Exodus 16:2-15

The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.” So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?” And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him—what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.”

Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites: ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’ ” And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. The Lord spoke to Moses, “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”

In the evening quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

Sermon Text

There are many good things in this world, that when enjoyed at the wrong time can cause a lot of trouble. It is never a good idea, for example, to eat a burrito while driving. While Burritos are an amazing bit of food, they are also messy, and no matter how well wrapped they will make a mess, and that mess may be enough of a distraction to be dangerous while driving. Likewise, while there is nothing inherently wrong with a beer or some wine, I would not recommend drinking either at the DMV. Everything, whether it is an action we take or an object we use, has its proper times and seasons for us to use it in.

I know that one of my endearing loves growing up was the Hershey’s Symphony Bar. A high fat milk chocolate, the best kind had toffee in it, and blue lettering on the wrapper. I would love these as a treat when I could get them. However, my grandfather, prone to excess as he was, eventually took to keeping a supply of them around at all times. I was now able to get a Symphony whenever I wanted, the sweetness of the chocolate became cloying overtime, and today I don’t really eat symphony bars. They lack the appeal they once had as something special, and I find myself choosing any other treat when the opportunity presents itself.

I would say that the things that persist in our experiences, the foods and experiences we most enjoy, are often the ones that we only have on occasion. While there are some things that are always good – you cannot beat, for example, a fresh tomato on buttered toast – most things are special because they are occasional. I only eat a pineapple upside down cake, with rare exception, on my birthday. I only watch Over the Garden Wall at the start of fall. I only buy liverwurst once a year, and only a very small portion. All these little tastes of things I enjoy, they help to prolong the magic of the item itself. I enjoy them in the proper context, with the proper accoutrement, and with a relish that only comes from dreaming of it over a period of time.

Our scripture today captures a moment where God’s people experience a craving for something that is likewise exceptional. They are in the wilderness, having wandered for some time, they are running low on the food they brought with them. Scavenging can only bring you so much to eat, and so the people begin to worry. Casting their mind back to Egypt, the place of their enslavement, they dream of something that is likely as imagined as it is historical.

They see themselves seated beside stew pots of meat and with mountains of bread all around them. This meal, if it existed at all, was probably a special meal. Though it may seem foreign to us, most people did not eat meat regularly in the ancient world – it was too costly. So this special food, reserved for when the community could afford to slaughter an animal, is remembered as something always available. They miss this exceptional offering, as though it was what they ate every day.

They complain to Moses about the lack of food, and God hears their complaint. God is angered by their lack of trust, but rather than punishing the people, God sees in their words a legitimate need. God makes a miracle happen, bringing Manna to rest on the camp each morning – a mysterious resin that gives the people all the nutrients they need to live. In addition, as a treat for God’s people, Quail lands in the camp. The language used in the text is that quail, “covered,” the camp. Elsewhere this word (כָּסָה) is used to describe water submerging something, or clothing completely covering a body part. The quail were thick on the camp, and the people could gather what they needed to fill their desire for something substantial, something special in their diet.

The text does not tell us how long the quail came to the camp. I choose to read this as an exceptional event. The quail came to the camp that day, and maybe even periodically throughout the wilderness wanderings. However, the meat they provided was not the standard food the Hebrews received – instead they were dependent on Manna, and that was sufficient.

We can intuit that this food was special to the people, because another book of the Torah captures a second incident involving quail. After a long time of eating Manna, some people are bored of it. The taste has gotten repetitive, the miracle has lost its shine to a certain extent. God has fed them every day thus far, but it hasn’t been any extravagant, and the people want to have something special once again. Moses is with these complaints, and in Numbers 11 God expresses the same frustration. God promises the people that they will eat quail for a month this time, and that the quail will be “coming out of their nose,” by the time they are done. The quail lands outside the camp this time, requiring people to leave the community to get it. Those who do die from the meal the gather, scripture describes them as dying, “with the quail between their teeth.”

So why the difference? In one story the quail is the good gift of God, in the other it is a death trap? What changed? I think a better question is to look at what did not change. The people, on the whole, had adapted to the wilderness fairly well. While they were still struggling and while they still had more than a few complaints, they gathered Manna each day and kept the laws of the camp as they should. Just before the second quail episode, prophecy erupted among the people, a sign that God was on the move among them. However, as with any group of people, not everyone was on board with this status quo. Some wanted the emotional high of that quail feast they had early on, and that desire changed them.

