Where God's Patience and Presence Have Prevailed

The book of Exodus ends with the completion of the tabernacle's construction. I've often thought that this was a really anti-climatic ending to such a marvelous book. How is it that this book that begins with the mighty work of God in Egypt, the very salvation of Israel, ends with the assembly of a tent? It has taken me preaching through the book in its entirety to realize how fitting an end the construction of the tabernacle actually is for this grand narrative. Some very important themes which have run the length of Exodus find their culmination in its final verses. 

God's Patience: The grace and patience of God have been on display from the beginning. We might have thought that after God exercised tremendous power and might in delivering the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt that they would have been eternally grateful for all God had done for them. Instead, what we have seen over the last several weeks is a story filled with grumbling, complaining, a repeated lack of trust, and ultimately idolatry. However, in each instance we also heard of a God who repeatedly responded with patience and provided deliverance time after time. To be sure, the golden calf was nearly the end of that patience but even in that instance God was patient enough to hear Moses and ultimately be persuaded by him. Now God's patience is on display once again as God has renewed the covenant with the people even after their act of idolatry and continues to journey with them. 

God's Presence: God's patience at this point in the narrative is primarily manifested in God's continued presence. The whole of Exodus has been a story of God's increasingly intimate presence with God's people. In the beginning of the story, God seems distant and un-involved, allowing the descendants of Abraham to be oppressed and mistreated.  But God is not so removed that the cries of the people go unheard. God manifests his power in Egypt in marvelous fashion and brings the people out of their slavery.  However, this deliverance is really more means than end for God has not only delivered them from their slavery but for life lived in the presence of God. So God not only delivers but also brings the people into covenant and gives them the Law to teach them how to live and ultimately makes the remarkable promise that God will dwell right in their midst. That promise of God's presence with the people is now fulfilled in the final verses of Exodus as the construction of the tabernacle is completed and the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle. 

Israel's Transformation: Both themes above intertwine with another. Throughout this story, we've been waiting to see whether or not God's patience will ultimately pay off. Will Israel become the kind of people among whom God could dwell or not? For much of the story it seemed hopeless. It seemed that the scars of Israel's oppression and slavery ran too deep. They were too abused, too beaten by Pharaoh to ever really be a people capable of trust in an all-powerful God. It seemed their collective imagination was so hopelessly crippled by the propaganda of the empire that it would never be anything other than a factory for golden calves. 

But in these final chapters of Exodus we are given the first hope that perhaps Israel's future will be shaped by something other than the chains of its past. In the construction of the tabernacle there are hints that perhaps Yahweh's patience and presence have finally began to turn the tide against the lingering effects of Pharaoh's abusive power. For in these final chapters we see the community of Israel come together to construct not an idol but the tabernacle precisely as the Lord has commanded it down to the very last detail. We hear of a people once disobedient now freely working together to fulfill a common purpose. We hear that rather than making ungodly demands of their leader, Aaron, the people now acknowledge that Bezalel has been especially gifted by the Spirit for the tabernacle's design. We see a people once enslaved now working together to make a place where the very presence of God can dwell among them. 

Its not a bad picture of the Church when you think about it. We are a people among whom God's dogged patience has finally began to prevail; a community where the constant inundation of God's grace is starting to overwhelm the abuses and pain of our past. And as a result, we are beginning to see a differently reality, we are beginning to trust, we are beginning to respond to that grace and participate in the work that God wants to do among us. Although we were once slaves ourselves, now we are a people working together by the power of God's Spirit, each of us with our distinctive contribution, to become a place where the very presence of God can dwell. 

Wrestling for Presence

The people that Yahweh has delivered from slavery have just committed the very epitome of idolatry. By constructing this golden calf, they have forsaken God's deliverance, God's Law, and God's presence with them. Now, in the opening verses of Exodus 33, we hear that this act of idolatry is driving God away from God's people. Graciously, God still plans to fulfill the promise of a land for this people; an angel of God will go with them to drive out those who inhabit the land. But God's own presence will not abide with the people "lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people."

But Moses won't have it. You can almost hear the accusatory tone in Moses' voice in v.12.

"See, you say to me, 'Bring up this people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.' Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways..."

Who talks to God this way? Where is Moses' deference? His respect for the Holy God? Then in v. 15 we hear: "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here." Is Moses giving God an ultimatum? "God, if you aren't going to go with us then don't even bother sending your angel because I'm not going anywhere."

Perhaps what is even more remarkable than Moses' boldness is that God accepts it. In fact, Yahweh's course of action is changed. God was going to depart from the people but instead God now responds to Moses by saying "This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name." Like Jacob, Moses wrestles with God and wins.

But Moses doesn't even stop there. He's won. He's changed God's mind and gotten what he asked for but still he pushes things even further, almost to the absurd. Moses says in v.18 "Please show me your glory." Moses wants to see the very glory of God and God finds a way to (mostly) grant this request as well. God tells Moses that he can hide in the cleft of the rock on the mountain and God will cover him with his hand while all of God's goodness passes by Moses.  Then God's hand will be removed and Moses will be able to see God's backside as God passes by.  (That's right. God is basically "mooning" Moses. "Moses, you asked to see my glory but this the best you get bud." And you thought God didn't have a sense of humor.)

There are a lot of really fascinating aspects to this passage of Scripture but there is yet one more I find most fascinating of all. Maybe its just the pastor in me, the part of me that so desperately wants to see people changed and transformed, that causes me to read the story this way. But the part of the story I find most fascinating is the change in Moses himself.

Do you remember the Moses of Exodus 3? Is the Moses who, here in chapter 33, wrestles so boldly with God, really the same Moses who was so fearful and timid in chapter 3? The Moses who was afraid to look at God in the burning bush is now the Moses who says "show me your glory". The Moses who offered objection after objection to God's call to deliver the people of Israel is now the Moses who wrestles God into staying with those same people. The Moses who said "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else" now boldly says "Don't you even think about sending anyone else." In Exodus 3, God promises Moses "I will be with you" and that wasn't enough for Moses.  Now God's presence is the only thing that matters to Moses. Is this really the same guy? What has happened to Moses?

