Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] How's everybody?
[00:00:03] Quiet.
[00:00:07] So we've been working our way mostly through Exodus over these past weeks. So I'm going to begin there.
[00:00:14] The people of Israel have followed Moses and Aaron out of Egypt, out of slavery, toward freedom.
[00:00:22] They set out in faith, hoping to find a better life.
[00:00:26] They've been traveling for about a month now, and walking and walking. Whatever they'd managed to grab on the way out, wrapped in a cloth and carried on their backs.
[00:00:38] At least that's how I imagine them. They don't know where they're going or how. They'll know when they get there.
[00:00:45] And now they're camped in a barren desert wilderness. No shade, no game, nothing growing, no food or water to be found. And they say to Moses, if only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the flesh pots and ate our fill of bread.
[00:01:08] Moses calls it complaining, but it feels deeper than that. If it wasn't such a dramatic statement, I would say it feels a little nostalgic.
[00:01:19] Right.
[00:01:20] In Egypt, they never had to wonder where the next meal was coming from. That was the one certainty that slavery gave them.
[00:01:29] Now it doesn't seem to be anybody's responsibility to feed them, and that's genuinely terrifying.
[00:01:36] Pots of meat and their fill of bread.
[00:01:39] Simple food and enough of it. But their words are gut wrenching. Not we miss home or this is really hard. They say they wish they had died back in Egypt, full at least, rather than starving out here under Moses Watch.
[00:01:58] That's not whining or complaining. Well, it is complaining, but it's complaining found in despair. Despair deep enough that slavery starts to look like mercy by comparison.
[00:02:09] Think about that for a minute.
[00:02:12] Their life before looks pretty good.
[00:02:16] We were fed.
[00:02:18] It was enough. Having their basic needs met was enough. And they forgot the price that they paid for that food.
[00:02:26] Because the food was never a gift.
[00:02:29] It wasn't mercy. A slave who isn't fed can't work. Pharaoh's granaries fed them the way you'd feed an ox, or maybe how you would sharpen a sickle. It wasn't care for the person.
[00:02:41] It kept the property running properly.
[00:02:44] That food came with a full bill attached to it. Their labor, their bodies, their lives.
[00:02:51] It cost them everything.
[00:02:53] And still they'd rather have died in slavery than keep paying the price of freedom.
[00:02:59] It seems irrational, and yet human nature, right? If we are guaranteed a better life, I think most of us would take the leap.
[00:03:09] It's the not knowing, the fear of the unknown that holds us back.
[00:03:15] I Don't think you have to have been enslaved to understand this. Most of us know what it's like to choose a familiar unhappiness over an unfamiliar freedom, the job that's draining you. But at least you know the routine, the relationship gone cold. But leaving means a life you can't even imagine yet.
[00:03:36] The old story about who you are that doesn't seem to fit anymore. But at least it's ground that you know. It's familiar.
[00:03:46] Fear of the unknown is good at disguising itself as prudence, loyalty, being realistic.
[00:03:53] So more often, we stay.
[00:03:56] The Israelites already did the harder thing. They left.
[00:04:00] But now, a month in, exhausted and hungry and unsure where any of this is taking them, the fear is deepening. It didn't stop them from leaving, but it's tempting them to turn back around.
[00:04:14] And now it's not only fear. It is exhaustion and hunger and the plain fact that freedom so far has cost them dearly.
[00:04:23] Put all of that together, and Egypt starts to look survivable.
[00:04:28] It wasn't really so bad.
[00:04:31] Moses chides them for their complaining, as if their fear is weak. But God doesn't. God simply says, I will rain bread from heaven for you.
[00:04:42] I will feed you.
[00:04:44] No strings attached.
[00:04:47] So the ground is covered with quail in the night, and in the morning they go out. And there it is, this fine, flaky stuff covering the ground like frost.
[00:04:59] What is it?
[00:05:01] Manna from heaven, Moses tells them. It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. They will eat this food every day for 40 years.
[00:05:15] In the verses that follow what we read today, God attaches one instruction to the manna. Gather only what you need for today.
[00:05:24] Not enough for the week.
[00:05:26] Not enough to hoard against next month's fear and hunger. A day's portion for that day. It seems like such a simple thing to ask. But the Israelites are living in fear of hunger and not having enough.
