Sunday Service 13th October

Being happy with enough

13/10/24

Call to worship

Hymn 212: Morning has broken

Time for all

Hymn 641: Seek ye first 

Reading:  Exodus 16: 9-18 Kay

Prayer

Hymn 738: Glorious things of Thee are spoken

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 192: All my hope in God is founded

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 13th of October

We have a fascinating moment in our reading today from Scripture.

God’s people have been slaves, and they are travelling to the Promised Land, but on the way they are struggling to find food.

But God being God, things aren’t that simple. God supplies what they need, but in the process he wants them to learn a lesson.

We will look at what that lesson is, a lesson that we also need to be reminded of, after Kay gives us our reading and prayer for today.

Sermon

I listen to a lot of podcasts, a lot of political podcasts.

And the main theme of most of them has not been either of the Conservative leadership struggles.

It has not been the party political conferences, even though we are near the end of conference season.

The huge subject that has been coming up again and again... is how labour should be on this crest of a wave and yet seem to be shooting themselves in the foot.

One commentator summarized it like this, ‘How could labour not see the outrage of taking a few hundreds of pounds off pensioners while their leader was taking over 70 thousand pounds in freebies?’

Now here is the challenge of the scripture, especially this scripture, because this scripture challenges us by asking us, ‘How are we different?’

So last week I am watching my granddaughters.

And they are doing something really simple, they are colouring in a picture.

But they are not doing it the same way...

and I don’t mean that the seven year old was doing a wonderful job and making sure that she was colouring in and not cross the lines

while the two year old was basically just taking a felt tip and moving her arm across the page (though that in fact was happening).

What I mean is that one of the granddaughters was taking one colour as she needed it, using that colour and then placing it back,

then thinking a while

while she decided what colour the next part should be and then picked that colour...

while her wee sister was basically saying, all these felt tips are mine.

Now I just want to make something clear.

My youngest granddaughter is a normal child; she only has two arms and two hands.

So the most felt tips she can use at a time is two.

But she felt that she needed ALL of those felt tips right beside her, just in case she needed any of them.

And she resented her sister even having one.

You see it is so easy to slag off Kier Stammer, or any politician that uses their contacts and influences for personal means,

but the Bible insists that our role is not to judge others for what they are doing,

but to reflect on the mistakes of others,

and then ask ourselves what are we doing,

and are we on the same path that they are on?

Just because we don’t have the same opportunities to fail, doesn’t mean that we don’t have the same heart to fail.

And in this case the Bible asks us to reflect on this by looking at the actions of a nation; though I doubt at this point that God’s people saw themselves as a nation.

And that’s the point, we often act based on how we see ourselves.

And if we see ourselves in the wrong light, we will instinctively act in the wrong light.

Let me explain.

For generations the Israelites had been slaves.

So that is how they saw themselves...

They saw themselves as inferior.

They saw themselves as victims.

They saw themselves as individuals just trying to survive.

And Moses had come along and given them a great vision.

They were God’s people.

They were God’s chosen.

They were a nation of priests...an example for other nations to follow.

God would lead them from slavery to the Promised Land.

And miracles of miracles, Moses leads them from Egypt and into the wilderness, defeating Pharaoh’s army and finding freedom.

Now having crossed over the Red Sea in safety they could have seen themselves as all the things that Moses had promised them;

they could have taken the miracle and said that this was a sign that God was looking after them, that they were now a people and that everything was going to be all right.

The problem, though, was that they didn’t see themselves as a people, as God’s people, as a great nation, as a people cared for.

They still saw themselves as slaves, victims, individuals fighting to survive.

And that is how they behaved.

So a few days into their journey they are worried about food.

They feel so hungry that they want to go back to Egypt,

to the place where they were slaves,

the place where the official government policy was to kill all baby boys.

That is where they want to go back to.

So Moses tells them that God has spoken to him,

that God has heard their complaints,

and that God will provide for them the next day.

And God does.

The next day they have enough meat to eat and they have manna, a wafer like substance to eat.

Now here’s the thing.

This is the test to see what drives their heart.

God tells them to take what they need, not what they want, but what they need.

