Let me start with an unpopular opinion. I actually love airports. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not interested in staying in one longer than necessary. But, when I’m there, which is quite a bit these days, I find airports to be fascinating places. They are simultaneously busy and still, where people hurry up to get to their gate in order to stop and sit and wait. People are always in transition, arriving and leaving. Airports function as liminal spaces, housing people always in flux, moving from one place to another. With the exception of employees, almost everyone in an airport is somebody who is on the move; people who are in-between. In between their departure and destination, in between leaving home and heading on vacation, in between their business trip and returning to sleep in their own bed. An airport is an odd space that is neither here nor there: but it is somewhere. It is an in-between space.

At this point in the book of Exodus where our reading started today, the Israelites find themselves in an in-between space, though without the benefit of a food court or free WIFI. They find themselves in between departure from slavery in Egypt and the destination of the promised land. They are between the life of oppression they have known and the life of freedom they dare to pray for and dream about. They find themselves between what was and what will be. But this is not some comfy in-between space, a space of ease and relaxation. It is a wilderness space. It is a place of uncertainty, of danger, of unknown.

At the start of Chapter 16, the Israelites have left the oasis of Elim to enter the Wilderness of Sin. And, immediately, the people feel the difference. They are no longer in Elim where food was abundant and well water plentiful, but now in the wilderness where rations are scarce and the next meal is not guaranteed. All of the sudden the in-betweenness, the liminality, the reality of all that has happened starts pressing down on them. And their anxiety comes to the surface. Their fear takes over. Their panic rises. And so the people turn to Moses and Aaron, and they do what they know how to do: they complain. They complain about the lack of food; they complain about conditions in the wilderness; they complain that this whole exodus and liberation plan may have been ill founded. And in a rather dramatic turn they cry out to their leaders, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Now listen their fear is understandable. But, friends, this is a false memory! There may have been some access to food, but Egypt was never a resort with an all-you-can-eat buffet! Egypt was a place of oppression, of hard labor, of dehumanization. I mean, we’ve read the book! They cried out to God out of their experience as slaves in Egypt, under the tyranny of a Pharaoh who longed only for power over. There was no moment that the Israelite people were able to lounge around by their slow-roasted pots of meat or leisurely eat their fill of fresh-baked bread. It is a distorted memory. A memory that erases the hardness, the cruelty, the pain. It is a memory that is deeply warped and yet so compelling to them in that overwhelming, uncertain time.

But that’s the thing about the wilderness. It does strange things to you. It heightens fear and anxiety; it makes you feel off-kilter and unsettled; it distorts memory. You see, in Scripture, the wilderness, this in-between place is more than just a literary device to move the Israelites from Egypt to Sinai and Sinai to the Promised Land. The wilderness, while neither here nor there is somewhere. The wilderness is a place of reckoning and wrestling; where the communal traumas must be faced and temptations towards despair and false memory abound. It is a place where the Israelite people are forced to contend with their collective trauma of slavery, even as they struggle with the present reality of displacement and the fear of an unknown future. And so, the Israelites start to cultivate false memory. They invent a golden age that never was.

And perhaps it is easy for us from our 21st century perch to shake our heads or look down our noses at the people in our Exodus story. Or perhaps we feel so distanced from the Israelite exodus experience we try to tell ourselves that we wouldn’t fall prey to the same mistakes.

But, if we are honest with ourselves and one another, we must admit that we, too, know wilderness; like our ancestors in the faith, we are a people marked by trauma. We are living in in-between days, wilderness days that are full of danger, uncertainty, and unknown. We live in the wilderness of violence, with the ongoing realities of war, genocide, and gun violence. We exist between memories of pandemic lock down and fear of the next outbreak or crisis. We live in wilderness days marked by extreme heat, flooding, and violent storms that only confirm dire predictions of what might be. We live in the wilderness of political anxiety, where the divisions run deep and threaten not just to tear at our communal structures, but the very fabric of democracy. We live in the wilderness that asks us to contend honesty with the sin and traumas of racism, sexism, ableism, and LGBTQIA+ discrimination, to acknowledge where we have been and be honest about where we intend to go. Friends, we live in liminal times. We are traversing wilderness, in-between spaces.

And we, too, like the Exodus Israelites, may find ourselves inclined to distorted memory. To remembering a golden age that never was or a gilded recollection that is not quite true. How many times have you, like me found yourself referring back to the good old days, “Before the pandemic” or “before that president” or “Before we moved” or “Before the new pastor” or “Before that change, that policy, that decision, that event.” We, like the Israelite people of Exodus, may find ourselves inclined towards false memory as we endure these wilderness spaces.

And, friends, the danger of such gilded or distorted memory is not only that it is untruthful or makes us feel like we have fallen further than we have. Most significantly, such false memory shuts us out from being attentive to God’s work in the present and closes down the possibility of any imagination for the future. Indeed, when the Israelites are in the midst of their complaining, notice they no longer cry out to God, but to Moses. God seems to disappear as they forget that it was GOD who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They lose sight of what the Holy One has done and what God has promised.

