Joshua 5. 9-12: Desert. Food.

Desert suggests an inhospitable place, a place where survival is not a sure thing. Certainly the Israelites felt that way about the desert through which they wandered. They remembered Egyptian food with longing: fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic (Numbers 11:5) And yet they were provided food - quail and manna - for all the years between Egypt and the Promised Land. But there came a time when the manna ended (Joshua 5:9-12).

Ercole de Roberti. The Israelites Gathering Manna  Probably 1490s. London: National Gallery.

Because it's hard to show a negative, there are few (any?) works of art that show the Israelites on the first morning they did not gather manna. In the 15th century painting above, they gather the small pellet-shaped manna on a morning with a very clear blue sky. At the left, Moses and Aaron encourage the people to gather the food they will need for the day. But one day, the manna ended.

The end of daily manna did not mark the end of God's providence. Instead, it marked the end of a particular kind of providence. Instead of the daily ration of manna and quail, the people were provided a land whose agricultural produce would feed the people. But there were differences. When God was providing daily manna, the people didn't have to do anything in order to eat other than wake up and gather what was given to them.

Once they were in the land, that changed. The land might have been productive, but the people had to make it produce. They would need to plant crops, tend, and harvest them. They would need to save seed for the following year. They would need to tend the land itself, not allowing the nutrients in the soil to be depleted but instead doing everything they could to care for it. If they were not attentive to the task, they would not have food.

Ironically, it was possible that they would have less food available to them in the land flowing with milk and honey than they did in the desert. Though the menu would be more varied.

A Note for Lent:
The season of Lent is often observed by fasting from various foods - meat, oil, chocolate. But fasting is only a spiritual discipline if you have food which you can voluntary sacrifice. Hungry is not the same as observant. The relationship between food and deserts continues in our modern term food desert. Defined as those places that lack access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole foods, food deserts lack grocery stores, farmers' markets, and other providers of healthy food. In food deserts people rely on convenience stores or quick-stop marts that stock foods high in processed sugar and high-fat foods. If those are your only food options, however, that is what you eat.

For thoughts on the gospel reading (Luke 15) paired with this text from Joshua, click here. 
For something you thought you'd never see in the desert, see this week's Art&Faith Matters Facebook page. 
For additional thoughts on Luke 15, click here.

John 6.51-58: Bread...Again

Have you ever noticed how many times scripture talks about bread? Art&Faith Matters has talked about it here and here and here and here. And just for good measure, there is manna here. There is lots of bread in scripture, and in John 6:51-58 a connecting line is drawn between bread and manna:  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate...

Master of the Gathering of the Manna. Gathering of the Manna from the Ashburnam Pentateuch. 

1470-1490. Musee de la Chartreuse de Douai.

The picture above is exactly what it describes (and the designation/naming of the artist is drawn from this work). What is interesting, I think, is the manner in which people are gathering the manna. Some are picking up the wafer-shaped manna from the ground. Men, women, and children are all engaged in the task. Babies are held in their mother's arms, and people embrace as the miracle occurs. This is clearly a celebration. As it should be. For the coming decades the people will be fed daily with manna and quail.

But there are others who are not waiting for the manna to fall. They have baskets raised in order to collect the manna as soon as possible. Compositionally, it works. The figure at the top center is positioned directly beneath the hole in the sky from which the manna falls. A dark funnel-shaped shadow leads directly to the opening of the vessel being held aloft. The dark shadow also highlights the light-colored manna as it falls. Others in the crowd echo his practice and position.

Jesus identified himself as the living bread that came down from heaven. How do we receive that bread? Do we wait for the bread to fall to the ground before we pick it up? Do we think, "Bread (or manna)...again"? Or do we reach above our heads in order to snag that bread out of mid-air so that we can have it at the earliest possible moment? There's a difference.

For thoughts on Solomon's request for wisdom, click here.
For one tradition's use of bread, see Food&Faith Matters here.

Manna From Heaven

What did it look like and taste like, this manna from heaven? Artists have depicted everything from flat wafers to doughy pellets. Artists have shown the manna falling like a rain shower and like a thunderstorm (and when they include the quail descending it's sometimes hard to tell if they are depicting God's plan for food or one of the plagues!).

In 2013, artists Han Zhang and Helen Yung interpreted the story of this heavenly food (Exodus 16:2-15) using paper and calligraphy. "Like Manna from Heaven" was created at the Culture of Cities Centre in Toronto. Inspired by a Chinese expression that literally translates "pie from the sky" and means "free and delicious food falling from heaven", the artists calligraphied poems about food on rice paper. The paper was then cut to create three-dimensional forms reminiscent of baskets, nets and other containers.  These forms were suspended so that they might, indeed, fall from heaven.

Viewers became creators by writing or drawing their own idea of "manna" on rice paper. They then attached their contributions in, among and through the artist-created pieces of the installation. 

The installation was part of the first Future Food Salon event of 2013. The event, "Crickets on the Tip of Your Tongue", raised the question of what we might be eating in the coming decades. Bugs (like crickets) are considered one of the ideal foods of the future as they are a sustainable protein source that can live in many climatic zones. If they were uncertain about manna, what would Moses and the people say about the evening's variety of cricket canapes?!

For the Future Food Salon: Crickets on the Tip of Your Tongue, see: http://www.cultureofcities.com/future-food-salon-series-iicrickets-on-the-tip-of-your-tongue/
For Helen Yung, see: http://helenyung.com/
For Han Zhang, see: http://www.han-studio.com/