Tuesday, May 6, 2025  

Today's Scripture
Exodus 16:22–36

On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers apiece. When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord; bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning.’ ” So they put it aside until morning, as Moses commanded them; and it did not become foul, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is a sabbath, there will be none.”

On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, and they found none. The Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions? See! The Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore on the sixth day he gives you food for two days; each of you stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.

The house of Israel called it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, in order that they may see the food with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ ” And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord, to be kept throughout your generations.” As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the covenant,b for safekeeping. The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a habitable land; they ate manna, until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. An omer is a tenth of an ephah. (NRSV)

Reflection

You can’t help but wonder what happened to the manna. We know, from this chapter in Exodus, that it had sustained the Israelites through 40 years in the wilderness. We know it also played a central role in God’s establishment of the Sabbath. Millennia later, though, we’re not even sure what the manna was — much less, what happened to the last symbolic measure of it, once so revered that it had been placed in the Ark of the Covenant. Was it discarded? Lost? Abandoned as a relic of a bygone time?

As part of its documentation of Jewish exile and survival, the book of Exodus describes the origin of ritual worship: God’s instructions to the faithful, and the interweaving of symbolic action with belief. Somewhat like syntax in language, traditions serve a fundamental purpose in worship communities. Tradition, religious rituals, repetitive worship practices — all of them give shape to our faith. The sociologist Peter Berger described these as “the establishment, through human activity, of an all-embracing sacred order.”

Put differently, it is the practice of faith — praying, singing, reciting scripture, setting aside that measure of manna — that sustains us as people of faith. These practices are gifts to us. Traditions inherited from our forebears. Acts that unite us as a dynamic worship family.

But we have a responsibility here. Our faith traditions endure only to the extent that we ascribe meaning to them. It is one thing to go through the rote motions of worship. It is wholly another to invest spiritual significance in them. What if the ritual of manna was lost because the people themselves lost interest? What shall each of us do to enliven the practice of our faith? As the old hymn “New Every Morning” instructs us: “If on our daily course our mind / Be set to hallow all we find / New treasures still, of countless price / God will provide for sacrifice.”

Prayer
Heavenly Creator, send your spirit into our lives and set our minds to hallow all we find. 

Amen.

Written by Sarah Forbes Orwig, Member of Fourth Presbyterian Church

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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