Exodus 16:2-15
October 10, 1999
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
Ox Tails
It comes on an oblong white plate. Piled high on one end is rice. Near the middle is the cabbage or zucchini. Then filling up most of the plate are succulent, tender, ox tails with carrots, celery, and potatoes. You’ve guessed it! The daily special, everyday of the week at Uncle’s. For $4.95, you not only get the ox tails, but you get a bowl of soup, a home baked roll with real butter, and tea or coffee. And for $4.95, you also complete your meal with a piece of Chinatown apple pie. It’s Chinatown apple pie because Chinese folks don’t believe that fresh apples would cook if baked so they cook the apples on the stove before filling the crust. One of the best perks in coming to San Francisco is discovering that at Uncle’s, I can always get ox tails just like the way my Mom used to make it!
Although I love my ox tails, there’s usually a price to be paid. And it’s not the $4.95. I’m more than glad to pay that price! It’s when I lose on the tennis court playing Victor. And he would say to me, “Ox Tails.” The portions at Uncle’s or for that matter, at most restaurants in Chinatown and in San Francisco is that there’s a “portion distortion.” One plate of ox tails at Uncle’s pretty much exceeds the USDA minimum daily requirements of food from all four food groups.
Most of us try to be health-conscious. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture tries to help us out by telling us how many servings we should have per day per food group. For example, we’re told that we should have at least six servings a day from the grain group, like eating a bagel.
But there’s a problem: look at the size of most bagels. It’s about six inches across, and an inch and a half thick, and weights almost a half-pound! This is not one serving; this bagel is about five or six servings by itself. Yet when we eat these bagaettes, we think we’re being health-conscious.
In “portion distortion,” people think they are eating like birds, but according to government’s definition of portion sizes, that’s only true if those birds are vultures. This may be a large part of the reason for our expanding waist lines.
Consider the bare facts. A serving of pasta, the government says is what? Answer is a half-cup, cooked. That comes to about 32 strands of spaghetti, a mere four twirls of the fork. Some couples consume an entire pound box of spaghetti in a single meal.
Restaurants have found that it is clever marketing strategy to serve huge amounts of food on the plate. We think that this heaping plate is just a single serving of food, and that, not to eat it all, and to request a doggie bag is just another indication of how health-conscious we are. But we forget how much we have already consumed even before the doggie bags arrive.
Eating in the Wilderness
Portion distortion is a danger for us today, just as it was for the people of Israel. In Exodus 16, the Israelites are challenged to live on the portions of quail and bread that the Lord gives them in the wilderness.
Every evening, quails appear and cover their camp—that’s their serving from the meat and poultry group. And every morning, there is a layer of fine, flaky stuff called manna, which Moses says is the bread that the Lord is giving to them to eat—that’s their daily serving from the grain group.
It’s enough to live on, but it’s a strictly regulated portion. When some of the people attempt to stash some away for the next morning, the manna breeds worms and becomes foul. And when others attempt to gather on the Sabbath—a practice forbidden by God—they discovered that there’s nothing there for them to eat.
Morning by morning they gathered manna, as much as each needed; but when the sun grew hot, it melted away. Bread from heaven was white like coriander seed and tastes like wafers made with honey. But when the sun grew hot, it melted away.
Adequate Portions
All of which raises the question: Why are we so reluctant to accept the basic portions we are given? Why are the Israelites—and each one of us—hungry for more than we really need? This overly active desire to acquire raises issues of trust, contentment, and moderation.
Take the issue of trust, for starters. We tend to gobble more than our fair share when we fail to believe that God will take care of us tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. Think of it as the “Poor-College-Student-at-the-All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet phenomenon. You remember when you were a student, eating the 29 cents Ramen noodles every day. And then a wonderful thing happened: you are invited to a wedding buffet dinner in an all-you-can-eat restaurant. You go way overboard, because you didn’t believe—sometimes with good reasons—that another good meal was awaiting you in the near future. I have always thought that it’s a shame that we can’t store up food like some animals and have it last for a long time.
How about Hometown Buffet? A favorite for the Emmanuel Family Group last night.
Unfortunately, some of us haven’t outgrown these displays of graceless gluttony. We still pack away obscene amounts of food and drink, max out our credit cards, and buy the biggest, best, and smartest of anything we can afford. We want to have as much as we can get, right now—and part of this acquisitive urge comes from our lack of faith in the future.
Because we do not believe that God will be as good to us tomorrow as God is being for us today, we eat and spend and mortgage ourselves to the max. We forget that God provided the Israelites with manna for 40 years, one day at a time, resting only on the Sabbath, and that Jesus promised we won’t be left hungry, thirsty or naked as we pursue the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness (Matt. 6:31-33).
But even if we trust in God to provide for us, does this lead to contentment? Contentment can be as foggy, fleeting and frustrating as a dream, even among people of faith. The reason for this is that we tend to tie our contentment to a particular plan—what some of us call “Plan A”—the way we want things to go in our lives.
