Sermons

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Walking by Faith: In God We Trust
February 3, 2002
Fourth in a series on "Walking By Faith"
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Exodus 16:1-21

This morning we continue our series on “Walking By Faith.” We started a few weeks ago tracking the people of Israel as they faced the prospect of leaving slavery in Egypt. And as we look into chapter 16 of the book of Exodus, we join them just after they have been saved by God through the sea…and they now stand on the other side of the water, peering into the wilderness, the desert that lays in front of them. And they immediately are faced with situations where God keeps asking: “Will you trust me?”

In 1861, as the United States lay embroiled in the start of a terrible Civil War, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase started a process by which the motto “In God We Trust,” would be minted onto U.S. currency. At that time, Secretary Chase wrote,

“No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.”

In 1864, Congress passed legislation directing that this happen. With a few short technical interruptions, “In God We Trust” has appeared ever since. The motto first appeared on dollar bills in the 1950s. It seems, in fact, that at various crisis times in U.S. history, this has been revisited (Civil War, height of Cold War, etc). Not without challenges, of course. President Teddy Roosevelt requested its removal (not because he disagreed with the statement, but because he felt like it cheapened it to put it on money) but was drowned in a sea of protest.. A number of more recent legal challenges by the American Atheist Society have failed as well. Apparently the Atheist Society believes they it would be more accurate to say “In God SOME of us trust!”

But there it remains. In God we trust. It’s easy to put on our money…it’s a different thing to believe it…and it’s a difficult thing to practice it.

“Trust” was an issue that stared the Israelites in the face at every turn. It was easy to talk about “trust” when your opponents had just been drowned in the sea, when a safe pathway had opened out of nowhere. It was harder, a lot harder to trust when things took a different turn, when things didn’t go the way they expected.

The Israelites are finding out that the journey of faith is far MORE than just the singing and celebrating we talked about last week. Their salvation at the sea was a beginning…not an end. God’s salvation started them on a journey to a land flowing with milk and honey, across the Jordan River…but it was a long, long journey. Geographically …and spiritually.

And from the very beginning…they complained. There is an unbelievably strong pattern that runs through this story. In Chapter 14 as they fled from Egypt, and realized they were being chased, the people COMPLAINED. “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die here in the wilderness,” they told Moses. But God saved them. In Chapter 15, as they come through the sea, they find no water in the desert. And the people COMPLAINED to Moses, “What shall we drink?” And God met their needs.

And here in chapter 16, the people get hungry and they COMPLAIN to Moses & Aaron: “If only we had died…back in Egypt. Out here, we’ll die of starvation. But back there…[and now listen to how they idealize Egypt…remember, they were SLAVES there for over 400 years, doing hard labor!…but suddenly, it was the “good old days!”]: “Remember how we used to just sit around and tell jokes, and eat from the plentiful pots of meat and stew provided for us…and the white tablecloths? Remember all the different kinds of bread, French and sourdough and whole wheat…how there was as much bread to eat as we wanted? That was living! But now YOU, Moses, you brought us out here and we’ll die.”

When times get tough…the past, no matter how miserable it was…suddenly looks better. And no matter what the crises, food or something else…it always brings crises of faith as well. Perhaps Israel needs to go back and remember what they signed up for. It wasn’t a guided tour of the Middle East. It wasn’t a luxury cruise in a camel caravan. It wasn’t even “The Middle East on $10 per day.” It was a journey…a journey of faith. It began with their salvation from the Egyptians. And it would end crossing the Jordan. And in between, there was almost nothing else they knew about it…except that they would travel with a God who claimed them, who wanted to know them, who wanted them to honor and trust Him. They would be in his presence.

Sometimes I think it would be a good thing for us to periodically revisit what we’ve signed up for in becoming Christians. At different times in my life, I think I’ve had different pictures of what a relationship with Christ included. At one time, I thought it was sort of a negotiating session with God. You know: “Okay, God, I’ll live a certain way IF you’ll guarantee me a few things.” At one time, I thought it was a warranty against sickness or death for me or my family and friends. At one time time I thought it was an assurance that whatever temptations I felt would fall away. ( ) What have you signed up for? At the core, I think we’ve responded to an invitation from Jesus that says pretty simply, “Come, follow me.” A little like going through airport security right now: “Put everything in the box” before you go through the detector. Put everything you bring on this journey aside: expectations, security, even your rights…and walk with Jesus.

The Israelites longed for security and permanence and abundance. But those were exactly the things they would have to leave behind to go on this faith journey. But they didn’t really get that yet. And so, at every turn…they complain. “Thanks a lot, Moses. Thanks for bringing us here to starve.” And so…what happens? God punishes them for complaining? No. Actually, God meets them in their complaints.

You need food? “In the evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” And see how God meets them. In the evening, huge flocks of quails came to them…no hunting required. And in the morning “there was a layer of dew that lifted and left a flaky residue like frost on the ground.” They called it “manna.” God provided them with enough. They were to gather it each day, each and every person. And amazingly, there was no shortage, and no surplus. If they slept in, it was gone as the sun rose higher. On the sixth day, they were to get twice as much, for there would be none on the seventh day.

