrall” which glows when its owner has forgotten something. However, once again, it does not tell you what you have forgotten.
There ARE a lot of things to remember – ATM passwords, birthdays, directions, addresses, to do lists, car inspection date, bills, meeting with the bishop, preaching at Redeemer, the books of the Bible, Spanish vocabulary, the baby’s favorite toy, remembering to pray, my wedding anniversary, and where did I put the keys?
And so, I have a Palm Pilot with years of appointments and hundreds of addresses. I have a cell phone with dozens of numbers. I keep a journal to remember my thoughts and ideas and I’m working on putting my keys next to the door when I enter our apartment. It can be hard to remember. My friends tell me it only gets worse as I get older.
What about remembering God? One theologian had the interesting definition of sin as “God-forgetfulness,” which appeals to me. How do we live when we forget God?
Remembering God is a key theme in today’s reading from Deuteronomy, whose author offers an interpretation of the story of Israel’s time in the wilderness. A bit of research tells us that this text was written once the Israelites were well-established in the Promised Land, perhaps even several generations after the time in the wilderness.
The People Israel were called to remember the time in the Wilderness, so they would remember God, and would continue to live according to his covenant – Covenant to God, and Covenant to One another.
The People are urged to remember the time in the wilderness. In the wilderness they had an experience of the divine, and they learned that all they have is gift from God, and they learned total dependence upon God.
Total dependence upon God. The wilderness forced them to see that they are not God. In the wilderness, it is clear that they are not in control of their lives, instead, all they have is a result of the Grace of God and the goodness of God. In the wilderness, they were dependent upon God, and upon each other for their survival. …
The People were fed in the Wilderness. They were fed manna, which was enough to sustain them, but it did not last beyond the day. I sometimes wonder what this manna was. Was it bread, was it some kind of a PowerBar substance that wasn’t so tasty to eat? What was it? Well, no one really knows exactly what this substance was but we know that the Israelites weren’t ecstatic about it after eating Egyptian delicacies. What we do know is that the manna was enough but not more than that. Every day the manna had to be collected and the people had to serve one another. Likely, the healthy and strong needed to gather the manna for the sick and weak. The distribution of it had to be done by the whole people, not just the priests! There was no scarcity, but there was no extra. The wilderness forced the Israelites to see that they were dependent upon one God, but also that they were dependent upon each other. The manna falls from heaven, and must be consumed that day. There is no time to hoard the food, and to get everyone fed, communal practices develop. These communal practices of hospitality and care developed and became a part of the culture. However, as is wont to happen, once the time of the wilderness was over, they began to forget the myriad ways that God Provides.
From the wilderness we learn to remember God, and also to practice a faith that is in concert with others. From the wilderness, the whole body of God’s faithful people works together and is sustained by mutual care and affection. They were sojourners in the land, they were the outcast, outside of the comfortable lands of Egypt, and not yet resting in the land of promise. The wilderness was where God taught them. There they learned humility. There they learned the pains of hunger. There they learned to depend on God. There they experienced the hospitality that God provides.
We sometimes want to try to forget the tough times, to get over them, to put them behind us. This passage in Deuteronomy does not let the People Israel forget – on the contrary – the writer challenges them to remember the wilderness times. The writer challenges them to remember their tradition, to remember the history of how they got where they are, to see the shoulders on which they stand, to see the journey that their ancestors made.
Many times in the Bible, the story of the Exodus is retold, as in today’s reading from Deuteronomy. Clearly, this story was retold many times and it is important enough to be remembered! God provided for the People Israel, and they were to remember, and to be thankful.
We have been given great gifts. However, the main condition to receiving these gifts is that we remember, we remember that we are dependent upon God, we remember that our very lives are contingent upon God’s grace, and we remember that we are not God!