Ten Plagues. Exodus. The Red Sea. Water from a Rock. Manna and Quail. Mt. Sinai. The Moses of Exodus 3 isn't the same person as the Moses of Exodus 33 because this is a Moses who has seen what God can do. As I've been working through the book of Exodus, I've pointed out a number of times that even though the people of Israel have been delivered they have not yet had their collected imaginations converted; they have not yet had their slavery so removed from them that they are able to re-imagine what is possible with God. But Moses has and can. In fact, it seems he refuses to imagine life any other way. Moses has tasted the presence of God in his life and it has changed him from a scared and timid shepherd into a man who wrestles with God and having experienced the presence of this mighty God, Moses refuses to accept anything less. Earlier I compared Moses to Jacob but that's not exactly right. After receiving a blessing from God, Jacob let God go. Moses has received blessing after blessing from God but he recognizes the one thing he can't let go, the one thing that is really worth wrestling for, is the presence of God.

In v.16, Moses says

"For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?"

Moses knows that the only thing that sets Israel apart is the presence of God. Do we, the Church, know this too? What if we were a people who, having experienced the presence of God in our lives, fought with every fiber of our being to never let go of that presence? What if our our defining characteristic was our constant cry to God "Show us your glory!"

From Idolatry to Imagination

I mentioned in my sermon on Exodus 25 yesterday that I think part of the reason so much detail is given in the instructions for constructing the tabernacle is that God didn't want any of it left up to the imagination of the Israelites. That's not because God considers imagination a bad thing but because imagination is not a neutral thing; it is shaped by our experiences and Israel has just had their collective imagination shaped by 430 years of oppression and slavery.  That is not an imagination which is prepared to produce a healthy representation of God. 

Exodus 32 is a case in point. While Moses is on Mt. Sinai with Yahweh, the people at the foot of the mountain decide that they need to make gods for themselves. The construction of this idol is presented in direct contrast with the construction of the tabernacle. Whereas the construction of the tabernacle was initiated by God, this action is initiated by the people totally apart from any consultation with God. Whereas the tabernacle is constructed from gifts freely given by anyone who wished to contribute, here Aaron commands all the people "Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." Whereas the instructions for building the tabernacle were orderly and well thought out, the construction of the golden calf is hasty and impetuous. In fact, in one of my favorite lines in all of scripture, Aaron portrays it as almost accidental explaining to Moses "So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf."  Seriously Aaron? My four year old comes up with more clever explanations for her behavior. I'm pretty sure some ancient manuscripts of this verse add "And Moses rolled his eyes."

In addition to being an affront to the construction of the tabernacle, the actions of the people are also a direct violation of the first two commandments given so recently at this very same mountain.  Not only that; the people even minimize the liberating work of Yahweh in the exodus, their very own salvation, in that they say upon seeing the calf "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" In this one act of idolatry, Israel has forsaken the salvation of God, God's law, and God's presence with them. In fact, if we listen closely we will likely even hear echoes of Genesis 3, the original act of idolatry, in this story. Like Adam and Eve, the people are eager to trust a voice other than the voice of the one who has provided for them.  Like Adam, Aaron passes the blame for his wrong doing. And just as there are serious consequences in the garden, so there are serious consequences here in the camp. Moses gives orders that lead to the death of 3000 Israelites (and its not absolutely clear that he was acting out of God's guidance rather than his own anger) and God strikes the camp with a plague on top of that. This is not just any story of any sin. This is the story of sin in Israel's self-identifying narrative. The very telling of the story is itself a confession. It says this is a part of who we are; a people prone to idolatry. 

It is often said that the first step to correcting a problem is admitting that you have a problem. Maybe that is how this story can function for us as Christians.  When we claim the Hebrew Scriptures as our Old Testament, we are saying that Israel's story is our story. Their failings are our failings too. If we are to read Exodus 32 as Christian Scripture then we must confess that we also are a people prone to idolatry.

With that in mind, I find it fascinating that this disastrous story, this paragon of sinfulness, begins with nothing more profound than a failure of patience.

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."

Moses takes a little longer than expected on the mountain and from there everything else begins to rapidly unravel. I don't find that scenario fascinating because I think it is unusual or extraordinary but because I think it is such an apt description of the times we are most vulnerable to our idolatrous tendencies. It is precisely when God seems absent or quiet, the times when we can't perceive God doing anything, that we are are most likely to make God in our own image. I think this is one of the greatest temptations for the Church in America. It is so rare that we experience a genuine movement of God in our churches that rather than doing the hard work of continuing to seek God we decide to create our own God experience with our worship bands and our clever outreach programs and by doing so we threaten to make God even more absent in our lives. Every pastor find themselves tempted to do what Aaron does. When the people complain that they haven't seen God in a while, its much easier to ask the people to give more of their gold so that we can construct our best facsimile of God's work among us than it is to keep asking people to seek God.

I think we are so quick to fill that void, so ready to put something, anything in the place of God's absence because deep down we fear that maybe God won't show up. We are prone to idolatry because one of our greatest fears is that all that time seeking for God, waiting for God will turn up nothing and we would rather have something rather than nothing, even if its fake.

At its root, I think this failure of patience is also essentially a failure of memory. So quickly the people of Israel forgot who it was that delivered them from Egypt. I think the antidote to our failures of patience is to remind ourselves over and over again of what God has already done for us. I began this post by pointing out that our imaginations are shaped by our experiences. This might be the most important reason why we gather to tell the story of our faith week after week, why we must keep hearing the stories of scripture and telling our own stories of God's faithfulness. It is the hearing and telling of those stories which shape our imaginations and, like the Israelites, we are a long-enslaved people in desperate need of having our imaginations reshaped so that we might see what is possible with God.

The God Who Tabernacles

Before you read this post, you should read Exodus 25-26. OK... if not read it, at least take a glance at it. I'm pretty sure this passage isn't anyone's "life verse." In these chapters we hear God's instructions, ones which are approaching obsessive in their intricate detail, to Moses for constructing the tabernacle, the tent where God's presence will dwell with Israel as they journey through the wilderness.

So what's your honest reaction to a passage of scripture like this one? Boring? Irrelevant? Why all the bother with such detail?

I'm sure at least one of the reasons it can be difficult to stick with reading chapters like these is that its just not easy to get excited about the construction blueprint of... well, any blueprint isn't exactly edge of your seat drama but especially the blueprint of a building that we've never seen and isn't a part of our everyday life. But I think there is also a theological reason why we often fail to recognize the truly great significance of the tabernacle at this point in Israel's story.

