Identify

Be careful! If you try to identify with the poor, you may just find yourself trying to help them. You know, like Teresa, who left the confines of sequestered life and dared to begin a new order so that she could minister to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, India. Be careful! Because if you are motivated to help you may be risking your own comfort or even your life. Ah, but the alternative is not to care; not to be moved when a child is smacked to the ground; not to feel rage burn inside of you when a woman is battered; not to open your cupboard when starvation bloats the bellies of babies; not to shed a tear when another refugee lies dead on a beach. Identifying with humanity is a burden, but it is a burden well worth hefting.

Exodus 2:11-15 seems to be about Moses trying to find a connection with his fellow Israelites. He has grown to adulthood. Stephen tells us he was forty when this story took place. That may have been Jewish tradition more than Scriptural truth. Either way, our text only tells us that he had become an adult. So, as an adult he goes out to his brothers. Did he always know he was an Hebrew? It seems likely that he did. It seems likely that even though he was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, that he wasn’t accepted as more than a nuisance of an Hebrew they had to tolerate because Pharaoh’s daughter pulled him out of the Nile. Moses doesn’t seem to fit in with either Israelite or Egyptian. Moses goes out to witness the oppression of his people. The word “hard labor” means “imposed burden”. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Jewish people didn’t call themselves Hebrews. This was what foreigners called Israelites. It seems to have been somewhat of a derogatory term. But Moses didn’t know. So, in his foreign raised mind, an Egyptian struck a Hebrew, one of his brothers. He is trying to identify.

And then Moses struck the Egyptian. The word “strike” is used three times (vv. 11, 12, and 13). It implies more than one blow. The Egyptian was striking the Israelite slave. Moses was striking the Egyptian, who died as a result. I don’t think Moses intended to kill him. I think as he experienced firsthand how his people were being treated; something rose up inside of him and he reacted. Some will want to talk about the viability of violence here. That may miss the point. When you begin to identify with the plight of the oppressed, there should be some kind of surge of emotion; something boiling you to action. And sometimes politely asking someone to stop doesn’t quite cut it. This person, this brother, is being beat. You hear the blows and the cries for mercy. But mercy does not come. The stick hits flesh with a sickening “thud”, and you feel that “thud” strike against your heart. Moses didn’t plan on killing the Egyptian. But the Egyptian died and Moses, in his fear, buries him in the sand, thinking he had not been seen.

The following day he witnessed an altercation between two Hebrew men. Notice again the word a foreigner would use is employed here. But he is trying. He talks to the guilty man. Maybe this man was striking the other one without provocation. Instead of jumping in with his fist he simply asked, “Why are you striking your friend?” I mean don’t you guys get hit enough by the Egyptians? Why would you attack a brother? Notice the man’s response: “Who made you a ruler or judge over us?” Hmmm! If Moses were a full-fledged Egyptian prince, I doubt very seriously that this would be their response. They would have bowed and hoped not to be beat by the prince. So, the movies have it wrong. That’s okay, they normally do. The important thing, is that these men know about the dead Egyptian and they know Moses killed him. And, by the way, so does Pharaoh, who orders Moses to be executed. Again, if Moses had been fully accepted into the royal family, this most likely would not have been Pharaoh’s reaction. Okay, so Moses had to get out of Dodge. And he goes to the land of the Midians, which no one is exactly sure where that would have been since the Midians were nomads.

I am not suggesting that it is okay to beat someone to death. I am suggesting that you identify yourself with the abused and neglected; with the poor and oppressed; with the beat up and beat down. I am suggesting that you identify with them enough to feel the blows strike against your heart; to feel hunger wear you down; to feel abandoned by the very people who should have protected you; to feel injustice tear at your soul. I am asking you to feel something rage deep inside of you; to feel it surge to the surface; to feel it enough to act. What will it take for us to care about the hungry and hurting? Shalom, Walter