Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Wednesday, August 5, 2020
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Theophany (appearance of God) and the Call-The Divine-Human Partnership in Redemption
Exodus 3: 1-12
Theophany (appearance of God) and the Call-The Divine-Human
Partnership in Redemption
Jethro (His abundance) is another name for the priest of
Midian Ruel (2:18). Moses is in a different and totally new life in the service
of his father-in-law. Moses tends the sheep and comes to new grazing land,
namely Horeb (literally means “desolate waste”). These two terms connote both the
stale life that Moses leads in Midian because of his forced expulsion from
Egypt and the transformation that God Almighty is going to bring in his life as
he a God with abundant resources to renew life.
Horeb is known as “God’s mountain” or “Mountain of God”, Because
of it becoming the locale of God’s appearance many times. In other traditions, the mountain is also called Sinai. The text prepares the reader for some extraordinary happenings and urges the reader to use the categories of faith to
understand the text. The burning bush is presented as an angel of God and the voice
of God is presented as coming out from the bush. This is the first appearance
of God in the book of Exodus. The theophany episode has a visible part (vv.2-3)
as well as an audible part (vv.4-6). The dramatic visible part draws the
attention of Moses to the very theophany event. The audible part calls out Moses
by his name, it is a divine summons. Moses’ response to this sovereign summons
is complete submission and obedience as in other “call-response” patterns in
the Bible. Moses responds by saying, “here I am (v.4).” The ordinary place that
is termed as “desolate waste” (Horeb) is transformed by the preemptive holy
presence of God. Moses is now taken up into the sphere of that awful holiness.[1]
The holiness of the reality of God always sets a sense of limit for human
endeavors. It even happens in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve are
instructed while they were appointed as stewards to respect the limit of not
approaching the trees of life and knowledge (Genesis 2:17). Moses is also asked
to keep a respectable and conscious distance while approaching the holiness of
God. Moses’ removal of sandals signifies his complete submission to the will of
God.
Though God was visible Moses is not attempting to see God as
seeing God amounts to impinging upon God’s freedom and holiness. Moses hides his
face to avoid seeing God. Brueggemann writes about the developing relationship
with Moses and God in the following words; “Thus Moses’ act of
submissive deference is undertaken so that God’s sovereignty is not crowded.
Later on, Moses will become daring and emboldened (33:17–23). But this is after
a long, troubled history together.”[2]
This is the nameable, identifiable voice of the God of Genesis, the one who
has made faithful promises, who “goes with,” who guards fugitives like Jacob,
who keeps outsiders like Joseph, and who births babies to barren mothers.[3]
God once again reveals His identity as the God of Moses’ forefathers
(Ex. 2:24 & 3:6). This God is a God who remembers his covenant with
humanity and the people who bear the prospects of that covenant in all
generations. The narrative talks about three particular actions of God towards
his people; “I have seen…, I have heard…, and I have known…” All three of these
actions testifies that Israel is the object of God’s very intense
attentiveness. God claims the hapless slaves in Egypt as “my people.” God very
seriously attends to the afflictions, cries, and sufferings of his people. God not
only knows, but he becomes bodily present in the sufferings of the people. He
incarnates into the troubles to share in the pain and to redeem them. God will snatch
them away from the brutal clutches of Egypt and will bring them up to the
promised land overflowing with the power of God’s blessings. They will be
brought to an experience of plenty and goodness from that of misery and bitterness
(1:14) in Egypt. Only this God who intensely looks and deeply engages with the
lives of the people can bring out an alternative to the oppressive life
situations of Israel.
V.10 is a decisive break from whatever is said until now. The
generous promises of God have turned out to be a rigorous command to come and
play the human responsibility in fulfilling God’s intentions in the life of the
people. God says to Moses that I will send you. Moses will act as an agent to
fulfill all the promises that God had spoken about the future of the people.
God blends beautifully with human history to bring forth newness in God’s
beloved created order. Man has to still “till and guard” (Gen. 2:15) for the
wellbeing of God’s world. Now it will be Moses who will bring out the people
from Egypt for God.
It is no wonder that Moses raises a series of doubts and
resistances to this divine summons as the task entrusted is very dangerous. His
chances of success in a human viewpoint are very modest, and his chances of
survival in his confrontation with the imperial power of the status quo are even
worse. But his absolute submission and his willingness to allow God His freedom
and power in his life will open up new possibilities of an Exodus even in the
darkest and ruthless situation of life.
[1] Brueggemann,
W. (1994–2004). The Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s
Bible (Vol. 1, p. 712). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
[2]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p.
712). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
[3]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p.
712). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Monday, July 27, 2020
Amalek (trouble-maker) defeated
Exodus 17: 8-16
Amalek (trouble-maker) defeated
Troubles and Conflicts are part of the journey to the Promised
Land. The way of the Israelite migrants is fraught with many adversaries because Israel constitutes a political and military threat to the settled people
on the way. The struggle with those who are too strong for Israel, when they
are not properly organized for a battle and extremely weary because of the grueling
journey through the wilderness on bare minimum resources to sustain life is
very difficult. Joshua for
the first time is introduced as the warrior who recruits the army, fights with
the Amalekites, and defeats them.[1]
Here we see
the overlap of traditions of Moses and Joshua though they are given with
different responsibilities in the Exodus-conquest-settlement model. Moses is the
leader of Exodus and Joshua the leader of the conquest. The name Joshua is
derived from the root Hebrew word that means “to save.” The name indicates the
fact that the credit of saving the people from bondage and the guidance they
experience in the wilderness journey rests with Yahweh and Moses and Joshua are
human agents in the overall purpose of Yahweh for this people. Moses also acts
as a mentor for Joshua finding in him the leadership qualities to lead the people at a later stage and nurturing his skills for that impending task.
Moses, though does not participate in the battle directly,
plays a crucial role in the victory. Brueggemann quotes Childs to say that the crucial roles of Joshua’s
leadership and Moses’ hands in the victory represent an inevitable balance
between human initiatives and divine intentions; “a delicate balance which
neither impaired God’s will nor destroyed man’s genuine activity.”[2]
Human endeavors are strengthened and driven to purpose when they are done
within the purposes of God to bring justice and wellbeing in the lives of all.
Brueggemann
puts this as, “after all the military strategy, material, and technology is
assembled, battles require passion, energy, and sheer adrenalin, which are
usually generated not by technicians but by public leaders who can mobilize
imagination and play on the passions of the military community.”[3]
This passage is not advocating military adventures, because these people are
not marching in an imperial conquest of lands. But this is an exodus journey of
unarmed slaves, who had to protect their women, young ones, and the cattle from
the attack of the greedy settlers. Therefore, the defensive battle is a sudden
innovation for the protection of lives in its entourage. Unless this passion to
survive is not instilled in the hearts of the people, their dreams of entering
a land of freedom will also be buried along with their dead bodies in the
wilderness.
Prayer
always instills confidence in people who are out in the field taking up the
struggles to bring changes in the collective life of the community. Seeing the
raised hands of Moses boosts the confidence of the people who fought the
Amalekites, who were the trouble-makers in their journey towards a new life of
freedom and justice. The name Amalekite can be translated as the “trouble-maker.”
Therefore, in interpreting this text the ‘Amalekites’ should be taken up as a
figurative representation of all the hindrances that act against the people’s
attempts to fulfill God’s will in their life. It should be this figurative sense
that prevail when we interpret the eternal enmity of Israelites with the
Amalekites that the Old Testament talks about. Deuteronomy 25: 17-19 exhorts
the Israelites “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt,
how he attacked you on the way, when you were faint and weary, and struck down
all who lagged behind you; he did not fear God. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from
all your enemies on every hand, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess,
you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; do not forget.”
The war was against the trouble maker who prevented the people from progressing
to their freedom and the fulfillment of God’s promises in their life. It is not
an advocacy to keep a historical enmity with a particular race who are the neighbors
of the Israelites. If it is so this comes in conflict with the commandment to
love and care for their neighbors.
The people
are called out from Egypt to be in an Exodus to proceed to a new life. The
people’s resolve to remember forever the hurt, hate, rage, and fear will surely
prevent them from being part of the political processes of newness.[4]
The path that the escaped slaves need to take is that of forgiveness. Forgiveness,
by contrast to hatred, is the political, creative process of negotiating old
wounds in ways that lead to newness. Such negotiations are impossible in a
world where hurts are absolutized and institutionalized.[5]
Sometimes our religions and our ideas of a nation are inscribed with this hatred in its institutional expressions preventing a collective progression towards
a new, just, and equalitarian society. Let us be wary of these dangers in our political and religious lives!
[1]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 820). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[2]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 820). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[3]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 820). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[4]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 822). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[5]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 822). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
Saturday, July 25, 2020
Water from Rock: Life is wrought from Death
Exodus 17:1-7
Massah and Meriba: A call to be wary of the dangers of a utilitarian religion
The journey through the wilderness to the promised land continues
as the Lord had commanded. But there is no water again! The journey was not a
well-calculated or well-planned journey. The setting out of the exodus
happened in haste and was motivated by the people’s trust in the saving
kindness of God. The people are again in great distress as they lack the most
elemental resource that is required to sustain life in the wilderness. The
exodus instilled in them great expectations and now the journey gets harder and
harder by each day. They are turning their frustration and anger against the
leadership.
There are two heated exchanges between Moses and the people.
The first exchange questions the credibility of the leadership of Moses. It was
he and his brother Aaron who convinced these people for an exodus into the wilderness.
They promised them a better life outside the realm of Egypt’s brutal and
abusive power.
Moses wants to put the issue in a larger context of the
destiny of these people in God’s plan. He wants to tell the people that the
responsibility of the exodus and the reaching of the promised land is a
collective one. The whole group of the escaped slaves needs to show the
endurance and character appropriate for this long-lasting journey. He retorts
painfully saying “Why to blame me?” “Why test God?” The people need to trust in
the faithfulness of the God of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph in
the midst of this life-threatening crisis.
