Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 21B Lectionary 26
September 27, 2009
Texts:  Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Psalm 19:7-14; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50

Can there ever be too much of a good thing?

On the ninth day of a ten day vacation that seems just perfect,
Do you want to extend the trip,
Or do you long for the familiarity of home?

Three days after Christmas,
Have you ever had the experience
Of watching a child who is surrounded by new toys
Exclaim:  “There is nothing to do,”
I wish there was snow, so that I could go out and use my old sled.

Or after a week of great weather,
On a gorgeous fall day in NH,
With the sunlight dappling through the trees,
And that particular fall light glinting off the lake,
Have you ever heard anyone say,
Gee, I am bored up here,
I really miss the museums and shopping in the city?

Sometimes it really seems like there is too much of a good thing.

Sometimes we are living in the midst of God’s grace
And can’t recognize it.

Think about the situation of the Israelites
That we heard about in the Numbers text this week.

If ever there was a people,
Living in God’s grace
They were it.

They had been released from slavery,
And escorted through the Red Sea.
They had been marked as God’s people,
With the gift of the Ten Commandments,
And God had provided for them
And protected them during the wilderness years.

They were living in the time
After God’s grace had been given to them.
In their saner moments they recognized God’s grace,
And they stood in awe of God.

But in their bored, crabbier moments,
The sameness of their life,
The too much of a good thing,
Frustrated and annoyed them.

During their entire time of wandering in the wilderness,
The Israelites had never known starvation.
Their children were not suffering from malnutrition
And they had never gone to bed with empty bellies.

God had provided for the Israelites.
Every morning, manna was available on the ground
For them to collect and prepare.

This manna was a gift.
The Israelites didn’t have to plant it
They didn’t have to fertilize it,
And they didn’t have to weed or tend to it.

It was just there, ready to be collected
And prepared into meals.

But they were as bored with manna
As any teenaged boy is with the economical, nutritious food
His mother buys from the grocery store. 

The Israelites had tried boiling it, frying it,
Baking it, and making Manna A’ La King.
They had even tried Manna Helper and bamanna bread.
It was as plentiful and ubiquitous
As the zucchini from my garden,
The year I innocently planted 7 hills of zucchini plants. 

Although they were not hungry,
The Israelites had gotten to the point
Where they could not stand
The thought of another dinner of manna du jour.

And then the rebellion and whining started.

Like a teenager on a family camping trip, without her best friend,
They started asking
“Why did you ever bring us out here?”
Why didn’t you leave us in Egypt?
There we had lobster, filet mignon,
Caesar salad, and warm fresh bread like Ed makes.

Somehow in the midst of their frustration with wilderness life,
The Israelites had forgotten what it was like in Egypt,
Watching their infant sons murdered by Pharaoh’s agents,
Dropping from exhaustion while making bricks in blinding heat,
And suffering punishment from cruel task masters.

In their boredom with manna,
Their thoughts lingered on the food they had in Egypt,
Or at least the food they thought they had,
But completely forgot the slavery.

In the wilderness, they were living in the midst of God’s grace,
With the ultimate vision of the promised land in front of them.
But the living in grace proved to be too much of a good thing.

The Israelites’ sin was not that they complained,
But that living in the midst of God’s grace,
They failed to recognize the grace and walked away from God.

Somehow, they crossed the line between a lament on wilderness living
And an expression of total ingratitude

Does the situation of the Israelites
Sound at all familiar to you?

We, too, live in the midst of God’s grace.

We live in the time after God’s gift of Christ to us,
And yet before the fulfillment of promise of perfected new life.

Like the Israelites in the wilderness on the way to the promised land,
We live in a time of already but not yet.

We live in the midst of grace,
But we have not yet been perfected.

We live in a land of plenty.
Yet often it seems easier to focus on what we used to have,
What we would really like to have,
Or what our neighbors have,
Than with what we have been graced.

Most of us have more than adequate shelter,
A variety of foods on our table,
Comfortable warm clothing,
And schooling for our children and grandchildren,
Yet we often seem disgruntled or dissatisfied with our lives.

In our lack of perfection,
We do not always recognize what we have been given. 

We can be like the child at Christmas,
Who, after having received three new games,
Mourns for the one that he or she really has to have,
But has not yet received.

We have many ways of expressing our frustrations.

Have you ever heard anyone,
Usually someone of relative privilege
Say “I hate my life.”

When I hear a statement like that,
I wonder what’s behind the words,
What’s driving the person to such despair.

Although we live in God’s grace,
We still have to deal with all of life’s imperfections,
Illness, sin, financial difficulties, marital problems and imperfect children,
To name just a few.

Any of these things,
As well as all those I have not named
Are capable of making us lament, complain or cry out for help.

But there is a difference between lamenting or crying for help,
And total rejection of what God has given us,
Or even a rejection of God.

There were other times that the Israelites complained
About their living situation.
Most of these other complaints
Did not bring God’s wrath down upon them. 

In many of those other situations
When the Israelites complained,
They called out to God for help.

There were the times when they were worried
That the Egyptians were chasing them,
Or that they had no fresh water to drink,
Or even that they were hungry.

In those cases, they cried out in their despair
For God to help them.

And God who is trustworthy and faithful
Did come to their aid.

In the case from this morning’s lesson
Of the Israelites’ boredom with manna,
It was because the Israelites seemed to reject
The gift of freedom from slavery,
And the gift of abundant food,
That God grew frustrated and impatient with them.

God did give them an alternate food source,
Quails by the dozen,
But along with the quails, God sent a plague.

God can deal with our lamenting,
Calling out for help or even our anger,
But when we reject God,
Or God’s good gifts,
Then we are making a choice
To isolate ourselves from God.

Luther writes, in the “The Bondage of the Will”
Of how God comes down to us
And how our only choice is whether or not to walk away. 

When you are facing tragedy or personal catastrophe,
God wants you to cry out for help.
The Book of Lamentations,
And the Psalms provide prayers of help, lamentation
And even expressions of anger.  

God has promised to be with you,
To be faithful and filled with steadfast love.

In James’ letter which we read this morning,
He stresses the need to pray
And to ask others to pray for us
In times of suffering, sickness and even sinning.
You need to pray even in the midst of boredom,
Praying that God might protect you
From the temptation to reject God and God’s gifts.

When you are feeling that perhaps there is too much of a good thing,
And that maybe you are getting a little bored with it,
It is time to start asking for God’s help
In recognizing all the gifts and the grace that surround you.

Like the ancient Israelites,
We live in a time of God’s grace,
A time when God has given us gifts of all kinds,
Yet, like them, we live in the time of already, but not yet.

We live in a world not yet made perfect,
So we will have times of anger, stress, lamenting
And yes, even boredom with good things.

God will be with you in these times,
Caring for you and uplifting you.
The challenge for you,
And one that can be supported with prayer
Is not to walk away from God
When you are feeling hurt, frustrated, angry, rejected or bored.

Amen