Egypt was in the past. In the distance was the unknown future. Under their sandals was the endless grit of the everyday journey. By day the sun beat down on their heads and rose from the stones to scorch their feet. In the evening, when their moving ceased and the feverish heat was over, they murmured around the little lights of their fires and watched a sea of darkness swallow all evidence of the day's progress. As the days and nights wore on the Israelites grew ever more hungry, and thirsty, and tired of the journey, and they began to complain bitterly.

Egypt began to look pretty good in hindsight as they remembered the satisfaction of a full belly and the security of the known way. In Egypt there was meat by the fire when night fell instead of a circle of empty bellies growling in the dark.

In Egypt they ate their fill of bread. Maybe slavery wasn't so bad - one had sufficient food, a steady job and one knew where one stood in the community. In Egypt, you knew what the next day would bring. There was stability. Maybe Egypt had its difficult bits, but in the wilderness, all bets were off. Which was the better course, they began to wonder?

In the wilderness the Israelites were free from the bondage of their former life. But they were also free from the identity those very limits had defined for them. Who were they now? That was a hard question.

The Israelites were free from a society that had structured their time and limited their choices, so now they were forced to learn to make and maintain relationships on their own. They had to learn to make decisions instead of following orders. They were free to sink instead of floating along on someone else's cultural currents. They were free to fail. They were free to wander without enough food and water after a man who couldn't, or wouldn't, tell them exactly where they were going or when they would arrive. The uncertainty of their daily life seemed to increase with each step away from Egypt. And it was Moses that had led them out of Egypt.

Moses began to be cast in the role of an oppressor rather than seen as the messenger of their deliverance. "You have brought us into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger," they said.

We can see why they were nervous; Moses couldn't even tell them the name of the God whose commands they were following because the burning bush had been pretty coy.

"Trust me," was the basic message from that crackling presence of divinity that had brought them to the wilderness and to the loss of their old sense of themselves and the world in which they had lived. "Trust me," God said.

Human beings have always had a hard time with trust. Proof is so much easier: it's concrete, logical, you can figure your way through it and assure yourself that it all works. You can see what you'll get out of it and then decide: is it worth the risk?

Relationships built on proof are called contracts. You can ask for the brochure and see the list of features and benefits. A contract lists the guaranteed maximum price and the promised date of delivery. There is a payment schedule based on percentage of completion and you can sue the offending party if they don't hold up their end. You know what to expect in a contractual relationship, and you can take that to the bank.

Covenants are what relationships built on trust are called. Trust means tying your future to someone else's without knowing the outcome in advance. Trust means agreeing to boundaries to enable mutual growth but acknowledging that you won't know where the truly important milestones were until you look back.

Trust means that unknown risks will be embraced in order to move forward with the other, and that there is a mutual willingness to bear undisclosed future costs in order to build stronger relationship now.

Covenants have no completion date by which both parties intend to be done, they assume that the work and the relationship will just go on and on. Trust is the good soil in which even tiny seeds can grow strong and tall and at the right time yield a harvest beyond our imagining.

All meaningful relationships require trust but we vacillate because of the imagined value of our isolated independence and our fear of the unknown costs of being in covenantal relationships. We live in the tension between our notion of freedom and the true freedom into which God is calling us. We exercise our indecision in our relationships with our family, our friends, our church and our God. The wilderness is a place where all bets are off but all things are possible. The land in which we already dwell is limited, but we know what to expect. We can empathize with the Israelites.

Like them, we hunger and thirst for things that pass right through our bodies and our lives. We also seek the certainty of that which we already know and accept slavery in the name of security. We too do not always recognize God's gifts when they land right in front of us.

The Israelites knew what they thought bread should look like. What God provided didn't fit their expectation. Our expectations will not always be met by what God provides either. But we will be fed sufficient for our needs.

God told Moses to tell the Israelites that they would eat meat at twilight and their fill of bread in the morning. When manna fell from heaven they had to ask, "what's that?" The Israelites wanted the food they remembered, the bread of Egypt, but Moses said, "Draw near to the Lord." The focus was on the state of the relationship not the shape of the food.

When crowds followed Jesus from the feeding of the five thousand to the shore across the lake, they came seeking lunch. They came seeking to satisfy their appetites. They wanted more bread and solid proof, "what sign are you going to give us then?" they asked Jesus.

How much proof did they need? How much proof do we need? God provided quail in the desert, water from the rock, and manna in the morning. Jesus fed five thousand people from a couple of fish and a few loaves. God has showered your life and mine with good gifts, some of which we have recognized. But all of this meeting of material needs has been done to engender trust, to build a covenantal relationship, not to establish a contract to provide ongoing food service.

A full stomach is not the be all end all. Neither is a full bank account or a house full of 200-thread count linen and fine mahogany furniture. Fulfillment lies in a covenantal relationship with a loving God who promises to be with us until the end of all things. Trust in God. Do not work for things that are perishing but seek relationship with God Jesus taught that this is the work that is worthwhile.

"What must we do to perform the work of God?" the people around Jesus asked. "Believe in him whom God has sent," Jesus replied. To believe in Him is our work too. To trust in God is the highest and best use of our time, energy abd resources.

Jesus offered living water to the Samaritan women by David's well, he told her if she accepted what he offered she would never be thirsty again. Jesus is the water of life. To the hungry crowd on the shore by the sea Jesus said, "I am the bread of life."

The heavenly banquet is a diet of bread and water. We may struggle to recognize God's gracious offering in this image because is very different from our expectations. We may desire that which is sumptuous, but God offers that which is both sufficient and eternal. The finest dinner party will fade from memory but God is always offering himself in the bread on the altar and the hours of each day.

God offers us the food of angels, and drink indeed, and God calls us to move forward. Shall we crave the meat and potatoes of our past or shall we seek to walk with God day by day and trust that God knows our deepest needs and will provide. "Will you trust me?" God seems to be asking as the waters close on our past and the unknown future opens before us.

There is no wilderness so wild, or wide, or distant that God is not there. There is no stretch of time in our passage through life in which God will cease to love us. That is the nature of the convenant God has made with us.

Our work, our way from here to there across the wilderness, is to believe in Him whom God has sent. Draw sustenance from the Word, the living water, the bread from heaven, the Christ of God's own choosing.

Our appetites can mislead us, our leaders will come and go, but God's invitation and intention is eternal. It looks well beyond the simple satisfaction of lunchtime and offers the deep fulfillment that comes from acknowledging our deepest need - our need for God. Let us drink deeply, and eat until we are filled. Then let us move foward trusting that God is faithful and will lead us where we need to go.
AMEN