As modern Christians, I think we pretty much take the presence of God for granted. After all, along with being all-powerful and all-knowing isn't God also ever-present? There is no place that God is not.  Furthermore, we believe that God's presence is always among us as a church.  We believe that God's Spirit goes with us in our everyday lives. Of course, I believe those statements to be true but I also think that in a world of fast food and faster computers where everything is available to us at our convenience we have come to think of God's presence in the same way: always readily available to us and therefore not particularly special.

This was not the experience of the Israelites. We must remember that it was not so many chapters ago in this story that the Israelites were still enslaved in Egypt. The experience of a slave - the experience of 430 years of slavery- is not the experience of a God who is near but of one who is distant and dispassionate. What is the cry of the abused and oppressed if not "Where is God now?" or "Is there a God at all?". Even once God has delivered the people of Israel and even as God is giving these very laws to Moses, the people's experience of God is still one of distance. This is the God who envelopes the mountain with smoke and storm and says that anyone who comes too close will die.  This is the God of whom the people essentially say to Moses "That's close enough! You speak to God for us!".

It is within this story of a God who is so tremendously and wholly other that this transcendent One begins to give instructions for how his house should be built. A house! A dwelling for God! A place where God's presence can reside with the people of Israel. Its not enough that God delivered this battered and abused slave nation.  Its not enough that God has covenanted with these people and promised to be their God and they be God's people.  Now God is going to shack up with them as well! And not even on some high mountain but in a tent right in the middle of Israel's camp that can go with them where they go. God is drawing up plans to be present right in the midst of God's people.

But the tabernacle is even more than that. It also is another step in God's rehabilitation project with these former slaves as God continues the work of transforming them into a free and holy people. I believe that is why instructions are so obsessive in their detail.  Although we are not told the explicit purpose or symbolic nature of every instruction, we are told that Moses was instructed to build everything according to the pattern he had seen on the mountain. This tabernacle was not to be modeled after temples of Egypt or any other culture or left up to the Israelite imagination which was still largely held captive by the realities of Egypt. The tabernacle was to be by God's instruction alone, every last a detail a reminder that this was not any God but the liberating God of the exodus who was dwelling with these people. The tabernacle itself was to become a means of converting Israel's imagination from the way of Pharaoh to the way of Yahweh.  Like stain-glass windows telling the story of Jesus for illiterate church-goers in the middle ages, the tabernacle would be a beautifully ornate and tangible picture of the God who had delivered them and continued to dwell with them.

In the first chapter of John's gospel, we hear that "the word became flesh and dwelt among us." The word translated as "dwelt" in this verse is the very same word used to describe God's dwelling in the tabernacle, the clear sense of John's words being that Jesus is now the place of God's "tabernacling" with    his people. Likewise, in Mark's gospel we see at Jesus' baptism that God's own Spirit descends upon and into Jesus in the form of a dove. Each of the gospels and Acts also tell us, each in their own way, that Jesus would also pour out this same Spirit on his followers. Paul goes so far as to call the Corinthians the "temple of God," the very place where God's Spirit dwells. And in his first epistle, Peter calls the churches of Asia Minor "living stones...being built up into a spiritual house." Hebrews describes Jesus as the pioneer of our faith who has opened up and new and living way for us into the holy of holies, that is, into the very presence of God.  And Revelation reaches the apex of its vision of new creation when it says that in the new Jerusalem there will be no temple because God has finally made his dwelling fully and completely, directly and unmediated with God's people for all eternity.

The consistent witness of scripture, even with its many voices and varied images, is that we serve a God whose goal throughout all of eternity has been and will be to dwell among us. The instructions for the tabernacle in Exodus remind us that this is no small thing. This is a holy God whose presence is not to be taken for granted. But we also believe that presence is no longer limited by tabernacle or temple. It was made available to us in the beautifully ornate and tangible presence of Jesus who helps us to re-imagine what is possible with God in this world and thereby shapes us into a people where the Spirit of God tabernacles until that day of new creation when we will dwell fully and completely in the presence of our liberating and tabernaling God.

 

Ten Words to Set Us Free

I argued in my blog post last week that the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai should not be seen as something separate from God's work of liberation.  God has delivered these oppressed people from their slavery in Egypt and now God is continuing that work of deliverance by the gift of God's law.  This law is not a burden.  It is not something to be followed purely in exchange for God's deliverance.  It is itself a part of the deliverance as God teaches his people how to live not as slaves but as a free people serving a holy God. 

If this is true then it applies not only to last week's passage in Exodus 19 but even more so our passage for this week, Exodus 20.  The ten commandments make up the core of Israel's Law.  Although many other laws will be given, these are at the center of God's vision for Israel's life as a holy people.  As such, we would expect them to be crucial in re-writing Israel's identity, in accomplishing that liberating work of moving Israel from slave people to holy people.  And as we read them in comparison to the ways of Pharaoh, we can see how they might begin to do just. 

First, they begin with an explicit reminder that the God who speaks these words is the God who delivered them out of the house of slavery.  Whereas the house of slavery was run by a man who tried to act as if he were god and who disrespected the name of Yahweh, Israel is to be house where there are no other gods, not even idols, and where Yahweh's name was to be held in reverence.  Israel's existence in Egypt was one defined by work. As slaves, they were only as valuable as what they could produce. Now they are told that they are to rest every seventh day because even God rested. Pharaoh's empire was one built on murder, theft, lies, and covetousness.  Israel is told they must be none of those things if they are to be a free people living in the presence of a holy God.  God has given Israel the basics of  what a truly liberated life together as a community must look life. 

But, of course, we know all this already.  Good Christians that we are, the ten commandments are so familiar, so basic, as to almost be ignored.  To be sure, we pay homage to them, talk about how important they are, and maybe even memorize them. But are they doing for us what they did for Israel? Are they a part of God's liberating work among us? Are they helping to transform us from being a people enslaved to the  ways of the world around us to being a people free to live in the presence of a holy God?

I'll tell you how I think they work for most of us... as a checklist, and a self-inflating one at that.  "I worship God."  Check. "No idols in my house." Check.  "I don't curse." Check.  "I go to church on Sunday." Check.  "I love my parents."  Check.  "I don't murder, steal, lie, commit adultery, or covet." Check,check, check.  "Wow, I must be really holy.  That wasn't even that hard."  And after we've checked off our list we don't really see any reason to give the ten commandments much more thought since we would never do any of those things anyway.  Rather than accomplishing the liberating work of God among us it seems that the ten commandments often accomplish little more than promoting self-satisfaction and self-righteousness.