The flesh pots of Egypt are softened somewhat in their memories. They more realistically imagine eating foods associated with the poor – cheap produce and fish. Yet, those foods carry a nostalgia to them that the people cannot shake. I can relate too. My family did not always have a lot of money, and my dad grew up with even less. He taught me to love a good potted meat sandwich, and I still like to make one from time to time. It may be poor people food, but it is good food, and I  will gladly make it when I want to remember my roots.

Yet that nostalgia becomes toxic once it becomes something worth rebelling over. The people have all the food they could ever want, and yet it is not enough. God gives them exactly what they ask for, but the signs that this is not as big a gift as they might think are clear. God gave quail to the people initially by bringing a regular migration to land in their camp. This time, God sends a plague of quail – winds force the birds to land outside the camp. The people, if they really want the meat, leave the safety of God’s community, chasing after what they would like instead of what they need.

God is a giver of good gifts, and I think we are seldom put into a place where we must choose between a good thing and a bad thing as though one is a secret test of our devotion. Instead, we have many more mundane trials. We are oftentimes given all that we could ask for, we spend months or even years with a financial security that, while not ideal, is still there. Yet, we can long for more, and not care how we get it. We dream of a time that never existed when everything was easier and cheaper and we had more to eat and drink and enjoy. We create a past that never was, deny the present that God has given us to be in and celebrate, and lock out the future that God is building here with us.

We have to embrace the idea that life has seasons. That sometimes we find a blessing where we can have more than enough of everything we could possibly want. Sometimes, we will be in leaner times. What we should not do is force one time onto the other. When we only have what we need, we should not get lost in the time – real or imagined – when we had much more. We can only live in the moment we are now in, for nothing else exists behind us or before us. If we live in the moment, perhaps we will see God’s blessings more clearly. We will understand that what makes a good thing, good or bad, is often times the timing we receive it in, and whether we have to abandon what we know to be right, just so we can grab it. – Amen.

Genesis 50:15-21

Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?” So they approached Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this instruction before he died, ‘Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.’ Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, “We are here as your slaves.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.” In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.

Sermon Text

There is a great deal of danger in assumptions. We all know some of our own colloquial warnings about assumptions, after all, “Assumptions just make an…” But the more relevant thing, beyond any idiomatic sentiment we might project, is that assumptions are one of the most pressing obstacles between us and the potential that God has for us in the world. When we gather together in this room, and someone new comes in, the thing that might keep them from staying, more than anything else, is assumption people in pews have about them before they even talk to them. When we make plans to do something in the community, what will kill the initiative before it even has time to take root, is assumptions about how an attempt at it would go and how people would receive it. What prevents us from working together, fully and properly, is assuming how the other party in a situation is respond or what they are going to say.

While it is always good to have an ounce of preparation on hand when we go into something, there is very little good that comes from an assumption. Assumptions are made without evidence, without basis except a gut feeling we develop for ourselves. They are arguments we make with ourselves, for ourselves.

When I was a kid, round about ten years, I was out and about with my siblings and my grandmother. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I wasn’t listening like I should have. My grandmother told my step-mother, and my step-mother was going to tell my dad the same. I was so upset. I sat at home, worrying and weeping at the thought of how angry my dad would be at something like this. He got home from work, looked at me, talked to my step-mother, and then said something I do not think I’ll forget. He said, “I am so much more upset, that you would think anything I would do or say to you is worth being this upset about, then I could ever be at you not listening to what your told.” I assumed something, and that broke my father’s heart.

I imagine that the interaction between Joseph and his brothers in our scripture today carries a similar weight. After reconciling with each other, fixing what was broken in their relationship and becoming siblings once again, Joseph’s brothers still did not believe his love for them. Their father, Jacob, died and was buried, and scarcely had they finished closing the entrance of his tomb when his brothers began to worry. They worried that with their father dead Joseph was going to turn on them, his anger for the years of servitude he suffered under bubbling up and overtaking them. They conspired once again to defraud Joseph, inventing a final command from their dead father.[1]

Joseph likely knew that this command was false. Joseph was with his father when he died, and if Jacob had such an important message, he would not have given it through intermediaries. Joseph hears from his brothers that his father apparently worried that he would retaliate against his brothers. The grief he feels for his dead father is compounded with the grief of his brothers’s doubts and he cannot do anything by weep in front of them. His emotions lead to his brothers breaking down as well, and soon the room is full of people wailing at the broken situation they find themselves in.

