Exodus 16: Receiving the Manna with Open Hands

Introduction

The week before this service, after the worship service at his home church, an old man came to Jonas Fuchs. "Behind us lies a good life. After the Holocaust, we never would have thought that things would go so well for us, with prosperity, with peace. I am grateful to God." Then he added: "But the outlook for your life, your future, what lies ahead of you, I'm afraid it will be different."

Jonas Fuchs is the pastor of the Mosaikkirche, a church plant in Mainz that tries to talk about faith with people who have nothing to do with it yet. Invited by the FeG Mainz for their harvest thanksgiving service, he asks the question this day raises: how do we keep gratitude in our hearts in the middle of the worries of our time, in a world where bad news travels ten times faster than good news and where the future seems to promise only loss, decline and threat?

To answer, he opens Exodus 16, "this very old text that begins with ingratitude and ends with gratitude."

Message Outline

1. Israel is ungrateful

The people left Egypt only a few weeks ago. They crossed the parted sea and are walking toward the promised land. And then reality hits: there is nothing here, we are going to starve.
Israel despairs, Israel raises its voice, Israel becomes ungrateful. The whole assembly rises up against Moses, the man who had risked everything before Pharaoh: "We wish that we had died by Yahweh's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate bread to the full!" (Exodus 16:3).
Moses and Aaron know this is not aimed at them: "What are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against Yahweh" (Exodus 16:7-8).
And they are right. It was the Lord who called Moses at the burning bush, sent the plagues, struck fear into the Egyptians, filled the pockets of the Israelites with gold, opened the sea, defeated the Egyptian army and led Israel safely to freedom. The people's anger is raised against him.

2. Fear, the opposite of gratitude

"Anger and rage are excellent indicators." They are the symptom of a deeper sickness of the heart. In Israel's case, behind the anger there is the fear of starving to death.
"Maybe fear is the opposite of gratitude." Someone who is afraid is not grateful. Fear takes up all the space and clouds the senses until we lose all footing. Those who have had a panic attack, or who lie awake at night with their thoughts spinning in circles, know what he is talking about.
The pastor takes a short detour into neurobiology. The amygdala, the part of the brain that detects danger, reacts by reflex. He tells how a spider crawled out of the glove compartment while his wife was driving: she braked, unbuckled her seat belt, turned off the engine and opened the door.
Then the prefrontal cortex, the seat of conscious thought, weighs things up: the spider may not be that dangerous, and stepping out into the middle of the road probably is more so. "Our reason is slower than our fear."
Hunger makes the amygdala more sensitive and weakens the voice of reason. Israel is hungry, Israel is afraid, and it can no longer judge soundly. Anger erupts, and the result is ingratitude toward Moses and toward God.
"Honestly, I can understand Israel's ingratitude quite well." They are starving.

3. Our ingratitude in the midst of abundance

Our own ingratitude, on the other hand, the pastor understands less. We are not in the desert. Our refrigerators are overflowing, our supermarkets are full, and we choose between white bread, whole wheat bread, rye bread and multigrain bread. "We are doing well. We have enough."
And yet the complaints are as numerous as the sand of the desert: "Everything used to be better." Back then, gas was affordable, a young family could buy a house, and the trains ran on time.
Even Christians, he observes, are not known for their gratitude and their confident outlook on the future, even though the good God who will take care of us is right there.
Our situation does not look like Israel's in the desert, but like Israel's in Egypt. There, they had meat and bread, but bread that was hard earned. Fear makes us forget the taskmasters, the violence and the cries. It shows only a fragment of reality.
We, too, earn our bread. "You don't get anything for free in life," "we are worth what we produce": this is the logic of our time. So what good is a God who gives by grace? What I pay for is owed to me.
And our demands keep growing: a right to fulfilling work, to cheap housing, to health, to a fulfilling sex life, to having a child when we want one. The world is no longer seen as a free and generous gift.
The pastor calls this "practical atheism": in theory, we believe in a God from whom everything comes; in practice, from Monday to Friday, we live without him. Gratitude gets buried under a heap of consumer goods, the heart grows cold, and we end up asking: "Harvest thanksgiving? What for?"

4. God shows grace, because God acts

God does not take Israel's accusations personally. He is not offended, and he does not answer anger with anger. "God is not like us."
"It is not only fear but also love that narrows our gaze." God looks past the injustice shouted in his face and sees Israel's distress, just as he had seen their misery and heard their cries in Egypt.
The first thing God does is come to meet the people: while Aaron is speaking, everyone looks toward the wilderness, and the glory of Yahweh appears in the cloud (verse 10). He is not an abstract God, far above all distress.
This is the same God who, in Jesus, drew near and became tangible, standing beside the blind, the sick and the hungry. And thousands of years later, he is the one who is present in your distress, your struggle, your fear.
Then God performs a miracle: "a buffet falls from the sky." Quail in the evening, and all there is left to do is help yourself and fire up the grill. In the morning, fine flakes like coriander seed, tasting like wafers with honey (Exodus 16:31), "sweet like the grace of God."