And most don’t.

Most of them take a lot more.

Maybe they are saying to themselves that there is no guarantee that the manna will be there tomorrow, so best to be safe and take a wee bit extra, just in case.

Maybe they are just greedy and think that they deserve more than others.

Maybe it is an ego thing and no one, not even God, can tell them what to do, that they are in control of their own destiny.

Whatever the reason, in their head ‘enough was not enough’ they wanted more.

Here’s the thing.

All those that took too much found the next day that the manna had gone off and was full of worms.

When we have a heart that says, ‘enough is not enough’ then we will never be satisfied, we will never be content. And it doesn’t matter what the reason is for that attitude,

it doesn’t matter if it is because we see ourselves as victims,

or if we see ourselves as more deserving than others,

it doesn’t matter what the reason is,

the result is always the same, we are never content, never at peace.

As I said, I listen to a lot of political podcasts, and I was fascinated by the recent discussions about increasing tax for the mega wealthy, those that have billions of pounds.

And how some commentators were arguing that this would end up with us having less tax revenues, because those billionaires would leave the country.

And I thought to myself, ‘Why?’

If you have so much money that you can create your own person rockets so that you can be the first ordinary person to go on a space walk, then what do you care how much tax you pay?

How many billions of pounds do you need before you feel secure?

And the truth is... if ‘enough is not enough’ then it doesn’t matter how many billions you have, it will never be enough.

This is the choice that God gave the Israelites, gives us today...

He gives us enough for today, and he says,

‘Do not see yourselves as a victim,

and do not see yourselves as more deserving than others,

see yourselves as my child,

and if you do

you will see that I give you enough for each day.

If you can see that, then you will be content, you will have my peace, which is beyond anything that the world can give you.’

And that is the test that God gives us.

Do we believe that God gives us the resources that we need for each day?

And I don’t just mean the food we need

or the shelter to keep us dry

or the clothes that keep us warm...

I mean, do we believe that God puts people in our lives so that we can love and be loved?

Do we believe God gives us enough that we can reach out to others and be generous with our time and effort?

Do we believe that God gives us the talents to help others when they are struggling with problems?

Do we believe that when life hits us hard, that God will put in our lives... 

the provisions we need,

the emotional resilience that we will need,

the companionship we will need,

to see ourselves through that valley of death through to the other side?

Right at the start of this journey, the people are given a choice...

Keep the heart of fear and insecurity and ego that you have...try to get what you can, believing that it will give you peace, and in the end ‘enough will never be enough.’

Or see yourselves as God’s people, looked after by him, and he will give you what you need.

That is the choice God gives them, and gives us,

because if we can trust that we truly are a child of God, under his care...

then with time we truly will trust that enough is enough,

and we will begin to grow a heart that is assured,

we will move towards a heart that is content,

we will have a heart that is at peace.

Let us pray

God of community,

you travelled through the wilderness with a wandering people,

searching out a new future for them as they left behind what had brought misery

and dreamt about what could be.

Through challenge and hardship,

through questions and doubts,

through years of seeking and praying,

through the guidance of wise leadership,

you nurtured a new community.

And now we, in our own time, 

seek your companionship as we wander through our own wildernesses,

as we travel past a time that once seemed secure and unchangeable,

we see that in reality that the things we thought would bring us happiness were always temporal and fleeting.

Be with us as we seek what it is like

to live in community with each other,

to live in harmony with your creation,

to live peaceably and generously.

We pray for those who are living in a state of flux,

unsure of what tomorrow might bring,

uncertain of whether there will be food,

worrying about the future,

hankering for the past.

We pray that seeing how you cared for them might bring assurance and trust

and that our practical needs will be met.

We pray for those who live in abundance but who have become immune to the cost that has for other people.

So may those who horde what should be shared be convicted of the wrongness of their action, and of the poverty of their vision,

and seek instead to sow generously for the benefit of all humanity.

Most of all, we pray for ourselves,

that we would all have a dawning , a realisation,  an understanding...

that true abundance in life is found in generosity and grace.

That we only find our peace, when we find our peace in relationship with You.

This we ask in Jesus name

Amen.