I think it is worth noting at this point that I don't think we do this on purpose.  No one sets out with the purpose of being smug and self-righteous.  I think this actually happens as a result of our best attempts to be faithful to the text as we see it.  We hear that these are ten commandments so we assume the appropriate response is to just obey.  No questions. No arguing.  If God gives a command then the only right thing for us to do is obey that command.  There is nothing else to it.  But lets just ask the obvious question here: If all we did as Christians was follow these commands in the simplest and most literal way, would that really honor God?  Would it really fulfill the mission we heard about last week to be a holy people who represent God to the rest of the world?  Would it really set us apart as a different kind of people?  The truth is that there are a lot of ways we would barely even be keeping up with the "minimum requirements" of most secular morality in our day if we only follow these commands in a literal way. 

If, however, we see these not merely as commands (though they certainly continue to be at least that) but as the words of God which are meant to be a means of God's liberating and life-giving grace among us, then we will do much more than fulfill them to the letter.  We will ask how the Spirit can write the full intent of these laws on our hearts and minds.  Rather than simply avoiding murder, we will ask what it means to be a community that values all life and what that, in turn, means for our response to realities like abortion, war, and capital punishment. Rather than simply saying it is enough that we don't steal, we will consider ourselves a people called to speak against inequality and work to alleviate poverty.  Rather than just being a people who don't curse, we will strive to give God a good reputation in everything that we do. 

I believe Jesus shows us as much in the sermon on the mount.  In Matthew 5, Jesus likens anger to murder and lust to adultery.  In doing so, I don't think Jesus is just ratcheting up the standards of the law to show us how hopeless it is for us to follow God's law so we'll be convinced we are sinners.  I believe he is reminding us that God's law was always meant to be more than a rule book, more than a checklist.  It was meant to be the life-giving, liberating word of God. 

Law and Liberation

Yahweh has delivered Israel in mighty and impressive fashion.  Now we come to Mt Sinai where God will give the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law to Moses for the people of Israel.  This is an immensely important stop in Israel's ongoing journey.  They will spend eleven months at Sinai.  The biblical telling of this period begins here in chapter 19, continues through the rest of Exodus, the entirety of the book of Leviticus, and onto the tenth chapter of Numbers.  For all the importance of the exodus and its centrality to Israel's story, it doesn't receive nearly the amount of attention that the law does in Israel's telling of its own story with God. 

But really to separate the two that way is itself a mistake.  It could be tempting to see the time at Sinai as a dramatic break from the story of deliverance which has preceded it.  Perhaps upon reaching Exodus 19 we imagine that the story of liberation has come to a close and has now given way to the time of law.  Maybe Yahweh has delivered these slaves from Pharaoh's rule only to make them his own slaves?  God has delivered them and now he has them right where he wants them; weak and vulnerable in the middle of nowhere without even the Egyptians to run back to.  Is the God who seemed so benevolent now "cashing in" on all he has done for these people?  Is this law how Israel will pay God back?

In the stories of the exodus, the Red Sea, the provisions of fresh water, manna, and quail, we've seen that although God has removed this people from their slavery there are still many ways in which their slavery has not been removed from them.  Although they have been delivered, they still don't know any other way to live than as Pharaoh's slaves.  That is exactly why the giving of the law is a necessary and essential part of this story of liberation.  God's Law is not something separate from God's liberation; it is not an obligation to be repaid to the God who has saved Israel.  The Law itself is a part of God's liberating work. It is the natural next step in God's liberating work because this is how God will break the invisible chains of Pharaoh's oppressive regime which still reside in the hearts and minds of his people.  The Law is God's way of teaching Israel how to live without Pharaoh telling them who they are. It is not a new slavery but the very way God has provided for Israel to live into their freedom. 

Neither is this law-giving a one and done kind of deal.  These are not instructions meant to take the place of God whose work is now done.  No, this law is a covenant, a sort of contract, a binding agreement.  That is, the God who has delivered Israel so mightily, defeated Pharaoh so completely, and who now covers this mountain in cloud and smoke, this tremendously holy God has bound himself to these slaves and allowed them to be bound to him so long as they respect God's holiness.  Their fate will be his fate, their reputation his reputation.  Yahweh says in v.5 "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel."  These former slaves will now represent Yahweh to the rest of the world so they must be holy as he is holy. 

In 1 Peter 2, the Church is described in this very same language.  Peter says to the churches of Asia Minor "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."  Israel's story is our story.  We too have been brought into covenant with this redeeming God by the blood of Jesus Christ.  Peter began his letter by addressing these churches as
the "elect exiles of the dispersion.... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood".  Just as the people were sprinkled with the blood of an animal at Sinai in order to seal this covenant with Yahweh, likewise the blood of Jesus Christ has sealed us into this new covenant.  In this new covenant, our law is given not on stone tablets but in the person of Jesus Christ.  He is our model of what it means to be holy as God is holy and it is his Spirit which enables us to live into the freedom which God has provided for us. 

Narrative of Enough

Yahweh still has not won the trust of these broken people.  Ten plagues, the exodus from Egypt, the crushing of Pharaoh and his armies at the Red Sea, the provision of fresh water to drink shortly after, and still the people are grumbling to Moses and Aaron.

"Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."  (16:3)

Talk about the power of nostalgia.  The Israelites recall the "good ol' days" of their slavery as if it were a continual feast.  All of these miracles have not been enough to yet erase the lasting scars of their broken chains which provided a familiarity they prefer to the unknown of following Yahweh down this uncharted path.  Sure, Yahweh has provided miraculous deliverance but can he sustain this delivered people?  Can the mighty warrior god also be the god who provides basic needs like bread in times of peace?

Yahweh's patience with this long-oppressed people continues.  There is no rebuke.  Moses does not even have to intercede for the people.  Instead, God hears their grumbling and immediately responds by telling Moses "Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you."  In fact, we will hear in a few verses that it is not only bread but also meat - the very things which the Israelites mentioned in their grumbling.  Now Yahweh is just showing off.  The Lord of all creation is willing to play the role of personal chef and waiter to these former slaves if that is what it takes to replace their fear with trust.

