Today's Daily Lesson comes from Exodus chapter 16 verses 14 through 20:
14 And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. 16 This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’” 17 And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. 18 But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. 19 And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” 20 But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank.
When the Israelites came out of Egypt, the first thing the LORD did was give them a new economic vision. They had lived all their lives in a slave economy -- and economy based upon scarcity, a perpetual sense of isolation, and dependence upon Pharaoh. Now they were learning a new economy of freedom -- one based upon abundance, a sense of community, and dependence upon God.
The first thing to be noted about this new economy is that people worked for their own bread. This "manna" was rained down from Heaven, but it was not rained down into their bowls to eat. This daily bread was indeed a gift from God, but each family had to send someone outside the tent to gather it. In Egypt, Israelites had for centuries depended upon Pharaoh for food and provision; this new manna economy was teaching them self-reliance, and allowing them for the first time to enjoy the humble sense of dignity given to one who both trusts the LORD AND works like the Dickens to put food on the table.
The second thing to be noted in this new Manna economy is that it would be an economy where enough was simply to be enough. Under Pharaoh's economy enough was never enough. People lived in a perpetual state of scarcity. This encouraged isolation, hoarding and every man looking out for himself against all others. The tactic of Pharaoh was to destroy all sense of community amongst Israelites, because in community there is power.
This new Manna economy encouraged community, connection, and a sense of the shared common good. The notion of the common good was to be an implicit value in the new economy the Israelites would form in the Promised Land; what they learned about community from the manna would later be applied in the areas of agriculture, natural resources, education, religion, and national defense. Community was not a bad word.
What was a bad word was greed, and hoarding, and all of the impulses to acquire and save more than one's fair share. Enough really was enough. And any more than enough rotted and decayed and would never satisfy. No one in this new economy was to have too little and no one was to have too much. That would be simply be an ethical given.
So, how are we doing? Are we living in Pharaoh's economy or the new Manna economy? If in Pharaoh's then how do we get out?
Let me suggest one thing. I don't know that we need to wait for the presidential candidates to work this all out for us. That's, again, to be dependent upon Pharaoh. The Manna economy is an economic alternative to the dominant economy. And that means it starts in community.
So here is a place to start. A place of resistance to the old economy and embrace of the new. Give an extra 2% of your income to the local food bank. Pledge an hour a week to be in the schools with mentoring programs like Kids Hope, helping a student learn to read. Share your lawn mower with somebody from church who needs it. Better yet, teach them how to take care of their own lawnmower.
Believe in shared resources, self-reliance and the dignity of work, and ultimate trust in a God who wants to lead us out of the bondage of both poverty and riches and into the freedom of knowing that there is enough so long as we work hard enough, share enough, and know when to say when enough is enough.
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