A whole industry has grown up in recent years around wilderness adventures. The reality TV phenomenon began with the show “Survivor” that pitted teams against each other trying to survive in some remote location. It captured large audiences, so various versions of that plot have emerged in other shows. There’s the man who goes out alone and films himself in challenging remote settings as a way of teaching survival skills. Then there’s the newest version that has two strangers – a man and a woman – enter a wild and remote location naked, taking nothing with them but a few items in a back pack. Of course, there’s the ubiquitous Go-Pro camera (and one would assume a small camera crew of some sort) to record their survival ups and downs as they try to make it through to their promised land. There was an article in the Berkshire Eagle recently about a young man who was one of the participants in this adventure. Apparently there’s no monetary reward at the end of this show, unlike the “Survivor” adventures, just a bit of notoriety and the affirmation that you made it through an extreme challenge. My husband and I have a friend who is a physician (a pathologist) who regularly participates in adventure challenges — hiking through the Gobi Desert, running multiple marathons in a two week span in Iceland, or running up a mountain. Bob can’t go many months without needing the adrenalin rush and mental and physical challenge of participating in some form of extreme adventure. He believes the stamina and problem-solving skills he gains on those treks carry over into his professional and family life. There’s also the fine work of the Outward Bound program that has been around for decades, where the focus is not so much on entertainment, as on helping youth and adults change their lives and develop leadership skills through challenging themselves in an outdoor setting — moving beyond their familiar territory to a new world, in a sense. The physical and mental challenge is real. Getting from the beginning point to the goal isn’t always easy and often meets with resistance, but the possibility of life transformation is great. At their best, all these adventure challenges, even the television ones, are about finding who we are and how we can survive, both as an individual and as part of a group. In most cases, trust is an integral part of the equation.
In the book of Exodus in scripture, the Hebrew people were on one great Outward Bound Wilderness Adventure. This wasn’t make-believe or staged for TV with a camera crew in the wings, but real live adventure — wandering in the desert of the Sinai Peninsula for years. They had left behind the negative and punishing life of Egyptian slavery, but in doing so they also left behind melons and cucumbers (who wouldn’t miss those garden delicacies!). Gone were beds and permanent shelter. They were left with not knowing what the next day would bring or where the next meal would come from. They were entering into a life of freedom, while headed toward the the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey, a promise that represented the richness and abundance that was not their right as Egyptian slaves. In between those two extremes was the wilderness — sparse, barren, dangerous extremes of temperature, little food (definitely no melons and cucumbers and no way to plant a garden), much walking, no permanent place to sleep at night, no regular routine, a time and space fraught with uncertainty and frustration.
As the novelty and excitement of leaving Egypt wore out, they began to complain….”Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” When can we stop for dinner?” “Is this hardship really worth it?” “Remember how much better things used to be in Egypt?” They cried out to their leader, “Moses, do something!”
The Lord God heard their cries in the wilderness, just as the Lord God heard their cries back in Egypt. This God who hears the cries of the oppressed and those in need provided for them again — not grand provisions like parting the Red Sea, just a small thing — food for the day. There was manna, a bread-like substance from the desert tamarisk trees; and there were quail, migrating birds growing weary on their flight, and therefore easy to capture.
The key words here are “Food for the Day.” The Hebrews were told to take only what they needed for one day. If they were greedy and tried to hoard the manna, it would spoil and be unusable. The next key word then is “Trust.” These whining wilderness wanderers were to take just enough food to sustain them for a day, and they were being asked to give their trust that there would be something for the following days. Trust seems so simple, yet is so difficult. Remember their situation — former slaves, following a leader into an unknown territory with the promise of a better life in an even more unknown place. Would your trust be strong enough to take only the food needed for today?
Evidence shows that we humans are not a very trusting lot. We hoard all sorts of things. As a nation we do this, and many individuals do it, also. My neighbor in Paducah, KY had a garage and two other rooms full of floor-to-ceiling shelves on which she kept carefully cleaned ketchup bottles and old flower vases and bits and pieces of this and that. She and her husband had to add another garage to their house to have any hope of sheltering their car. It was amazing and a bit scary to see all the odd items they hoarded. Then when we were preparing to move last year, I had to admit that I did the same thing with books and papers! Each of us probably has some piece of our life that we hang on to and perhaps even hoard just in case we might need it someday or out of a misplaced fear that there isn’t enough to go around. We often operate from a theology of scarcity, when God calls us to trust in abundance. Abundance defined as enough for all, if we take only what we need for today, that is. Simple living is a necessity in the desert or on an outward bound adventure, but it is a choice placed before most of us in our daily lives.
“Give us this day our daily bread” is a line from the Lord’s Prayer that glibly rolls off our tongues week after week. Is this what Jesus really means? Can it be true that there will be enough for today? Can we really trust that when tomorrow comes, the manna — daily bread — will be there? It was difficult for the ancient Hebrews to believe and it is difficult for us. Like the admonition so frequently repeated in 12 Step Recovery Programs, however, we are often called to move one day at a time, one step at a time. Trust in God’s goodness. Trust in God’s care. Trust in God’s ability to provide for God’s creatures. Trust that God hears your complaints. Trust in God’s presence in the wilderness places of our lives.
Endurance adventures help teach us the lessons of trust and dependence on others and accepting sustenance — food — that may not be the gourmet meal we expected, but will do quite nicely to keep us alive and moving forward. For the ancient Hebrews on their wilderness survival adventure, the food was manna, quail, and water. Do you suppose they ever stopped complaining or wishing for a different menu? Probably not. But in their trials in the desert wilderness they learned to trust a bit more in the never-failing presence of their Lord God. So that they would never forget the lessons learned, Moses and Aaron put a day’s supply of manna in a jar and set it near the ark of the covenant to be kept for generations to come. Thus it became a sacramental memorial. The jar of manna witnessed to the generous fidelity of God in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt. It asserted that bread was given, God is faithful, life in the wilderness is possible, and the Hebrews are safe as they trek through the unknown. (New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 1, p. 814)
In the life of the Christian church, this kind of sacramental memorialization is seen in the Eucharist. Our act of regular communion reenacts and keeps visioning what the world will be like when the bread from heaven is not hoarded, but is trusted in by the community on a daily basis. (New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 1, p. 816) Bread that is broken and shared among the community has power for life that bread does not have when it is guarded and hoarded. Sometimes we suddenly realize that, like the loaves and fishes story told in the New Testament, there are baskets left over to give away to the hungry. I suspect that is a lesson this congregation continually learns as you share the bounty of Gideon’s Garden each summer and fall.
In the Eucharist, the Christian community does a rather counter-cultural thing. We continue to “watch the jar” so to speak, tell the story of a movement from slavery to freedom, and imagine another bread that is taken and given, blessed and broken for the life of the world.
Give us this day our daily bread, we pray. Take and eat, all you who hunger and gather to worship in this place. Holy manna is our bread. Jesus Christ is the living bread. Trust that In God’s economy, there is enough for all to be fed. Taste and see that God is good, in the past, the present, and the future. Amen.