Joseph’s response to his brothers’s worries capture several different aspects of why he had no right or intention to hurt his brothers. After telling them not to be afraid, he tells them that he is not in the place of God to punish them. There are two lessons from that. Firstly, when we make assumptions we place ourselves in a position like God – claiming to know everything just because of who we are. Secondly, when we decide to punish others for what they have done to us, we take a position only God can have – a position of power we have no right to. Joseph knew his brothers, he knew they had changed, he made no attempt to assume they now were worthy of punishment. Joseph knew that he was only a person, he had no right to attack his brothers so long after they had done him wrong, as if it would change anything.

He then tells his brothers something that demonstrates his perspective on the other side of his struggles. “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.” This simple phrase, something we go to again and again in the Church, captures a perspective that is only possible when someone has truly come to terms with a bad situation. In the midst of trouble, you cannot see it as anything but trouble, but on the other side of it we are able to see the ways that good comes out of even the most dire of places.

The evil the brothers committed is not wiped away by this statement – they sold their brother and lied to their father about it. Joseph still suffered all the horrible things he went through to get where he was. Joseph is not saying that any part of the catastrophe he went through was suddenly baptized into a good thing, but simply that good came out of that mess. The entire Levant was saved because he was in the right place at the right time, only because his brothers did the wrong thing at the worst time. Joseph has spent years picking through the weeds that sprouted in the garden of his life, only through that is he able to celebrate the flowers that bloomed alongside them.

God is always at work in our life, but I am not willing to say that God brings suffering into it. While Isaiah presents the idea that God brings good and evil, he is tackling a specific issue for a specific time.[2] In reality, suffering is a mystery. We do not know why bad things happen the way that they do, except that God is with us even in the midst of the worst parts of life. Sometimes we might talk about God sending us a trial or putting us in a tough situation that we are still able to overcome, but if we sit down and try and do exact calculus about when God does and does not send trouble our way, we will only end up with a headache. If we cannot assume what other people around us are doing, how could we possibly assume what God is doing?

We are called to be God’s hands and feet on Earth, but I think there is a reason scripture never calls us the Head of the Body of Christ. We are doers, and that doing takes some thinking, but when we think we know everything about a situation without seeking out the truth, then we reduce the redemptive work of God to assumptive work. Think of the fights that could be avoided, if we only took some time to listen and ask rather than to assume. Imagine the work we could do if we chased after goodness and how to achieve it, than to assume it is beyond our capabilities. What would happen, if we as the Church stepped down from acting in the place of God, and stuck to our calling – to simply do the work of God, to love one another. The tears we would save, the trouble we would avoid.

Let us all commit ourselves to do away with assumption, and to step down from the false throne we have set up above God’s in our minds. – Amen.

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[1] Whether Jacob actually told his sons to ask for Joseph’s mercy is contested among interpreters and scholars. I follow the line of interpretation that sees Jacob’s final command as a fiction his brothers are using to protect themselves, as no such conversation occurs in any of the preceding chapters. In the end, the answer to this question depends on the faith we have that Joseph’s brothers will make the right choice… I have very little.

[2] Isaiah 45:7 “I form light and darkness, I create peace and ra (evil, calamity, destruction,)” is a refutation of the idea that God is at war with other divinities and that a heavenly loss against Marduk led to the Babylonian Exile.

Romans 13:8-14

Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Sermon Text

We all have favorite character types. Some people like an uncomplicated hero and other people love a compelling villain. Those of us who love Lifetime Christmas movies pick from one of three archetypes – the up-and-coming business woman, her rural love, and her sassy friend. In all media though, there is one character I love above all others. That is the character who is absolutely selfish, wants nothing to do with anyone, and by the end of the story becomes a part of good guys solving their problems. I never get tired of those characters in whatever form they present themselves.

