A Jar Full of Faith

Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, in order that they may see the food with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” —Exodus 16:32 

I have often used manna as my personal symbol of hope, especially in the work toward racial justice. I imagine the wilderness as our society and the lives shattered by the sin of racism, and manna as the constant yet fleeting flakes of sustenance we are promised on the journey toward liberation. I love the imagery of manna because we don’t really know what it is, and we have to search for it, work for it, every day. I am certain that the Israelites ate a lot of chocolate-covered, we’re-all-in-this-together bird crap by mistake while on the search for this mysterious honey- and coriander-scented manna.  

Of course, many strong Christian symbols of hope are sustaining and life-giving for me, including Jesus the Christ, but as I work to undo harmful and racist teachings, it is hard to disentangle my understandings of Jesus from the White European Jesus that is pervasive in our society. For example, Jesus as light of the world becomes tangled with shadism. Jesus as healer is wrapped up in ableism. And Jesus as teacher becomes conflated with the liberties that centuries of Christians from every tradition (including our own) took with biblical texts. Most days, Jesus is the manna that I find, but the more I learn about the complexity of racism, particularly within the church, the more elusive the manna becomes.  

When I was reminded of the commandment from Moses to save some fragrant manna in a jar for future generations, it stressed me out! How could I possibly muster enough hope to save? Truthfully, it would be easier to save a jar of tears. You don’t have to look far to find followers mourning a person crucified by the harsh reality of this wilderness. As a faith leader, clearly I must be inadequate if I cannot find enough hope to share with future generations. 

My comfort comes in the reminder that the Israelites were only allowed to store manna when they were leaving the wilderness, not while they were in the wilderness. The jar was a memorial, something to help them look back at what they had been through so they could move forward. Yet, their hope was not just in the manna; their hope was in the faith that the manna would come. Their jars were filled with the most powerful hope that there is: faith.  

We are still in the wilderness. We need our jars of faith: faith that we are not where we once were, not where we should be, and not yet where we will be. 

This is the gift I hope to share with future generations. 

May it be so.

Alydia 

Alydia Smith, Program Coordinator, Worship, Music, and Spirituality