“The hopes and fears of all the years”

Luke 1:5-13

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

November 30, 2025

Our journey into Advent begins with these words: “In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah….” I have to confess, I never really paid much attention to these words before. They sound a bit like “once upon a time….” Filler words that let us know we’re about to hear a story. I’ve always rushed on - Zechariah in the temple, his wife, Elizabeth, the angel, the promise of a baby who would be named John. This story is full of joy and hope, but can also bring pain to those who have struggled with infertility. If that’s you, rest easy - we won’t be spending too much time with Zechariah or the angel today. Instead, we’re going to sit with this first sentence, “In the days of King Herod of Judea….” 

Sarah Speed’s powerful poem was what made me sit still and pay attention to those opening words this week. You’ll find it in your bulletin if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet. It begins:

I didn’t live during Herod’s time—that brutal, murderous king, 

     God save his soul.

But even hundreds of years later, I know the prayers of his people.

     I know the prayers of the mothers and the children under his rule.

     I know the prayers of the young men under his angry arm.

     I know their prayers, because anyone who has ever lived in this 

     soft world for more than two days knows how to pray for a miracle.

(from “In the Time of Herod” by Sarah Speed)

We don’t live in the time of Herod, but we, too, know the prayers of the people who did, don’t we? The prayers of the mothers shuffling in sick to another day at work because they don’t have any sick leave. The prayers of the child stuck at home trying to catch up on school work because ICE is in the neighborhood so they haven’t been to school this week. The prayers of the elders who are putting off necessary dental work because they can’t afford it. The prayers of men isolated from their families because so many systems failed them but the cradle-to-prison pipeline works all-too-well. 

We know their prayers because anyone who has been paying attention in “this soft world for more than two days knows how to pray for a miracle.” We know what it’s like to pray

“God, break through the yelling and the fear. 

Break through the violence and the oppression.

Get past the Herods of this world, and come be here.”

Like every bleeding heart before, we know how to pray for a miracle.

It never ceases to amaze me how we can turn, time and time again, to this ancient book and find stories that sound like they could be zapped to our phones today. 

Just who was this ancient king who set the stage for the season of Advent? 

King Herod is remembered for two things: as a great builder who oversaw the construction of some of the most fantastic monuments in the world and as a cruel tyrant. He was incredibly paranoid, going so far as to execute one of his own wives and three of sons because he feared they would betray him. He was so afraid that people wouldn’t mourn him properly after he died that he left instructions for several other prominent men to be killed immediately after his death so there would be mass mourning. Some historians say that his paranoia was so intense that he had his own secret police to help control those he found threatening. Josephus says he had 2,000 soldiers as his personal guard. [1] 

Fear dominated Herod’s life. He both lived in fear AND did his best to strike fear in others. Like Herod, we are no strangers to fear. It seems to be everywhere these days. We are aware that giant faceless powers are doing their best to make us all afraid all the time. We are told to fear those who don’t look like us, think like us, talk like us, vote like us - and on and on. We live in a world so fragmented that a simple car horn blaring can make us wonder if we’re about to find ourselves in an altercation. We are often afraid of the things we consume, afraid of Big Pharma, afraid of Big Brother, afraid of Big Government, afraid of climate disasters, afraid of job loss, afraid of the future. I mean, I could go on. But I’ll stop. You get it. We’re no strangers to fear. 

The creators of this year’s Advent series want to invite us to do something that Herod probably never did: take an honest inventory of our fears, honoring and moving through them. Fear is, at its most basic level, a very useful human emotion. It can keep us safe when there actually is danger. Of course, the problem is that we often see danger where none exists. We allow ourselves to be controlled by fear, rather than using fear as the tool it's meant to be. And the more we live in fear, the more our fears seem to come true. Fear begets fear - an unrelenting whirlwind. 

Fortunately, we have faith practices that can help us exit that fear whirlwind when it’s not serving us. Practices like lighting the Advent wreath together. Each week in Advent, we light a candle and each candle represents a different gift of this season: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. These words are short and sweet. They are the kind of words we might skip past without paying much attention. They’re words that are found in all of our Christmas carols and throw pillows. They don’t seem fancy enough to stand up in the face of fear. 