In that effort of gradually bringing such a tortured people along to a place of trust, God now asks for a small sign of trust in handling the gracious gifts of bread and quail which have been provided.  The people are only to gather enough provisions for each day.  They are not to hoard their goods as the Egyptians did but rather they are to trust that God will continue to provide.  The only exception to this rule is on the day before the Sabbath when they are commanded to gather two days worth of provisions so that they will not have to gather on the Sabbath - a day of rest which is itself a reminder that we are not to be a people of continual work but a people who trust God to provide even when we take time to rest.  When the people follow this command and trust God to provide they find that "whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat."  When they failed to follow this command and gathered extra, they found that what they had gathered "bred worms and stank".  The Israelites have only known the hoarding ways of Pharaoh which leave the weak without enough. Yahweh is teaching the Israelites that in God's economy there is always enough when no one takes more than they need.

Like the people of Israel, Christians are a people recovering from Pharaoh's narrative of scarcity.  We too have been told that there is only so much wealth to go around and if we don't work hard enough or we aren't smart enough then we might end up without our fair share.  We may even end up without enough.  So much of our lives is spent accumulating more and more wealth so as to ensure that no matter what happens we will always be able to provide for ourselves.  But this story pushes us to see that the basic premise of God's economy is not scarcity but perfectly proportioned provision.  In fact, it is only when we buy into the notion of scarcity and begin to take more than our share that scarcity becomes a reality for others.

There are some miraculous and extraordinary stories of God's provision for Israel in the book of Exodus.  But part of what we learn from this story is that God's gracious provision is not always the vanquish of a mighty empire or walking across the Red Sea on dry ground.  God's gracious provision most often takes the form of daily bread and meat.  That every-day, ordinary quality doesn't make it any less a gift of God.  Likewise, placing our trust in God doesn't always mean doing something extraordinary.  Most days it will mean refusing to buy into the empire's narrative of scarcity, refusing to hoard what we've gained, and believing that if we will provide for the needs of others God will provide for us.

Reality Check

God has accomplished his mighty works in Egypt.  Yahweh has proven to be Lord over all of creation.  With plagues of hail and darkness and death, Yahweh has shown that Pharaoh's illusion of power has failed beside Yahweh's true power.  The chains of the Israelite's bondage have been broken and the hosts of Israel are marching out of Egypt, carrying the gold and silver of the Egyptians with them.  This cosmic contest has been completely and decisively won by Yahweh.

But let's be honest; change never comes quite that easily.  Especially not this empire-upending, world-altering kind of change.  Not even when it is God who is bringing about the change.  There are still humans involved in this mighty act of God and we humans don't change quite so easily.

The Egyptians have grown accustomed to being oppressors.  They have come to see it as their right, an unquestioned part of their existence.  Now they are left to ponder what they have lost by letting these slaves go and they don't like the way this picture is shaping up.  In Exodus 14:5, Pharaoh and his servants say "What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?"  Perhaps we are tempted to laugh at the Egyptians here because of how short their memory seems to be.  Have they already forgotten what the presence of Israel meant for them just a chapter earlier?  Have they even buried their firstborn children yet?  But they are a demonstration to us of just how corrupting power can be to our vision of reality.  They know no other role than oppressor.  Although they thought they were in control of their own destiny, the truth is that they don't know how to live without the Israelites.  So in spite of the fact that Pharaoh has just been on the losing end of the most lopsided battle in the history of the world, he does the only things he knows how to do: he musters his chariots and soldiers and sets off with his war machine to find Israel.  Those who live by the sword....

But it is not only the Egyptians who have been shaped by this 430 year long relationship.  The Israelites also have grown accustomed to being oppressed.  Here we have an entire people who have known no other existence than brick making and infant slaughtering.  Although Yahweh has removed them from their captivity and oppression, the scars from their years of captivity and oppression have not yet been removed from them.  Their identity is still that of "slave".  So we really shouldn't be surprised that when these broken people see the Egyptian hoard headed toward them they say to Moses:

"Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?  What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?  Is this not what we said to you in Egypt: Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?  For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."

It would be easy to chide the Israelites here for their lack of faith.  After all, they have just seen Yahweh deliver them.  Why not simply trust that Yahweh will deliver them again?  But to do so would fail to take seriously the brutal impact that generations upon generations of oppression have on the human psyche.  These thoroughly down-trodden people are used to being let down and taken advantage of.  Why shouldn't Yahweh disappoint them too?  400+ years of oppression are not simply erased overnight, not even when that night is filled with the work of God.

The truth is this scenario plays out to some degree in most of our lives, even if we have not caused or suffered oppression as brutal as this.  We become accustomed to the relationships in which we participate, whether with spouses, parents, siblings, friends, even our church, and they define our "normal".  Those relationships shape our identity and existence, even the unhealthy and abusive ones.  And this makes change difficult, even when we recognize its necessity, even when that change has been started by none other than God.  Like the Israelites, we often prefer the chains of our slavery because at least those chains are familiar.  Freedom is a fearful thing if it something we have never known.

Perhaps that is why one of the most often uttered commands of this slave-freeing God throughout all of scripture is "Fear not!"  It seems that the God of the Exodus is aware that setting the captives free means more than breaking their chains.  It will also mean replacing their fear with trust and hope.  So rather than abandoning his recently delivered people just because they have not yet been made whole, God commands them to "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord" as God delivers them again and in spectacular fashion, drowning all of Pharaoh's army in the sea after the Israelites have just walked across on dry land.  In fact, it seems like Yahweh rather relishes this opportunity to once again display his power before this people who so desperately need to see the new reality that is possible with this God who has delivered them.

I know that in my own life there have been so many ways in which change has come slowly; even when I knew change was necessary, even when it was the mighty power of God that was changing me.  As a people who have been delivered but are also still being delivered, maybe we can have grace and mercy for others when they don't trust the work of God in their life as quickly as we might expect them to.  Maybe we can have grace and mercy for ourselves when we don't trust the work of God in our life as quickly as we expect to.  Although the transformative work of God can certainly take place in an instant, the spiritual growth that is necessary to fully appropriate that work of God in our lives will probably not be measured in weeks or months but in decades.  For the Israelites it took generations and that didn't make it any less real.  God kept calling upon his people to "fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord" as their God delivered them again and again and again.

