10th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 13B

10th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 13B August 1, 2021 In light of our readings this week, I’ve been thinking about trust and insatiability and about how these two attitudes are opposites in our relationships with God and with each other. In our reading from Exodus this week, we see the Children of Israel, who are only about a month into their journey with God and Moses in the wilderness. So, this is actually a pretty new relationship between God and God’s people. Scripture tells us that after Joseph, the people forgot about God, and so God is starting over with them. The people start complaining about how they are hungry and how they wish God had just left them to die in Egypt, where at least they had food. So, God devises a plan, and God’s plan is a two-fold plan. 1. God will provide food for God’s people and 2. In the way that God provides food for God’s people, God will teach the Israelites how to trust God. God provides manna, but God gives them specific instructions on how to collect manna and how much manna to collect—only enough for each day. So, while the manna feeds the people, it also serves to teach them how to trust God, how to be in relationship with God. Embedded in God’s very gift is that which will help strengthen the people’s relationship with God. But while the story for today ends ok, we know what is coming. The people will eventually complain about the manna, that it doesn’t really fill them up, that they grow weary of it, day after day after day, that it isn’t enough. We see some of this insatiability echoed in our gospel reading for today. Jesus has just fed the 5,000 in a miraculous sign, and then he has escaped the mob. But the people find him, and when they do, he accuses them of misunderstanding, and suggests that they are insatiable for signs, that upon which they can base their trust in him and in God. “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life,” he tells them. My husband has a good friend here in town who is Jewish. They often have conversations about the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, and David asked his friend this week about manna. David’s friend sent back an excerpt from his rabbi’s morning meditation one day earlier this week. The friend’s rabbi writes, “When Jewish people conclude a satisfying meal that includes bread, they say four blessings. Why? Because the Torah says, ‘When you eat and you’re satisfied, you should bless G‑d for the land He has given you.’ The last three blessings were composed in the Promised Land. But the first blessing was composed by Moses when manna appeared from heaven. Now isn’t it strange that we say a blessing for bread from heaven after eating bread that comes from the earth? Really, the blessing is not on the food itself. It’s on our satiation from the food. That makes things yet more puzzling. Manna was a food that never left you satisfied—for two reasons: Because you could not see what you were eating, and because you couldn’t save any of it for the next day. Why do we say a blessing composed for a food that left people unsatisfied to thank G‑d for a satisfying meal? Because, as the rabbis say, “A full jar cannot hold anything. But an empty jar can hold everything.” Those who see their income as a tangible asset, acquired and preserved by natural means, their possessions fill their lives so that they cannot see G‑d’s blessing. But those who know that everything is always in G‑d’s hands, like manna from heaven, they are empty and ready to receive. Whatever they have, they see it as a gift, a blessing, and they celebrate.” So this would suggest that we can hold our insatiability within a particular framework or attitude, a sort of mindfulness of our reliance upon God, and that in turn will help cultivate gratitude. In thinking about the trust aspect of this, I started thinking about how I work with engaged couples in pre-marital counseling in building trust. In a short video about how to build trust, relationship expert Dr. John Gottman says, “How do you build trust? You can turn to research because research will tell you what it specifically is that increases this trust metric and what it is that helps us understand the dynamics of betrayal. It turns out that trust is built in very small moments…because in any interaction there is a possibility of connection with our partner or turning away from our partner.” Gottman goes on to give an example from his own relationship, telling about a time in his marriage when he really wanted to finish his mystery book he was reading—he was pretty sure he knew who the killer was. He set the book down and went into the bathroom where his wife was brushing her hair. And Gottman noticed that his wife looked sad. In that moment, he had a choice. He could slip out of the bathroom and go back to his novel, or he could check-in with his wife. He ended up asking her what was wrong, and he said, “In that moment, I was building trust. I was there for her. I was connecting with her rather than choosing to think about only what I wanted. These are the moments that we’ve discovered that build trust. And one such moment is not that important, but if you are always choosing to turn away the trust erodes in the relationship very gradually, very slowly.” He continues, “The atom of betrayal is not just turning away, not just turning away from my wife’s sadness in that moment, but doing what Carol Rusbault called a ‘cl-alt’….and what that means is I not only turn away from her sadness but I think to myself, ‘I can do better. Who needs this crap? I’m always dealing with her negativity. I can do better!’….Cl-alt stands for Comparison level for alternatives, and once you start thinking that you can do better, then you begin a cascade of not committing to the relationship.”i These ideas about trust are true for our relationship with God as well. Trust in God is built in and through many small moments. In each moment, we have the choice to move toward God or to turn away from God. And when we turn away from God over and over again over time, then we begin to live into the cl-alt: “I can do better.” And in these moments, we let our insatiability rule our relationship with God as opposed to allowing it to deepen our gratitude. You invitation this week is to think about a time in a significant relationship from this past week when you turned toward the person and a time when you didn’t. And also to think about a time when you turned toward God and a time when you didn’t. Think also about that for which you long that only God can give, and offer a prayer to God of thanksgiving for your need, your longing. i. John Gottman on How to Build Trust. (from the Science of a Meaningful Live) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgWnadSi91s&t=263s