Then the manna ceased
on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of
Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that
year. (Joshua 5:12)
At 4 A.M., Wednesday, November 9, 2016, I woke up, checked the
internet feeds
I’d diligently ignored since I voted on Tuesday, and learned
that Donald Trump had been elected president.
I was not surprised.
Oh, I wasn’t happy.
But, I was not surprised.
You see, President Trump is what happens when the people don’t
adjust after the manna ceases.
Let me explain.
Through Moses, God freed the children of Israel from bondage
in Egypt, and set them on an Exodus from Goshen to the Promised Land of Canaan. A recently emancipated people who had not controlled
their own political destiny for 400+ years (Exodus 12:40,41) began the journey
from the state of slavery in Goshen to the state of freedom and political
sovereignty in Canaan. It was a slower
process than expected.
Along the way the people complained of hunger (Exodus 16). It was a valid complaint.
They’d left Egypt in haste, without time to pack enough
supplies for their march through the wilderness (Exodus 12:11, 31-33), and they
couldn’t secure supplies from the surrounding kingdoms so God gave them a support
system, a new means of meeting their basic daily needs as they moved from slave
to sovereignty.
In Exodus 16, God gave them MANNA.
And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they
came to an inhabited land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the
land of Canaan. (Exodus 16:35)
But that wasn’t all.
And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your
clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your
feet. (Deuteronomy 29:5)
For more than 4 decades, Israel benefited from a Divinely
ordained system that protected them from hunger, preserved their clothing and
equipment, and protected them from the hostile peoples who surrounded them on
every side.
Life in the wilderness was still hard, but under the
manna-system the people grew strong. When
Moses died and Joshua assumed command, most of the children of Israel didn’t
know anything except the manna-based support system.
(Yes, I’m explaining why Trump’s election wasn’t a
surprise.)
When Joshua succeeded Moses as leader, manna was all the living
Israelites had ever known. In 2008, most
Americans had lived all or most of their lives after the Civil Rights
Movement. Most of us have only always known
the social safety net of welfare, unemployment insurance, federally funded
community programs, and civil rights protections for minorities, women, and
immigrants. That package of policies and
protections is the manna that has been there every morning to protect and
preserve us in the transition from slavery/segregation to sovereignty/
self-determination.
But then something happened.
Then the manna ceased.
40 years after God proclaimed the Israelite sojourn in the
wilderness, a new leader walked them into the sacred space for which they and
their ancestor had dreamed. Joshua
marched his people into the Promised Land, and as soon as they just got their
first taste of the Promise, God took away their manna. The system which had protected and preserved
them just dissolved.
The support system was gone, and that wasn't even the worst part.
Remember, in Joshua 5, the Israelites were in the Promised
Land, but they didn’t control the land.
They didn’t possess property. All
of the cities, the financial power, the military might, and the cultural
controls in Canaan belonged to pagans.
They wouldn’t receive their promised inheritance in the Promised Land
the way they’d received manna. It wouldn't just happen because it was supposed to. In
the post-manna system God’s people had to work and fight.
The Hittites, Hivites, Amorites, Amalekites, and WHatever-ITES
didn’t give up their superior strategic positions because the children of a
bunch of landless ex-slaves claimed it in the name of their God. Every foot of land, every stage of taking
possession was won through sweat, blood, and effort. Good took that sweat,
blood, and effort and miraculously multiplied its effectiveness; but possessing
the Promised Land wasn’t walk outside and collect your manna check easy. They had to fight for it and they had to
fight without the manna-based support system.
Wait. Wait. Now, follow me on this.
In the book of Joshua, the manna didn’t cease when Israel
fought their first battle in Canaan. The
manna didn’t cease when they faced their first great enemy. The manna ceased when they enjoyed the fruit
of the Promise.
The manna didn’t cease when Donald Trump was elected in
2016. Nope. The manna had been gone long before that.
The manna ceased back in November of 2008. As soon as you got a taste. As soon as you felt like you’d arrived. After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness
after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King died (1968), America elected an
African-American
president and promptly began dismantling the programs and protections we’d all
always known.
The last glass ceiling (Black glass) shattered in 2008,
and since then we’ve been standing in the civil rights Promised Land.
In 2012, God called me to take leave from my work as a public
school administrator and do community ministry and research. The research revealed that we who celebrated in 2008 had made a critical
Promised Land error. We had continued to
live like we had manna. We were
collectively waiting for the heavenly bread of economic prosperity and civil justice
to just appear one morning.
It never did.
We forgot that people were already in the Promised when we
pulled up. We forgot that those people
were not going to surrender their positions of superiority without a
fight.
We failed to appreciate the seriousness of the majority’s
battle cry to repel our grasp for power, to take their country back, and to make the Promised Land great again.
And that is why I’m not surprised that Donald Trump will be
president of the United States.
He is the inevitable result of underestimating the backlash from
daring to stand in space which for 400+ years was occupied, fortified, and
personalized to fit and protect particular peoples.
The manna ceased. The
paradigm shifted. But, we didn’t step up
our game to
match. And that’s why the heathen
builder of temples to sin and excess beat our brakes off in a national
political battle.
Solution
Yeah, that just happened. Now what? I propose the following 3 actions:
1. Remember.
God told Joshua, “ Only be strong and very
courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My
servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left,
that you may prosper wherever you go.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but
you shall meditate
in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to
all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then
you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:-8)
Remember again the sacred text that empowered and informed
the ancestors who came out of slavery and segregation. The enemy has fought a clever misinformation
campaign to make us think of the Bible as the means of oppression and forget
that Bible is actually the playbook for liberation.
2. Repent
In Joshua chapter 24, the children of Israel repeatedly
declared their allegiance to God. Joshua
repeatedly questioned their sincerity. When
they swore that their faith and covenant
was sure, Joshua said “O.K.,” and then he said: “ “Now
therefore,” he said, “put away the
foreign gods which are among you, and
incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel” (Joshua 24:23).
At the very moment the people were shouting about loving God
and trusting Him alone they had idols hidden among them. Their leader acknowledged
their promises but simultaneously called their attention to their sins.
We have to be honest with ourselves and our
circles of influence. Honest about how
wrong we are, honest about how far we’ve drifted from God’s Word, and honest
about all the little idols we worship when we finish shouting on Sunday
morning.
3. Revive
In Joshua chapter 7, the Israelites harbored unrepented sin,
and so the pagan nation of Ai beat their brakes of in battle. But they dealt with it and in chapter 8,
Israel beat the brakes off Ai and had a comprehensive Bible study.
And afterward he read all the words of the law, the
blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the
Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded
which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women,
the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them (Joshua 8:34-355).
4. Rise to the challenges.
Learn to fight according to God’s Word. Then fight harder. Learn to organize in alignment with the full
witness of Scripture. Then organize even
more effectively. Learn to start and
operate a business in obedience to the Bible and then start a new business or
run the office you have better than ever.
The battle doesn’t change, but you and I should.
Trump won.
Yes. You have to
acknowledge it.
Say it with me.
“Trump”
“ Won”
Now, let the redeemed of the Lord say, “So.”
You know why. You know
what you need to do.
Stop acting so surprised.
---Anderson T. Graves II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of
Miles Chapel CME Church in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization
(SAYNO);
and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for
Human Development (
NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his
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the
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Support by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