When we get comfortable and have spent time away from the wilderness, we might begin to forget our centrally dependent nature. We might forget our call to obedience. We might forget to call out the name of our Lord in prayer and praise. In the wilderness, God is a central part of the lives of the People, and in our own times of sorrow, pain, and darkness we also turn to God. However, God is not just the God of the wilderness, God is not just the God of the borders, or of the gaps in our lives where we can’t explain using our thinking and our science. God is always there, supporting us and providing for us!
When we remember what God has done for God’s people, and what God has done for each of us, we experience that our very being flows from God. When we remember God we see that all we have is temporary, we see that our present struggles will pass away, and we will be dust. When we live remembering the wilderness we begin to really pray. The Catholic monk Thomas Merton likened deep prayer to the experience of hanging over an abyss by the hairs of your head. Total dependence; focused prayer.
We are not the lords of our lives. Initially this may strike fear into our hearts. However, when we realize that we are ever resting upon God, that we are ever living in the loving hands of God we live with the certainty that we are surrounded by a loving embrace. God is in the center of the wilderness AND God is at the center of our lives. We are reminded by the writer of Deuteronomy to remember God’s work in the wilderness so that we might see that God is also incarnate and real, here in the midst of our lives.
While it is good to remember the wilderness, let me be clear God does not need us to remember God. God is with us. God’s grace is with us at all times.
Jesus reminds his followers of the way that God provided for the People Israel, but goes further. He makes the point that now God is providing the bread of eternal life. In the gift of Jesus to the world, Jesus is the Bread of Life. While the manna disappeared at the end of the day, the bread of life is never diminished. We remember the wilderness and when God was in the center of the Isralites’ lives. In Christ, God is incarnate, real, and central in the very midst of our lives. Christ is the Bread of life, and as bread, Christ is in the mundane and the real, the overlooked and the everyday. For this we are extremely thankful. We do not need to go to the wilderness to experience the goodness of God. We can eat the living bread in the midst of our lives and be one with the Body of Christ.
We remember and we give thanks as we participate in the Eucharist. Eucharisto – thanksgiving – thanksgiving and also we remember all that God has done for us. In this thanksgiving, we feed one another and are unified in Christ. We gather, we remember as we break bread that we are one in Christ. We gather around this Eucharistic table, and we also celebrate God’s incarnate nature as we break bread throughout the other 6 days as well.
As we break toast to feed an infant in a highchair, Christ is there. As we share a plastic-wrapped sandwich from the hospital cafeteria on a tray with wheels, Christ is there. As we share food with the hungry and we break bread with them, Christ is there. In Christ, we have been fed the bread of life, and we experience God in our midst as we give thanks for all the awesome things that God has done for us. We are dependent upon God, and all that we have and all that we are is gift. God’s gift to us is seen here in the creation of the world, the creation of all the wonder around us, and creation of each of us.
As we remember the wilderness of our lives we remember God. God provided for us there the manna from heaven, God taught us to rely upon God. We need not go to the wilderness to meet God. God being God and we being dependent on God does not mean, however, that we have no responsibility. God calls us to practice Godliness to those in wilderness places, in wilderness times. We are called to provide hospitality to those who in the midst of their own wilderness. We practice this hospitality not because we are merely being ‘nice,’ and not to make us feel good about ourselves. Rather, we do this because in these actions we become unified with God and humanity when we provide the bread of life for all those in need (which includes me and you!). Resting in the loving arms of God, we practice Godliness where we “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.”
God was teaching that God is God and we are not! It is upon God that we all depend. And this was a teaching that was forever; not just for the time in the wilderness, but also for God’s people after reaching the Promised Land.
In a few minutes we will gather together, we will bless, break, and give bread that not only helps us to remember God, but also celebrates God in our very midst. And, as we partake in this glorious thanksgiving feast, we feast together in unity upon the Bread of Life and become One as the Body of Christ. After we feed each other, we send each other out to remember and to live in remembrance of all that God did for the Israelites in the wilderness and for all that God does for us through his Son.
There is no need to write it in our PalmPilots for God has written it on our hearts, and has fed us with the Bread of Life so that we might live, and live abundantly.
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