But what if we don’t skip over them this year? What if we pause and pay attention to these seasonal gifts? The writers from A Sanctified Art ask us “What do you fear?” and in the next breath they remind us to “insist on hope this Advent.”

Just what IS hope? I bet if I asked every person in our church to define hope (or peace or joy or love) I’d get at least as many answers as we have people. Accepting the invitation to insist on hope this season, I went searching for a definition where I always search for definitions: in a book. 

Hope: A User’s Manual by the Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana starts out by telling us what hope is NOT. Hope is not a prediction, optimism, cause and effect, toxic positivity, nor the opposite of despair. Fifty pages into this book, having dealt with all the things that hope is NOT, it’s pretty clear to me that Dana is not pedaling any needlepoint definitions of hope. Everything she has to offer is nuanced, but clear, inviting us into our own prayerful pondering as well. It’s a beautiful book, by the way, and would make a wonderful Advent devotional for anyone looking to dig a little deeper this season. 

By the time we get to section two, I’m on my second cup of tea and Dana feels like an old friend. She begins her exploration of what hope IS with a short chapter titled “Hope is what we do” a phrase she borrowed from Lutheran pastor Mitri Raheb who lives and works in Bethlehem. Raheb shares about living under occupation his entire life and describes himself as a “prisoner of hope.” Dana says she loves his definition of hope as “what we do” because of its dual meaning. It’s both “what we do” as in our daily work like “I’m a teacher” or “I’m a grandfather” and it’s a powerful statement of how we make hope real through our actions. “Hope,” Dana says,”is wrapped up in what we make real. Hope isn’t what we think. Hope isn’t what we feel. Hope isn’t even what we imagine is possible. Hope is what we do in the face of suffering, pain, and injustice. Hope is what we do in the face of depression’s dull weight or grief’s harsh sting. Hope is what we do.” [2] 

She illustrates this by sharing a story about her teenage daughter, who lived with serious depression while in high school. As college loomed, her daughter worried about making the transition. “What if I can’t handle college? What if I spiral like I did in high school?” McKibben Dana says her kneejerk reaction was to soothe, “Oh, you’ll be fine, honey. Don’t worry.” But, for whatever reason, she didn’t. Instead she said, “Well, what if you start to spiral?” At first her daughter panicked and went to all the immediate worst-case-scenario responses. “I’ll fail. I’ll flunk out. I’ll never find a job. I’ll have to live at home forever.” And her mom interrupted her, “No. Pause a second. I mean, really, literally, what will you do first? And then next?” And her daughter took a breath and then said, “I will ask for help. I will talk to my professors. I will schedule a therapy appointment.” [3] And that’s it right there. That’s hope. The knowledge of what we can do. The assurance that we aren’t alone in the struggle. The realization that even when things get bad, we can persevere. Hope is what we do. 

Of course, in this fear-filled world, sometimes hope feels a bit more tenuous. The step-by-step responses aren’t so clear. The way through and out is murky, at best, and completely opaque, at worst. How often have we prayed in frustration, “God, just show me the way. I will do whatever you say, just say something!” No? Just me? Okay then. 

We can feel so overwhelmed that we have no idea where to begin. And if we do feel like we get an answer to our prayers,, just a baby step we can take in the right direction, sometimes we are quick to brush it off because it seems too small. “That one little thing? That’s not going to solve these big problems.” 