[00:05:40] So to ask them to just take what they need for that day is asking them again to have faith.
[00:05:47] A faith they don't feel after a month of hard trekking with empty bellies on the road to God only knows where.
[00:05:58] So they would go out and gather, and some collect more and some collect less. A few try to hoard extra, just in case. But when it's all measured out, something strange happens.
[00:06:10] The ones who gathered a lot have nothing left, and the ones who gathered a little have plenty.
[00:06:16] Everybody ends up with exactly enough.
[00:06:20] Not because anyone worked harder or gathered faster, because enough wasn't measured against their effort. In the first place it was measured against their need.
[00:06:31] God's generosity shows up before they're ready to see it or believe it or accept it. Before we are ready to see it or believe it or accept. Accept it, taking only what you need for today and trusting that there will be more tomorrow. It's not a small thing to ask of people who are hungry and afraid.
[00:06:52] Fast forward about a year and the Israelites are further down the road.
[00:06:58] We hear about it in the Book of Numbers. God has been faithful manna without fail, every single morning. It kept them alive and they're sick of it.
[00:07:10] Numbers tells us that people wept and they said, we remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing. The cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and garlic.
[00:07:21] But now our strength is dried up and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.
[00:07:28] They're no longer in total despair or fear. The bellies are full.
[00:07:32] God has provided as promised. But now a year on the road and they are tired, still walking into the unknown, eating this weird food that appears every morning, hungry for meat and fruit and vegetables day after day after day.
[00:07:50] The fear we hear in Exodus has been replaced by monotony.
[00:07:56] God's generosity hasn't stopped, it's just started to feel ordinary. The miracle on the ground each morning is just breakfast, and not a very good one at that.
[00:08:08] And again they are nostalgic for Egypt.
[00:08:11] Again, maybe slavery wasn't so bad after all.
[00:08:16] And here's what none of them know yet.
[00:08:19] They're just one year into a 40 year trip.
[00:08:25] People will die out there that never get to the end. People will be born out there who will know no other home.
[00:08:34] The road simply is their life.
[00:08:37] That's the real staggering price of freedom. Not a hard month or even a year, but a whole lifetime reorganized around trust for as long as it takes, with no guarantee you will live deceased. The end of it.
[00:08:55] When I say that out loud, it doesn't really sound all that different from the life any of us know, does it?
[00:09:03] Even that kind of trust doesn't settle the question of enough.
[00:09:07] So centuries later, Jesus tells us the same story again. In the parable of the vineyard.
[00:09:14] A landowner hires workers at dawn, then at 9, then at noon, then at 3, then at 5. And at the end of the day pays every one of them the same wage.
[00:09:27] The ones who worked since sunrise are furious.
[00:09:30] And honestly, I get it. They worked all day, they did everything that was asked of them in the heat of the day. And now someone who showed up at 5 o' clock gets exactly what they get. I'd love to tell you, when I hear this, I.
[00:09:47] I feel joy in the extravagance of God's generosity, but I don't. There's a part of me standing with the people who've been there all day. Wait a minute.
[00:09:57] I worked all day. This isn't fair.
[00:10:00] We expect it to be fair, but listen to what they actually say. What they actually say is, you have made them equal.
[00:10:12] Not, you cheated us, because he didn't.
[00:10:15] Not, you didn't pay us what you promised, because he did.
[00:10:20] You have made them equal to us, as if equality itself were the injury.
[00:10:27] And that's where the parable gets even harder.
[00:10:30] Because we're pretty comfortable saying that God's love is freely given, that grace can't be earned.
[00:10:37] We learn that from the very beginning. Christianity 101. We sing about it, we preach about it, we come to church counting on it. But apparently, grace gets a lot harder when God starts giving other people things we don't think they've earned.
[00:10:54] The workers in the vineyard start doing the math. Hold on. I worked longer. I did more.
[00:11:00] I got here first. I earned this, and therefore I should have more.
[00:11:06] And that's not so different from the old math that the Israelites are struggling with in the wilderness.
[00:11:14] How much do I have? How much will I need tomorrow? What happens if there's not enough? Better gather more while I can hoard the manna. Wait. Wait a minute. I have no more than that guy next to me, and he was only gathering for five minutes. What's happened here?
[00:11:32] And I don't want to dismiss that instinct completely or too quickly because there's something real in it. Work and effort matter. Responsibility matters. Fair wages matter.