The reason I go back to these kinds of characters is, I think, because they speak to the infinite capacity of people to do the right thing, regardless of their background. A hero is fine and dandy, villains are easier to write than most characters, but someone who is a slimeball and learns how to be decent, that takes some work. Whether it is Han Solo from Star Wars or Sylens from the Horizon series, quality is quality.

In our own lives, we are not as over the top as most characters in media. Despite this, we all have our own character traits that define how we act. Some people are more giving, trusting, selfish, kind, or cruel than others. A variety of circumstances make us that way but the end result is simple – we all are the sum of our many and varied parts, and some of those aspects are so essential to who we are, we barely even notice it. If you think about yourself I am sure you will come up with several things you would call “essential,” to how you, as a person, interact with the world. Some of them you probably love, some you probably dislike, and some you probably are pretty neutral to.

I am a believer in the idea that humanity contains intrinsic goodness. Some argue that the fallen nature of humanity means that we are incapable of goodness on our own, but I do not think that is consistent with scripture or our broader life experience. We are all made in the Image of God and that Image cannot be destroyed. If God is good, and we affirm that often in the Church, then it stands to reason that we who are also good, albeit imperfectly. The call of the Christian, once we accept the life of faith, is to move beyond the imperfection of our goodness and step into God’s perfect goodness.

We often get nervous when “perfection,” is brought up as a goal. All Wesleyan denominations, be they historic denominations like the Evangelic United Brethren or extant groups like our very own United Methodist Church, believe that it is possible for people to become perfect in this life. Why do we believe this? Because Jesus asks us to be. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus does not ask us to do anything that we are not capable of with God’s help. Therefore, we are able to be perfect in this life. Do most people achieve such a goal? No, but we still have to chase after it at all times.

For some people that journey is much shorter than others, but for most of us with have a fair number of vices we have to chase away before we can get anywhere near virtue. That transformation can be difficult, especially if we are dealing with habits that we have trained ourselves to be excellent at. I think that this is the reason why scripture asks us to look outward rather than inward to motivate our change. Looking in the mirror and focusing on ourselves we can excuse so much of what we do and how we think and act. Once we take other people into consideration that justification becomes much harder.

In our scripture today, Paul asks the Roman congregation to put others ahead of themselves. Paul goes even further than just saying they should focus on love and care of others, but says that all the Commandments derive from this. The examples he gives are all from the Ten Commandments given at Sinai, but he ends his list with an all encompassing generalization, “any other commandment,” is summed up with the words, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If we believe that the most important thing in life is caring for other people, we will naturally find ourselves changing to meet that expectation.

Imagine the parts of yourself that you know you need to work on – I’m guessing that most of them are important to you because they impact other people. While there are certainly things that hurt us personally, most of our introspection and desire for improvement are outward facing. We want to be kinder, to listen to people with more empathy, to not give in to our worst qualities just because they are easier than our better angels. We root our desire to improve in others, because by focusing on the good of other people we necessarily develop our virtues. The simple act of looking at another person, considering them worthy of good things, will make it much easier to actually do what we should.

The challenge we have to embrace is simple on paper – “Love one another.” We have to acknowledge that that is an active mission for our entire life. It begins with our own perspective – looking out at the world and being unwilling to do anything but love. Is that hard? Of course! People do not always give us very many reasons to love them. However, it is essential that we overcome that initial opposition. If we wish to pursue perfection, to follow the instructions offered to us by Christ, then we have to embrace the most essential parts of our Divine Image. We are made in the Image of God, and scripture tell us “God is love.” We must also live a life so that when people think of us, the first and most pressing image in their mind is the love we show to all we meet. – Amen.

Psalm 26:1-8

Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you.

I do not sit with the worthless,  nor do I consort with hypocrites; I hate the company of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked.

I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O Lord, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving and telling all your wondrous deeds.

O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell and the place where your glory abides.

Sermon Text

Today we are talking about friendship, and specifically the way that the people we associate with can affect our own dispositions. There is a strange balance between living a life as a Christian that embraces all people as Christ did, and at the same time does not internalize the negative aspects of people who we live alongside. The Church has a tendency to run on two extremes when it comes to how a Christian should associate with people who, frankly, have bad habits and make bad decisions. There are levels to this, and while we only have a brief time today, I hope we can leave with some practical considerations for how we associate with one another.