Dana knows this move, too. And she invites us to consider that hope takes a longer view than what we might be used to. She writes, “It’s a paradox—each small task we do…does not remake the world. It makes the present moment better, which is no small thing. But hope infuses those modest acts with meaning, not just to alleviate present suffering, but with the audacious goal to construct a new world.” [4] 

She mentions the ancient site at Newgrange in Ireland. This stone tomb was built 5000 years ago - making it older than Stonehenge or the pyramids in Egypt. It’s a giant circle - as wide as a football field and over three stories tall. While the size alone makes it a unique feat of engineering, more impressive is its site orientation. At sunrise on the winter solstice each year, the sun lines up directly with a roofbox so that the interior chamber lights up. It’s absolutely mind-blowing to realize people in the Stone Age built something like this. Archeologists believe it must have taken decades to build the structure, meaning several generations of people passed down knowledge to build something the world had never seen before. Together, bit by bit, they built the impossible. The people who laid the first stones probably didn’t live to see the finished product, but without them, it would not exist.. They didn’t allow the enormity of the task to keep them from getting started. They did what they could and trusted the work would continue. 

Hope is what we do. 

Hope is taking the long view. 

Hope is how we practice our faith in the face of fear. 

Hope is a gift from the Spirit and it’s one we pause each Advent to remember. Let us give thanks for it as we insist on hope this season. 

Amen. 

NOTES

[1] https://historycooperative.org/king-herod-of-judea/ 

[2] 

McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 50). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

[3] Ibid., 49. 

[4] Ibid., 73. 

“Amos and Martin”

Amos 1:1-2; 5:7-15, 21-24

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

November 9, 2025

As a 21 year old in my first semester of seminary, I discovered there was a LOT I didn’t know about the Bible. Like the time I asked the professor “what is this exile they keep talking about?” and watched as the entire classroom turned around and stared at me like I was from another planet. It turns out that The Exile (with a capital E) is a major plot point in the Hebrew Bible. I hadn’t known. 

Or the time we were assigned the entire book of Amos. I don’t think I had ever read any of it before. I got to the end of chapter 5 - “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” - and became indignant. “WHY IS THIS GUY QUOTING MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.?!?”

Wait. No. Other way around. MLK is quoting Amos, of course. 

Such was my introduction to the world of prophetic literature. Seminary is also where I learned that prophecy is not primarily future-oriented, as I had assumed. Biblical prophecy is not like Nostradamus (concerned with predicting events way off on the horizon). Instead, the prophets in the Bible are more concerned with the here-and-now. Biblical prophets like Amos are careful observers of the systems they live in. Their primary, God-ordained task is not to predict the future but to shine a light on the present day. 

Of course, Biblical prophecy also involves statements about the future, but it’s a flexible future. “If you keep doing X,” say the prophets, “you’re going to end up with Y.” But the possibility for change is the point. “If you repent,” say the prophets, “if you turn around and go a different direction, these terrible things will not come to pass. You can go another way.” 

Amos and Dr. King lived millennia apart, but it turns out that the prophetic tradition doesn’t change that much over time. Whether we’re in the 8th century before Christ or the 20th century after, prophets are still keen observers. They still open themselves to receive a Word from God. They are still, to use a Kingian phrase, “creatively maladjusted.” They are still on the side of the poor and marginalized. They are still big-picture thinkers. They are still despised by people in power. They are still reviled while they live and celebrated after they die. 

Another thing about prophets like King and Amos - and this is one we don’t talk about as often because I think it scares us a bit: they’re human. 

Which is to say: they put their pants on one leg at a time. They hit snooze on their alarm clocks. They have been known to laugh a little too loud at inappropriate jokes. They disappoint their families. They disappoint themselves. Prophets get tired. Exhausted, even. They are plagued by moments of frustration and hopelessness. They daydream about checking out and binging reality TV. And I think it’s safe to say that no prophet told their third grade teacher they wanted to be a prophet someday. 

Take Amos, for example. We don’t know too much about him, but here’s what we do know: he was originally from Tekoa, in the Southern Kingdom, but was sent to try and talk some sense into the leaders in the Northern Kingdom. He was not a priest or politician. He was a sheep-farmer and a “dresser of sycamore trees.” What does that even mean? The sycamore we’re talking about here isn’t like the sycamores in our part of the world. Instead, it’s a fruit-bearing with a large canopy. It’s long, low limbs make it an excellent shade tree. And, yes, in case you’re remembering Zacchaeus climbing the tree to watch Jesus pass by, we’re talking about THAT kind of sycamore. Those low limbs make it good for climbing, too. The fruit of these trees is fig-like and grows in clusters that stay very close to the trunk of the tree. Without help, the fruit isn’t very tasty. So tree dressers like Amos would climb these trees and poke or slice holes in the top of each piece of fruit to help them ripen and make them more palatable.. 

How does a sheep-farmer and tree-hugger become one of the most famous prophets of all time? 

Probably much in the same way Michael King did. 

Michael Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, just as his father-in-law, Adam WIlliams before. Michael Senior’s parents had been sharecroppers in rural Georgia. When Michael Jr. was about five years old, his father traveled to Germany for a worldwide church convention. He came home and changed his name and his child’s name to Martin Luther. 

Martin Jr. was a voracious reader and lover of words. He enjoyed beauty, and by the time he was a teen was known for his keen sense of style.. Like his mother, a trained classical pianist, he was musical. He could sing, play the piano, violin and loved to go out dancing with friends. He was incredibly close to his maternal grandmother, Jennie. When he was 12 she died and he jumped out the second-story window of his house, trying to follow her into death. 

By the time he was 15, Martin had finished high school and headed to university at Morehouse. But first, he traveled North to Connecticut and spent the summer working on a tobacco farm. Like Amos, he got his hands dirty working in the fields. Like Amos, he probably had plenty of time to let his mind wander while his hands worked. 

Now you might think it had always been clear that MLK was on track to be a civil rights leader. And it’s true that there were plenty of things in his upbringing that steered him that way. But ultimately, I don’t think that’s where he thought he was headed at all. 

He had an academic’s heart - or brain, at least. He finished university by the age of 19 and went right on to seminary and then on to Boston University for his Ph.D. in systematic theology, which he finished at the age of 26. While he planned to be a pastor, this was an era where a pastor could safely assume they’d spend most of their hours in their study, not the streets. 

So, no, I don’t think Dr. King would have told his third grade teacher he wanted to grow up and be a prophet. I don’t think he would have told the search committee at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church that he wanted to be a prophet. I don’t think he wanted to be a prophet at all. Amos probably didn’t either. 

And yet - when Rosa Parks was arrested as a part of an ongoing campaign against bus segregation in Montgomery, Dr. King went to the meeting of local leaders. He showed up. And he listened. And when the group said they thought he should be in charge of the bus boycott because he was new to town,  he reluctantly said yes. And then he went to his office and bargained a bit with God, “Okay, listen here. I said yes to this because I think you want me to. I did my part. I showed up. But I don’t have a thing to say and the church is packed. So if you have a message you’d like the people to hear, you’d better speak clearly and slowly so I can write it all down.” 

“These are the words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa. He perceived these things concerning Israel two years before the earthquake…

He said:

    The Lord roars from Zion.” 

Amos heard the word of the Lord roaring forth from Zion - shouting for justice on behalf of the people: “Stop taxing the needy. Stop taking money on the side and turning the poor away with nothing to eat. And stop gaslighting me with these charades of righteousness. I don’t care about your showy religious festivals. None of it matters if you’re not taking care of the poor.” 

Martin heard the word of the Lord roaring forth from Zion, too. 

Like Amos, he listened and he spoke: 

Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem…[and] use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. [1]

And spoke again: 

The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but his body, not only his spiritual well-being, but his material well-being. Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial. [2]  

Ours is not a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial, is it? Is it? 

Then we must be like Martin and Amos and tune our hearts to hear the roar for justice. If we truly want to pray with Amos and Martin, “Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” then we have to not only speak out for justice and show up for justice but get quiet and steady and still and listen for the what the Spirit is saying in our time and place. 

Thanks be to God, we are not all called to be prophets. Amen? 

But some of you in this room ARE called to be prophets. You may think, “I’m not like Dr. King.” And you know what Dr. King probably thought? “I’m not like Amos.” And you know what Amos probably thought….? You see where I’m going with this. We are not all called to be prophets. But some are. Some are. 