The Cosmic Contest of Salvation

Exodus 5-12 is nothing short of a cosmic contest to see who is really Lord over all of creation.  The contenders for this title are Pharaoh and Yahweh.  But, of course, this can be no real contest, right?  On the one hand you have Pharaoh with his magicians, armies, wealth, and vast empire.  Pharaoh has all the power one could ever hope to have.  Yahweh, on the other hand, is the invisible so-called god of an invisible and marginalized slave people.   Pharaoh will surely win.  After all, if this Yahweh is really even the least bit powerful, how is it that he allowed his people to end up enslaved in the first place?  Pharaoh sums it up quite well in Exodus 5:2.  When Moses and Aaron repeat God's command to let the people go, Pharaoh responds by saying " Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?  I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go."  If Yahweh is a god at all, he is such an insignificant god that Pharaoh has never heard of him.  Why would the mighty Pharaoh bother with the god of his own slaves?  In fact, Pharaoh will demonstrate his absolute control by forcing these slaves to now find their own straw to make their quota of bricks rather than providing the straw for their slave labor.  The revolution is over before it has even begun.

This seemingly insignificant god, Yahweh, sends Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh again to make the same demand.  This time Yahweh commands them to accompany their message with a sign.  Aaron casts down his staff and it turns into a snake.  Unimpressed, Pharaoh call's the imperial magicians and they do the same.  As a sign of what is to come, Aaron's snake-staff swallows those of the magicians but it will take much more than this to stir Pharaoh.

So Yahweh sends Moses to the Nile.  More than just a river, this is the very life source of Egypt, not only because of the water it supplies but also because of the nourishing silt it brings to surrounding farm land with its annual flooding.  It is also this river which was meant to be the death of Moses.  As such, it is also a symbol of Pharaoh's control.  Without the Nile, Egypt and therefore, Pharaoh, would be nothing.  With just the touch of Aaron's staff, this mighty river is turned to blood, perhaps a way of showing its "true colors" as a life giving river which has been turned into a bloody tool of oppression.  Pharaoh's magicians again replicate this sign although they are unable to reverse it and so Pharaoh's heart also will not be reversed even as the poor and powerful alike are forced to dig along the Nile to find water.

Next, frogs swarm the land of Egypt.  Again, Pharaoh's magicians are able to replicate this work but the reality is they are only able to add to the problem.  In an empire over run with frogs they are only able to produce more frogs.

Pharaoh's continued intransigence now leads to a plague of gnats.  We are told that "All the dust of the earth became gnats in the land of Egypt" and "there were gnats on man and beast."  The very dust from which humanity was created now becomes a plague on humanity. This is the first sign the magicians can not replicate.  In fact, they call it "the finger of God".  Pharaoh's own officials now are beginning to wonder exactly what they are up against but Pharaoh himself remains unmoved.

The flies follow the gnats.  In order to make this portent more potent, God now makes a distinction.  The flies appear only on the Egyptians while the land of Goshen, where the Israelites live, is spared so that Pharaoh "may know that I am the Lord."  Pharaoh now does what must be humiliating for him; he asks Moses to plead for him to Yahweh.  However, as soon as Pharaoh finds relief, he again refuses to let the people go.

The plagues now come in rapid succession.  After each of the previous plagues, Pharaoh had been give the chance to repent but now the plague against livestock and the plagues of boils and hail are simply announced without any opportunity for Pharaoh to do anything about it.  He has now lost what little bit of control he hoped to yield through his conversations with Moses.  He is even losing control over his own people for when they hear about the plague of hail many of them fear the word of Moses more than possible repercussions from Pharaoh and choose to take shelter accordingly.  Yahweh proclaims that he could have simply destroyed Pharaoh but that he has been raised up for the purpose of displaying Yahweh's complete lordship over all of creation.

Now Yahweh asks Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron "How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?"  But Pharaoh still will not confess the Lordship of Yahweh.  This brings the locusts which will eat what little of the crop was not already destroyed by the hail storm.  At this point Pharaoh's own servants began to plead with him "How long shall this man be a snare to us?  Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God.  Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?"  It seems everyone is ready to confess that Yahweh is Lord and Pharaoh is not except Pharaoh himself.

Now comes the darkness.  This is not simply the darkness that comes with the sun being on the other side of the Earth.  Exodus 10:21 says this is a darkness that could be felt.  It is as if God has undone creation to the point that it is beginning to revert to that earth that was without form and void where darkness was over the face of the deep - except in Goshen, where the Israelites live. There, God's well ordered creation remains.  But within the realm of Pharaoh's so-called power, creation itself is falling apart.

Finally, the most terrible plague of all will come.  Every firstborn in Egypt will die.  This all started with Israel crying out as their babies were tossed in the river.  Now it ends with a "great cry" in Egypt because of the loss of their own children.  Only now that the kind of tragedy which Pharaoh himself imposed has struck Pharaoh's own house will he let these people go.

This plague is different though, not only in its awfulness but also because it is combined with a meal.  Whereas in some of the previous plagues God had set his people apart now Yahweh instructs them to set themselves apart by spreading the blood of a lamb over their doorposts and by participating in this Passover meal.  This meal is often spoken of as one of remembrance and it is that but it is also more than that for it by this meal that Israel is marked off as the people to be delivered.  It is not only an ordinance that Israel will continue to celebrate as remembrance of past deliverance.  It is by this meal that Israel marks itself off as the people who are presently participating in God's work of liberation.

It is to this meal that Jesus turned to communicate to his disciples the significance of his death.  This meal that encapsulates the salvation of Israel and is the apex of God's cosmic battle with Pharaoh is the one in which Jesus says "This is my body" and "This is my blood of the covenant...".  In doing so, Jesus said to them and to us "That creation-wide, cosmos-altering kind of salvation with which you are familiar in the exodus is now taking place in my body, through my death and resurrection, and you mark yourselves off as the people participating in that liberating work of God by participating in this meal with me."

Too often salvation is pared down to the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus which will bring us some measure of comfort in this life and the ultimate comfort after this life.  Its not that such a description of salvation is untrue.  Its just that it is a description of salvation that is so woefully inadequate that it is doing a disservice to the mighty work of God in Jesus Christ to constantly describe it that way.  The salvation we proclaim is so much bigger than us, so much bigger than our church, and the paltry little concerns that tend to occupy our conversations and committee meetings.  This salvation is the victory that has been and is being won in the cosmic battle against all the Pharaoh-like forces of evil and oppression in our world.  It is the proclamation that the kingdom of God is near and that God has called us to participate in the liberating work of that kingdom.

