Readings: Psalm 51:1-12, Exodus 16:1-15; Ephesians 4:1-16, John 6:24-35
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, MD, August 1, 2021
Our readings focused on 2 incidents, "Manna from Heaven" and Jesus teaching that He was "Bread of Life." I'd like to offer some thoughts on what I'm calling "Everyday Miracles."
Let's start with the Hebrew people. You probably know the story of how Moses led them out of Egypt into the Wilderness and how once they were there they started to complain, "At least in Egypt we had something to eat! We're starving out here." Moses promises them that sustenance will come, meat for the evening and bread for the morning. And so it was, quail for supper and manna for breakfast.
"Give us meat" they said. The quail came and everybody said it was a miracle.
Yet sometimes maybe the miracle we observe, is not the miracle we expect. Let me explain. Without wanting to diminish the sense of wonder or the ability of God to do amazing things, we know that nature herself can be a source of amazing provision.
Quails are found in countless numbers on the shores of the Mediterranean and their annual migration is still an event that causes great excitement as they move in vast flocks towards Africa. It's an exhausting flight, done in stages. When the birds stop to take a rest, they are so exhausted that they can easily be picked up and captured.
So maybe the miracle wasn't so much that the quail came, it seems they had an annual migration pattern, but rather that, as the people of Israel responded to the call of God, they were in that place, at that time, when the quails arrived and were easily picked up.
And then there is the manna. In the wilderness where the Israelites camped lives an insect known as Najacoecus Serpentinus. I'm not making this stuff up. Look it up on the internet. If it's on the internet, it has to be true. Right?
Now... the sap from the Tamarisk bush on which these insects feed is rich in carbohydrates but low in nitrogen. In order to aquire enough nitrogen for their metabolism to operate properly, the Najacoecus Serpentinus consume an enormous amount of sap.
The excess from this process passes from the insect in the form of honeydew excretions which the desert air changes into clumps of sticky solids, which turn a whitish yellow color.
These solid lumps are thought, by a number of bible commentators, to be the “manna” that the people of Israel collected and ate in the wilderness. The Hebrews called it a miracle. As with the quails, maybe the miracle wasn't so much that the manna was there, but that they were in that place, at that time, to receive it.
Our lives continue to be surrounded by everyday miracles, many of which, if we work hard at it, can be found to have a rational explanation. What we cannot explain though is how we happen to be in a certain place at a certain time when a certain thing, which has a certain outcome, takes place.
I cannot tell you, how many times, over many years of ministry, that as I've opened up to God in prayer and asked, “Lord, what's on Your agenda today?” I just happened to have been positioned in a situation where I could offer something.
This is something I learned early in my discipleship journey, not in seminary, but from ordinary people of faith. Long before I was a minster, as a young person, I was working on a job scheme, helping old folks tidy up their gardens. I recall visiting one particular lady, and she said, 'C'mon in when you have finished, I'll have your favorite cake ready.” (Which at that time just happened to be Ginger flavored.)
“That's strange,” I thought. “Firstly, you didn't know I was coming today. Secondly, we have never met, so how would you know what my favorite cakes was?” But sure enough, when I went in, there was a piece of ginger cake! When I looked puzzled, the lady said, “Last night in my prayers, I asked God what to be ready for...and God put the idea in my head to provide ginger cake. As it's not my favorite, I figured it must be yours.”
A saintly lady of God, confined to her home, needing assistance to get through every single day... yet experiencing the faithfulness of and reality of God's presence and being a blessing to others!
For me that is that is the real miracle... the timing and provision of the Holy Spirit. Nothing less than the Grace of God. One of the essentials of discipleship is cultivating within ourselves the kind of spiritual sensitivity that discovers the sacred within the common occurrences of everyday life.
If we don't do that we will find ourselves in the same boat as the people in our New Testament reading, who came to Jesus and said to Him, "What miracle will you perform so that we may see it and believe in You? You know, our ancestors had manna in the desert!"
There they were, talking with Jesus, who was a flesh and blood sign of God's grace and presence in their midst, and they could not see it. Instead they are saying, "Let God knock us off our feet, astound us... and then we will believe."
Wasn't it enough that Jesus had healed broken hearts, made outcasts acceptable and drowned fear with a flood of love? Had they not already had overwhelming evidence of His capabilities? Even if Jesus had done some Divine magic trick, would it have made any difference? They saw nothing and they felt nothing because they lacked the capacity to discover the sacred within the common-place.
Jesus tells them, "What God wants you to do is to believe in the One He has sent." What God desired for them was not that they seek for some blinding light or dramatic experience but that they wake up to the fact that in the flesh and blood of human existence and in the everyday miracles of grace and life, they could discover the miracle of God's presence.
That is something that I believe we have to do as well. For most of us, most of the time, life goes on in a very ordinary fashion. We are not looking for, or expecting miracles. We are not expecting God to show up, because we are not always showing up for God! We allow our self sufficiency and pride to direct us, rather than recognizing our dependence on God's grace for every breath we take.
Before I left for some vacation time, last month the United States celebrated Independence Day. Somebody asked me if we have July 4th in my homelands of the United Kingdom. I told them of course we have it. July 4th is the day before July 5th. But do we celebrate an Independence Day holiday? Of course not. Losing that rebellion in the colonies wasn't exactly a high point in British history!
As people and nations we celebrate the good things, not the times we have lost out. That's why coming together as the people of God once a week for worship is so important for nurturing our Christian faith. We gather together to open our hearts and lives, to remind ourselves that without God, we are nothing, we have nothing and we need God's love, and God's Spirit and the message of Jesus Christ to experience the everyday miracles of grace.
"What God wants you to do" says Jesus, "Is believe in the One He sent." When we fail to practice disciplines of daily prayer, and fail to take the time to make worship an important part of our routine, friends, we forget. We forget.
From time to time I like to do this. Repeat after me.
“There is a God” “There is a God”
“And it isn't me.” “And it isn't me”
We don't need independence from God. We need to have a deeper dependence upon God. For our sake. For our families sake. For our communities sake. We cannot serve without being equipped for service, and it is in God's church that we are trained for service, called to practice loving each other, so we can love the world that Christ died for. Jesus came, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
The Hebrew people cried out to God "Help us out here in the Wilderness." God already had it all figured out. The quails and the manna were there but it took an act of faith to realize it. The people cried out to Jesus, "Show us a miracle and then we'll believe." But the miracle had already taken place. He was there, in flesh and blood, standing with them. But they lacked the faith to believe it.
So what of us as we go about our ordinary lives? Will we trust God to meet us in our needs? Will we recognize Him in the everyday miracles that surround our daily lives?
We are here surrounded by the Grace of God in the presence of His people, past, present and to come. Every weekend God lays before us an opportunity to worship, to seek Him to share our lives with Him. Christ died for our sins and was raised to bring us new life.
This is no little thing. Unless our hearts make it so. We need to recognize that it is through the ordinary that God seeks to do the extraordinary. "What God wants you to do is believe in the One He sent".
Believe in the capability of God's Holy Spirit,
to take the common things of life and make them miraculous.
Believe that the Christian message is the message for your everyday life.
Believe that being a community of faith, in age of unbelief,
is a challenge to be embraced, and a goal to work towards.
As we share together in bread and wine
and worship and service
may God renew us
that we may help others
discover everyday miracles
within them and around their lives.
AMEN.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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