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans

We have many parts in one body, but the parts don’t all have the same function. In the same way, though there are many of us, we are one body in Christ, and individually we belong to each other. We have different gifts that are consistent with God’s grace that has been given to us. If your gift is prophecy, you should prophesy in proportion to your faith. If your gift is service, devote yourself to serving. If your gift is teaching, devote yourself to teaching. If your gift is encouragement, devote yourself to encouraging. The one giving should do it with no strings attached. The leader should lead with passion. The one showing mercy should be cheerful. [3] 

Who are you? Are you a prophet? A server? A teacher? An encourager? A giver? A leader? One who gravitates towards compassion? Some other beautiful creation altogether? 

Close your eyes for just a moment. See if you can hear the person next to you breathing. If you feel very bold, reach out and see if they’d like to hold hands. 

“We are one body in Christ. Individually, we belong to each other. We have different gifts that are consistent with God’s grace that has been given to us.” 

(period of silence)

Thanks be to God. 

NOTES

[1] King, Paul’s Letter to American Christians, 1956. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/pauls-letter-american-christians-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church 

[2] King. Pilgrimage to Nonviolence, 1960. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/pilgrimage-nonviolence

[3] Romans 12

 

“All Saints’ Story Time”

1 Samuel 3:1-10

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

November 2, 2025 - All Saints’ Day

All Saints’ Day is a time set aside for giving thanks for those that we have loved and lost. And it’s a time to pause and consider our own mortality. How do we want to be remembered someday? What gifts do we want to share with the world while we’re still living?

As I told the kids, the customs that have grown up around All Hallows’ mean it’s also a time for imagining ourselves into stories. And so, I want to tell you a very old story on this All Saints’ Sunday. This story is about connections between the generations and the way we mentor others in faith. It’s a story about growing up in our faith. It’s a story about how the veil between this world and the next is often thinner than we might realize. And it’s a story about the power of listening - to the Spirit and to each other. 

The night is quiet. The boy is about 10 years old. He’s curled up there on his sleeping mat, just near the front of the sanctuary,  next to the Lamp of God. The scene reminds me a bit of when I was a little girl and I loved to fall asleep by the Christmas tree in December. Warm light, silent night, and a feeling of holiness as I drifted off to sleep. 

Why is a child sleeping in the sanctuary? Well, this isn’t just any child, nor is it just any sanctuary. We’re in  Shiloh, about 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Shiloh’s claim to fame is right here next to the sleeping boy. Long before Jerusalem was the home to the Temple, this was the most sacred site for our faith ancestors. This is where the Ark of the Covenant lives. In fact, the boy sleeps near it every night. The Ark of the Covenant represents the presence of God with the Israelites. When the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, they carried the Ark with them. When their wandering finally stopped, it came to rest here in the sanctuary at Shiloh. 

Why is a child sleeping in the sanctuary? For this particular boy, it might not be just because of the Ark and the Lamp. This sanctuary holds additional meaning for the boy. This sanctuary is the place where his mother, Hannah, came a decade ago to pray for God’s help. She desperately wanted a child and, through her tears, she promised God that if she had a child she would dedicate his life to the service of God. Eli, the priest at Shiloh, had seen Hannah praying that day and offered her a blessing before she left the temple. In this way, Eli had been in the child’s life before he was even conceived. 

After his birth, Hannah rejoiced. She named him Samuel which means “I have asked him of the Lord.” And when he was old enough to be weaned, Hannah kept her word to God. She brought Samuel to the temple at Shiloh and gave him to Eli’s care, so that he could learn the faith and, eventually, become a priest himself. 

And that’s why this particular child is sleeping in this particular sanctuary. 

The story goes that, in this time, God’s voice was hard to hear. Surely God was still speaking, but maybe the people just didn’t notice. We are told that the priest Eli was growing older and couldn’t see as well as he used to. Perhaps this was more than just his physical eyesight. Maybe it was his spiritual attunement, too.  

And just who is this priest, Eli? Our faith ancestors who wrote these stories down didn’t hold back with their critiques of bad leaders, so we can assume that no news was mostly good news. Eli had been a trusted leader of the people and, it seems, a good mentor for the young Samuel. There was just one small problem. Two, actually.

