Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15 First reading for Wednesday’s Mass
The children of Israel set out from Elim,
and came into the desert of Sin,
which is between Elim and Sinai,
on the fifteenth day of the second month
after their departure from the land of Egypt.
Here in the desert the whole assembly of the children of Israel
grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
The children of Israel said to them,
“Would that we had died at the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt,
as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread!
But you had to lead us into this desert
to make the whole community die of famine!”
Then the LORD said to Moses,
“I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.
Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion;
thus will I test them,
to see whether they follow my instructions or not.
On the sixth day, however, when they prepare what they bring in,
let it be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the whole congregation
of the children of Israel:
Present yourselves before the LORD,
for he has heard your grumbling.”
When Aaron announced this to the whole assembly of the children of Israel,
they turned toward the desert, and lo,
the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud!
The LORD spoke to Moses and said,
“I have heard the grumbling of the children of Israel.
Tell them: In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh,
and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread,
so that you may know that I, the LORD, am your God.”
In the evening quail came up and covered the camp.
In the morning a dew lay all about the camp,
and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert
were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground.
On seeing it, the children of Israel asked one another, “What is this?”
for they did not know what it was.
But Moses told them,
“This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.”
Moses announced good news to the Israelite slaves–God is going to free you from slavery and lead you to a land of your own. Naturally, Pharoah did not want to lose control of his slaves, so there was quite a struggle–but it was also a struggle for the slaves to agree to follow God’s lead. To do that, they had to step out of their ordinary patterns of life and set out on a journey they could not see the end of. The ordinary patterns of life were fairly miserable, but they were used to them and had gotten comfortable with them. Oh, they complained about their lives, but they were fearful about upsetting those patterns, too. In other words, they were just like us. God is calling us–all the time–to step out of old patterns and follow his promises toward something better. And a lot of the time we resist. We worry, we pout, we don’t want to be bothered. In short, it looks an awful lot like we don’t really trust God, don’t really have faith.
In today’s reading we see the Israelites, finally leaving slavery, and full of joy and gratitude! Oops! No, actually, instead of trusting God to provide what they need (really NEED, not want) on the journey, they start complaining that the food isn’t being provided quickly enough. It isn’t like the food they had when they were slaves. No–the food is also new, like their freedom is new. They have put God at the center of their lives, not Pharoah any more, and that will eventually impact every aspect of how they live. All those changes are for their good. What we see in Exodus is that they have a difficult time accepting and living with those changes. Which reminds us of ourselves and our struggles to accept the many changes God leads us into. He loves us too much, and too thoroughly, to ever quit inviting us to take the next steps toward becoming more like his Son, our Lord Jesus. And that means change.