What is your Plan A? For some of us, Plan A is to have a sunny, safe, outdoor vacation… Plan A is to have a warm, delightful “family night”…
But sometimes life requires acceptance of a “Plan B:” one that involves staying inside on a rainy vacation day and learning how to relax and bond as a family… one that includes controlling your temper when arguments blast a “family night” to bits.
We all crave “Plan A,” but the challenge of finding contentment lies in “Plan B.” No one plans or prefers to have a child with severe learning disabilities. No one plans to have cancer. No one desires regularly ruined plans due to bouts of migraine headaches; a spouse who is verbally cruel; or a 25-year marriage ending in an unwanted and unexpected divorce. People can become angry, bitter and even lose their faith following a loss or when their hopes and expectations are not met. Circumstances like these can seemingly ruin your life or make you feel like a helpless victim.
The only way out is to seek contentment in a “Plan B.” For us to join the Israelites in accepting bland manna in a life of freedom, rather than spicy Egyptian stew in a land of slavery. For us to team up with the apostle Paul in being content in all circumstances, even in a “Plan B” life of shipwrecks and imprisonment for the sake of the gospel!
When “Plan A” fails, we feel a loss of control. Many of us come to the point of saying, “I never imagined my life ending up this way.” It can also lead to a loss of purpose or direction, and even severe depression. But developing a divinely inspired “Plan B” can help to regain a sense of control and contentment.
At the core of a faithful “Plan B” is an acceptance of moderation. You may think, how can there be moderation in our society when we are obsessed with mega-superstars, bigger than life celebrities, $30 million dollars lottery chances, all-you-can-eat buffets. We are told we should want to be the richest, the prettiest or the best. No one seems to be humming the tune of moderation.
Take this bagel. How do you think we can eat this as a sandwich with 2-3 ounces of meat according to government standards? I don’t think you can cut this bagel small enough to stay within the recommended daily allowance of grains and meats. The word “small” is totally absent from most restaurant menus. And the word, “medium” is useless as a descriptive word because it usually means “small.” So you have “medium, large and super-sized.”
Although the words, “moderation and medium” may be difficult to understand when we are going out to eat, they are words that Christians can embrace. It is in moderate portions that we consume the blessings of this world most faithfully and well. Bigger isn’t better for a person dependent on God, for the Lord often chooses the small to teach the large, the poor to lead the rich, and the weak to guide the strong.
It’s important to realize that:
*I will never be as rich as Bill Gates, but I can provide a comfortable lifestyle for our family.
*I will never play as good as Pete Sampras, but I can keep a volley going and have some good exercise.
*I will probably not get the chance to become an architect, but we have friends like Albert Lee and Curtis Poon in our church who will let me look at blueprints.
*I will never be as saintly as Mother Teresa or as courageous as Martin Luther King, Jr., but I can still serve other people with the same spirit of love and sacrifice.
*And in a few weeks, you will have an opportunity to pledge to next year’s Proposed Budget that reflects a faithful commitment to mission in Chinatown and the world. And you and I may never be able to give as much as others can or do what we may like to do. But one thing is certain, we can give a faithful portion of our resources because God first gave his Son Jesus Christ to us.
In the end, we don’t need to distort our portions of big bagels and a half a pound of spaghetti or all-you-can-eat restaurants to give us a “Plan A” quality of life. We don’t need to believe that we really need all the things that the world tells us we need to be the riches, the prettiest, the best. And for me, I can try to eat ox tails at Uncle’s maybe only every other week.
To discover God’s plan for our lives, we first need to trust in God’s goodness is a sure thing each day. And when our lives happen to be following “Plan B,” it’s okay because it is now an opportunity to know eternal contentment. Just like the Israelites ate daily for 40 years only what they need to gather for each day, we too can seek for moderation in what we consume. God’s blessings are consumed by us in moderate portions, day after day.
Bread of Life
After Jesus fed the five thousand and seeing that the disciples even gathered up twelve baskets of leftovers, the people couldn’t resist in following him in hope of getting another free meal. Jesus said to them,
“Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but
because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but
for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.
Then Jesus said,
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever
believes in me will never be thirsty.
Remember the Samaritan woman. She was at Jacob’s well drawing water during the noonday sun when others wouldn’t be there to ridicule her. Jesus asks her for a drink of water. Jesus said to her,
“Everyone who drinks of this water from this well will be thirsty again, but
those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The
water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to
eternal life.”
Instead of “portion distortion,” Jesus invites us to seek after God’s plan for our lives that will lead us to trust in God’s providence. Instead of “portion distortion,” Jesus invites us to focus on living water that will make us never thirst again.
The important bread and drink for life are really not the food from the four food groups at all. And if it wasn’t for our long-term health, it doesn’t really matter even on how much we eat. The important food for life is the Bread of Life when we gather around the Lord’s Table like we did last Sunday and come to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior in our lives.
Go out for lunch today. Don’t let your cravings distort the portions you need. Try splitting a meal with a friend. And if you get to Uncle’s before me, leave me enough ox tails for at least one USDA recommended portion of protein from the meat food group.
Let us pray.
O Lord, teach us to live within our needs and not to crave for more than what has been given to us. May we trust in you to provide for our daily wants. In the name of Jesus Christ who gave his life so that we may have life eternally, we pray. Amen.