Eli’s sons Phinneas and Hophni were a concern. Despite the decency of their father, these two had grown into an indecent problem. They had grown a bit too comfortable in the Temple. Instead of treating their access to this sacred space with respect, they took advantage of their privileges to a gross extent. They skimmed money off the top of the offering plates and slept with the women who worked in the temple. Eli heard about these things and chastised his sons - but the abuses of power continued. 

Things were going better with Samuel. Perhaps Eli was teaching him more carefully than he had his own sons. Samuel seems to have been growing into a fine young man - making both his parents and Eli proud. 

And so I suppose it’s not too surprising that when God spoke Samuel’s name that night, he heard it loud and clear. At first he didn’t know what he was hearing. Despite his priestly upbringing, Samuel didn’t yet know God personally. Everything  he had learned so far had been filtered through the lens of his elders. 

Surely his mother Hannah, who had prayed so earnestly at his birth, taught him to pray as a young child. We don’t know much about Samuel’s father, but we do know that he managed to take his family on an annual religious pilgrimage to Shiloh, so we can assume he also cared deeply about his son’s religious formation. 

And we know that Samuel must have spent countless hours being apprenticed in the ways of the priesthood by Eli, his mentor. The priest taught the boy the old stories and helped him learn how to preside over the rituals. He taught him the arts of speaking carefully and listening well. He taught him how to be judicious and kind. He taught him how to not only answer questions, but ask good ones, too. 

Like any teacher, Eli made mistakes from time to time. Perhaps wasn’t as enthusiastic as he could have been about the more difficult parts of their shared calling. But he treasured the opportunity to have a student. He had not done as well as he had hoped with his sons. He tried, but ultimately failed, to share with them his passion for God but they went astray. And so he was particularly grateful for this second chance with Samuel. The boy had been an answer to Hannah’s prayer, but he felt a bit like the answer to Eli’s unspoken prayers, too. 

As the years continued to pass, Eli realized that Samuel was a blessing in other ways, as well. They had been through the rituals so many times now that Samuel could probably even lead them himself if he had to, and someday he would. And just last week, he had seen Samuel telling a little girl about the ten commandments etched on the tablets. As she asked questions, Samuel answered them patiently and correctly. Eli’s heart swelled with pride. 

Samuel was a blessing in more practical ways, too. As Eli’s eyesight continued to fade, the boy began taking on more duties around the temple. At the end of the day, Eli no longer had to straighten the sanctuary or check on the lamps. It was hard for him to see in the dark, and so Samuel had taken over all these tasks and he handled them beautifully. 

And so it was that on this particular night, when Samuel crept into Eli’s room, Eli was surprised. It had been years since the child had interrupted his sleep asking for reassurance or another blanket to stay warm. He was so big now. Almost grown. He hardly needed anything from the old man. 

But on this particular night, Eli realized he had at least one more lesson to teach the boy. He hadn’t realized that - despite all his book learning, despite the hours of practical education in what it takes to be a priest - Samuel had never heard God’s voice before. When he realized what was happening, he gently told the boy to go back into the sanctuary and listen again. “This time,” he said, “When you hear your name, respond, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ Listening is such an important part of being a leader, Samuel. Listen to what the Lord has to say to you. And never be afraid to follow the instructions given.”

Samuel did as his mentor taught him. He lay down once more on his sleeping mat in the darkened sanctuary. The Lamp of God was still burning. The Ark was still right where it should be. And if he listened to the silence hard enough, he could almost hear the sounds of a young woman’s whispered prayers and tears. 

Laying there, Samuel remembered all that his elders had taught him. He remembered the words of the song his mother used to sing to him as a young child, “God raises up the poor from the dust; God lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with royalty and inherit a seat of honor.” 

He remembered the sweat on his father’s brow as he loaded up the cart each year to make the long journey to Shiloh. 

And he remembered the hours he had spent with his mentor, Eli, learning everything he needed to know to grow into the priest he would become. 

Full of the faith of his elders, he opened himself to the silence and waited. 

