Manna From Heaven

Scriptures: Exodus 16:2-15

Matthew 20:1-16

Cover photo courtesy of Cody Miller. © Cody Miller. Prints of cover art are available at www.codyfmiller.com.

Recently I started swimming laps at the aquatic center. Most of the time, there are plenty of lanes, and I can get right in.

But this past week, when I arrived, all the lanes were full. 

So I sat down on a bench to wait for one to open up. 

Everyone was swimming laps, except I noticed one lane had a couple with a small baby… hanging on pool noodles, standing, chatting. 

I waited a minute… juuusst to make sure neither was actually swimming laps, before going over to ask, "I’m so sorry, but... I’m here for lap swimming. Could I use this lane?"

The guy, holding his baby, looks up at me, looking a little awkward, and says… "Oh, errr, well, our friend is swimming here." 

And I was like, "Oh… and your friend was swimming laps…?

Based on these two, I doubted his story.  

He replied, "Yeah…"  giving me a shrug and a look that said, “What can I do?” 

To which I thought… do exactly what you are doing here in the lane, but in the wading area right next to this lane? 

He then offers, maybe you could share the lane? 

I consider it. 

At that exact moment, the woman, who is about halfway down the lane by now, starts kicking wildly. She is balanced on a pool noodle, taking up the entire lane. She is clearly having fun, but if there is one thing about competitive, or former competitive, swimmers, it is that we take lap swimming etiquette very seriously. And this couple clearly did not know the rules of the pool. 

I wavered, still wanting to get my laps in, trying to figure out how I’d do it. The pool is only open for another 45 minutes, I worried. That is when I saw their friend coming back from the bathroom…

Realizing he was in fact real… I gave up. I told the guy not to worry about it as I turned back to the benches.

I sat back down... still worrying about how I would get my workout in.  

Eventually, another swimmer offered me her lane, making a joke that swimming was too boring for her. I laughed as I jumped into the water, grateful, but still a little annoyed.

Throughout my workout, I kept watching that other lane.

I kept thinking, This is lap-swimming hours! These lanes are for people actually swimming laps! There are plenty of other places in the pool to do this!"

On and on I went, silently complaining.

I relaxed a little when their friend did finally start swimming laps—sort of. He made it one length every few minutes and spent most of his time talking with his friends.

Later, as I rinsed off in the locker room, I continued ruminating on the situation, but by then I was feeling more ambivalent about it all.

I was embarrassed to have let this small inconvenience spoil my good mood.

I’d still gotten my laps in!

I also continued going over my conversation with that stranger... Had I been rude? I really hope not! Even though I had to bite my tongue.

But I was also still rehashing all the reasons I had been right to be frustrated. 

I worked late, I just wanted a workout before the pool closed.

These lanes are for people actually swimming laps!

All I wanted was for people to follow the rules!

But then I thought of this week’s scripture passages. 

I thought of Jesus' story, featuring the worker who gets angry when the boss pays him the same wage as workers who arrived late in the day. 

The man in this story got upset with the boss because he clearly deserved more than the guys who worked only an hour! He had worked all day in the heat, and what had they done? Sit around?

He grumbled against the landowner, "You have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day!” 

Traditionally, Christians have read this story as God is the landlord and the wage is eternal life: God’s grace is a gift, whether you come to faith early or late. We should not begrudge our siblings in Christ who did not "work" so long or so hard as us, because we are all ultimately saved by God's grace through faith.

But imagine the parable as an actual workplace. Suddenly, it does seem pretty unfair.

A friend of mine once wrote a post on Facebook satirizing this parable, complaining that his neighbor had paid him the same amount for yard work as his friend who showed up at the last minute. The comments were pretty revealing of how any of us might react if we faced a similar situation.

I thought about all my complaining that it was me who deserved that lane. I thought about just how unfair the situation had seemed to me. 

But I could see that, just like the landowner, who did nothing wrong by acting generously to the workers without work. Neither had those people at the pool.

Anyone who has worked a day-labor job knows the importance of that daily wage. That is what you needed to survive another day. It is food for your family. It is tomorrow’s daily bread.

Missing out on a day’s wage means missing meals.

And so the landowner chooses mercy. He acts generously. He makes sure everyone goes home with what they need, regardless of how much he received from them in return.

Can you imagine if that were how owners ran their businesses in our world? Can you imagine if our economic life began with that conviction—that everyone should have what they need to live? What might that mean for wages, for public assistance, or even for bolder proposals like Universal Basic Income?

