Is it better to die . . .?
by Russell Rathbun
Old Testament Reading: Exodus 16:2-15
For Sunday, Sept. 18 , 2011: Year A—Ordinary 25
Not included in the most commonly known stories of the deliverance of the slaves from captivity in Egypt was what they saw as they passed through the chaos. At his God’s command, Moses held out his hand over the abyss and the Lord drove back the waters so that the fleeing slaves walked on dry land on the bottom of the abyss, with walls of great water humming on both sides.
Passing Between
What they saw as they passed between the aquatic chaos was every kind and possibility of hidden darkness writhing and striving just on the other side of the surface of those walls. Even the purpose and promise that could be glimpsed beyond was overwhelmed by mammoth shadows of creatures typically hidden just beneath the surface. How far back or how large or even the form or the intentions of these once unknowable beasts was frighteningly evident. It was as if the Creator was saying, freedom, yes, but this is what you must pass through and rarely will it be held at bay—held back.
To live freely is to contend with all of this.
Or Fleeing Back?
Many fled back to Egypt, meeting the pursuing army on the way, pleading for capture, preferring slavery, the kind of limited and knowable cruelty, to the possibilities of the kind of freedom offered.
But most found it in them to follow and when they came up on the other side the humming walls of water collapsed and all possibility of return was lost.
What has Happened?
The Lord and the people were just getting to know each other. What the people knew about the Lord, they knew by way of Moses and some pretty impressive miracles. This Lord had freed them from enslavement in Egypt, called them out of that land, into the desert. The adrenaline of escape, the exhilaration of the new love between a god and a people was wavering or perhaps it was a kind of dis-ease that can only be felt once the excitement has died down and one has time to consider exactly what has happened.
What had this God done? Turned the river to blood, brought on frogs, locusts and finally killed countless children. This is the One who they had followed into the desert. What now?
The Hardest Question
If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Freedom, true freedom requires moving into the unknown, the uncontrollable, it requires risk. Is it better to die a full slave in Egypt or to die hungry and free?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question.