[00:11:43] Most of us in this room have worked hard for a long time with real hours and real sacrifice. And that's not the myth. The myth begins with what we conclude from it.
[00:11:58] I worked hard. Therefore, everything I have, I earned.
[00:12:03] I have more. I am more worthy.
[00:12:06] But that's not quite true, is it?
[00:12:08] I worked hard. I worked hard, and I was also given abundant things. I didn't choose where I was born or the body and mind I was given. I didn't create the people who taught me or encouraged me or saw something in me worthy of investment.
[00:12:25] I didn't earn every door that opened or every disaster that knocked on the door next to me and left me alone.
[00:12:33] There are things I have because I worked hard, and there are things I have because they were given to me.
[00:12:41] And after a While it's surprisingly difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.
[00:12:47] Which makes me wonder about those workers who were hired first.
[00:12:51] They absolutely worked the whole day long. But maybe they were just lucky that the landowner selected them first.
[00:13:00] It was nothing that they did.
[00:13:02] We know this because the people hired at 5 had been standing there, too. The landowner asked them, why are you standing here idle all day? And they answer, because no one hired us.
[00:13:14] Not because they wouldn't work, but because nobody chose them, and until someone did. And at the end of the day, the landowner gives them enough to live on.
[00:13:26] And that's the scandal. That's the hard part.
[00:13:30] Not simply that God is generous, but that God's generosity refuses to be governed by our calculations about who deserves what.
[00:13:40] And that's where the grace begins to feel unjust.
[00:13:45] Because in the wilderness, some gathered much and some gathered little, and everyone had enough. In the vineyards, some worked all day and some worked one hour, and everyone went home with enough.
[00:13:57] In both stories, the measure isn't simply what did you earn? The question is, what do you need to live?
[00:14:05] And that should probably make those of us who have more than enough a little uncomfortable. Because it's one thing to believe that God's grace is unearned when we're the ones who need grace.
[00:14:17] It's another thing entirely when someone else is given something we believe we worked for. Food, shelter, a wage, welcome, forgiveness, a place at the table.
[00:14:29] That's when we start wanting to see the books, to see the numbers. What did they do?
[00:14:35] How hard did they work? Did they make good choices? Why should they get what we had to work for?
[00:14:43] You have made them equal to us.
[00:14:47] There it is. And this is one of the places where our theology becomes very real.
[00:14:53] Because I actually. If I actually believe that the deepest things God gives us are gifts, life, love, love, forgiveness, grace, then eventually that has to affect the way I think about what other people deserve.
[00:15:13] Not because effort doesn't matter or choices don't have consequences. Not because every question of justice is simple, but because I can't stand before God with empty hands asking for grace and then turn and insist that everyone else's hands had better contain proof that they've earned theirs.
[00:15:36] And maybe that's why we have to keep coming back to this table.
[00:15:41] Because in a few minutes, that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to come forward and hold out our hands.
[00:15:48] Nobody brings a resume or a time card with them.
[00:15:52] Nobody gets a larger portion because she worked harder this week, nobody gets a smaller portion because he showed up at 5 o'. Clock.
[00:16:02] Nobody has to demonstrate that she deserves what she's about to receive.
[00:16:07] We simply hold out our hands and bread is put in them.
[00:16:14] Given. Not earned.
[00:16:16] Given.
[00:16:18] Maybe we have to practice that here because we live most of the rest of our lives in a world where we calculate, we compare, we worry there won't be enough. We look at what someone else has and wonder whether they deserve it. And whether they're having it somehow means less for us.
[00:16:37] The Israelites knew that fear. The workers in the vineyard knew it too. And God doesn't shame either of them. God just keeps giving.
[00:16:46] Manna in the morning, a day's wage in the evening.
[00:16:50] Bread at this table.
[00:16:53] Enough.
[00:16:54] Before the Israelites learned to trust, there was enough. Before they stopped longing for Egypt, there was enough. Before the workers understood the strange generosity of the vineyard owner, there was enough.
[00:17:09] And before we figured out grace or justice or who deserves what. There is enough.
[00:17:15] In God, there is always, always enough.
[00:17:22] We are always enough.
[00:17:26] There is bread, and the bread comes first.
[00:17:32] Am.
