God has a chat with Moses and calls him to lead the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt.
God: Moses, I’ve heard the suffering of my people down in Egypt land.
Moses: I know, I was there, and they are suffering so much. The lament rises high in the sky.
God: We’re going to do something about it.
Moses: We? We? What?
God: I’ve chosen you. I’m sending you to Pharaoh’s house to demand that he let my people go.
Moses: Wait a minute, me? You are sending me? I don’t wanna go. I won’t know what to say.
God: You will have Aaron and Miriam to help you. Aaron will help you when you speak to Pharaoh.
Moses: But I don’t even know your name. They won’t take me seriously if I don’t even know your name!
God: I am that I am, that is the name you will give them. You will say, “I have been sent by I am that I am.” (my paraphrase of Ex. 3:1-15)
Two forms of resistance occur in this conversation. Firstly, Moses is resisting God’s call to him to lead Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Secondly, God is calling Moses and people everywhere and in all places, to resist injustice, to practice the nonviolent work of resistance and protest.
This week’s lesson from the Old Testament comes from Exodus and is well-known as the call of Moses. This cherished story finds Moses, prince-turned-shepherd, tending sheep as usual. However, a lot had happened to Moses before he became a shepherd.
Moses in the bullrushes
Pharaoh and the Egyptians had enslaved the Hebrews for several generations by the time of Moses’s birth. Pharaoh ordered the death of male babies because he feared the rumors that a “Deliverer” had been born to free the Hebrew slaves. The baby Moses’s mother hid him in a basket on the river to protect him.
Pharaoh’s daughter saved Moses from the river and adopted him. Moses became a prince in the house of Pharaoh and enjoyed all of the privileges. Eventually, Pharaoh discovered Moses’s Hebrew lineage, and he exiled Moses to the desert. He married into a family with many flocks and took up a quiet, country life. Returning to Egypt held the danger of death for Moses.
Yet, the cry of the people, the great, loud, lament moves God to act and to save them. These communal cries are the collective moaning from their condition, suffering, and mistreatment as slaves. In the previous chapter, Exodus 2, the term “groan” appears in addition to “cry.” Describing these cries tells us that these cries had been loud and ongoing. The suffering pervasive–there is weeping and wailing to draw attention to their desperate condition.
God’s very name is ongoing. God is love, and God is action. Moses has to return to Egypt despite the danger. God acts to protect him.
We’ve gotta use our time, tithes, and talents when the people cry out for justice
God recognizes Moses’s many abilities and gifts learned through the resources of Pharaoh’s lavish household, and God has great faith in Moses as the leader of Israel. God hears the cries and remembers the covenant with Abraham and Sarah. After the generations that passed between the establishment of Abraham’s covenant, God acts in new ways through this new covenant with Moses and the people in the time of the Exodus.
Likewise, the work continues in our generation. Our call is just as straightforward as Moses’s call and just as urgent. We call upon the Holy Trinity, the Maker, the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit, for strength and guidance. God, I am that I am, works in us and for us in every age.
We are called to be God’s hands, feet, hearts, and minds on earth
God needs our participation in resisting evil. There is a dual agency between God and the people. Yet, how often have we resisted God’s call for us to do something — something that would bring about justice? I know I have many times. I fought the call to ordained ministry for about 30 years before I finally gave in to the Holy Spirit’s seemingly endless prodding.
Moses resisted God’s call him to lead the Resistance Movement that would set the Israelites free. I’m sure Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and many leaders experienced times when they gladly would have given the responsibility to others.
Empire doesn’t care about suffering as long as the work gets done and the people keep their mouths shut
Pharaoh rules a world where it is clear the Israelites are outsiders and fit only for brute labor. The people understand they live in a world contrived by others, whether by accident, design, or indifference. The Israelites also know this world can therefore be deconstructed because it is not of God. Finally, they know that God is the sole agent of this deconstruction and dismantling. The plagues are excellent examples of God’s initial dismantling of Egyptian rule.
The Israelites reject this Egyptian ideology of domination and cry out to God. This is a very public, very subversive, hazardous groan. God recognizes and hears, recalls covenant, and acts with power and purpose. We can think of the cry or lament, the public processing, as can be thought of as gathering to cry out collectively against an oppressive government due to injustice. This action begins despite the real danger that likely follows.
In truth, the empire knows there is pain amongst the people. However, groaning under the weight of that pain privately, or at home, will do nothing to improve the situation of exploitation, misery, imprisonment, or torture. The revolt lies in going public. Personal suffering does nothing to ease it. The collective, “We are not taking it anymore,” initiates the move from only being “the oppressed people” to a people who decide to move toward liberation. Accordingly, the public cry marks the beginning of pulling apart an empire.
What is Resistance in America Today?
What is resistance? We’ve been watching a great deal of resistance around the country since the lynching death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Keeping Moses’s story in the back of our minds, let’s take a closer look at how resistance works to create liberation from injustice.
Resistance involves three movements for social transformation and for the individuals who work towards justice:
1) The critique of ideology
Citing what is wrong with the current understanding of how things should be.
Biblical example: The Israelites crying to God for mercy and freedom from the misery of slavery.
Current example: Institutional racism, white fragility, and endless stories of police killing or maiming unarmed black people.
2) The public processing of pain
The people’s public lament of injustice, suffering, and mistreatment, even murder, must occur.
Biblical example: The Israelites challenging Pharaoh through God’s agents, Moses and Aaron, and the use of the ten plagues to get Pharaoh’s attention.
Current example: Nonviolent protests like the Wall of Moms and Leaf-Blower Dads in Portland. Moms form human walls with linked arms to make it safer for their African American sisters and brothers to walk behind them to speak their truth about racism and police brutality. Leaf-blower Dads blow tear gas away from the moms and the peaceful protesters. Where there is oppression, there is subversion — resistance.
Calling your governmental representatives about issues you care about and voicing your opinion as a voter. Volunteering on election day so that all the voices can be heard. Boycotting Goya food products. Joining or organizing peaceful protests and “getting into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble,” like John Lewis.
3) The release of new social imagination
Envisioning positive change and then creating action items to make those visions become a reality. Creating visions requires thought and strategy and prayerful reflection first. As God demonstrated, we must hear from the people who suffer. Then we must act.
Biblical example: Crossing the Red Sea, annihilating Pharaoh’s army, and arriving on the other side and as a free people.
Current example: Demanding we find better ways to fund, train, and preserve the best aspects of policing. We need better ways to get candidates properly and fully vetted psychologically. We must reduce the police’s paramilitary culture and create a zone of public safety.
Reflection questions to consider:
- What nations are “Empires” today? How does this question make you feel?
- What are examples of resistance over the last few months?
- How is “Empire” resisting the dismantling of its oppressive systems?
- Who are the oppressed that cry out for mercy and injustice? How do we “do discernment?”
- What is your call to ministry? (We all have calls, and they can be big or small.)
- What is discernment? How can you discern your call?
- How will you respond when God calls?
And so, next week, I will delve into the power meditation or centering prayer. I am not talking about intercessory prayer, as when we pray for others and our concerns. We speak words aloud or silently to ourselves. That is a different form of prayer.
I’m referring to meditation practices that help us discern what God calls us to do.
So, stay tuned, and may God bless you along the Way.
