Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text for today’s meditation is Numbers 11: 4-6; 10-16; 24-29

Now the rabble that was among [the children of Israel] had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, "Oh that we had meat to eat!

We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at."

Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and Moses was displeased. Moses said to the Lord, "Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness."

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you...

So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it.

Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, "My lord Moses, stop them." But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!"

Many people have fond memories of their first car, it seems especially men. What is it about that first car that we fell in love with? I had a great first car. It would take me anywhere I wanted to go on $5 of gas a week. It had a sun roof, it was nimble, it was so much fun to drive, and of course it was blue, my favorite color. It was the greatest in snow; I could make it through roads others wouldn’t even try. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. Man that was a great car! This sounds like a really nice car doesn’t it and I remember it as such too. But the reality is a little different than my memory. I got my first car out my uncle’s back yard. He said if I can haul it off I can have it. It was a VW bug; I can’t even remember the year. My dad and I towed it from Chicago to Milwaukee. Interestingly enough, when we got home I kicked the tow bar and it fell off. Can you imagine, I almost lost my first car before I ever got to drive it. We had some fixing up to do. First, we had to install the seats. You see the floor board had rusted out and my uncle cut it out and replaced it with ¾ inch plywood. So, we had to drill holes for the seats and bolt them in. It actually worked quite well. Then we had to do the usual things like a brake job, oil change, tune up, a new battery, and off I went. I remember it fondly as a great car but the reality is it was a piece of junk that I managed to keep running. However, it did make a weekend trip from Milwaukee to Mount Rushmore and back with only one problem, a dry wheel bearing that we repacked with grease and went on our way.

In our text, the Israelites are experiencing something similar to the memory of my first car. They remember with fondness the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and of course the list wouldn’t be complete without garlic. They recall that all this food was as it says "at no cost." Have they lost their minds? Has the desert cooked their brains? What do they mean no cost? They paid for that food with their lives. They were slaves in a land that wasn’t their own. The Egyptians treated them ruthlessly. Pharaoh instructed the midwives to kill their sons and eventually had his troops kill the first born! How much more can you pay for food than with the life of your children. The memory of my car isn’t quite as far from the truth as the Israelites memory of their time in Egypt is it? They have separated themselves from reality. Some of this complaining is started by a group of tag-a-longs from Egypt. Our text calls them the rabble that was among them. They were either Egyptians that married Israelites or non-Israelite slaves that escaped with the Israelites.

We know Israel’s reality; they went from poverty to abundance. They went from being slaves of ruthless Egyptians to being delivered by a gracious and powerful God.

They went from lamenting to singing praises as in Exodus 15 verse 2 The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. But now the memory of the deliverance has faded. They forgot the action packed deliverance filled with displays of power by the almighty God. Now they only remember the food. They remember the food in great detail and somehow in their mind it was free. Instead of singing praises, they voice a lament. Instead of celebrating God’s strength, they cry of their weakness. And, when God gives them manna, rather than take it and eat, they look back and lament. Israel can’t see the present blessings from God because of a distorted, nostalgic memory of the past. Just like the memory of my car. I forgot the cold winters with no heat. I forgot my windshield defroster was the little window on the driver’s door turned to get a little air across the windshield. I have a nostalgic memory of that car just like the Israelites nostalgic memory of their time in Egypt.

Loosely speaking, the sin of Israel is a variation of coveting. Rather than coveting something someone else presently has; they are coveting what they once had in the past. The end result is the same. God gives Israel manna, yet they look at their situation in sinful blindness and lament.

We, God’s people can fall into this same sin. Memories of the past can cause us to miss God’s work in the present. Our memories may be personal or they may be a collective memory. Our memory of how Trinity was in its hay day. Maybe the memory of how Pastor Ed Horning brought people to the church. These memories can cause us to no longer see God’s present blessing. Glory days of the past hide the glory that is present. The glory that is hidden in our midst, as God speaks and forgives.

God’s response to Israel is both judgment and grace. The judgment is not included in the reading for today. When Israel finds themselves in what they consider poverty with a lack of meat, God answers Israel’s cry with abundance. He answers in abundance so great that Israel is sickened by it. God’s judgment invites Israel to see that faith isn’t a matter of what they have or don’t have. Faith is a relationship. Faith is trust in the one who gives strength regardless of circumstances. We see this in Philippians chapter 4 verses 11 through 13 "Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. ¹² I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

The judgment is hidden in today’s reading but the grace is very apparent. God not only fulfills abundantly their need for food, he sees a greater need, a spiritual need. They have a need for God’s word to shape their spiritual formation. God sees a need for His word to bring Israel to a deeper trust in Him. God responds to this spiritual need just as abundantly as the physical need for food. He responds in an abundance of the Spirit and an abundance of prophets. Seventy elder gather at the Tent of Meeting and in the camp; they receive the Spirit and prophesy to the people.

In the beginning of this text we had a grumbling coming from the outskirts of the camp which perverted God’s people. This perverting blinded them to God’s present grace. At the end, the word of God comes from the central place of the camp, the Tent of Meeting, to the farthest reaches of His people. This word of God revealed the present work of God. God indeed provides food for the hungry, leadership for the lost, a life of trust in the present, and a vision of hope for the future. It’s pretty amazing that when Israel recounts this event in Deuteronomy chapter 8 they are encouraged to remember that "man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD."

God still provides leadership, a life of trust, and a vision of hope through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He also provides our daily bread. We are truly blessed, you are truly blessed. We don’t need to let nostalgic memories blind us from seeing the many blessings that are present here and now. You have gone from the poverty of the sinfulness you were born with to the abundance of forgiveness through baptism. You have gone through the poverty of sin to the abundance of forgiveness in the Lord’s Supper. You have gone through the poverty of death to the abundance of eternal life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You are forgiven, you are part of God’s kingdom, you have eternal life, and you are in the body of believers.

Remember, the past isn’t always what you remember. I’ve often wanted another VW because I think of that first car so fondly. But what I have today is so much different and better. Today Trinity is in a different place as well. Our challenges are different and we have different gifts. We are better today because we are living in the present gifts of God just as Trinity did in years past. We are better because we passed through the poverty of death and sin and we are in the abundant presence of Christ again today and we have hope in the abundant eternal life with Him.

Amen.