“God’s Economy”

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-18

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

October 12, 2025

There are some things you can know with your head, but you don’t really KNOW them until you’ve lived them, right? 

Like what it feels like to be hungry. You can think about what it’s like to be hungry, but unless you’ve actually lived the reality of not knowing where your next meal is coming from - well, you don’t really know what it’s like. 

The people in today’s story KNEW what it was like to be hungry. The whole congregation has been traveling together in the wilderness for about six weeks now. And the provisions they packed are running out. They’re hungry. Not in some “oh, I’m kind of worried our situation is precarious” kind of way but in a deep, know-it-in-your-bones, I-actually-have-no-idea-how-I’m-going-to-feed-my-kids-tomorrow kind of way. 

And so they know not only hunger but desperation. The frantic clawing of fear. 

And as they continue on this journey, they begin to know something else, too. They start to know regret. 

As absurd as it might sound to us, they dream of captivity. They wish that they could go back to being enslaved. They wish to trade their freedom for the security of three square meals a day. 

From the outside looking in, we can’t really know their desperation. The clawing anxiety. The hunger. It’s not even uncertainty they’re feeling - because things are looking pretty certain. It’s certain they will die unless there’s some kind of miracle. 

Moses and Aaron say to the people, “In the evening, you shall know it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see God’s glory. Because God is with you. God has heard your desperate cries. You are not alone.”

And so the people come to know something else that it’s hard to know unless you REALLY know it. Unless you’ve experienced it first-hand. They come to know God’s faithfulness. God’s provision and care. They come to know and trust that they are not alone. That they live in God’s world - who has created and is creating. They don’t know it as an intellectual exercise. They know it’s true like you know the sun is real - because you feel its warmth beating down on the back of your neck. Because they’ve lived it. 

We are told that God sends nourishment in a miraculous way. Bread and meat appears for them each day. And so they come to know God’s presence deep in their bellies. Because the raw, aching, gnawing grip of hunger abates. And they come to know that it was, indeed, God who brought them into freedom. And God who walks with them still. Morning and evening. Day by day. 

I’ve sometimes heard Biblical storytellers begin their stories like this: “I want to tell you a story from the Bible. I don’t know if this really happened, just like this, but I know that it’s true.”

This is one of those stories. It contains truth even if the details blow our mind a bit. Because the truth is: this isn’t just a story about something that happened in the past. It’s also a story about something so many of us have experienced here and now and in our own lives. 

We have experienced God’s faithfulness through miracles big and small - like finding an antidepressant that finally works (praise God!), or a phone call from an old friend at just the right time. We’ve had our days when a stranger offered a word of care that lifted us up, bound us back together, and gave us the strength we needed. We’ve known desperation - and received manna. And we’ve been manna for others, too. 

The SPECIFICS of this particular story, handed down to us by our faith ancestors, are fascinating. Moses tells the people that they are to gather what they need for everyone in their tent. 

Now, I’ve often heard this story told that “the people disobeyed” and some tried to hoard the food by gathering too much while others were lazy and didn’t gather enough. But, actually, the text doesn’t say that. The text simply says they went out to gather and some gathered more and others less - which is exactly what you might expect since some people had 2 people in their tent and others had 10. The text says when it all got measured, everyone had the exact right amount that they needed for their family. Whether this was some kind of cute, baby miracle or just how it worked out, we aren’t told. But the message is clear: God provides exactly what every person needs. Faithfully. 

Biblical scholar Robert Williamson, Jr. points out that these details make this more than a story about just manna. It’s also a story about the world God is inviting us to be a part of. God shows the people a new economy in this ancient story. [1] A way of living together where everyone has what they need. No longer are they enslaved to quotas of production and a system of scarcity that enriches a few while leaving so many in desperation. [2]

And God doesn’t invite the people to just imagine this or THINK about it. God invites them to try it out. To practice it. To really KNOW it by living it. Williamson says it’s as if God is using this liminal, wandering, wilderness time to show the people how it could be - how it should be - in this new world they are building together. 

