What is it?
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 1, 2021
Exodus 16:2-4,9-15 • Ephesians 4:1-16 • John 6:24-35
The Israelites were not happy campers. Leaving a life of slavery in Egypt had seemed like a good idea at the time: anything had to be better, right? And it had seemed that if God could do that for them, God would look after them and everything would be better. But, now they are out wandering in the desert with the blazing sun by day and the chilly nights. Their children are tired and bored. Their sick and elderly are complaining and needing to be carried. And they’re hungry. They’re all so hungry. They have no idea of how to survive in the desert. They’re city people, who have been slaves for as long as they can remember. They complain to Moses and Aaron:
“If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the Land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
And you know how the story goes, God rains bread from heaven every morning and in the evening, there are quails to catch.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been fascinated by this ‘bread from heaven’, this ‘fine, flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground’ that could be collected and eaten, but not stored overnight as it would rot.
The name given to this food, as you know is ‘Manna’. What I only learnt this week, which you may already know, is that the word Manna in Hebrew means simply, ‘What is it?’ A completely understandable response to an unknown food source! We all like to know what we’re putting in our mouths, and can be unsettled by anything unrecognizable. Our children certainly like to know exactly what’s on their plates, often insisting that items are kept separate and not mixed, and being highly suspicious of any foods that should be eaten just because ‘they’re good for you’.
Apparently the Israelites were hungry enough to try this strange, white, flaky substance, and the bible tells us that ‘the taste of it was like wafers made with honey’. It sounds rather pleasant.
It turns out that manna is a real thing. And I am indebted to an article in the New York Times from 2010, entitled ‘Ancient Manna on Modern Menus’ by David Arnold (1) for this information. There are a number of different types of manna that form in extremely dry climates. Most of these are dried up sap that is extruded from tiny holes in a tree created by even smaller insects. Manna can also be the sweet substance that has been excreted by insects that have eaten this sap. More rarely, manna can be the insect itself, or its cocoon, or it can be clouds of dried lichen.
While I don’t believe Amazon lists manna yet, one certainly can buy manna on line. Let me tell you about Shir-Khesht from Iran. Shir-Khesht is sap from the cotoneaster nummilaria shrub. The white fragments apparently resemble crushed coral. It is sweet, and slightly gummy. It dissolves in the mouth with a menthol-ly, tongue-cooling effect. It has notes of honey, herb, and citrus peel. And it sounds quite delicious!
Given the likely location of the wandering Israelites, it seems most probable that their manna was the sap of the shrubby tamarisk tree.
Well, okay, you say, there’s a reasonable explanation for the Israelites’ survival in the desert. They discovered a nutritious and tasty food source that anyone who had grown up in the desert would have discovered as a child. Nothing miraculous going on there.
Nothing miraculous at all if you’re not able to see that the gifts of God’s abundance are around us in all things from the soul-nourishing beauty of nature to the sustaining, sap from desert trees.
How often we miss the signs, the tangible reality and wonder of God’s presence in every part of the world we live in. We too often think that because we can explain something, there is nothing ‘miraculous’ going on. And so often we miss what’s right under our noses, because we’re either looking in the wrong places or for the wrong thing. I am reminded of Mary Magdalene that first Easter Sunday morning: she was looking for a dead body, not the gardener....
It can never be wrong to exercise our curiosity about the world around us, or to try to understand it. After all, the God who created us so marvelously, gifted us with our enquiring minds. My prayer for us all though is that we remain open to recognizing the holy, life-giving energy that floods the whole of creation so abundantly.
Holy, life-giving energy that cannot be secreted away in closed buildings, restrictive practices, exclusive membership, books or test tubes, but a wild energy of love and reconciliation that we may not always recognize, but is there with us – always.
(1) https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/dining/09manna.html