The people of Israel are slaves to Egypt, and God raises up Moses to lead them out of slavery -- to travel through water and wilderness, to meet God at Mount Sinai and receive direction from God there about how to live well as a people, and then to be led to a Promised Land to live there in the way God shows them. This reading ("The First Passover") is the story -- as it was remembered centuries later, of the night the journey began.
According to biblical scholars, this reading is how the story was told over half a millenium later when Israel was firmly established for some time already in their "Promised Land" and every year were re-enacting their escape from slavery with this story and the family rituals of the Passover feast -- something they still do today, three millenia after the original events.
What is it about this story that still resonates so deeply with the people of Israel? Why does this particular story of their birth as a people still help maintain and shape their identity in the world?
One thing I notice this time around in light of some of today's political debate, is the centrality in the story of God and the people, and not of Moses their appointed leader. It's clearly God, not Moses, who is doing the saving and who is their "Father of Confederation." And it's the people's trust in the promise of life and their communal obedience to God, not the power or charisma of Moses, that is the critical factor. Moses, in fact, through the course of the story comes off really as no better than them -- sometimes trusting and following well, other times doubting and going astray -- the same as us all, both fallen and graced with one foot in and one foot out of God's way, and needing to be publicly known and remembered as such.
I wonder if this connects at all with the traditional Jewish prohibition of graven images (i.e. statues) of any creature (including people) and of God. Because once you raise up a statue of a person for instance, for whatever reason, how can that statue and the person of whom it is a graven image not become an extraordinary focus of attention, of veneration and of opposition -- in short, become a national idol that attracts and sucks up the spiritual energy of a people, and replaces serious conversation about what it means at any time to be true as a whole people to God's will for us as a nation, with babble (Babel?) about whether we have the right images or not, and what to do with the graven images we have (perhaps unfortunately, but all too humanly) erected among ourselves?
........
A word to the reader: my guess is that little or (more likely) none of this line of thought will end up in the sermon on Sunday (for those who fear a dreary political monologue). My sermon notes, reflections, and outline (and the ;liturgy) are actually focused on quite another theme -- like what it means to have times in all our lives that are the beginning of a new way of being human and being more truly alive as God's sons and daughters. And I'd actually intended to explore that a bit in this blog. But when I started ... somehow the above came out. So count it as a special little gift for you to do with as you wish, between now and Sunday and the actual, probably much different, sermon.
Shalom.
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