Blogging Exodus 5: 1-9
Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord
God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the
wilderness.’ ”
2 And Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should
obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel
go.”
3 So they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with
us. Please, let us go three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord
our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
4 Then the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and
Aaron, why do you take the people from their work? Get back to your labor.” 5 And
Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land are many now, and you make them rest
from their labor!”
6 So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of
the people and their officers, saying, 7 “You shall no longer
give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for
themselves. 8 And you shall lay on them the quota of bricks
which they made before. You shall not reduce it. For they are idle; therefore
they cry out, saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Let
more work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it, and let them not
regard false words.”
“If you give them an inch, they’ll
take a mile.”
It’s a cliched excuse to maintain
high walls of exclusion. When the powerless
ask for small concessions, for reasonable accommodations, the people with power
tell each other that it’s a trick. They tell each other that the people without
power are secretly plotting to take ALL of the power.
It’s cliched, but it’s not entirely
incorrect.
The Lord sent Moses to lead all
of the children of Israel out of Egyptian slavery and all the way into the Promised
Land, but that’s not what Moses told Pharaoh. God told Moses to ask Pharaoh, “now, please, let us go three days’ journey
into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God” (Exodus 3: 18). Three days out, a minimum of one day of
sacrifices and 3 days back. Conservatively
speaking, Moses was asking Pharaoh to give the Hebrew slaves a week off.
A small concession. A reasonable accommodation for religious
observances. An inch.
Moses never expected pharaoh to
give them the inch. God had already told
him But I am sure that the king of Egypt
will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand. (Exodus 3: 19).
And, Moses hadn’t left his contented
life a thousand miles away in Midian, argued with his wife, miles nearly died
on the road, and hustled his way into an audience with the most powerful
monarch in the ancient world just to request a week’s vacation.
Moses asked for an inch, but he
was really, always after the mile.
Women’s suffragists didn’t JUST
want the right to vote. They DID as
their critics warned want to run for office and own their own companies and wear
pants and be bosses.
LGBTQ activist didn’t JUST want
to have their relationships recognized as civil unions. They DID want full, legally protected and
endorsed marriage.
Negro civil rights activists didn’t
JUST want an end to lynchings and a chance to work in factories and send their
children to decent school. Black folk
wanted to be mayors and sheriffs and generals and judges presiding over the
trials of White defendants. Yeah, we’d been plotting on the presidency for a
long time before Obama.
Immigrants and refugees want a
shot at full citizenship and all the rights and responsibilities therewith.
And neo-nazis, and Klansmen, and
the ceo of Papa John’s don’t JUST want to be able to use the N-word in public
without consequence. They want to be
able to discriminate against Black and Brown people. They want to be able to abuse and murder
us. They want the whole spectrum of
privileges and immunities of 19th (and 18th) century
White Supremacy.
There were surely many Israelites
who would have been satisfied with a little time off, with just a little relief
from their heavy labors. There are many
individuals within each group who
sincerely only want that ONE inch. But generally speaking, when a group dispatches representatives to ask for
the inch it’s because they’re strategizing how to get the mile.
How they (the less powerful) leverage their inch to get the mile is a
test of their character. How we (the
powerful) respond to their request for an inch demonstrates our character.
The powerful Pharaoh responded to
Moses’s and Aaron’s request for a reasonable religious accommodation by calling
all the Israelites lazy and shiftless.
Then the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take
the people from their work? Get back to your labor.” And Pharaoh said, “Look,
the people of the land are many now, and you make them rest from their labor! .
. . For they are idle; therefore they cry out, saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice
to our God’” (Exodus 5: 4, 5, 8).
Pharaoh responded to the request
for just an inch by doubling-down on his angry rhetoric and oppressive
policies.
So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and
their officers, saying, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make
brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. And
you shall lay on them the quota of bricks which they made before. You shall not
reduce it. . . Let more
work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it, and let them not regard
false words” (Exodus 5: 6-9).
The Lord judges us by how we
respond when they ask for an inch.
God judged Pharaoh hard-hearted and
made him and his nation the target of Divine wrath, not because Pharaoh refused
to free the slaves, but because he refused to make give them the week off to
worship.
In that first inch we decide
whose side God will take when we compete over the rest of the mile.
But I am sure that the king of
Egypt will not let you go [three
days into the wilderness to sacrifice],
no, not even by a mighty hand. So I will
stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in
its midst; and after that he will let you go. (Exodus 3: 19-20).
--Anderson T. Graves II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME
Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A
Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
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