Sermons

Manna

The Rev. Rob McCann
Interim Rector, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church

The account of the manna in the desert in the Hebrew Bible and the multiplication of the loaves and fish in the Christian Bible are seminal texts - and they talk to each other.

If you look up the etymology of the word, manna, you will come up with a number of meanings - one from Egypt that refers to it as a flakey, coriander-like substance; the other from Israel that amusingly asks the question - "What is this?"

To this day no one knows precisely what the original manna in the desert was. The one answer defines it as a substance; the other allows us to go deeper and asks the bigger question - which might be - "What is this and does it have a meaning for me?"

In what way does Exodus 16 about eating manna in the desert and John 6 and the feeding of the 5000 reflect each other. The people are both in the desert far from Whole Foods; they are hungry; they become dis-satisfied; they are fed in a remarkable way; they learn to trust that God will come through for them. The sixth chapter of John builds on this past and climaxes with a leap of faith in Jesus- "I am the bread of life. I am the new manna which has comes down from heaven."

I have often wondered how many of the 40 year wanderers in the desert and the 5000 people gathered during the time of Jesus were ever filled with doubt about what they had experienced, or where the nourishment had come from or who these persons - Moses and Jesus, were.

Someone once said - "that the opposite of faith is no faith - not doubt." Alfred Lord Tennyson added to the mix when he said - "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds."

Job is an extraordinary figure of dealing with doubt in the biblical literature. One who through all his trials never questioned that God would remember him and bring him new life.

"I know that my Redeemer lives" - was the bedrock of his hope. I don't think for a minute, however, that Job's response to pain and anguish is everyone's. Many in difficult circumstances fall into doubt about God and God's love and mercy. Isn't the usual response to any really bad news - why did God allow this to happen?

I struggled with a few doubts of my own, earlier on, during my pilgrimage from Rome to Canterbury. I was encouraged by a friend to seek advice and talk it out with a well-known Episcopal priest in Washington, DC.

So I made the flight. "Well, wouldn't you know it" - for, as I unfolded my own doubts and concerns, he listened and raised the ante when he said - "Well you catch me at an awkward moment in my own life." I think that was the first time I heard the phrase that said it all so well - "Well, I happen to be 'in transition' - and I'm not quite sure as to where I will land."

That evening he invited me to join him and his wife and a philosopher friend for dinner at one of the fine restaurants. "Well, we might be in doubt about some things," he said, "but we don't have to be in doubt about our hunger." There was such a practicality in his throwaway line. I took it in as - there is hunger of every kind everywhere to go along with there is doubt everywhere. Another of his comments came out - "We're moving, whether we like it or not."

Well, Jim Adams, this East Coast rector, did find himself by starting a think tank on what churches ought to be about. By the time we had connected again, we both had worked through some of our concerns and I'm sure picked up a few others. And the more I thought about it - were those doubts I had or were they just fears about what might be lurking around the corner?

He went on to write about doubt - encouraging newcomers to plumb the depth of doubt. The name of the publication was - "So you think you're not religious: A thinking person's guide to church through doubt." Doubt and faith became part of the small group experience for all newcomers, he was promoting.

He writes - "that it is quite possible for someone to walk with doubt all one's life and that the church should not see it as antithetical to faith, but as a healthy sign of an honest struggle."

The words of Paul are helpful in all of this - "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit." One gets wisdom, one gets knowledge, and one gets faith. In other words, don't forget that faith, like everything else, is a gift. Nobody gets all the gifts. So we should try not to make people think somehow that they are any less for not having faith in full bloom.

This leads me to suggest that every church should offer a place where people can gather - an opportunity of ""The well-lighted room" in which to do some exploring in a welcoming and safe way. Perhaps, it is "in the exploration process that many find meaning."

I remember in a class suggesting that we do an exercise by saying the Nicene Creed slowly together - and modulating our voices, in accordance with the strength or weakness of our belief.

You can imagine the sound or lack of it as people got into the swing of it - and then came the realization and the roar of laughter, the relief and the realization that so many were in the same life boat.

I occasionally hear the comment - why don't we drop the creed? It's so archaic. And there are lots of reasons for this question - as we try to make a 4th century proclamation of faith drafted in a certain theological tone compiled by a committee under the direct supervision of Emperor Constantine - into a 21st century one.

I think, however, that saying the creed helps us "to kick against the goad." It offers us an important expression of what the church has taught these hundreds of years. It tells us where we have come from and where we have been.

I would say that sitting with the mystery celebrated each Sunday holds us and, at times, turns us in profound ways - at times totally unexpected

There is no doubt, however, that saying together the creed has its value. The Creed is a reflective pool of the complexity of faith than a clear explanation of it. I don't think that creeds in general work propositionally. They are more "preserving the mystery caught in mid-air."

Rather, living with the doubt is part of the normal reactionary to mystery. It can be said that all-important truths are paradoxical. That every time people state propositions, they are giving off half-truth. When we press on the divinity of Christ, we throw off his humanity.

I take as an important counterbalance the very way Jesus taught - namely, with no propositions. In fact, He went about undercutting propositions. All of his teachings are geared to make people doubt what they've accepted as conventional wisdom.

So often doubt could come under the guise of the fear of letting go.

Listen to the occasional comments from friends - most are so predictable - and coming from doubt and fear. ""We don't do that." "That's not what we want." Could you name the time when community life was so incredibly perfect and beautiful?

Some of this reaction can lead us into what can be referred to as "the fearful and or/doubtful tyranny of the few." We occasionally allow the few to hold back the many. We give our power to change away, often, to avoid a necessary and growth-filled struggle. Our nicety becomes our need to have everyone rowing in the same direction. Life isn't that way.

For great example! The Church has had a lot of new prayer books: 1549; 1552; 1604; 1662; 1789; 1892; 1928; 1979 - official prayer books through the years. Had we not taken on the need for a new prayer book we would not be true to our reflective selves nor become the sacramental people we are today.

We would have totally isolated ourselves from the main-stream Christian Community; in ecumenical worship and gatherings, we would have found ourselves year after year sharing less and less.

As a church we have been molded by the catholic and protestant traditions. We are the product of such a tectonic rub. Listening, moving, having faith, have doubt - and responding by changing are called life's vital signs.

How important it is to check those signs often!

Striking the rock in the desert produced the flow of water, even though Moses struck it twice because he had his doubts; eating the loaves and fish staved off hunger, even though the disciples were in doubt whether a crowd of this size could be fed - and that there was enough left over to fill 12 baskets. Even in doubt there is great abundance!

The church took both of these vital signs and built our community on them. The one became Baptism; the other the Eucharist. These sacraments continue to vitalize us even to this day and in this place.

The present Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, tells a story of a Benedictine monk for whom the daily office was a way of life. On more than one occasion he would be deep in the middle of a pastoral encounter when the bell would ring and he would simply get up to go off to chapel. The person to whom he had been talking would yell: "You can't just leave me now." And the monk always had the same reply. "If I didn't go now and say my prayers, I'd be of no use to you at all."

So it is with Holy Communion - the manna of life. We need to go on asking ourselves on our life's journey - What is this? And why is it important? Holy Eucharist, basic to our prayer life, is a way to check our vital signs.

An occasional doubt does not do away with accepting the invitation to live life abundantly. Our service bulletin speaks of our statement about welcoming everyone to Communion. We are called to be faithful in the doing. And then letting God do the rest.

Sermons

Manna

The Rev. Rob McCann Interim Rector, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church

The Rev. Rob McCann
Interim Rector, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church