THE PROTAGONIST 4: MOSES
March 22, 2015
As we approach Easter, we need to prepare ourselves for the seriousness of this season and consider the important things…like Easter candy. This past week, my son, Bennett was introduced to his first Cadbury Easter egg. You need to see his response:
As my young son has proven, food is more than fuel. It is a big part of life. We often remember vacations and events around the food that was served. In the story of life, food is important; in some of the best stories, food helps tell the story. As in real life, food isn’t just fuel, it is a part of who we are. Meals are not utilitarian events but usually planned rituals. What we like, how we prepare it and how we serve it says something about us because that is true in life, and it is definitely true in good stories.
Dr. Seuss brought us green eggs and ham as an ode to trying new things. Oliver Twist brought us the unappealing gruel as a snapshot of the low station in life of the orphan protagonist. Alice in Wonderland takes us to a bizarre tea party that tells you everything you need to know about wonderland. Jack Kerouac’s character ate more and more apple pie and ice cream as he moved westward in On the Road.
In all of these stories, food is a part of the story. It helps tell the story. In To Kill A Mockingbird, food plays a central theme. There are some 50 mentions of food in this literary classic, and it helps tell the story. Early on in To Kill A Mockingbirdwe meet a young boy named Walter Cunningham who is an acquaintance of Scout. He has no food at lunchtime at school, and this confuses his teacher. We learn a great deal about Walter, his teacher and Scout in this moment. We are also quickly introduced to the setting of the book, which happens from 1933-35. This is the heart of the Great Depression and a time of want. The wheat industry has gone completely under as wheat prices dropped through the floor, and in a farming community, this is a disaster. To add to the disaster it is also the Dustbowl era. You understand that food is not fuel but a measure of survival, a measure of station in life.
This moment of hunger stirs us because we know it isn’t an isolated event; if Walter is hungry now, he is probably hungry often. Some of us in this room have growling stomachs in the interim between breakfast and lunch. I am guessing most of us have never known hunger, not a growling stomach, but a distended one. I think we all know hunger can make us grumpy. It can make us irritable. When your appetite isn’t being met, when your hunger wells up, you often get to the heart of who a person really is. What they really hunger for. What truly satisfies them. Food helps tell the story.
Oliver Twist knew this. Walter Cunningham knew this. The Israelites knew this. I want to show you two stories today about hungry people and the God who feeds them. I want you to see a theological thread between these two stories and I want you to consider your appetite.
Exodus 16: 1-3
As a reminder for you of where we have been and how we got here, last week we looked at the story of Joseph. God used the circuitous journey of Joseph to provide for the sons of Israel. Joseph rose to power in the land of Egypt, and when a famine fell over the land, for seven years God used Joseph’s stewardship to provide for Egypt, the surrounding nations and the sons of Israel. Hunger brought them to Egypt and slavery kept them there. After Joseph and his generation died off, a new king of Egypt was fearful of the Israelites, oppressed them and finally enslaved them. For 400 years, the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt.
The book of Exodus tells the story of a deliverer. A young boy named Moses was saved when other infants were killed. He was a young boy who found safety in the land of Egypt, a young boy who spent a time of testing in the desert. He became a man who came to set captives free. Does any of this sound familiar? God uses Moses to set the Israelites free, but then that pesky moment arises. Now what? Now they are wandering through the desert and they are hungry. God has called a people for himself and he has set them free, but now what?
For those of you who are new or haven’t been here in awhile, we are in the final weeks of our series, “The Protagonist.” All good stories, like To Kill AMockingbird, have a great protagonist, a hero. Sometimes they aren’t always easy to identify, and if you aren’t sure of who the protagonist is, you aren’t always sure how to read the story or what you should get out of it. If Scout is the protagonist, then the primary lessons are around prejudice and gender roles. If Atticus is the protagonist, then the primary lessons are standing up for justice when no one else will. If Boo Radley is the protagonist, then the message is about quiet humble service. Identifying the protagonist informs how you read the story.
The same is true in the Bible. On the Emmaus road after his resurrection, Jesus told two men walking with him that he was the protagonist, not just of the New Testament but the Old Testament as well, not just of the Bible but all of human history. He is the hero. If that is true, it changes how you read the story. This is called the metanarrative, the big story of the Bible, and if Jesus is the hero, then the highest and best interpretation of Old Testament stories is finding how they point toward Jesus. In week one, we looked at how the story of Abraham and Isaac prepared our hearts for the idea of a sacrificial son. After that, we saw the story of Jacob and the cross-handed blessing of God, that we serve a God of reckless grace, a topsy-turvy inverted kingdom where grace is bestowed even where none is deserved. Last week, we saw the life of Joseph running parallel to that of Jesus and what seemed like evil and defeat actually led to victory. What man intends for evil, God uses for good.
