“Lent: What You Can Learn in the Process”
Exodus 16: 1-15, Mark 1: 9-13
February 20, 1999
When I was in junior high, I received a great shock. Our math teacher informed us that it was no longer good enough to produce the right answers. We also had to tell how we got the answer. At the time, I didn’t appreciate this direction. It seemed grossly unfair. As long as you arrived at the right answer, whether you got it with a little help from your friends, or made a lucky guess, or worked it out in your own system, it all seemed equally valid.
I seem to recall arguing that if I were asked what 2 plus 2 was, and I gave the answer 4, what difference did it make how I had gotten there? What does the process have to do with anything, as long as you arrive at where you should be?
Well, I’m a little older and maybe a little wiser. And now I
know that I was being taught one of “the rules of life.” How you get there is everything. Or to put it another way, the process is every bit as important as the destination.
I am reminded of that learning, as we think about Lent. Lent is a time, a process, and a period of preparation that leads us to Easter. Most of us would prefer to move rapidly from the ashes of this past Wednesday to the lilies of Easter, and skip the process in between. We see little to be gained going through the agony of forty days.
Why wait when the question raised on Ash Wednesday about our mortality is answered by the Resurrection on Easter Sunday? But, as my old math teacher used to say, “The process is every bit as important as the answer.
In biblical language, the process is usually symbolized by a story of some kind of wandering in the wilderness or in the desert. And so it is in the Gospel. Jesus wanders in the wilderness for forty days before taking up his ministry. In Mark’s Gospel, which is probably the most accurate, the writer doesn’t go into any detail. All we really know is that it was forty days, and during this difficult period, the angels of God ministered to Jesus.
In the Hebrew Scriptures (which we read as our first lesson), the people of Israel wander for forty years in the wilderness before reaching their destination, and we read that God ministers to them in the desert. Forty years, forty days, it seems to be a magic number. The problem is that we Americans who have grown up on instant foods, instant credit, instant gratification, would rather make it twenty days, or ten days, and certainly forty years is way beyond our imagination. Be that as it may, we know a great deal more about the forty years, and therefore, I want to concentrate our attention on the Hebrew Scriptures. I hope this story will tell us about our own wanderings, our own process during Lent.
We begin with our first lesson. The sixteenth chapter of Exodus really is in the middle of the journey. You will remember the Hebrew people had been freed from slavery, escaped the Egyptian army, crossed the Red Sea, and are on their way to the “Promised Land.”
Are they a grateful, contented, happy lot? Not at all. Like many church people, they are looking for all their needs to be met, and met instantly. We might describe them as acting like unhappy customers whose primary concern is their own comfort. The writer of Exodus puts it in a more polite way. He tells us, “They murmured as they wandered in the desert.”
Can’t you just hear the murmuring? The discontent, the whispering. It begins with nostalgia, a longing for the good old days, which always look better than they actually were.
And then, like most church groups, they quickly lose confidence in the leadership. So they send some representatives to Moses and say, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt; when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16: 3)
If I were Moses, I would have left them there, resigned, quit, or retired to write my memoirs. Who needs that kind of aggravation? Who needs those ingrates? And if I were God, I would have sent them straight back to Egypt and into the arms of the Pharaoh. They would rather the fleshpots of Egypt; I would give them the fleshpots of Egypt, and the slavery that went with it.
But fortunately, I’m me, and God is God, for God is a lot more tolerant than I seem to be. God responds in the twelfth verse, “I have heard the murmuring of the people of Israel. At twilight, you shall eat, and in the morning, you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am your God.”
And thus we then read that daily there rained down upon them from heaven a sticky sweet substance that kept them alive throughout the wilderness journey.
One further note: this bread was called Manna, and while I was ill, I did some research on what Manna is. In Hebrew, Manna simply means, “What is it?” From this extensive research, I’ve learned that if you ask the wrong question, you’ll end up with an unsatisfactory answer. If you want the actual, real, scientific meaning of Manna, here it is. It is aphid dung. That’s it. Manna is the excrement of certain birds that feed on the secretions of the Tamarack tree. Manna is a four-letter word not usually heard from the pulpit. Now, aren’t you glad you asked?
The question, of course, is not what for but what does it mean? How does aphid dung become the bread of Heaven? And the answer is simple and clear. When you’re wandering in the wilderness, God does not leave your side. God provides even in the desert. And what God provides becomes the gift of Angels. Heavenly bread
Well, what does this story have to do with us as we go through the forty-day process? Let me leave you with three things to ponder as we think about Lent.
First, the fashioners of this lovely red altar frontal felt that this sentiment should be prominently displayed for everyone coming forward for the bread of Communion. In several places on the frontal is written the Latin Ditat Deus. Ditat Deus, translates is God provides.
Second, remember when you are feeling most lost in the wilderness, most ready to murmur, throw in the sponge, God has a way of providing bread from Heaven. All you have to do is be open to discovering Manna.
Third, remember that God is found in the process. Remember, when it’s over, it is not over. There is still a journey to go, and God will be with you.
I recall when I was in the Seminary being taught that a sermon ought to conclude with some action that the congregation could do. This morning, I am inviting you to go literally into the desert with me and meet with the Yaqui people of Old Pascua Village. This is a community that, like the Hebrew people, has wandered for many years. And I ask you to come with me and pray that the people of St. Philip’s might be Manna, bread from heaven, for these people and they for us – for we are all on a journey. Amen.