But, here is the good news—for the Exodus Israelites and for us: this false memory, this distorted recollection does not actually shut out God. God still shows up. When the Israelites’ memory fails, God still remembers them.

Through generosity and sustenance, God invites them out of false memory and into the present. Through Aaron and Moses, God reminds the Israelites that they are not alone, responding, as the text says, “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites… ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’” It is an invitation that invites the Israelites out of an imagined past into a present and future in which God is very much at work.

And God does provide. The Israelites look to the horizon and see the glory of the Lord appear in a cloud. And more than that, God gives them the very things for which they were longing. God provides meat in the form of quail and bread in the form of Manna. When their memory fails, God remembers them, and invited them back into the present and into the unknown, yet God-infused future. Because that is who God is. God remembers us, even when our memories grow frail and faulty under the weight of the wilderness.

About 8 years ago, in the pre-pandemic days, I was invited by a pastor friend of mine to serve as a conversation facilitator at her church’s retreat. Their community had been through a lot. About three years prior to her arrival as their pastor, they had lost their fairly young and beloved pastor, John, to a very fast-moving and deadly cancer. There was little chance for the congregation to prepare or say goodbye. Then, just as an interim had stepped into place after Pastor John’s passing, the church experienced a lightning strike and electrical fire that burned the building—particularly the old, historic sanctuary to the ground. My friend was called to the church only a year or so after they had moved into the newly constructed building. But it was clear to her that this church carried a lot of trauma, pain, and hurt over what had happened. She told me she couldn’t count the number of times members had come up to her to tell her tales of a full sanctuary and vibrant ministry “before the fire” or “before Pastor John died.” They spoke of a thriving church community with plenty of money, amazing attendance, vibrant children and youth ministries, and peaceful church council meetings. However, even a cursory look through some of the records that survived the fire revealed that there were always fears about a lack of money, a desire for more children, more youth, more people in pews. Even 5, 10, 15 years before the fire the community struggled in those peaceful meetings to agree on how best to use their building and what kind of church they wanted to be. But, the stalwart members would hear nothing of it. “You weren’t there,” they would remind her. “It was an amazing time for this church. But, then, Pastor John and the fire and…well…here we are.”

So, my friend decided to use the Spring all-church retreat as an opportunity to engage rich, intergenerational conversation about the history and present stories of the church. She placed members of all ages at tables together with facilitators. The table I was assigned to had a child aged 9, his sister aged 15, an older married man and woman in their 80s, one 40-something man, a 35 year old woman, and a 55-year-old lady who introduced herself as the self-appointed choir secretary. The conversation started as I expected, with the older members telling the younger ones about the golden age of the church. They talked about the giant youth group and the full pews. They talked about the beautiful stained-glass window in the old sanctuary and the way that the design of the space was so good you didn’t even need a sound system. “It’s not like our sanctuary today,” the 80-year-old woman complained. “I mean, all that money and it doesn’t even feel like a church.” “And all of that space for basketball and meeting rooms. What do we need that for?” added the 55 year-old choir secretary.

As per my instructions I invited the others who had been silent thus far if they would like to share. After a few seconds of silence, the 9-year-old boy squirmed and spoke up: “I like our church,” he said. “I like that between Sunday School and church I can play basketball with my friends. And nobody is mad if I come into church a little sweaty.” His sister rolled her eyes. But before she could say anything the 30-something woman spoke up, “I mean, I know this building isn’t as pretty as the old one. But, I’m so grateful that there is space for community events here. The whole reason we started coming about a year and half ago is because you all hosted my daughter’s girl scout troop.” Then, the 80-year old man spoke up: “I actually don’t mind the new space that much. I know the old space was special,” he said, patting his wife on the hand, “but with the new sound system I can actually hear what people are saying. Even with Pastor John’s booming voice I would sometimes only get every other word.” All of the sudden, the 55-year old choir secretary spoke up: “I will say, as much as I hate the dinging, it was nice to have an elevator that goes up to the choir loft after my knee surgery. I guess I wouldn’t have been able to sing in the choir during my recovery otherwise.” All of the sudden the table burst into conversation about how, thought they missed the old pews, the sanctuary can now be arranged in creative ways for different services or events, how the basketball court might be an opportunity for outreach with the local afterschool programs, how the church might take what they learned from the fire and help others in the community going through a loss like that. By this point, my friend, the pastor, had floated to our table and was overhearing the conversation. She smiled, leaned down, and whispered in my ear, “Maybe things aren’t so bad.” “Maybe God’s not quite done with you all yet,” I affirmed.

Friends, we live in challenging, wilderness days. And in days like this it is sometimes easy to get lost in an imagined glorious past, a golden age that never was. After all, as the Israelites faithfully warn and remind us in our text today, it is sometimes too easy to succumb to the weight of the present in ways that distort the past. But, even when our memories fail, God remembers us. God meets us in our wilderness spaces. God reorients us to remind us that we are not alone, that God is still with us, providing and sustaining, and that, even in the wilderness, there is a present and a future. Again and again, God breaks into the in-between spaces and reminds us that God is not done with us yet. Thanks be to God. Amen.