Jesus tells this parable to show us what the reign of God is like—and, in doing so, what God is like.

God is merciful. God is generous. God’s justice is not simply about what is “fair,” giving each person exactly what they deserve or earned. God’s justice is about righteousness—about making sure people have what they need. 

This message challenged Jesus’ disciples then, and it challenges the church now.

It challenges his followers to be on the side of the worker who arrived late—the one who waited all day, ready to work, hoping someone would hire him. 

And sometimes, standing with that worker means advocating not for what seems “fair,” but for what is right.

Like that grumbling worker, I had to admit: I already had what I needed. 

I’d gotten a lane. I’d gotten in my laps. 

In fact, all of this was some first-world problem. 

I had so much more than that grumbling vineyard worker. 

I also had so much more than the Israelites in today’s story from Exodus. 

The Israelites are still on their long journey to freedom.

They had escaped slavery in Egypt, survived a series of deadly plagues, crossed through the sea with Pharaoh’s army pursuing them, and followed Moses into the wilderness.

Liberation had brought them into a place where food was scarce and the future uncertain, and so they began to complain.

They even looked back toward Egypt with nostalgia: "At least there, we had food!"

And God hears their grumbling.

God doesn’t seem thrilled that the Israelites are complaining against Moses and Aaron. Nor does God seem impressed by their suggestion that slavery was better than their present hardship.

For those of us who have heard messages that to be a good Christian means never complaining, we might expect God to get mad at the Israelites here.

But God doesn’t actually punish them for complaining. There is no admonishment to stop grumbling. Instead, God lets them know through Moses that there will be enough food. Quail is on the menu tonight! And they have bread to look forward to in the morning!

God provides what the Israelites need, but not without also teaching them a lesson.

They are instructed to gather only what they need for the day. When some try to hoard extra manna for tomorrow, it spoils.

It reminds me of what Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer calls the principles of the “Honorable Harvest”—take only what you need, leave enough for others, and trust in the abundance of the gift.

The wilderness teaches Israel that God’s provision is not an invitation to hoard. It is an invitation to trust that God will continue to provide. If we keep to the principles of the honorable harvest, we do our part to ensure that Creation can indeed continue to provide for us. 

There will be enough. Enough manna for your neighbor. Enough for you. Enough for all, even on the Sabbath day.

That was the lesson I needed this week at the pool.

While I was caught up complaining about a few people bending the pool rules, I overlooked that there was enough pool for all of us. 

As I left the locker room, I remembered that gratitude is excellent medicine for when I’ve lost perspective. So I started listing them, all the ways I already had all that I needed and more. 

This list became my own awkward, somewhat forced prayers of thanksgiving to God. 

Thank you, God, for access to a pool.

Thank you for a place where I can swim laps again after so many years away.

Thank you for the way water makes me feel.

For the lifeguards who keep us safe.

For the chemicals that keep it clean.

For the car that gets me here.

For the time to swim.

For my health.

For water.

For air.

For life.

For all our human inventions—pools and cars, jobs and markets, farms and grocery stores—that can sometimes put distance between us and the source of what sustains us, God remains, at the deepest and most fundamental level, our provider.

The giver of our daily bread. The giver of enough.

Wooooo…I took a deep breath.

Wooooo… I felt better.

My experience at the pool was not analogous to that of the Israelites. 

Nor was it all that similar to Jesus' parable. 

But Scripture doesn’t need to perfectly mirror our circumstances to help us see more clearly, and gain some perspective when we really need it. Scripture can help us sift through a somewhat menial interaction when we are not displaying the fruits of the Spirit, and ask, what is the world wrong with me? 

This discernment helps us recognize when something that feels like an injustice is really just an inconvenience, and to regain the internal freedom to simply move on. 

At the pool that day, no injustice had occurred.

I waited a few extra minutes.

I had to practice patience.

I still got what I needed.

But it is that same spirit of discernment that also helps us recognize when what sounds like grumbling is actually righteous anger—when people are crying out because they don't have what they need.

In Exodus, God does not punish hungry people for complaining that they are hungry. God just feeds them.

But God also teaches them not to hoard what their neighbors also need.

Because God’s reign is generous, gracious, merciful, and just. 

And so, e to live into God’s reign back then, and to live into God's reign today, is to be both grateful when we have enough, and ensure that our neighbors do too. It means that we can trust that God’s gifts were never meant for us alone.

Thanks be to God. 

Sermon preached by Rev. Delaney Piper on 9/20/26.