Power of Presence

Seemingly far from the danger and intrigue of just a chapter earlier, the baby boy who survived in a world without baby boys has grown into a man.  He is doing nothing more extraordinary than shepherding the flocks of his father-in-law, when the angel of the Lord appears to him in a bush that burns but is not burned up.  When Moses turns to take a closer look at this strange sight, God calls to him from the bush.

God calls because he has seen the affliction of his people in Egypt and he wants Moses to do something about it.  So God says to Moses "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt."  Sounds great, right?  Except for the part where Pharaoh is the most powerful man in the world and the children of Israel are the inexpensive slave-labor engine of his booming economy.  I'm sure he'll give them up without a fight.


So Moses asks in Exodus 3:11,  "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?"  Over the course of the next chapter and a half, Moses will offer five different objections to God's calling - the final one more of an outright plea "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else."  Often these objections are understood as exposing a lack of faith on the part of Moses but considering the remarkable task to which God is calling Moses, his objections actually seem pretty reasonable.  Who wouldn't want some assurances when facing Pharaoh and his armies?


In fact, God's responses to Moses' objections are some of the most telling parts of this narrative.  To be sure, by the end of this argument Yahweh seems to be a bit annoyed with Moses (4:14) but no where along the way does God suggest that Moses' objections are out of line or irreverent.  Quite to the contrary, the Yahweh we find described in this story is one who engages in patient dialogue with Moses and takes time to answer his concerns.


Of course, those "answers" are not always the ones for which Moses might have been hoping.  When Moses asks "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh...?" God's reply could have taken a number of forms.  God could have told Moses why he really was qualified for the job.  God could have let Moses in on the plan for liberation, a step by step instruction on how to defeat Pharaoh.  But God's reply is "But I will be with you, and this shall be a sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain."  Although God is willing to take time for Moses' objections, God also gently reminds Moses that it is not his qualifications on which this mission depends.  Instead, it is the God who goes with him.  When the God of liberation calls, the most powerful promise that can be made is the promise of that God's presence.  

The Nameless Revolution

"Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live."  - Exodus 1:22

Maybe its because deliverance is in the title of the book -"ex odos" - literally, "a way out", or maybe its because the ten plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea are some of the very first stories we learn if we grew up in church but either way we usually begin reading the book of Exodus knowing that deliverance is not far off.  As a result, it can be difficult to force ourselves to sit in the pure horror that is Israel's circumstance.  We can be so quick to jump to God's mighty acts that we rush over the desperate situation that made them necessary.  Never mind the brick making.  Pharaoh's edict of death alone is enough to qualify this as an atrocity, a genocide, a holocaust.  "Every son that is born to the Hebrews..."

Imagine the consequences of such a decree if fully enforced.  Did half the births among the Israelites, occasions that should have been joyous signs of life, instantly become occasions for mourning the moment the child's gender was revealed?  Did the sight of one's niece insight jealousy and pain because it was a reminder of the loss of one's own son?  When the Hebrew men went to make those bricks, did they notice that no young men were joining them in the fields?  When the Hebrew women went to the Nile to gather water for the day, did they do their best to ignore the infant sized corpse floating down the river or had they become so accustomed to this sight that they were now cold to these reminders of their oppression?   This is a Hitler/1994 Rwanda/current Syria kind of evil.  And an evil backed by the highest earthly power of the day.  What can possibly be done in the face of such an insurmountable and hope-stealing force?

In the midst of Pharaoh's death-dealing decree, life goes on.  A nameless Levite man marries a nameless Levite woman.  They have a child - a boy.  But this nameless woman refuses to submit to the most powerful man in the world.  She hides her son for three months.  Isn't this a fool's errand?  She can't possibly expect this son of her's to go unnoticed forever in an environment where there are no other boys walking the streets.  She could probably be executed for her disobedience but at the very least isn't she stealing precious food and resources away from the daughter she already has and wasting them on this child who has no chance of survival?  When she can't hide him any more she follows Pharaoh's orders but with her own subversive twist.  She does place her son in the Nile but she does so in a basket - or an "ark" to translate the Hebrew word more exactly - reminding us of another story in which God provided a miraculous way out in the midst of watery chaos and death.

Here in the story enters another nameless, powerless, woman.  She is probably even more weak and powerless than the decree-defying mother for she is really just a girl - she is the baby boy's sister.  This sister watches her brother from a distance "to know what would be done to him."  I imagine that she watches with the kind of hope that only a young child or early adolescent could muster; a hope that hasn't yet been corrupted and pared down by "reality," a hope that believes this baby boy could somehow survive in a world without baby boys.

Her hope puts her in the right place at the right time when yet another woman enters the story.  This woman does have some power relative to the other two since she is Pharaoh's daughter but surely even she would have no one to protect her if her father's wrath turned against her.  She has come down to the Nile to bathe, sees the child in the basket, and pities him in direct contrast to the law of her own father.  Now the sister sees the opportunity that only she, in all her naive hopefulness, could have possibly hoped for and (should we imagine her, previously unnoticed, breathlessly bursting out from her hiding place among the reeds?) asks "Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?"  The Princess of Egypt consents to the offer proposed by this unknown, nameless, and powerless little girl who then runs to get her mother so that the Princess can pay her to nurse her own son.

Moses is saved by being placed in the very river that Pharaoh meant to be the means of his death.  He is drawn out of that river by Pharaoh's own daughter and his mother will be paid to nurse him out of Pharaoh's own treasury.  Pharaoh's edict of evil has sown the seeds of its own demise for it is this same Moses who represents the end of Pharaoh's seemingly endless power.  It turns out that all it took to topple this insurmountable and hope-stealing force was three women who refused to submit to the deadly ways of the Empire.

