We say, “If
you’re nice to people, people will be nice to you.”
God says, “No.
Not necessarily.”
It’s like what
the Lord told Moses in Exodus 3:18 – 19: And
you shall say to [Pharaoh], ‘The Lord
God of the Hebrews has met with us; and now, please, let us go three days’
journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’
But I am sure that the king of Egypt will
not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand.
God warned Moses
and Aaron that when they approached Pharaoh humbly and respectfully and in an
unthreatening tone very nicely asked him to allow the Hebrew slaves just a few
days off for worship, Pharaoh would NOT give the same respect he was given.
And he
didn’t. Instead, Pharaoh accused Moses
and Aaron of being outside agitators stirring up trouble among his ni--- umm. Among his Hebrews.
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” (Exodus 5: 4).
As individual
Christians, we identify with Moses, the believer, the humble underdog making a
simple request. We identify the American
church with the children of Israel, God’s people oppressed and persecuted by a
wicked dominant culture.
No. Not necessarily.
What if you, I, we
are Pharaoh?
Here’s how we
can tell: the bad guy in the story is
the one who’s hate outweighs his love.
Let’s run some tests.
Do you justify your hatred like Pharaoh did?
Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land
are many now, and you make them rest from their labor!” (Exodus 5: 5)
Pharaoh’s refused
to give the Hebrew slaves time off because there were too many Hebrew workers. Yeah, but would Pharaoh have given them time
off if there had been fewer Hebrew slaves?
No.
And what in the
world did the number of slaves have to do with whether or not enslaving them
was right? Nothing.
It’s like in the
pre-Civil War South when Confederates states said, “We can’t free the
Negroes. There are too many of them.”
It’s like during
World War II when the United States locked up Japanese-Americans in internment
camps because, “There are so many of them, some of them might be spies.” Of course, there were a whole lot more
German-Americans at the time, so why didn’t we lock up German-Americans? (Hint, it’s because they’re White.)
It’s like when
people say we can’t allow Mexicans, or Muslims into the country because there
are too many Mexicans and Muslims.
Those people
don’t really care how many there are.
They’d hate “those people” if there were only six of them on the
planet.
Do you apply blame like Pharaoh?
Pharaoh’s racist
foolishness followed the same game- plan that racist foolishness always follows:
Say the minority
is a threat. Say that oppression is
necessary for national security or to
protect the economy . Keep them
dependent and geographically contained.
Ignore everything God says condemning
your actions. And, when they ask for reasonable
relief, call them lazy.
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.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” (Exodus
5:6-9).
You enslave these
people to do your work so your people don’t have to do the work, and the slaves
are the lazy ones?
People are
walking thousands of miles through deserts and mountains to enter this country
and WORK. You’re seeking them out to
fill positions Americans won’t take and paying them illegally low wages
Americans won’t accept to labor under
conditions Americans would never endure.
And then you
accuse them of being lazy welfare recipients.
How is the guy who traversed a desert to get a job the lazy one?
If they can’t get a job if they fail a drug test,
and there aren’t enough slots in rehab centers; if they can’t get a job without
a permanent address, and there is no housing for the homeless; if they can’t
get a job if they have EVER been convicted of ANY felony ---- if you’ve
literally made it illegal to hire addicts, the homeless, and the formerly
incarcerated ------ how can you scream at them “Get a job!”?
Is your heart devoid of compassion like Pharaoh?
There were no
plagues after Moses’ and Aaron’s first meeting with Pharaoh. The Lord gave Pharaoh space to take a small
step toward easing his oppression of the Hebrews. That’s GRACE.
Pharaoh chose to
double-down on his hateful rhetoric and policies.
So, the Lord
withdrew grace from Pharaoh. God let
Pharaoh run uninterrupted in the direction of hate and anger and narcissism all
the way to its self-destructive end.
That’s why Scripture says God hardened
his heart.
When you see
people struggling under burdens you can’t even imagine and, without knowing
their story you unilaterally decide, “They’re lazy; I need to make their lives
harder,” that’s hard-hearted.
When people
approach you or me graciously and respectfully, asking for help and we respond
with insults and threats (and it doesn’t matter whether you give them the money
or not), that’s hard-hearted.
That’s some
Pharaoh foolishness.
When we see
suffering in other parts of the country or the world and we say, “Well, if
they’d pulled their pants up, if they hadn’t talked back to the officer, if
they’d been at home instead of at that club, if they hadn’t been living in a
country full of terrorists ----- then they wouldn’t have anything to complain
about” --- that’s hard-hearted.
That’s some
Pharaoh foolishness.
When we hear the
Word of God spoken to us and we open our own Bibles and see point blank that
the Bible says You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor
oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Exodus 22:21), but you don’t like those
people so you decide to mistreat them anyway, that’s not patriotism.
That’s some
Pharaohish foolishness.
Pharaoh became
so hardened in his heart, so hostile to God’s offer of grace that he ordered
his people to make life harder on the people they were oppressing ----- and to blame them for it.
Do you, like Pharaoh, hate the others more than you love your own?
A sign of a
Pharaoh hard heart is when you hurt your own people just so you can hurt “those
people.”
Prior to Exodus 5,
the Egyptians had supplied the Hebrew brick-making teams with the straw they
needed to do massuh’s work. To pay them
back for having the audacity to send some liberal Midianite looking shepherd
and his brother to beg for a minor improvement in working conditions, Pharaoh
changed the labor laws. Now the Hebrews
had to get their own straw and still meet their daily brick-making quotas.
The straw had
been supplied by Egyptian farmers, who would have been paid for supplying
straw. The Hebrews couldn’t afford to
buy straw from Egyptian farmers, so Exodus 5: 12 says the slaves collected stubble instead of straw. The stubble
was scraps and tips and pieces leftover from hand cutting the grass into
straw.
The quality of
the bricks used in construction diminished because they were using inferior raw
material, and all the native Egyptian straw providers were out of
business.
Pharaoh degraded
his country’s infrastructure and bankrupted an entire sector of his nation’s
economy ----- cause he didn’t like Jews.
Warlords burn
villages in their own territories because it MIGHT hurt their rivals. Dictators starve their own citizens because
some of them MIGHT supporter their political opponents.
What about us?
America guts the
Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, internet privacy rules, and fair wage
protection for women because ---- liberals. We hurt everybody cause we’re still
mad about that uppity Obama guy.
That’s some
Pharaoh foolishness.
What about you?
Who you mad at?
Which person or
people do you despise for their very existence?
Whom do you hate SO MUCH that everything they say is wrong? That everything is wrong because they said
it?
Are you willing
to sin to hurt them? Do you want to
destroy anybody who even thinks about mitigating their suffering? Do you find joy in the thought of their pain?
Do you think like Pharaoh?
Scripture warns
us: Do
NOT rejoice when your enemy falls, And do NOT let your heart be glad when he
stumbles (Proverbs 24: 17).
The Hebrews were
already enslaved when Moses met with Pharaoh, but those negotiations didn’t
begin with Moses calling down a plague. Technically,
God didn’t plague Egypt for having slaves; He plagued Egypt because Pharaoh
refused to extend grace to those slaves, grace that would have been a path to
freedom.
God plagued
Pharaoh for refusing to let his hard-heart be softened by the Word of God
delivered by Moses and Aaron.
The plagues are coming. The question is, when the plagues come, will we be on the side of the grace-filled Word of God, safe under the Blood?
Or are we Pharaoh?
--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
Bailey
Tabernacle CME Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He writes the popular
blog:
A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Support by check or money order may be mailed to
Bailey Tabernacle CME Church
1117 23rd Avenue
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401