This week, we look at the life of Moses. The parallels are many in the life of Moses. He was the infant that was saved, he was sent to Egypt, he was tested in the desert and he points toward the picture of slaves set free by a Passover lamb. Now we arrive at a story that comes after the declaration of freedom, a story about food, which is really a story about your soul. In this story today, I want to challenge how you see your maker and your relationship to him, how he views you and how it all comes down to food.
Exodus 16: 4-5
God is making provision for his people here. He is going to literally drop bread from the sky, but this story isn’t about food, because this passage goes on to say, that they will need to gather it anew each day. There is a portion for that day and that day only, except on the sixth day, in which they are to take a double portion. Why? Five days a week, you would gather a portion of food enough for you and for your family. No more. There will be no leftovers. On the sixth day, gather enough for days six and seven, so you can rest on the seventh day, the Sabbath.
God designs a system that will foster dependence and a relationship. People will need to do a daily ritual, and they will need to trust he will always provide for them. This isn’t a story about bread. It is a story about appetites and what we hunger for, and if we trust that God alone satisfies, and it is a story about how we relate to God.
Exodus 16: 12-18
Things seem to be going well. But that rarely lasts.
Exodus 16: 19-20
Hunger often exposes who we really are. Our appetites often expose what really satisfies us. God has given the Israelites a clear set of directions for the gathering of food and for some people that is not enough. They try to gather more, so they won’t have to do it again tomorrow, or maybe they do it so they can sell it. We don’t know why, but they are hungry for something, and they are not satisfied.
A recurring item of food in To Kill A Mockingbird is Lane Cake. Lane Cake is a decidedly Southern treat. It’s a white fluffy cake, not unlike manna, but it doesn’t fall from heaven. It has the reputation of being very difficult to make. What really matters for a good Lane Cake is the key ingredient, brandy. There is a scene in To Kill AMockingbird when Scout talks about a Lane Cake so stout with brandy that it made her a bit tipsy. That begs the question- why are you eating it? What are you hungry for? A fluffy cake or a little buzz? Do you like the cake or what it can do for you?
In this passage, Moses’ anger isn’t about picking up extra manna. It is the story the food tells. That God isn’t enough. That he might not provide again or worse, maybe, that you want to take advantage of what he has offered. It paints an interesting picture.
Here is what I want you to see. In a few short chapters, the Israelites will receive the law, the Ten Commandments, the rituals, the cleansing and the sacrificial system. A big part of this system is coming daily for a fresh provision from God; it is more work to connect with God, regular festivals and sacrifices. Now keep in mind, the law is not bad and the sacrificial system isn’t bad, but the Israelites ended up making them bad.
The law and the sacrificial system were meant to foster a relationship and appropriate dependence, but they became a mechanism, a process to be checked off. Like an Israelite wandering around looking for extra manna, so too would their future kin mechanically participate in the sacrificial system. Instead of the law being designed for their flourishing and growth where they were amazed by God’s provision, they instead turned it into a system to be worked. Like a person mindlessly chewing their food, they did not savor God.
That brings us to the paradigm shift. God reached out and provided for us something to satisfy our stomachs and our souls. Instead of a meal to be savored, it became nutrition-less fast food, and so God reached further out to us.
John 6: 5-12
Jesus miraculously feeds 5,000 people, which is amazing in itself, but have you ever thought about the leftovers? Our Life Group meets on Sunday nights, and we take turns with each couple cooking the main dish. I really have not had much experience with this. Cooking for 10 adults and 10+ kids is hard to gauge how much people will eat. If the kids will like it or not determines how much they will eat. So, I usually try to err on the side of making too much. You don’t want a mob of hungry children and grumpy adults, so you could look at this passage and think maybe Jesus is looking at 5,000 people and just trying to not undershoot it.
I think you know there are no mistakes with Jesus. Everything has a purpose, even food, and food tells a story. When it comes to Jesus, there are leftovers, 12 baskets. Does that number sound familiar? We have twelve disciples and twelve tribes. That number is representative of humanity and the way God has a relationship with them. In this moment, there is enough for everyone to be satisfied and there are leftovers.
