Wilderness Memory

Day1 Weekly Podcast

The Rev. Dr. Kimberly Wagner draws her sermon “Wilderness Memory” from Exodus 16:1-4, 9-15. This passage tells of the Israelites in the wilderness where water is scarce and they are hungry. Questioning the whole exodus plan, they ask if their leaders have brought them into the wilderness to die. Their memory of Egypt is distorted by their panic. “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?” she says. “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.”