One of my favorite social media follows is Vu Le, who is a brilliant leader in the nonprofit management world and absolutely hilarious. This week, he wrote about how we need nonprofits to “reclaim our vision for the amazing society we want to build from the ashes.” [3] He reminds us that there are some people in our society who have a very clear vision of the future. Tech billionaires know exactly what kind of world they want to build. Mark Zuckerberg wants a world where we’ve outsourced human relationships to AI chatbots. The CEO of Oracle envisions a world where everyone is “on their best behavior” because we’re all under constant surveillance. And Le says that Elon Musk and Peter Theil envision a world where we no longer need democratically elected governments because we’ve traded them in for a technocracy. 

Le reminds us that billionaires not only have a clear vision, they have the resources they need to make it happen. And that’s why it’s so important for those of us who have an alternative vision to keep shouting about it every chance we get. Le paints it like this: 

I think our ability to rise out of this horrible period and build something better depends on our ability to reclaim our vision and to inspire the rest of society to do the same. I want us to have a world where everyone has their basic needs like food and shelter taken care of. In this vision we’d already have made reparations for past injustices like slavery and stolen Indigenous land. Concepts like capitalism, racism, misogyny, transphobia, poverty, war, borders, and so on would be hard for people to remember or even imagine.

I want us to reconceptualize work so that we’re not beholden to it and our worth isn’t judged by how “productive” we are. I want people to spend most of their time creating art—writing poetry, painting, dancing, and making music, whittling small animals out of bars of soap, etc.—and for fun, not because they’re hustling trying to pay rent. Housing would be a basic human right, along with healthcare and education and other things people need to thrive. [4]

Isn’t that a beautiful vision for the future? I wonder if the people in Exodus started to dream dreams like that? I wonder if they went out in the  morning to forage for their daily bread and found themselves humming a little tune, imagining a future where everyone had enough. I wonder if they envisioned a world with more frolicking and less violence, more art and less fear. 

It sounds an awful lot like God’s Dream to me. You know, economics comes from the same Greek word as household. The economy is more than just the stock exchange ticker on the bottom of the news. The economy is a global household where resources are created, gathered, used, consumed, shared. Because we all truly share one global household together.

Through this ancient story, God reminds us that we are invited to consider what it would look like to live in a manna economy. A world where everyone has enough. A world where scarcity is a thing of the past. A world where God’s dreams can be realized. And just as the Israelites were invited to practice there in the desert, we are invited to practice, too. This is what it means to Be the Church. To live as if God’s economy were already so. To listen to the Spirit and encourage one another as we strive to build God’s Beloved Community together. 

You know, when we become members of this congregation we pledge to support it with “our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service.” In that way, we are practicing God’s Dream here. Practicing in this little corner of creation so that our hands and hearts might be shaped for ministry in the wider world. We practice here so that we can know - really KNOW through living it - that God is present. That God is faithful. And that we, too, can show up with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service. Here and everywhere we go. 

This month, as we consider our financial pledges for the coming year, we are given this story as a conversation partner. 

It’s a story about God’s faithfulness. It’s a story about the One who dreams a world into being where everyone’s needs can be met. It’s an invitation to ponder how we can be a part of that through our own sharing of resources. And it’s a reminder that giving of any type - whether it’s time or money - isn’t JUST about keeping the lights on or getting volunteer slots filled. 

True generosity is an invitation to reorder our relationship to God, one another, and the world around us. It’s knowing - really KNOWING, deep in our bones because we’re living it - that there is enough in this world for all. Our job is to tune our hearts to God’s economy of abundance. 

In practicing generosity, we come to know - really KNOW - God’s faithful provision as we hear the ancient promise: 

There is enough. 

You are enough. 

Rooted in God’s love, we can build a world of enough - together. 

May it be so. 

Notes: 

[1] Bible Worm podcast for Oct. 10, 2021

[2] Isaiah 43: 18-19

[3] & [4] https://www.nonprofitaf.com/lets-reclaim-our-vision-for-the-amazing-society-we-can-build-from-the-ashes/