“On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and roasted grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.” (Joshua 5:11-12)
Hi Fighter,
‘God helps those who help themselves’. So, I’m told. Indeed, some people tell me that it’s in the Bible. It’s not, and indeed, this reading from the book of Joshua suggests the exact opposite – namely, that once you start helping yourself, God stops helping you!
We know the story of Biblical Israel. The people were enslaved in Egypt, but God delivered them from slavery and led them to a new land ‘flowing with milk and honey’. The thing they weren’t told when they left though was that the trip would take them forty years, and that almost none of those leaving would ever actually make it!
The people had to be tested in the desert before in order to qualify for the promised land. They had to learn to rely on God, and their tests were very tangible, such as when they ran out of food and water, which happened with alarming regularity.
The natural response of the people, of course, was to panic, and to look for someone to blame (normally Moses), but they had to learn to trust God’s provision. God always provided for them, and indeed, when they had no food, God fed those people in the desert with a strange bread-like substance known as ‘manna’ which apparently rained down from Heaven for them every morning.
Manna was bizarre stuff, and the Torah says that you couldn’t store any of it for the next day as it went off. God literally provided these people with their ‘daily bread’, which is presumably what Jesus was alluding to when He used this expression in the Lord’s Prayer.
Saint Paul, similarly, pointed to the example of the manna-feeding, in his second letter to the church in Corinth, this time as an archetype of how a God-centred economy should work. He quotes Exodus 16:18, “as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”” (2 Corinthians 8:15).
When God controls the economy, everyone gets exactly what they need. No one has too much, and no one comes up short, and Paul believed that this could be translated directly into wealth-sharing within the church community, “that there may be equality” (2 Corinthians 8:13)
The manna-feeding is the archetypal example of how God can take care of our needs when we have no way of meeting them ourselves. The amazing precedent set in this story from the book of Joshua though is that once people do start looking after their own needs, God stops providing! No more manna!
The people of Israel go on from here to establish cities and build an empire. Eventually though, it all comes crashing down and they end up back in the desert where they had to learn again what it meant to trust in their God for their daily bread.
We are in the middle of Lent, which is our special time of ‘wilderness wandering’, and for some of us, this Lent seems particularly desolate. I feel as if I’ve been wandering through the wilderness for quite a while now. I’m unsure as to where my future meals are coming from, and I’m coming to appreciate how little control I have over the things that matter to me.
My partner, my children, my friends who struggle, my beloved sisters and brothers across Syria … there is so much pain and there are so many problems that I do not know how to solve. I must learn to trust God again if I’m ever to emerge from this wilderness. Lord, give us this day our daily bread.
The Lord helps those who help themselves … NOT! The Lord helps those who need help, and God knows we need help.
Our Sunday Eucharist
We celebrated another wonderful Sunday Eucharist last weekend, and it was a privilege once again to share the panel with my old friends, Andrew Madry and Doug Pyeatt. The most popular shorts from that broadcast are below and, as ever, you can see all the shorts on the Sunday Eucharist Instagram page, or watch the entire replay of last Sunday’s broadcast via our YouTube channel.
This month has five Sundays in it, so we don’t have any of our regulars rostered on for this coming Sunday. I’m happy to announce though that the team for this Sunday will be … (drum roll) … Diane Bates and Jacob Pyeatt!
Jacob is Doug’s son. When I was last with him in Montana (around 20 years ago) he was a lad of primary-school age. Now he’s a soldier in the US Army! He is also a man with a passion for God and the Scriptures, and he’s been a regular part of our online community for some time now. I’m really looking forward to having Jacob join us on the panel, and I’m sure Diane is too.
So, Join us from midday this Sunday @ TheSundayEucharist.com or on Facebook , YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia or Streamyard.
I look forward to sharing this Eucharist with you. 😊
Let me work your corner
If you’d like to see my work continue, please click here to make a one-off donation. If you can afford a monthly contribution, sign up at Patreon.com and choose either:
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What’s On?
- Friday to Sunday, March 28 to 30 – @Binacrombi. Please join me
- Sunday, March 30th – Our Eucharist from noon via thesundayeucharist.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia or Streamyard.
- Tuesday, April 1st – Boxing at the The Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm.
- Thursday, April 3rd – Boxing at the The Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm
- Thursday, April 3rd – “Who owns the Holy Land?” @Saint Paul’s, Burwood, from 6.30 pm
This pic is of Dr. Yahya Jahangiri having a chat with me in Joy’s church building (Saint David’s, Haberfield). This is the same Dr Jahangiri who launched a book with when I was in Iran a few weeks back, but this interview was done last year. Even so, I think it’s really well done, and you may enjoy it as much as I did. Click the pic (or here) to go to my www.ChristiansandMuslims.com website to watch the interview.
Finally, I have a couple more shorts for you today, taken from last Wednesday’s webinar where George Christensen and I interviewed Syrian Girl (Mimi Al Laham) about the mass murders of minority groups currently taking place in Syria.
Thanks to the large fan-bases of my George and Mimi, we had around 5,000 people join us live for the webinar, and it’s been viewed by more than three times that number since! You can watch the entire broadcast on my PrayersforSyria.com site, where I’ve also now uploaded videos of all the speeches made at the Candlelight Prayer Vigil for Syria that took place last week.
It has been a frantic week in terms of recording and posting videos. I’m trying to make a difference, as we all are. Even so, I have to learn to be patient and to wait on God. The Almighty will give us our daily bread, and God will answer our prayers for justice and peace too. We just have to learn to trust again, lest the manna stop!
Your brother in the Good Fight,
About Father Dave Smith
Preacher, Pugilist, Activist, Father of four
