by Ben Roe
Have you ever found yourself identifying with the Hebrews in the journey they are taking in the story from Exodus? It seems to me that life often is like that for us. We have left the former things, but seem not to have arrived yet at the promised land.
One of the areas in which this is most obvious is the area of a new relationship or marriage. Each person has left the state of singleness and yet the new state of togetherness is not yet clearly put on, to use Paul's language. I like to encourage couples to be intentional about developing the tools of relationship, because relationships are not something that just come naturally.
Another area in which we might identify is the ending of the Cold War and yet not being in a state of peace, where the rapidly changing realities make for confusion and nostalgia!
Life for the new Christian believer especially might seem like the experience of that moment when one has let go of one trapeze bar while reaching for the next, suspended between no longer and not yet.
One who has just gotten a new job can experience this in between state.
In the Exodus story, the Hebrews had been delivered from their Egyptian oppressors. They had safely crossed the Sea of Reeds (probably not the Red Sea itself, by the way) and were impatient for the promised land. It was not materializing yet. All there was, was desert and more desert.
The story talks about them “murmuring”--muttering might be an apt word, too! “We would rather be back where at least we had enough food—why, you just brought us out here to starve!” they said to Moses. “We want to go back to where we at least know what the problems are!” They murmured, “We want to go back to the way things used to be!”
One might imagine that Moses could be a bit impatient himself at their murmuring. He went through quite a bit of soul-searching (with God's pushing!) to decide to be their leader. He took not a little risk himself, and maybe he's not sure either where God is leading them!
Moses is wise enough, though, to know that the murmuring is not so much against him, as it is against God and arises out of a lack of trust in God.
With the grace of deliverance comes our reluctance to die to the old, our hanging back from the new, a not-yet-clear vision of a new existence.
One of the images of the story, though, is that even in this situation between the times, we can know the sustaining grace of God, if we are willing to look for it, pick it up, and eat it, like the manna on the ground. And we have to KEEP living on faith, because it can't be stored up!
In the midst of our scary wilderness of change and uncertainty, we are fed and sustained by faith in the God who won't abandon us!
In the reading from Ephesians, the writer from the Pauline school is dealing with the behavior of the saved. We need to be aware that they transformation of whidch the writer speaks is not only a moral one. It is a more total transformation of our whole selves. The problem of what we do, how we act, and who we are in our journey of faith is that we are in the middle of a shift from one nature to another, from being “in sin” to being “in grace” as this writer would put it.
We are between no longer and not yet.
I find John Wesley's thoughts helpful here. The grace to accept Christ and to believe, is what he called justifying grace, that “first dose” that puts us right with God,m that sets our new direction or course for the next part of the journey. But that is just a beginning. We are now going ton to perfection; we are in that longer process of sanctifying grace, when we are growing in understanding, like the crowd in the reading from John. We are growing in our understanding of what it means to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves with our whole being.
We are between being no longer slaves to the perishable values of the world, but not yet within our new clothing, or our “new likeness.” We are, in that great Latin phrase of Luther's, simul justus et peccator—we are at the same time saint and sinner.
We arew between no longer and not yet.
We are between deliverance and the promised land. We have decided we need to leave the bondages we have been in and head for a new freedom to be who we have been called to be.
What resources do we have in this situation? What can sustain us between the times? The reading from John has some help.
You might know that this reading is similar to a part of Mark's gospel, the 8th chapter, where that interesting Hebrew term “murmuring” occurs again.
John uses the misunderstanding of the crowd to build his understanding of Jesus as the bread of life. At the beginning of the reading, we hear Jesus promise to give the people this new bread. At the end, it is: “I am the bread of life.”
When we find ourselves between no longer and not yet, sometimes we are like the crowd in this story.
We lives our lives trying just to survive from one day, week, or year to the next, to keep enough saved up in case there is trouble. We are “nature's” person in this case, trying to survive just like any other creature. We strive and struggle hard for the bread that perishes, and we think that we therefore must struggle hard for the bread of eternal life.
And when we struggle for the bread of eternal life, we sometimes end up trying to use religion and God to get what we want. We struggle as a family to pray together so that we might stay together, as a bumper sticker in the 50's put it.
We go to church so that somehow we weill have perace of mind or prosperity and preferably both. We give to the church so that maybe our money problems might go away.
In this sense, we are nature's person, manipulating things, pushing the right buttons, doing the right things, knowing the right people, obeying the right rules and hoping for the reward.
We are also foolish human beings, valiantly (or maybe not so valiantly) going about our weary way of life, hoping for the winning lottery ticket, a delivering miracle, one that might save us from having to face the hard issues. Yet we are also suspicious of any promise. “What sign will you do?” “How do we know you are the Messiah?” “How do we know this is real?”
We are like the crowds, wanting something more, yet doubting. Can it really grow? What will I lose, what will I have to give up? Is there really deliverance? Is there really a God who will save me?
And we are also like the crowd in John, having deliverance right before us, having Jesus' spirit saying deliverance is here: “Believe in me.”
We tend to lose our perspective, we stick to solutions for the immediate problem. We sometimes even ask the wrong questions of life.
But what Jesus is trying to say is that we are really God's person. Loved, accepted, sought after, accompanied through the wilderness being offered sustaining food, justifying and sanctifying grace, patiently offered guidance and growth of understanding.
In this perspective, we are God's person. As God's being of nature, we are also decision-makers. As God's manipulators, we are also creators. As God's foolish people, we are also transcending, seeing beyond ourselves.
We are like bread: we can be only a chemical mixture battered and punched and kneaded—and we can be a medium of life, a sacrament and a means of grace!
We are between no longer and not yet. As believers, we are somehow no longer truly natural, worldly and foolish, burt we are not yet truly freed from the fears of living in the wilderness between deliverance and the promised land and led by One who knows the way. We are not yet fully risen and baked loaves.
But we can be sustained, we can be and are fed by the true bread of heaven, the creative, transforming power of the Christ. This means to me that we are given meaning and purpose, we are given a new way to see life.
We celebrate new beginnings, new life, new relationships in the midst of the troubles and struggles of life. We live between the time of no longer being enslaved by despair and helplessness, but not yet in the promised land of peace where all things are made new.
We Christian believers know what trouble and celebration can be like. Our bread from heaven, the preaching of the word, and the holy meal celebrate our deliverance. But we also know that deliverance comes at a high price. Moses had to risk with his people; Jesus had to take the upfront risks to offer a new way.
And the people asked for a sign. Deliverance was within grasp, but it was rejected and crucified. Deliverance is here for us, too, but we often reject it, doubt it, ask how we'll know, and let our fear of starving keep us from really trusting. It won't be really real. It's too good to be true.
Deliverance was there, and it looked like a lost cause, like so much of life. Yet on the morning of the third day... The Bread had risen. Death had been overcome. New life was upon us and deliverance had been secured.
We can respond like the new believers who accept baptism as a sign of the dying of the old and the rising to the new. We die daily to the old, and rise to the new, by God's grace.
We can live a life of celebration in the midst of trouble and struggle, knowing that we are between the times when meaning has come into the world, but not all have seen it. We have changed our direction, but we have not arrived at the new destination. We live a life of celebration because we, too, can be made new, we too can rise like bread to become a means of grace and deliverance to all the world.
We too can rise like bread, giving witness to the growth in grace within us.
We too can rise like bread to become the means of nourishment for a starving world.
Sermon preached at Warren and St. Paul United Methodist Churches, Denver, August, 1990, Jefferson County Larger Parish United Methodist Churches, September-October, 1976, and the Community of Grace, Lincoln, Nebraska, July, 1983.