There is another important character in this story who goes unnamed:  God.  To be sure, by the end of the book of Exodus we will know this God and his magnificent, plague inducing, slave liberating power quite well.  He will be named with many names (I Am, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, compassionate, etc.) and show himself to be the one true God over all of creation.  But before all the fireworks he calls Moses through the quiet, calm burning of a bush.  Apparently God refuses to light these fireworks alone.  God wants a servant through whom he can work...and that servant, Moses, does not exist apart from the subversive acts of these three women.  Their civil disobedience is not accompanied by the obvious displays of God's power which Moses will enjoy.  Indeed, here at the oppressive and hopeless beginning of this powerful story - in the midst of the brick making and infant murdering - one might wonder if there is even a god who is worth naming.  But it seems this is how the inauguration of God's kingdom always takes shape; not with brute force and obvious displays of God's power and presence but in the anonymity, weakness and vulnerability of an infant, of a cross and a tomb, of three women who refuse to submit to the powers that be.  These are the makings of God's revolution.

Krispy Kreme and Water from a Rock

A few days ago, Jess, the kids and I were headed home from having dinner with some friends and we decided to stop for Krispy Kreme donuts along the way.  As we were making our way through the drive-thru, before we had even arrived at the window and received our box of sugary goodness, Hannah pipes up from the back seat with a bit of urgency/panic in her voice "Daddy, I want a donut too!"  Of course, I had no intention of ordering a dozen of the most delicious things on this earth and not sharing them with my children.  However, the tone in Hannah's voice conveyed to me that she was not so sure of this.

While this trip through Krispy Kreme's drive-thru didn't exactly provoke some kind of deep existential angst about my parenting ability, it did cause me to wonder why Hannah's first assumption was that I wouldn't share with her.  Didn't she remember that this was her daddy she was talking to?  Couldn't she just rest in the knowledge that I would share any good thing with her and that if didn't I share it with her it was because I thought it wouldn't be good for her?  And yes, in the few seconds that these questions were shooting through my mind I also remembered that she is only 3 and that such calm in the presence of such a strong desire is too much to ask of a 3 year old.

The truth is it often seems to be too much to ask of most adults as well.  In Exodus 17, the people of Israel are grumbling against Moses because they don't have any water to drink.  They say to Moses "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"  On the face of it, that's actually not a bad question.  After all, no water in the middle of the desert is a pretty seriously problem.  I'd probably be grumbling too.  But what makes this grumbling so sad, so short-sighted is that the people of Israel have already seen what God can do.  God just delivered these powerless slaves from the most powerful nation on earth.  God just displayed his complete sovereignty over creation through powerful plagues of hail, frogs, gnats, blood, darkness, and even the firstborn of every Egyptian family.  Then God provided pillars of cloud and fire for guidance, made a path in the Red Sea for crossing, and provided manna from heaven for eating.  In fact, this wasn't even Israel's first grumbling specifically about water.  Just two chapters earlier God empowered Moses to turn the bitter waters of Marah sweet so that the people could drink.  One might think that after the Israelites had seen God handle all of that they wouldn't be too worried about a little water shortage.  They might reason "Hey, we don't have water but God has taken care of bigger problems than this.  He'll take care of us again."  Nope.  Just more grumbling.

Of course, we often don't do much better ourselves.  God has provided for us over and over again.  So many of us have never even known real need, the kind of need one might experience without water in the wilderness.  But when even a hint of trouble shows up, when just the chance of our standard of living being lowered comes along we fret.  We worry.  We grumble and complain.  In those times I have to imagine that God wants to say to us "Don't you remember that this is your daddy you are talking to?  Doesn't all your past experience tell you that I'll take care of you?"

As we awaited our treats in the Krispy Kreme drive-thru, I decided to tease Hannah about her uncertainty as to whether she would receive a donut.  I turned to her and said in  a mock seriousness  "What kind of daddy do you think I am?  Did you really think I was going to order a whole bunch of donuts and not let you have one?"  Hearing my serious tone she got kind of a worried look on her face which then began to fade away as she thought about what I had actually said.  Then realizing that I was obviously going to share with her a big smile came across her face and she said "Nooo" as if what moments ago had been such a major concern to her was now the silliest and most absurd thing she could think of.  Shortly thereafter we were all enjoying these little, round frosted wonders together.

Obviously, I would be a pretty immature parent if I had taken Hannah's lack of faith in me personally and prevented her from having a donut because of it.  Yet, it seems that is how we often think of God.  If God were really as simplistic as some theologies make him out to be then he would have simply punished the people of Israel for their grumbling and lack of faith.  Instead, God does just the opposite.  God provides for the people of Israel once again in spite of their immaturity and failure to trust.  This passage points us toward the reality that our relationship with God is just that: a relationship, a nuanced, sometimes complex, always mysterious relationship with the almighty God of the universe.  What it certainly is not is a system of rewards and punishments for good or bad behavior.  It is a relationship where God sometimes provides for us even when we fail to trust him and one where God sometimes asks us to trust him when it seems like he is not providing for us at all.  God faithfulness often overcomes our own unfaithfulness but he also asks to place our trust in him and not in the things he provides.

Delivered for Life Together

The Ten Commandments.

At first glance, they appear to be a simple list of "Thou shalt's" and "Thou shalt not's". Do this. Don't do this. Honor your father and mother and God's name. Keep the Sabbath. Don't have other gods or idols. Don't murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet. Simple, right?

Well, like most things in the Christian life, yes and no. The commandments are pretty simple and straightforward. We at least get a basic idea of what is required of us but like most things in scripture we have to figure out how the details work out in real life. For example, do only small man made statues count as idols or shall we include everything that distracts us from God in that category? Of course, we know we should value life too much to commit murder but what does that mean when it comes to abortion, capital punishment, war, and poverty? When it comes to keeping the Sabbath, should we follow the examples of the Pharisees? And what does it actually mean to honor your father and mother?

The intersection between sacred scripture and real life is one of complexity and ambiguity.

Despite the difficult tasks we face in sorting out these ethical dilemmas, there does seem to be one overarching theme that is clear in Exodus 20:1-17; God has delivered Israel for the specific purpose of living a certain kind of life together. Before a single command is given, God makes a statement about himself and his relationship to Israel. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." The God who delivers is the same God who gives these commandments. God didn't just deliver Israel so that they might be free to do as they please and thereby end up enslaved to their own desires. God delivered Israel so that they might be a holy people. He delivered them so that they might be different from the other nations; a reflection of God in their life together as a people.

So while there is and should be serious and meaningful debate about what it means to be holy, there can be no question that we are, in fact, called to be holy. We are called to be a different kind of people. This is precisely the reason God has delivered us from our sin in the first place. Not simply for our own sake but so that we might be a truer reflection of him in our life together.