The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Exodus 15-16; Acts 24; Psalm 64-65

As the story moves on, we are shown what life with God means.

As we remembered yesterday, the Israelites are called to Remembrance of what God has done for them, and then as they walk with them, he provides – bread for the day. Not an excess, but what they need. Thus he reveals himself to be the source of their life, moment by moment. The bread is sacramental – as all food, it is more than a reminder of God presence. this is the food God has provided – we have it at his hand.

But for the rich there comes a double challenge. We have not learned our faith through such dependence – we forget where all we have comes from. God’s good creation is seen as a Right, rather than a daily gift. The connection is broken and often we will sit down now to eat without any thanksgiving.

We break bread to remember and in the remembering we are given life – but if we take more than that which God has given us, if we Grasp, if we seek to possess more, to take charge of our lives, to secure ourselves against tomorrow, that we might rest easy without faith – it turns to maggots in our teeth. For most of us in the West, the lesson of daily bread is one we have never learned. Perhaps this above all is why the church is so weak? For us, faith is not a daily act rooted in the material gift of God, now it is just a set of beliefs, little or nothing to do with the stuff of our everyday life, so ‘successfully’ have we secured this for ourselves