As I have continued to ponder our shared parish life in light of upcoming leadership transitions, as well as in light of our ongoing pledge campaign, I keep returning to the story of the Israelites and God’s provision of manna in their wilderness wanderings. If you recall, these wanderings occur just on the other side of the Red Sea. The Israelites are newly freed and are at risk of taking this freedom for granted. And so, God provides manna for his grumbling children both as a way to satisfy their hunger but also as a way to teach them to rely on God alone.
If you have a moment, take out a Bible and read Exodus 16. (It is a short chapter!) Notice that, first and foremost, the manna is God’s gift, and as such, it cannot be controlled by the Israelites. Notice, too, that the manna appears in quantities and at times that are on God’s terms, not on human terms. Also, the manna appears in quantities that are just enough for those gathering it, for “those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed” (v. 18). None of it is to be wasted. It cannot be hoarded either. The Israelites must gather and eat it on God’s terms, not on their own. And in the midst of gathering manna, the Israelites are still required to rest on the Sabbath day.
Old Testament scholar and Anglican priest R.W.L. Moberly says that the manna “can be seen to function as a symbolic concretization of divine grace. It testingly challenges Israel to learn to live from an unfamiliar resource; it nourishes the Israelites irrespective of their varying abilities; it resists being accommodated to conventional human desires; it is designed to enable Israel to develop a particular rhythm of life, encompassing both the working week and rest on the Sabbath. In all these ways the manna inducts Israel into the divine pattern for life” (Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013, 84).
We are no longer taught by God with literal manna, but each week in the Mass we are fed with bread from heaven. And the Church has given us spiritual practices that help to “induct us into the divine pattern for life,” to borrow Moberly’s insightful words. The story of the Israelites and the manna should have great resonance in our own day because, if we are honest, we will see that we can be like God’s people of old, grumbling in ingratitude, trying to do things our way, failing to trust that God will provide, and seeking to control the gifts that God freely bestows upon us. For this very reason, we, too, like our ancestors of ancient days, need spiritual practices to invite us into “the divine pattern for life.”
Such practices guard us against what a parishioner recently called “magical thinking.” Magical thinking discourages healthy parish ministry. An example of magical thinking is noticing problems and saying something about them rather than proactively attempting to rectify them. The more positive version of this is articulating an idea or vision for something without being an active part of its realization. Magical thinking assumes that others will take care of ministry needs that need to be done. “Someone else will do it” is the unstated assumption of magical thinking. Some unidentified group of persons will cover the rest of the shortfall needed to meet the pledge goal. I’m sure that we’re all familiar with the temptation towards magical thinking.
But the problem with magical thinking is that it avoids the particulars of real life in Christ. Remember that R.W.L. Moberly described the manna as the “concretization of divine grace.” God does not just talk about doing things; God does them. And when Jesus talks about the rigors of following him, he asks us to do the same. “You give them something to eat,” he told the disciples who were anxious about feeding 5,000 people and who assumed that Jesus would magically take care of it for them. Of course, Jesus does feed them through a miracle, but he also draws in his disciples to take some responsibility, too. We are an incarnational people, which means that for the Gospel to be proclaimed and for ministry to happen, we can’t live only in our heads. We must embody our ideas in reality. When we have a vision for something in the parish or see a need that must be met, perhaps it’s God’s invitation to you and me to do something about it.
In relying on God’s manna, the Israelites are forced to rely on God alone and also rely on one another. The entire group of people in the wilderness must learn to live in intentional community so that all may be shaped by “the divine pattern for life.” And so it is with us in parish life. When we refrain from using our own God-given gifts for Gospel work, then we burden others with too much responsibility. Our life in Christ is a shared endeavor. We must all learn to assume our piece of the burden so that ministry can flourish and thrive.
The spiritual practice of sacrificial giving is another way of being shaped into “the divine pattern for life.” It is also a tactile way of sharing the very specific financial cost of sustaining ministry at Good Shepherd. It is a gift that invites us into a stronger sense of community and our need to support one another. Just as the Israelites had to reckon with manna as a gift that they could not control, so we must reckon with “our” money as something that we should not control but, instead, treat as a gift from God. Maybe we question the value in talking about a tithe on net income as a spiritual practice. It is true that we could over-literalize 10% of one’s net income as the only way to give sacrificially. On the other hand, a tithe is simply what it is: a Biblical injunction to give back to God what God has already given to us and what is ultimately not ours. Tithing assumes that all members of a spiritual community are doing their part of the large task of enabling Gospel work to happen. If everyone is tithing, everyone is sharing in the work of the community. I have no doubt that the appearance of the manna at specific times and the detailed instructions on when to gather it seemed arbitrary to the Israelites. Perhaps a tithe seems so to us. But the point is to live by God’s expectations, not by our own desires. God’s ways will always seem arbitrary if we live only according to our own will. Money holds great power for us for two principal reasons. The world tells us that there isn’t enough, and so we are scared of not having enough money. And second, it is one of the few things that we think we can control in our lives.
But if we live towards “the divine pattern for life,” we will live towards a trust in God’s gracious provision. We must assume, in this divine pattern, that God has given us just what we need and that maybe if we do tithe or work towards a tithe on net income, the walls of our reality might not necessarily crumble. I am not naive as to the great demands that sacrificial giving will make on our lives. I am also deeply aware of the fragility of the current economy and the fact that bills must be paid and mouths fed. But just because sacrificial giving to the Church seem onerous does not mean that it is not an important part of living into a “divine pattern.” It is likely that the call to tithe seems too weighty simply because our culture, even within the Church, has largely forgotten the rigor of living within the “divine pattern for life.”
My invitation is for all of us to do our part in learning to accept a move towards tithing on net income as part of a “divine pattern.” This may not be the year that you can reach a full tithe. Maybe it will take a few years, but now is a great time to start. (As you prayerfully consider what God is calling you to pledge towards ministry in 2026, I encourage you to consult this tithing spreadsheet, put together by our Advancement Committee. It can help you in moving towards a tithe on net income.) As this parish enters a period of transition, my other invitation is for us to refrain from magical thinking. The task of living into a “divine pattern” is the task of each of us. And the task of supporting the ministry to which God has called us, both financially and through our labor, is the task of each of us. Avoiding magical thinking is one way to ensure that we “don’t mess it up,” to paraphrase the words of one parishioner that emerged from our Visioning Conversation last February. In the body of Christ, there are no “other people” who will carry the weight of making things happen. That is magical thinking! The weight of proclaiming a Gospel to a hurting world is the responsibility and duty of every Christian. I invite you to an all-ages formation session this Sunday from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m. in the Parish House formation room. We will be discussing a rule of life. A rule of life is one way in which we can prayerfully cultivate habits and disciplines that shape us into “the divine pattern for life.” As we enter a period of transition in this parish, it can be a helpful exercise for all of us to develop our own rule of life, which will ensure that we are sharing the labor of ministry and sacrificial giving to which we are called.
For our ancestors in the faith, the story of the wilderness wandering and God’s gracious provision and teaching of his people would sustain them through great challenges in the future, including an exile in Babylon. It will be so with us as we face uncertainties and troubles in the rest of our lives. Now is the time to learn to live into the “divine pattern for life,” which will give us strength and courage to live hopefully and abundantly in a world that is fearful and anxious. To begin to live into this new, hopeful life in Christ, we must start with spiritual practices. It requires a radical prioritization of our lives so that we live not by bread but by God alone. And this means nothing less than putting God at the very center of all that we do. And that is no magical thinking.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle