Lent 4
March 27, 2022
William G. Carter
The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.
While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes, and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.
For the season of Lent, we have been listening to the Old Testament readings from the lectionary. A recurring theme is life on the threshold. Life on the edge. Faith in the moment of transition. And few transitions can come close to this one – Israel is passing from forty years in the wilderness into the Promised Land.
That’s the context for today’s brief story. Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. God opened the Red Sea, and Moses led them through it. After they walked through the sea on dry land, they came to the mountain where God would give them the Ten Commandments to guide their lives. But the journey didn’t go in a straight line.
Moses came down the mountain with the stone tablets, and the people forged their jewelry into a golden calf. They grumbled there was no food: why should God bring us out here to starve? They complained there was no water: why did God bring us out here to die of thirst. A journey that should have taken eleven days on foot took longer and longer.
And the final straw came as they sent a dozen spies into the Promised Land to check it out. They did a reconnaissance for forty days. Ten spies came back and complained, “Those people in the land are giants, and we look like grasshoppers,” while two faithful spies (Joshua and Caleb) said, “No, no, we’ve got this, and God will open the way.” The faithful report was rejected due to the people’s fear – with that, God blew a gasket.
The Lord may be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but there are limits. And God decreed, “You shall wander in the wilderness for forty years, one year for each day that the spies were in the land.” And so they wandered. This way and that, zigzagging, going in circles, parking here, going there. The sojourn continued until every last one on them died in the wilderness, apart from Joshua and Caleb. Even Moses died.
And after the passing of that entire generation, it was time to go where God had told them to go. That’s the condensed version of half of the book of Exodus, and most of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Now, we’re in the book of Joshua, and Joshua understands what must happen.
He sends a couple of spies. They immediately go to the house of Rahab, who had a warm and generous heart, and they see whatever there is to see. They return and give their report. Joshua takes them to the edge of the river, the Jordan River. They camp there and spend some time in prayer. After that, he tells the priests to carry the big box with the Ten Commandments and put that at the head of the line.
When it’s time to cross the river, the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant, the big box, they go first. The water parts once again. All the Israelites behind them cross over, walking on dry land.
But there’s still work to do. Joshua calls for representatives from each of the twelve tribes, saying, “Get twelve enormous stones to mark the place where we crossed over.” They do this. It’s an impressive moment, one that frightens the resident kings of that land.
But there’s still something to do. All the remaining men folk in Israel have been born in the last 40 years, except for Joshua and Caleb, and they haven’t been circumcised. So Joshua takes another week or so to get that done. You can’t be part of Israel without the mark of the covenant!
When everybody’s feeling better, that’s where our text begins. God says, “I have removed the disgrace of Egypt from all of you.” And the people of Israel celebrate the Passover. It’s a new passing over.
And that’s the moment when we hear something unusual. It’s almost a throwaway line. If we were in a hurry to get into the Promised Land, we would have rushed right by it. So let me pause to call you attention to a remarkable announcement in our text: “On that day, the manna ceased.”
The manna. What is it? You remember the tale. When the people first entered the wilderness, forty years before, they had no food. They grumbled, they complained. They belly-ached to Moses, “We have no food.” As if it was the job of Moses not only to lead them out of Egypt but to feed them too, all “600,000 men plus women and children.” (Exodus 12:37)
Even before Moses could whisper so much as a prayer, the Lord said, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. There will be enough for all of you to eat. There will be so much that you can collect it all in six days and keep Sabbath on the seventh.” And it was so. The people saw it fall from heaven, and said, “What is it?” It was manna. For forty years, they have been eating bread from heaven. For forty years, God has provided for them.
Let me pause the story to say you and I know what this is like. God has provided for us, too. Look around – here we are. Not after forty, but for two. That has been difficult enough.
Some have left town. Some have changed jobs, quit working, or retired. Some have slipped away to heaven. Some of us have gone blonde. All of us have been shaken and changed. And here we are.
And these accounts of Jewish scripture can be helpful for us, if only to wrap our hearts and minds around what has happened to us. Israel understood their time in the wilderness as a time of testing. They discovered what they needed was different from what they wanted. There was a sifting of priorities, a clarification of what’s truly important and what’s not.
I remember the uncertainty, leading to waves of fear. Rather than celebrate an Easter dinner with our kids, we put Easter baskets on the front porch and waved to them as one by one they came to pick them up. We ate our way through the cupboard, only going to the store when absolutely necessary, putting on blue rubber gloves when we handed over money or received change. Never had to do that before, but we got through.
And I’ll never forget that one Sunday afternoon after nearly everything collapsed. My wife said, “Do you think we could drive out to pick up a pizza?” Sure, where do you want to go? She thought for a minute and said, “Grotto’s Pizza, Harvey’s Lake.” Could we go the long way? Took us an hour to get there, ordered a large pie with pepperoni, drove around the lake, picked it up, ate on paper plates in the car, and took three hours to get home -- by way of Montrose. It wasn’t exactly manna from heaven. Or maybe it was. And what else did we have to do?