In the Old Covenant, people came to God daily with their sacrifices and their law. Each day it was a task to be done, like manna to be picked up. Then Jesus comes with leftovers. He comes with abundance, enough to satisfy you and then some more to spill over. Jesus makes this abundantly clear the following the day. People are hungry again, so they return for more bread.
John 6: 22-27
I love this. They came back. They have the DNA of their forefathers in them. They came looking for bread the next day. But Jesus says, “It doesn’t work like that anymore.” Jesus isn’t just talking about food, “Don’t work for the food (law) that perishes. Don’t strive in that way anymore.”
John 6:31-33
Jesus says, “I am the bread that comes down from heaven. I am the thing that satisfies you, and I make enough for leftovers. There is always enough to go around.” In a moment, Jesus is going to tell the listeners that if they want to follow him, they need to drink his blood and eat his flesh. That’s not a weird cannibalistic moment.Jesus is telling them this during Passover week and surely they know that the Passover lamb that saved them when they came out of slavery was slain and then ate its flesh.
Jesus is foreshadowing his own death as the Passover lamb and telling all of them to partake and be saved. You have probably heard that before, but don’t miss this, Jesus brings enough for leftovers, his grace spills over; the work has been done. There is no more daily collecting of manna, just full provision with plenty of leftovers. This is the New Covenant.
No longer do you need to daily strive and go through the motions of the sacrificial system. There is grace, and there is enough to go around. There are leftovers.
Here is why this is so important; some of you are getting up for manna each day. You feel the weight of legalism or moralism and feel like each new day you are starting back at zero with an empty stomach. You need to work and strive and do to make God happy. For those who have partaken of Jesus, the work is over, and there is enough to go around. There are leftovers.
For some of you today guilt is killing you, shame is killing you, like the Israelites, you were set free, but you sometimes long for your slavery. At one point, the Israelites beg to go back to their slavery. Some of you have addictions and hang-ups, and you are living in a perpetual cycle of guilt.
Do not miss this today, God does not love you based on your performance. God’s barometer of happiness with you does not go up and down based on your sin count from this past week. Your father loves you deeply and madly. Not for what you will be, but for who you are. He is not angry. He is not seething and shaking his head. He loves you where you are. There is enough grace to go around. There are leftovers.
With that said, I am not advocating for cheap grace or grace-gone wild. We are called to sanctification, the process of trying to look more and more like Jesus, but when you mess up, don’t live in shame. Confession and repentance are all that are necessary. Taste and see that God is good. He may discipline you to keep you from destructive behaviors, addictions that may be killing you, hang-ups that are crushing your family.
We serve a God of abundance. We serve a God of leftovers. One who will fill in where we fall short. One who will satisfy all of our hungers. The question for you today is, have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good? Have you come to appreciate that you are deeply loved and that the Christian life is not one of guilt and shame? If you are in a bad place today, I have a simple action for you to undertake. Share a meal with a fellow believer. Confess if you need to. Repent if you need to. Allow another person to feed your soul. Allow God through them to satisfy you, and order a big dish and take home some leftovers.
Towards the end of To Kill AMockingbird, Tom Robinson is found guilty. The African American man was found guilty of a crime he did not commit. Atticus Finch put his name and his family on the line in the 1930’s South defending such a man. Atticus is threatened with death. His name is sullied, but he does it anyway. The next morning, when he arrives home, he finds a table full of food.
The kitchen table was loaded with chicken, rolls, salt pork, tomatoes, beans
and scuppernongs. There was even a jar of pickled pigs’ knuckles. Atticus’ eye filled
with tears and he tells Calpurnia: “Tell them I’m very grateful. Tell them—tell them
they must never do this again. Times are too hard.”
The black community of Maycombe gave their food to Atticus as a show of appreciation for what he did. Even though it seemed like he had lost, they felt like he had won because he did for them what no one else would. In the middle of the Great Depression,they laid a banquet on his table, even in that moment, Atticus is noble. He is blown away by the gesture, but he knows how much it has cost. Times are too hard, and he didn’t do it to get paid. He did it out of love. He wants them all to be truly free.
All God wants is our worship and a relationship. He appreciates the gratitude but requires nothing. Bring your gifts and talents to God but only out of gratitude, never out of obligation, shame or guilt. We serve the God of grace, the God of abundance, the God of leftovers!