They didn’t trust all this MANNA stuff either, at first. They thought they needed to hoard it. Didn’t work…No one could hoard manna. That manna is a great symbol for how God cares for us on the faith journey. We have to gather our bread each day: praying and reading scripture and listening and being with God. There’s no way to hoard it…yet it’s critical for our spiritual journeys. And this word “manna” lends an intriguing question to those quiet times when we seek God. “Manna” quite literally means something like “What is it?” Each day we can go to God, and ask that question: “What is it? What is it I should do today? What is it you’re asking me to trust you for?” And then tomorrow, we have to do it again.

Much has been written about this quail and manna. Studies have been conducted to track the migratory patterns of birds across the Sinai…and indeed, they have recorded cases of whole flocks of birds, exhausted, landing in this area virtually unable to move.

And there is indeed a certain type of plant lice that punctures the fruit of some trees, and gives off a flaky substance…which can be gathered and baked into bread. Some tell me these things prove that God doesn’t really do miracles because these are “natural phenomena.” But that kind of misses the point. The point is that God provided what was needed…at just the right time. Whether that is through natural means, or supernatural… and I believe God’s gifts do come both in the unusual and the everyday. They received what they needed. THAT is the point. God was asking them to trust…for the day. Just that much. It reminds me of when Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, it wasn’t “Give us this day enough bread for all the days to come.” No, “Give us this day our daily bread.” For this one day.

God…you see…was doing something far bigger than merely getting Israel from Egypt to crossing the Jordan River. If the only purpose of this journey was to arrive at a destination, there were far more direct routes, established trade routes, that would go straight across the Sinai peninsula, instead of taking this big, long southward swing that they did. Why go from Seattle to Chicago via Albuquerque ? Just take I-90, for goodness sakes! But God had things to teach this people on the journey. They couldn’t see, at this point, God had called them to this journey. Yes, the journey became longer because of the people’s disobedience, sin, rebellion. But there were more important things than just getting there. God was in the business of shaping people. Primarily, God wanted them to TRUST Him. He wanted them to KNOW Him, to KNOW that the same God who would be with them on the other side of the Jordan was on this side. God is in the business of shaping us, too. He wants us to know that the God who came in Jesus Christ is with us both on the other side of heaven and on this side, in life.

So what does it look like to trust God? Or maybe a better way of asking the question is: What do we trust God FOR? The Catholic teacher, priest and writer Henry Nouwen has been very helpful here for me. Nouwen wrote a lot, but near the end of his life, in fact his last book, he writes “Trust at all times that God is with you, and that He will give you what you need the most.” Think about those two things for a moment. Don’t take them lightly.

He’ll be with us.

Right after Christmas, we drove over to Idaho, and we stopped for just a few minutes at a one-level nursing home there near the University of Idaho. I ran in to say “Hi,” and talk to my Grandma for a minute. It’s a very one-sided conversation. My Grandma has severe Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t recognize anyone, not even her own kids. She doesn’t speak, gives no clue at all that she is aware of anything going on around her. From all outward appearances, Grandma has forgotten EVERYONE and EVERYTHING. Not long after she became ill, I read a book that Donald McKim edited on Alzheimer’s. It was a good book, but I decided that the best part of the book, really, was the title: God Never Forgets. God seems to say to me: “Dan, will you trust Me…trust that I haven’t forgotten her? That I will be with her, even now, even at this hard part of the journey?”

A number of families here at Bethany, and in other places in my life have people sick and battling cancer. Will we trust God, that He will be with each person, each family…that they are not statistics or patients, but beloved people that God is walking on this faith journey with?

Wherever it is you feel alone: because you are out of work, or frustrated at work, running low on friends, feeling weighted down by something you can barely explain… Can you believe that God is with you in it? Even when you don’t feel it, or it doesn’t make sense? When we look at Jesus: the one born God-With-Us, the one who says, “I will never leave you or forsake you,” the one who said, “I go to heaven to prepare a place for you,” the one who said, “I will send the Holy Spirit, to be with you forever,”
we are reminded that God makes good on his promises: “I will be with you.”

He will give us what we need the most.

Can I trust that? The Israelites were confused about what they really needed. What did they need more: meat and bread? Or to know that God was walking with them?

Jesus seemed to know what people needed. Remember the story of when the people had followed him out to hear him speak, and they were away from home with no food, he provided the loaves and fishes…in a very similar way to this story, it seems. But He also knew not just what they needed at that moment, but what they needed THE MOST. And He said: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

We need to hear it, we need to be reminded again and again, we need to help each other when the going is difficult: God calls us to trust.

Some years ago Professor John Kavanaugh went to Calcutta to work with Mother Teresa, and to seek a clear answer to how he should spend the rest of his life. On the first morning he was there, Mother Teresa asked him “What can I do for you?” Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him. “What shall I pray for?” Kavanaugh thought of his wrestling over what to do with his future. “Pray that I have clarity,” he said. Mother Teresa said firmly, “No. I will not do that.” She said, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and you must let go of.” It seems that Kavanaugh was a little argumentative…though I don’t know exactly how you argue with Mother Teresa! Anyway, Kavanaugh observed out loud that SHE always seem to have the clarity she needed. And Mother Teresa laughed and said, “Actually, I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”

God is in the business of changing us. He urges us to keep walking along this journey of faith. And one of the things He wants us to learn…is to trust Him more.

I wondered if it wouldn’t be better if we just added one thing to that slogan on our coins and bills, “In God We Trust.” Just one small thing…a question mark. Perhaps that would help us stop at each and every point along the way, and ask the question: Will I trust God? Can I trust God? Let’s pray.