The Other Side of Comfort

The Other Side of Our Comfort

There will be two packages on my porch this evening when I get home.  I know that because I - like many of you - am an Amazon Prime member, and two days ago I ordered some books as gifts.  Ten years ago, such a luxury would have been unimaginable.  Now, it's just a given.  By luck and by fate, I'm on the fortunate side of this incredible, complex, and unequal global economy.
But, that's the thing about luxury.  There's always another side to the story.

Exodus Details & Exodus Patterns

We've been venturing into the story of Exodus as we start 2019.  And though the story is dominated by the theme of God and God's people, it starts somewhere else.  It starts with an unequal economy and a plague of anxiety in the hearts of a culture.
In his book Exploring Exodus, Nahum Sarna details how the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians.  In all likelihood, "the Pharaoh" of Exodus was none other than Rameses II, and like the ruler before him, Rameses II was hard at work to build luxury for himself and his people.  Through massive work projects, he was transforming the land of the eastern Delta, creating infrastructure and palaces in this new suburb of the Egyptian kingdom.  But, instead of calling it "Pleasant Acres" or "Deer Ridge," Rameses II was more blunt, calling it "Domain of Rameses" - a place where life was pleasant:
"[Its] field is full of everything good; it is full of supplies and food every day, its pond and fish, and its lakes with birds ... Onions and leeks are for food, and lettuce of the garden, pomegranates, apples and olives, figs of the orchard, sweet wine ... surpassing honey ... Its ships go out and come back to mooring so that supplies and food are in it every day.  One rejoices to dwell within it ..." (ANET:470-471).
Yup, that's right.  These Rameses' residents were - in essence - 13th Century BCE "Prime members."
But, like I said, such luxury isn't cheap, and it doesn't come easy.
Someone has to bear the weight of the luxury.  Someone has to suffer for the pleasure of others.
The language of Exodus 1 introduces us to the ones who make such a comfort economy possible:  "Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.  He said to his people, 'Look the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.  Come, let us deal shrewdly with them ..."  Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor" (Exodus 1:8-11).
In short, slavery.
Rameses required of his slaves unbearable work:  digging irrigation ditches, working the fields, keeping the luxury coming in to those reaping the benefits.
And, maybe the hardest job of all:  making bricks.
Of course, we know the Egyptians for their grand pyramids and their work with stones, but Sarna says that the vast majority of the building done by Rameses II was done with bricks, including forming walls that would reach as high as 60 feet (side note:  luxury always demands higher and broader "walls" to preserve the system).
Such productivity inevitably leads to those other words we associate with slavery - words like "quotas" and "taskmasters" and "whippings."  An Israelite slave may have been required to make upwards of 3,000 bricks in one 8-hour work period, and such labor left an undeniable cost upon the slave:

"He is dirtier than vines or pigs from treading under his mud.  His clothes are stiff with clay; his leather belt is going to ruin.  Entering into the wind, he is miserable ... His sides ache ... His arms are destroyed with technical work ... He is simply wretched through and through" (23).  

The power of these Exodus details is, of course, the way it unmasks our own global economy of inequality.  I get those packages on my front porch tonight because the balance of power and money and luxury is tilted in my favor as an American consumer.
Somewhere in such an economy, there are others having to endure tremendous hardship and even slavery to bring about such comfort.
This is hard stuff to sit with, but it's also why we have to let the text convict us.  There's no doubt in my mind which side I'm on in the details of the Exodus story.  I'm on the side of the Egyptians.

There's Hope, There's "Redemption"

Conviction, while important, isn't profitable long-term.  Guilt and shame are never sufficient emotions to fuel or form a life.  We need something more.  We need redemption.
It just so happens that the first time the word "redemption" appears in the Bible, it occurs in the book of Exodus.  The word itself has a very straight-forward meaning, literally "to purchase a slave's freedom."  God's redemptive love, in other words, is extremely practical.  It is chiefly concerned with righting wrongs and turning injustices into life-giving futures.
As those whose eyes are focused on Christ Jesus, the great Redeemer, our call is to have a similar mindset.  We too are called to loose the bonds of those who are enslaved.  How we do that is the glorious freedom we have as the children of God.
But, one thing is for sure.
We are called to be a redemptive people.
We are called to loose the bonds of the oppressed and to set the prisoner free.
~Pastor Wes