Let my people go...

Freedom... for what?

"Let my people go" is the well-known refrain of the opening chapters of Exodus, which BiOY has reached early in February.

In Exodus 3:16-18 God tells Moses to assemble the elders of Israel, tell them about the promise of deliverance to a "land flowing with milk and honey", and to go to Pharaoh to ask permission to go on a three journey to offer sacrifices to the Lord.  These words seem to carry the implication that the Israelites will then return, and so are a bit misleading, but that's what God said to do.

In  Exodus 5:1 Moses and Aaron make their first request to Pharaoh: "Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness."

This is a two faceted request.  "Let my people go" - a call for a release from the oppression they are experiencing, from the demands of the slave drivers, and from the restriction to live only where the Egyptians permit.

But also: "...that they may hold a festival to me [the Lord]..."  Their freedom was to have a purpose.  It was not to be freedom simply to do anything, or to do nothing, but to do something specific.

In many places, including the UK, we have religious freedom to 'hold festivals' - to go to church on Sundays, and to go to summer festivals, for more than three days.  What does Exodus have to say to us today?

By chapter 10, the demand has changed a little: "Let my people go, so that they may worship me."  There's still the demand for release, but the purpose has shifted from an act of worship to a life of worship.

The purpose of the Israelites' freedom was not simply to perform an act of worship, but to live in the place God had prepared, flowing with milk and honey - all that they needed, living a life of worship to God.  The laws God would give as they travelled through the wilderness describe essentially what it would mean to live a whole life of worship to God.

Which raises the question: we may be free to perform acts of worship, but do we live in the freedom to live a life of worship to God?  What prevents us, what prevents me?  Fear of standing out from the crowd?  Fear of looking odd?  Fear of losing money, friends or status?

In Psalm 18:19 the psalmist declares: "He [God] brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me."  

My prayer is that I (and you) will know that God has brought me out, has rescued me, because he delights in me, and that I (and you) will know freedom to worship God in the spacious place, in the land flowing with milk and honey, in the whole of my life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is creativity anyway?

Image
Two childhood memories: One: "Our family is not creative!" I remember being told this in response to my frustration with my ineptitude with paints and pencils.*  I'm sure the intention was to encourage and let me know that I was not alone - that it was not important.  But the effect was that I grew up believing that I could produce nothing of any worth, even to myself, in the creative line.  To this day, I have a visceral pit-of-the-stomach reaction to any suggestion that I should express myself through any artistic medium. Two: "Write a story - it can be about anything at all, let your imagination run wild!" said my English teacher.  Imagination was something else I knew I didn't have, and any attempt to write a story led me into an inescapable paradox: For every idea in my head of a storyline or character, I knew its source in something else I'd seen or read.  This meant it had to be rejected as not a product of my imagination and thus unsuitable for i
Read more

Where, Who, Why, What, When, How…?

Image
Returning to preach at CCC after my sabbatical (study leave) I pulled my thoughts together around six questions, under the title “You’re Only Human”, borrowed from Kelly Kapic's book . Where have I been? I’ve been reading, thinking and writing about the very human relationship between Joseph and Jesus, and questions like: Who was Joseph, the man? What did it mean for the human boy Jesus to experience having two fathers? How does this relate to the experience of contemporary foster fathers and children in their care? The set word count for my MA dissertation is 18,000 words and I've written about that number, although I've not been working at the strict 200 words per day suggested by someone in my card as I started the sabbatical ("not too hard" they said!) I’ve got more to write, and it needs putting together as a whole, but I’ve done the main work, which was my main aim, and I’m confident that I will finish it in the time allowed. …but what about CCC?! Who are yo
Read more

Silent in the Background

Why a blog, and why the name? In November 2020 I was given an award for being 'silent in the background'. Strictly speaking, my wife and I were given an award at our local Social Services awards day.  Part of the citation referred to my working silently in the background in support of the joint project with Home for Good to recruit more foster carers from local churches. Apart from sounding a little sinister, the phrase caused me to reflect that, on many occasions, working in the background in support of others is where I feel most at home, where I function best. That might sound strange, given that I am currently leading a church, but I learned years ago that much of leadership is 'dogsbody' work in the background that no one will see, and humility is needed in church leadership , as much as, if not more than, anywhere else. Silent?  Sometimes I wish I was more silent, when I speak up in meetings and other places and wish afterwards that I'd said less or expressed
Read more