How have you gotten through the past couple of years? Stop and remember. What has kept you going? What has sustained you? Where have you gotten help? How did you learn to receive help? What has bubbled up for you? How are you a different person? A better person? These are the Manna Questions. They are signs that God provides, even in the wilderness.
One of the resources for the journey came from a retired teacher by the name of Kitty O’Meara. Have you heard about her? She lives in a Wisconsin farmhouse with her husband and five (or six) rescue dogs. She wrote a poem that made the rounds, one of the few times I can say, “Thank God for the internet.” It’s titled, “In the Time of Pandemic,” and goes like this:
The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.
While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes, and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.
For the season of Lent, we have been listening to the Old Testament readings from the lectionary. A recurring theme is life on the threshold. Life on the edge. Faith in the moment of transition. And few transitions can come close to this one – Israel is passing from forty years in the wilderness into the Promised Land.
That’s the context for today’s brief story. Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. God opened the Red Sea, and Moses led them through it. After they walked through the sea on dry land, they came to the mountain where God would give them the Ten Commandments to guide their lives. But the journey didn’t go in a straight line.
Moses came down the mountain with the stone tablets, and the people forged their jewelry into a golden calf. They grumbled there was no food: why should God bring us out here to starve? They complained there was no water: why did God bring us out here to die of thirst. A journey that should have taken eleven days on foot took longer and longer.
And the final straw came as they sent a dozen spies into the Promised Land to check it out. They did a reconnaissance for forty days. Ten spies came back and complained, “Those people in the land are giants, and we look like grasshoppers,” while two faithful spies (Joshua and Caleb) said, “No, no, we’ve got this, and God will open the way.” The faithful report was rejected due to the people’s fear – with that, God blew a gasket.
The Lord may be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but there are limits. And God decreed, “You shall wander in the wilderness for forty years, one year for each day that the spies were in the land.” And so they wandered. This way and that, zigzagging, going in circles, parking here, going there. The sojourn continued until every last one on them died in the wilderness, apart from Joshua and Caleb. Even Moses died.
And after the passing of that entire generation, it was time to go where God had told them to go. That’s the condensed version of half of the book of Exodus, and most of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Now, we’re in the book of Joshua, and Joshua understands what must happen.
He sends a couple of spies. They immediately go to the house of Rahab, who had a warm and generous heart, and they see whatever there is to see. They return and give their report. Joshua takes them to the edge of the river, the Jordan River. They camp there and spend some time in prayer. After that, he tells the priests to carry the big box with the Ten Commandments and put that at the head of the line.
When it’s time to cross the river, the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant, the big box, they go first. The water parts once again. All the Israelites behind them cross over, walking on dry land.
But there’s still work to do. Joshua calls for representatives from each of the twelve tribes, saying, “Get twelve enormous stones to mark the place where we crossed over.” They do this. It’s an impressive moment, one that frightens the resident kings of that land.
But there’s still something to do. All the remaining men folk in Israel have been born in the last 40 years, except for Joshua and Caleb, and they haven’t been circumcised. So Joshua takes another week or so to get that done. You can’t be part of Israel without the mark of the covenant!
When everybody’s feeling better, that’s where our text begins. God says, “I have removed the disgrace of Egypt from all of you.” And the people of Israel celebrate the Passover. It’s a new passing over.
And that’s the moment when we hear something unusual. It’s almost a throwaway line. If we were in a hurry to get into the Promised Land, we would have rushed right by it. So let me pause to call you attention to a remarkable announcement in our text: “On that day, the manna ceased.”
The manna. What is it? You remember the tale. When the people first entered the wilderness, forty years before, they had no food. They grumbled, they complained. They belly-ached to Moses, “We have no food.” As if it was the job of Moses not only to lead them out of Egypt but to feed them too, all “600,000 men plus women and children.” (Exodus 12:37)
Even before Moses could whisper so much as a prayer, the Lord said, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. There will be enough for all of you to eat. There will be so much that you can collect it all in six days and keep Sabbath on the seventh.” And it was so. The people saw it fall from heaven, and said, “What is it?” It was manna. For forty years, they have been eating bread from heaven. For forty years, God has provided for them.
Let me pause the story to say you and I know what this is like. God has provided for us, too. Look around – here we are. Not after forty, but for two. That has been difficult enough.
Some have left town. Some have changed jobs, quit working, or retired. Some have slipped away to heaven. Some of us have gone blonde. All of us have been shaken and changed. And here we are.
And these accounts of Jewish scripture can be helpful for us, if only to wrap our hearts and minds around what has happened to us. Israel understood their time in the wilderness as a time of testing. They discovered what they needed was different from what they wanted. There was a sifting of priorities, a clarification of what’s truly important and what’s not.