The second exchange between Moses and the people is more
outraged and the people are accusing Moses of causing death by instigating the
exodus. They might have been ready to take revenge on Moses by imparting
death on him for bringing them to the verge of death. Moses now turns to God,
his petition this time is not for the wellbeing of the people but for his own
safety. “What shall
I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”[1]
The best
part of the story is that YHWH is directly involved in the process of
resolution of this crisis. The God of the Exodus is not a distant God, who
control the affairs of the people remotely, but one who descends into the
miseries of His people to deliver them (Ex 3:8). Moses is asked to walk ahead
of the people carrying the staff that he used to strike the Nile, which is a
symbol of God’s guiding presence in the life of the journeying Israelite congregation.
It is not the personal grievances of Moses that is resolved but the crisis in the
people’s lives that is resolved.
The staff,
the rock, the courage of Moses, the witness of the elders, and the guarantee of
Yahweh all converge to work a wonderful deliverance for the people.[2]
Deliverance, therefore, is a continuing series of saving acts of which God is
consistently the subject.
Only Yahweh
can give the resources for life, but Yahweh will do so through the work of
Moses.[3]
God uses the human medium to manifest his life-giving wondrous acts. People
who holds the staff of authority entrusted by God Almighty must always be
mindful of this fact to become the life-giving medium for God’s gracious
incoming into the lives of the people whom they serve.
The
presence and power of Yahweh are perfectly capable of transforming rock to
water and death to life. The rock here represents the morbidity of death and
water the dynamism of life. Brueggemann notes the importance of this incident
being situated in Horeb by the biblical narrator. Horeb is the place where the “wasteland” of no importance was turned into a “holy land” of theophany for Moses. “It
is likely important that the rock is “in Horeb,” located in the peculiar
precincts where Yahweh’s presence is palpable and immediate. In the sphere of
Yahweh’s sovereignty, life is wrought in situations of death.”[4]
Moses calls
the place Massah and Meribah (Massah=“test” and Meribah
= “quarrel”), because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”[5]
The context is that of faith or unfaith. It is not the wonderworking power of
Yahweh is exposed here but the lack of faith of the people in spite of the
mighty acts that they have witnessed in Egypt.
The tendency
to test and quarrel with God for personal comforts arises from the practice of
a utilitarian religion. A utilitarian religion never allows God His
sovereignty. Brueggemann explicates it as an “inverted relationship” of the
people with God.[6]
Or in other words, people want to take sovereignty into their hands and YHWH
to obey and act in accordance with their desires. “The only evidence of
Yahweh’s presence that Israel will accept is a concrete action that saves. Thus,
Israel collapses God’s promise into its own well-being and refuses to allow
Yahweh any life apart from Israel’s well-being.”[7]
We all want
God to take out all the miseries from our lives immediately. But a spirituality
that limits God to the comforts of our personal life is going to be as
dangerous as it had been in Meribah and Massah. It will only create more hatred
and frustrations and no movement in life towards the purposes for which God
calls us collectively as the community of disciples.
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version.
(1989). (Ex 17:4). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[2]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 817). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[3]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 817). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[4]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 818). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[5] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version.
(1989). (Ex 17:7). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[6]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 818). Nashville: Abingdon
Press.
[7]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The
Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p. 818). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
People Groans and God Hears
Exodus 2:23-25
Groaning of the people as a tool of resistance
Again, God takes notice of the groaning of Israelites. From
here on, the text consciously uses the term Israelites in place of Hebrews. It
is nothing but to make explicit the theological intentionality of the Exodus as
an event initiated by the redeeming power of God. The groaning becomes more
vocal in this period of transition in the history of Egypt. A pharaoh dies and it
anticipates the succession of a new one. The occasion of the death of the king
offers an opportunity for the discontinuation of the discriminatory social
patterns and the possibility of a new social order. The biblical narrator also
describes this time as a time for the Israelites to make their groaning more
vocal. Brueggemann observes, “when such pain is voiced, it takes on energy and
becomes an active agent in the process of public power.”[1] Further,
Brueggemann notes that the cry involves the “rage, protest, insistence,
and expectation concerning an intolerable situation.”[2] The
empire always preferred a silent mass of slaves, who would not create any administrative
inconvenience for its bureaucracy. The silence of the slaves is also a mark of their
conceding of the oppression. But those conventions are fiercely challenged by
the loud cries of the slaves and the eventual breaking of silence. The point
may the that they have reached a limit of absorbing pain and insult and now has
come the time to rebel, assert, and initiate some alternatives in relation to
the existing situation of oppression.
God hears and acts on the groaning
The good news is that their cries haven’t gone in vain, but heard by God. God
is moved in decisive and powerful ways by the groaning of the people. In verses
24 and 25 we see God as the subject of well-directed actions, namely, hearing, remembering,
seeing, and knowing. God remembered their connection to the promise bearers of
the book of Genesis; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Also, God knew the present pain that
the people are going through. This transitional text connects the readers well
with the definite and sovereign purpose of God to save his people from slavery.
[1]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p.
706). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
[2]
Brueggemann, W. (1994–2004). The Book of Exodus. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 1, p.
706). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
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