5. Manna, the antidote to performance culture

The Israelites stand there with their mouths open, these strange grains in their hands, and ask: "What is it?" (Exodus 16:15). In Hebrew, "man hu." They call it manna.
Every time they spoke of manna, they remembered their astonishment: remember? Every morning this bread is there, God takes care of us.
His grace is renewed every morning. For forty years, until the crossing of the Jordan, God gives enough for the day. Only then does the manna stop.
"Manna is the antidote to every performance culture," and to the lies of our hearts. It is not earned, it is received. It is not a right to demand, it is a gift.

6. Receiving with open hands

The pastor tells a story recounted by the theologian James Mackey. On a hunting expedition in Africa, a man comes back to camp with a few wild cranes tied to his belt. He feels he is being followed: a young boy, naked and visibly starving, is walking behind him.
The man unties his belt, lets the birds drop and steps back to show the boy that he may take them. But the boy refuses to pick them up. Finally, he steps back, stands with arms outstretched and hands open, and waits for the man to come and place the birds in his hands.
"Despite his hunger, his fear and his great distress, he had refused to simply take the birds. He waited to be given them." Israel could have done the same: grateful, receiving, without demanding.
The pastor quotes Ronald Rolheiser: "As Christians, we must practice receiving everything," our life, our health, the people around us, friendship, food, beauty. "As long as we take life for granted, we will never recognize the giver behind the gift."
Harvest thanksgiving is a feast of receiving: it reminds us each year that nothing in life is a given.
Why does God perform miracles? "Then you shall know that I am Yahweh your God" (Exodus 16:12). Miracles point to God, so that we recognize the giver behind the gift.
And grace makes us grateful. Karl Barth wrote that to charis, grace, only eucharistia, gratitude, can respond. "Gratitude follows grace like thunder follows lightning."

7. Practicing gratitude every day

Israel receives manna every day. We, too, must bring gratitude into our daily lives and watch for every scrap of blessing, especially when times are hard. Paul says it: "in everything give thanks" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Many studies show that a gratitude journal changes the way we think. Asking yourself once a day "what am I grateful for today?" and naming three things leads to more joy. Writing at greater length has more effect, but small exercises already count: "the main thing is to start somewhere."
These lists train the prefrontal cortex "like a gym workout." The voice of reason grows stronger against fear and impulses.
Another habit through which Christians have trained their gratitude for two thousand years is the Lord's Supper. Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and said: "This is my body, which is for you."
At the Lord's Supper, we receive the forgiveness of our sins, and the love and welcome that feed us every day. "This love, we cannot earn." We receive it with open hands.
Before communion, the pastor invites the congregation to sit up straight, with open hands resting on their knees, as a gesture of offering and receiving. "Every breath is a gift." Then he asks his questions: what are you worried about? What are you afraid of? When were you last surprised, filled with wonder? Hold all of this out to God.

Key Takeaways

Anger is a symptom: behind Israel's murmuring there is fear, and fear makes us forget God's grace.
Abundance does not protect against ingratitude. When everything is earned and paid for, we live as "practical atheists" from Monday to Friday.
God does not answer anger with anger: he comes into the midst of distress and gives what we need to live, every morning.
Manna is not earned, it is received. Miracles exist so that we recognize the giver behind the gift.
Gratitude can be practiced: a daily journal, the Lord's Supper, open hands before God.

Personal Application

What anger or complaint often comes out of your mouth, and what fear is hiding behind it?
In which areas do you live as if you needed God only on Sunday?
Which "demands" have you turned into rights, to the point of forgetting that they are gifts?
Can you write down, tonight, three things you are grateful for today, and start again tomorrow?
What are you worried about right now, and when were you last filled with wonder? Hold both out to God, with open hands.

Scriptures Quoted

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do the Israelites murmur in Exodus 16?

A few weeks after leaving Egypt, the people are afraid of starving to death in the desert. For Jonas Fuchs, the anger against Moses and Aaron is the symptom of that fear. And it is really aimed at God himself, as Moses says: "What are we?" When fear arrives, we forget God's grace.

What does the word manna mean?

Looking at these fine grains, the Israelites ask: "What is it?", in Hebrew "man hu." The name stuck. Every time they spoke of manna, they remembered their astonishment at the grace of God, who fed them every morning for forty years.

How can you become more grateful according to this message?

Jonas Fuchs suggests looking every day for signs of blessing, for example by writing down three reasons for gratitude. This exercise strengthens the voice of reason in the face of fear. He also points to the Lord's Supper, where for two thousand years Christians have received, with open hands, what they cannot earn.