I remember the uncertainty, leading to waves of fear. Rather than celebrate an Easter dinner with our kids, we put Easter baskets on the front porch and waved to them as one by one they came to pick them up. We ate our way through the cupboard, only going to the store when absolutely necessary, putting on blue rubber gloves when we handed over money or received change. Never had to do that before, but we got through.
And I’ll never forget that one Sunday afternoon after nearly everything collapsed. My wife said, “Do you think we could drive out to pick up a pizza?” Sure, where do you want to go? She thought for a minute and said, “Grotto’s Pizza, Harvey’s Lake.” Could we go the long way? Took us an hour to get there, ordered a large pie with pepperoni, drove around the lake, picked it up, ate on paper plates in the car, and took three hours to get home -- by way of Montrose. It wasn’t exactly manna from heaven. Or maybe it was. And what else did we have to do?
How have you gotten through the past couple of years? Stop and remember. What has kept you going? What has sustained you? Where have you gotten help? How did you learn to receive help? What has bubbled up for you? How are you a different person? A better person? These are the Manna Questions. They are signs that God provides, even in the wilderness.
One of the resources for the journey came from a retired teacher by the name of Kitty O’Meara. Have you heard about her? She lives in a Wisconsin farmhouse with her husband and five (or six) rescue dogs. She wrote a poem that made the rounds, one of the few times I can say, “Thank God for the internet.” It’s titled, “In the Time of Pandemic,” and goes like this:
And the people stayed home.
And they listened, and read books, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.
And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.[1]
That’s from Kitty O’Meara, now dubbed the “poet laureate of the pandemic.” She says she stayed home, rediscovered poetry, shot photographs of the nature around her, rested, reflected, lived by grace. That was the manna, the Bread from Heaven.
No doubt we could add a few things to our resource lists: connecting with friends, writing letters, learning Zoom, Skype, and other technological gifts; eliminating unnecessary activity; discovering the public library; getting started on exercise; discovering that air pollution can evaporate if more of us stayed out of our cars; trimming down our over-booked schedules; learning anew that one of the ugliest words in our language is “busy.” You could add to that life because you’re here. It’s all manna from heaven, given to sustain, help, and heal.
And then the day comes when the “manna ceases.” It happened quietly, without a lot of fanfare, because it wasn’t needed any more. And everybody had moved along.
Please take note: none of this means we can go back to the way it was. Israel doesn’t need to go back to Egypt, neither do they wish to return to the wilderness. They have changed, and we have changed. We can’t go back.
In fact, Jana and I took a webinar last week to learn about Christian Education in a time like this. For me, the greatest takeaway was when the leader said, “When people in your church say, ‘let’s go back to 2019,’ you need to tell them the bridge is out.” There is no way back; only forward. And we can decide together what we carry with us, and what we will drop and leave behind.
“On that day, the manna ceased.” God still provides. But now it’s up to plant new gardens. We can do it, because God has gotten us here and this land is full of milk and honey. Now God smiles, and the transitional manna will be replaced by the vegetables we are planting.
And what’s that song we’ve been singing?
Thanks be to God, who gives us this day our daily bread.
And they listened, and read books, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.
And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.[1]
That’s from Kitty O’Meara, now dubbed the “poet laureate of the pandemic.” She says she stayed home, rediscovered poetry, shot photographs of the nature around her, rested, reflected, lived by grace. That was the manna, the Bread from Heaven.
No doubt we could add a few things to our resource lists: connecting with friends, writing letters, learning Zoom, Skype, and other technological gifts; eliminating unnecessary activity; discovering the public library; getting started on exercise; discovering that air pollution can evaporate if more of us stayed out of our cars; trimming down our over-booked schedules; learning anew that one of the ugliest words in our language is “busy.” You could add to that life because you’re here. It’s all manna from heaven, given to sustain, help, and heal.
And then the day comes when the “manna ceases.” It happened quietly, without a lot of fanfare, because it wasn’t needed any more. And everybody had moved along.
Please take note: none of this means we can go back to the way it was. Israel doesn’t need to go back to Egypt, neither do they wish to return to the wilderness. They have changed, and we have changed. We can’t go back.
In fact, Jana and I took a webinar last week to learn about Christian Education in a time like this. For me, the greatest takeaway was when the leader said, “When people in your church say, ‘let’s go back to 2019,’ you need to tell them the bridge is out.” There is no way back; only forward. And we can decide together what we carry with us, and what we will drop and leave behind.
“On that day, the manna ceased.” God still provides. But now it’s up to plant new gardens. We can do it, because God has gotten us here and this land is full of milk and honey. Now God smiles, and the transitional manna will be replaced by the vegetables we are planting.
And what’s that song we’ve been singing?
We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord,
trusting in the holy Word; God's never failed me yet.
O can't turn around; we've come this far by faith.
We've come this far by faith.
Thanks be to God, who gives us this day our daily bread.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] See her blog at https://the-daily-round.com/2020/03/16/in-the-time-of-pandemic/
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