To be a Christian means to be willing to love every person who we meet. We cannot privilege any person over another based on any aspect of their life. We are to “give when asked,” and to “go the extra mile,” for any and all people who we interact with.[1] That is a big responsibility, and one that naturally predisposes us to be taken advantage of. Sometimes, I say this with all seriousness, being a Christian requires that we let ourselves be taken advantage of. If someone comes to us, and we give them a twenty because they say they need it, and they ask under false pretenses, then so be it. In cases such as these, the onus upon us is to be generous rather than skeptical.

A transformation does happen, however, if we form relationships with people. The ultimate goal of a Christian is not just to give people things they ask for, or to only meet their physical needs. That is the work of charity organizations, and while part of our work is charitable giving – it is deeper than that. We are building communities and relationships, that is bigger than just handing things out. Those who have helped at the feeding program at First Church will tell you that if you serve there for any amount of time, you get to know the people who come for food. That relationship means a lot more than any bag of food could, it affirms the humanity of the people involved – the one serving and the one being served. The food pantry is the same, you learn people’s names and stories, and suddenly something new develops – a community born out of people who formerly just lived near each other.

The reality of communities is that they have people from all walks of life. There are those who have their lives incredibly together – who treat people well and act in all the ways you would hope someone would. There are those who are incredibly kind and incredibly unlucky, who have learned how to live but who have been handed every raw deal they possibly could have been. Others have everything, but are cruel or otherwise troubled. The final group has neither means nor virtue, those in need that are also unpleasant. The weird thing of life is that people from all walks, the just and the unjust, the rich and the poor, are worthy of dignity and love. It is how that plays out that makes things difficult.

Oftentimes the amount of leniency we are willing to give people for their conduct is proportional to how put together they appear. We will allow someone to be cruel, as long as they dress well, tithe appropriately, and say the right sorts of things. Someone who acts identically to some of the more well put together people among us but who is poor, who dresses in a way that betrays their economic status, they will receive far less mercy from us. Even a good person, if they present as poor will be treated significantly less well than any person of means. We can claim differently, but the first thing we see is how a person dresses, and the second thing we hear is how they speak. Both those can betray class markers that affect our willingness to associate with them regardless of conduct.

The thing we have to balance as Christians is our openness to all people, and our subconscious tendency to develop preferences. We also have to balance our openness to people in need with an understanding that we cannot be in relationships with people that take advantage of us perpetually. Remember earlier I said that sometimes being a Christian means we will be taken advantage of, but that changes when we go from simply providing help to people to living alongside people. Relationships have more to them than what I give you or you give me, I am not in any relationship for what I get out of them, it has to be person focused, not concerned with anything but treating each other well.

Our Psalm talks about rejecting different groups based on conduct: the “worthless,” the “hypocrite,” the “wicked.” We should not take this to mean we should never talk to people who do not do what they should. For one thing, we wouldn’t talk to many people, for another Jesus was willing to live alongside and love people long before they got their act together. No, instead we should understand a core truth – not everyone has to, or should be, our friend. I do not mean friend here as we often use it, to mean a person we like well enough to be around. I mean someone we share the deep parts of life with, who we pour out our heart to and find the same thing reciprocated. We will not adopt bad habits just by living alongside people, but we will if we allow intimacy beyond what is appropriate, to just anyone we wish to.

That will carry us much farther than anything else in terms of our living out a life of faith. If we realize that we owe all people dignity, that all people are part of our community, but do not allow them to influence us negatively – that can be powerful. When we are willing to distance ourselves from the person we know with money, but no mercy. When we are willing to embrace the poor and powerless who know more about holiness than we ever good. When we understand that no person is ever trapped where they currently are, and strive to excel in goodness no matter what we do – then we see our communities as transformative, and not just preserving of the status quo. We as a community can work together to grow, and it takes a willingness not to tolerate evil, even from people we quite like, and to celebrate virtue, even among people we might reject. Aspire toward what is right, in all things, and find your life transformed. – Amen.

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[1] Matthew 5:41-42