Trinity 6- Manna Window

B. and J. Melville in Elephant Have Right of Way describe a time before movie companies were careful about Swahili translations when portraying stories set in Africa. They were carelessly assuming that American audiences would never know the difference. In one particular movie a director needed an African messenger who was to gasp out a sentence to the big chief, collapsing as he delivered his message, since he had run for days with his vital news. A local Englishman who spoke Swahili was asked to write an urgent-sounding sentence in the language. He did, tongue in cheek. An American actor played the part beautifully. All went well until the movie was shown in Nairobi (where everyone spoke Swahili, of course). The drama of the moment was reduced to high comedy. What the messenger actually said as he threw himself, exhausted, before the chief was, "I do not think I am getting paid enough money for this part."

We’ve all felt the discontentment of not receiving or having enough. Contentment is a rather elusive state. Shakespeare has a marvelous line in King Henry VI “My crown is in my heart not on my head; . . . my crown call’d content; a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.” True enough. The next stained glass window we want to examine in our series on the beautiful windows of the parish has to do with contentment with God. It’s the first Old Testament window on the south side of the church picturing two very content people eating something from the ground. The context of the full story, however, is one of discontentment. Just prior to the time of our manna from heaven story, Israel had been delivered from a ferocious Egyptian army. The people of God were backed up to the great Red Sea. God parted the waters. Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. When the Egyptian army followed, God closed the waters on Pharaoh’s mighty force. Israel was saved and you’d think all lived happily ever after.

Not so. Israel was apparently only happy until life in the desert caught up with them. They were glad to be out of Egypt. They loved their freedom. They were on their way home to the Promised Land. But there were several aspects of their deliverance that they hadn’t bargained for. When life did not go so well, they complained. One of their discomforts was the food. For one, there wasn’t enough of it. For another, they missed the home cooked meals on the slave ovens of Egypt. And so they complained to Moses. He took the matter to God. The Lord provided miraculously an abundance of bread from heaven called manna. In our window, there is an outline of a hand at the point of the gothic arch. It is the same hand on the window above the altar. It is one of the symbols for God the Father. In the manna window, it is there to remind us that God gave the manna to Israel directly from His hand.

It was real bread on the ground every day. According to the account of this story in Exodus 16, they were to consume it all to show their satisfaction with the Lord’s provision (16:19). In part, this is the Scriptural basis for consuming all of the consecrated sacrament after it has been administered in communion. Even so, there are reasons sometimes for keeping some of God’s remaining (consecrated) food for other purposes. In the story, they were allowed to reserve a jar of manna as a reminder of what God had done (Exodus 16:31-36).

The great irony about the manna from heaven story is that it is not really about bread, about discontentment or contentment with the material things of this world. The manna story is about being content with God. In another passage, Moses has the following to say about the Manna story: “And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3). This is the very passage that Jesus quotes to Satan when the Master is tempted in the wilderness. If you remember, the Devil tempted Christ to turn stones into bread. Jesus’ response was, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4). The point is not whether we can want or not want the things of this life. The issue is whether we’ve found our contentment in God alone. Thus, the scene captured in our window, in which two delighted souls are feeding happily on manna, is to remind us that they are not just satisfied in their stomachs. They are content with God. He has found them and they have found Him. They want nothing more or nothing less.

Years ago, Russell Conwell told of an ancient Persian, Ali Hafed, who "owned a very large farm that had orchards, grain fields, and gardens... and was a wealthy contented man." One day a wise man from the East told the farmer all about diamonds and how wealthy he would be if he owned a diamond mine. Ali Hafed went to bed that night a poor man--poor because he was discontented. Craving a mine of diamonds, he sold his farm to search for the rare stones. He traveled the world over, finally becoming so poor, broken, and defeated that he committed suicide. One day the man who purchased Ali Hafed's farm led his camel into the garden to drink. As his camel put its nose into the brook, the man saw a flash of light from the sands of the stream. He pulled out a stone that reflected all the hues of the rainbow. The man had discovered the diamond mine of Golcanda, the most magnificent mine in all history. It was in his own back yard all along. All the wealth of all the world was right in front of him. This is the meaning of the manna. Contentment is not found in getting what we don’t have. It’s not in the manna; it’s in God and His Word. The Lord is the diamond mine of true contentment from heaven. And it’s right in front of us. Like the manna, God sent His only Son from heaven.  Unlike the manna, if we receive His Son we’ll never hunger with discontentment ever again. We feed on the true heavenly manna through His Word and Sacrament. If we have Christ, we have it all. Without Him we can have it all and yet have nothing. Amen.