Lent IV

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Joshua 5:9a, 10-12; Psalm 34; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

“the manna ceased.” A trivial detail? …or not?

Having seen the power of God devour Egypt through the plagues and the passage through the Red Sea’s walls of water; it was only three days into the desert that the people began to complain about not having anything to drink or eat.

As a people, we are good at complaining and worrying, are we not? As often and gracious as God has been with me throughout my life, I still find myself…filled with angst when the pressure is on. The staff sees this toward the end of every week when time is running short and I don’t even have a hint of an idea for the Sunday homily. Yet even if it is 6:30 in the morning on Saturday, God has always come through; though I wish it was sooner in the week. It would make my life and that of our staff a lot easier.

How easy is it for you to trust God?

Three days and the people start complaining. But God does what God always does; God cares for his people: “I am going to rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day you are to go out and gather a daily portion…gather as much of it as each household needs to eat. Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.””

Note the details: “gather a daily portion…leave nothing until morning”. In other words, God will provide enough manna each day to satisfy everyone. Don’t take more than a day’s portion because God will provide for the next day and the next day and the next day as well.

Does this sound familiar? “Our Father…give us this day our daily bread…” “Bread” can mean many things in that petition. For some people it does literally mean bread; for others…? What does it mean for you? The petition is not about “bread” but trust. In contrast, consider what many people do when a nor’easter is predicted. The milk, bread and toilet paper fly off the shelves!

Now some of the Israelites did take and keep more manna than the allotted daily portion and the next day…“the manna became wormy and stank”.  An apt description of mistrust; it stinks and infests. Mistrust infests individuals, families, nations, church communities and thus relationships. It tears at the fabric of life.

The whole point of taking only a daily portion of manna was to teach the people to completely trust God each day and to learn the spiritual depth that is demanded to trust God. Trust is a gift we give to each other and God. This free choice to trust takes a deeply committed spirit; especially in a period like ours filled with skepticism, betrayal and partisanship.

But today, “the manna ceased”.

It has been 40 years since Egypt and that first Passover. Did Israel learn the lesson of trust? Have we?  Everyone who left Egypt died in the desert of Sinai. Death in one of its many forms is an assured consequence of mistrust.

Under Joshua, it is a new generation that enters the Promised Land and Passover is celebrated for the second time in Israel’s history…a new beginning. The next day Israel ate unleavened bread from the grain they harvested and “the manna ceased”. Israel was now in a position to look after their own needs. The land that God promised them would provide their food from now on. But that did not mean there were not challenges ahead.

Like Joshua, Pope Francis is prophetically leading us into a new land. He is inviting the Church to trust the Holy Spirit moving through each one of us. Francis is calling us to gather in what is called a Synod, a process of discernment through listening to each other in a non–judgmental and respectful way and perceive together where the Spirit is leading the Church.

In the light of Israelite history, might the clergy sexual scandal, as was the Sinai desert, be the locus where the hierarchical way of governing the Church by clergy only will die?

Like Joshua leading the people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land, might we not be moving into the fullness of the final promise of Jesus – governance under the guidance and through the movements of the Holy Spirit?

Might a good to come out of the sexual scandal be the recognition of God working through all the people, laity and clergy alike?

Might the lack of vocations to ordained ministry be the manna that is ceasing; for leadership and ministry to be harvested from among all of our people?

It will take far more than 40 years but God has the time. It all comes down to trust. Our trust in God. Trust in Jesus. Trust in the Spirit. Our trust in each other. We must also restore trust where it has been lost. To remove the mistrust from our hearts will take conversion and repentance from every member of the Church – we are bound together as a family, we cannot separate ourselves from what happens in the family.

“The manna ceased” the Book of Joshua relates, but God continued to provide for Israel in a new and different way.  

Will God not do the same for us?