There is an old joke about a deeply religious man whose community flooded. He was told to evacuate but he answered, “Nope, I’ll stay. God will provide.” As the water rose, he climbed onto his roof. When the rescue boat came by, he said, “Nope, I’ll stay, God will provide.” When the helicopter flew over and dropped him a rope, he waved them off and shouted, “Nope, I’ll stay! God will provide!” When he finally drowned and went to the pearly gates, he glared at God and said, “I thought you would provide!” God answered, “I sent an evacuation order, a boat and a helicopter, what were you waiting for?”
This Sunday we hear the portion of Exodus in which the people following Moses begin to lose hope. They complain that they wish he had left them to die in slavery (what my kids call “the whinging in the wilderness”) and then God provides Moses with evidence that God still travels with the people – in the form of “manna” (which my children were convinced was corn flakes) provided for them every morning. The people of God felt abandoned and afraid and they leaned into a “scarcity mentality.” And God responded not with a “prosperity Gospel,” but with assurance that there was a way through.
(I can imagine that the same set of followers of Moses were unhappy about the corn flakes. The ones who said, “You should have left us to die in the fleshpots of Egypt,” in my imagination said, “Cornflakes? What, am I supposed to make noodle kugel?”)
Sometimes reading this text leads people to theological magical thinking, blithely waving away the treasurer with, “God will provide!” Well, while God will provide, saying it like that, as if it were the final resolution to all imaginable fiscal woes in church, only widens the gap between the people who want the Vestry meeting to end, and the people who balance the books.
In my experience, this is how God provides: by providing us with the tools and resources we need to do the work, to feed the hungry, serve the suffering and keep our communities going. We don’t get to pick and choose what those tools or resources are. We have to use what resources we have to further the kingdom, knowing that God will provide … something … and God has already provided us with resourcefulness, commitment, and resolve to discern and do the work God has called us to.
Many of us are putting together our budgets for next year and confronting this “scarcity mentality.” Your treasurer, finance committee, diocesan staff and diocesan council have been working diligently to craft a budget for next year that enables us not just to “white knuckle it,” but to stretch into vitality, mission and vision. In order to do this, we had to look closely at what we have and what we don’t have with determination that, if we work with God, we can co-create a vibrant and rich and sustainable future. I hope that theology will inform your planning for the coming year, in both your personal and parish lives.
We are working together with one another and with God in the confidence that God will guide us to the vision of the church that God holds for us. I can’t say it will be easy. I can’t say it will be what we imagine. I can only promise you that just in the moment where we want to throw up our hands and say, “We should have stayed in the fleshpots of Egypt” (I know you do this in Vestry meetings all the time), let us take a breath, bow our heads in prayer to the God whose ancient precedent is provision and love, and pray the collect offered to us this week:
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
You remain in my prayers,
+Shay
