October 5, 2025 - Trusting that God Provides Manna for All

 

Reading: Exodus 16:1-18 

Sermon 

The story of manna in the wilderness is not simply about food. Manna is the product of God's teaching a liberated people how to live differently. This weekend, as I write, this reading is a well-timed lesson for Portland, Oregon. The Oregon National Guard has been deployed. Who knows what will happen by the time this coming Sunday rolls around?

The Israelites, newly freed from Pharaoh, find themselves in the desert, hungry and afraid. Freedom is not as easy as they imagined. Their first instinct is to long for the past, even for the days of slavery, because at least then the bread and safety seemed certain.

Fear always makes what happened in the past look safer and more stable than it was. I understand how this is attractive. I want a past where I felt safer. I dread escalating clashes during the night more than I did before this weekend. And I certainly can understand and empathize with the frustration of those who live near ICE facilities, where noise remains a persistent issue. However, even they know that sending troops here will not solve the noise disturbances.

Dramatic threats of "providing troops authorized to use full force" that stoke national divisions will not finally stop future confrontations between ICE and ICE protesters.  The last time I am aware of a protester threatening ICE officers or the building was in June, and that was handled by local law enforcement. 

I truly believe that the government's best response to any challenge, like God's, is not answered by exerting unilateral, unwanted control, but rather offering the "bread" of cooperation, coordination, and continued conversation. Helping Manna rains down, not in excess, not as luxury, but as sufficiency. Each day’s gift is enough, no more and no less. God’s lesson is profound: liberation is not only escaping Pharaoh, but unlearning Pharaoh’s economy of hoarding, anxiety, and exploitation. God shapes the people toward an economy of enough for everyone. 

Creator is currently modeling this economy on a small scale with the thriving Farmland Produce Distribution Project garden on Creator’s property. We are also engaging with the diversity, support, and prayers we are currently sharing with our current neighbors, the Madres.

This vision of sufficiency and sharing contrasts sharply with the voices of fear and division in our own world. We hear leaders describe cities, like ours, as “war-ravaged” and “out of control,” invoking images of scarcity, danger, and chaos. Such rhetoric is not far from the Israelites’ cry: “If only we had died in Egypt, when we ate our fill of bread!” It is the language of fear, telling us that safety must lie in control, in force, in protecting what we imagine is ours from those we imagine are threats.

But the manna story refuses this narrative. God’s answer to fear is not domination but provision. God does not send battalions to patrol the wilderness; God sends bread that all can gather equally. The divine pattern is not “full force if necessary,” but shared sufficiency. In God’s economy, no one hoards at another’s expense, no one is left hungry, and rest itself is sacred.

In the manna story, sufficiency is not only about daily bread but also about sacred rest. On the seventh day, no manna fell, and no one needed to gather. God built Sabbath into the pattern of provision, reminding the people that freedom also means freedom from endless work and anxiety. Some say this has been years in the making. Overall, describing Portland as war-ravaged is simply an inaccurate mischaracterization to fit into some "insurrection" narrative. It does not currently apply to this city.  

In our time, any deployed troops are currently a radical and a temporary corrective. We are told repeatedly that resources are scarce, that enemies are everywhere, that we must cling tightly to what we have and defend it with force. Yet manna whispers a different truth: abundance comes when we trust God’s provision and live in solidarity. True security does not come from militarization or fear of our neighbors. A loving, long-lasting response comes from ensuring that every neighbor has bread in their hands.

The manna story, then, is not a nostalgic myth but a radical vision. God’s justice looks like daily bread shared freely, enough for each, with no one left out and no one left wanting. Against the voices that call for fear, division, and force, manna invites us into God’s alternative economy: sufficiency, equality, and rest.

I am listening to and trusting in this coming Sunday's scripture. 

September 28, 2025 - A Burning Bush and God's Holy Name

Reading:  Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15; 4:10-17 

Sermon 

Pastor Emillie informed us that what we read during the beginning of the Narrative Lectionary year 4 supports the Gospel of John, which starts being read in January. Genesis connected the upcoming John readings to themes like creation, Word, light, covenant, temple, Passover, manna, water, and Spirit.

Exodus connects us to Jesus as the bread of life, living water, and the lamb of God. We start on this reading where Israel groans under oppression. Their cries rise, and the text tells us God “heard,” “remembered,” “looked,” and “took notice.” These verbs matter. Before God calls Moses, God listens. Today, we can sometimes feel that God is silent. The God we encounter in Exodus is not distant or indifferent; God is responsive and is moved by human suffering. This God is stirred into action by lament.

When Moses encounters God at the burning bush, the first revelation is not a theological treatise but presence: fire that does not consume, holiness that interrupts the ordinary. Moses is told to take off his shoes to recognize that the ground is already sacred.

A single bush should be fragile, easily consumed by fire. Yet here it blazes without being destroyed. This image resists the idea of one person “burning out” to accomplish God’s work. Instead, it points to a source of energy and presence beyond the self. Liberation does not depend on Moses’ strength alone. What results is sustained by God’s presence and by community.

Clearly, holiness is in the ordinary. The bush is not grand, not a cedar or an oak, just a scrubby desert bush. God chooses the ordinary to carry the extraordinary. Likewise, liberation does not rise from one heroic figure but from ordinary people, places, and shared struggles. It decentralizes heroism. Moses is not portrayed as extraordinary here.

Moses’ call begins with an interruption, not an achievement. Moses also isn’t seeking greatness; he’s tending sheep. God interrupts the everyday and calls him not as a solitary savior but as part of a larger story: God hears the cries of the people, and Moses is one voice among many who will act. Later, Aaron, Miriam, and the whole community join in the work. 

Finally, the fire symbolizes God’s sustaining presence. Fire can consume, but here it empowers. Moses’s role isn’t to be the heroic fire himself but to carry the message of the One whose fire sustains a whole people through their journey to freedom. 

Liberation begins in the awareness that God is present where we stand, even in the wilderness of exile and oppression. I also hear an echo here of what came to Jacob in his dream or when he finally meets Esau face-to-face, Jacob does not hide behind masks anymore. He takes action, recognizing his past mistakes, not because he has suddenly become heroic, but because he is finally facing the one he wronged and rises to a true call and relationship. 

At the heart of this story: Moses asks for God’s name. In the ancient world, knowing a name meant having a relationship, a point of trust. God does not give a fixed, controllable label. Instead, God offers mystery: Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, translated as “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be.” God’s identity cannot be pinned down, yet is revealed in relationship, in action, in promise. This is not a God to be owned or wielded, but a God who will be faithfully present in unfolding history.

Moses resists the call. He names his inadequacies, his stammering tongue, his fear of leadership. God does not deny his weakness but answers it: “I will be with your mouth.” Still, when Moses cannot imagine himself as enough, God provides Aaron. To summarize, two primary truths are consistently revealed:

• God’s calling is not about solitary heroism, but about shared vocation and
• God hears the cries of the oppressed and acts, oftentimes through us.  

To know God’s name is to be drawn into liberation work, even when we individually feel unqualified. Our inadequacies do not disqualify us; they become the space where God’s presence and community sustain us.

In Jesus, there is the resonance of I Am. We live lives that embody God’s liberating presence among the poor, the excluded, and the broken. To know God’s name, then, is not to solve a riddle but to join a story: the story of a God who hears, remembers, and comes alongside us, calling us into the work of justice and freedom.