Blogging from Exodus 2:11+
Now it came to pass in
those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked
at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.
So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian
and hid him in the sand.(Exodus 2:11, 12)
Moses was angry. It
was a seething, simmering, suppressed rage lidded by a schooled smile, a flawless
WASP accent, and the impeccable manners acquired in an Ivy League lifestyle;
but Moses had been angry for the better
part of 40 years.
If any of his high-class Egyptians peers had noticed, one of
the elders would surely have accused Moses of being “ungrateful.” After all, he’d enjoyed privilege, education,
and opportunities other boys like him could only dream of.
But Moses knew too much to just “shut up and play” the game
of Egyptian assimilation.
Moses KNEW that the man he called grandfather had tried to
kill him when he was a baby. Moses KNEW
that the same folks who caled him “sir,” and “your highness” would have cheerfully
drowned him in the Nile without hesitation and without consequence.
In 4 decades in Pharaoh’s house, how many racist, anti-Semitic
jokes do you think Moses forced himself to laugh at? How many times did he sit through impassioned
speeches about how it was acceptable for Egyptians to murder young Hebrew boys
because “Look at all the Hebrew-on-Hebrew crime”?
How many family dinner guests casually quipped about wasting
education on Hebrews because “All they really need is to job skills so they can
make bricks faster”?
In 40 years, how many adopted siblings, cousins, uncles, and
aunts repeated the common line, “All those
Hebrews do is live off the government in Goshen and have babies and take
Egyptian jobs” and then when they noticed Moses’ awkward silence added, “but
not you, Moses. Oh no, your
highness. You’re not like THEM. I don’t even see color when I look at you,
your Highness. You’re like a ‘real’
Egyptian.”
Someone probably even tried to explain to Moses that the
Hebrews LIKED being slaves. “They’ve
been in Egypt 400 years,” they said, “That sounds like a choice.”
For 40 years Moses heard and KNEW: “They’re talking about my people. They’re talking about my brother, my sister,
my mama. They’re talking about ME.”
Yeah, Moses was angry.
But, he didn’t kill the Egyptian overseer because he was angry. Not ONLY because he was angry. Moses killed the Egyptian because he was
angry and AMBITIOUS.
Moses supposed that
his Hebrew brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand
. . . (Acts 7:25).
that God would deliver
them by his hand
Moses didn’t just want to kill an overseer; he wanted to Nat
Turner the whole system. Moses was
trying to start a revolution.
That’s why Pharaoh ordered Moses killed. He didn’t care about another spoiled prince’s
liberal rage, and he didn’t care about a dead overseer. The Egyptian royal family were worshipped as
the descendants of the gods. A prince of Egypt could have killed or ordered
the death of a hundred lowly Egyptian overseers for any reason or for none at
all. No prince would be arrested for murder but one
would have been arrested and executed for treason.
So why didn’t God support Moses when he first tried to
deliver the Hebrew children from their oppressors?
Remember what the Hebrew men asked Moses the day after the
murder?
And
when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he
said to the one who did the wrong, “Why are you striking your companion?”
Then
he said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? . . . ” (Exodus 2:13,14)
Who made you a prince
and a judge over us?
They knew that Moses wasn’t just angry; he was angry and
ambitious. Moses didn’t just want to be
a liberator. Moses wanted to be
king.
But the only kind of king Moses knew to be was a king like
Pharaoh.
God didn’t want another pharaoh.
So instead of endorsing Moses’ revolution by striking down
the Egyptians in a string of deadly miracles, the Lord let Moses catch a
case. He fled into the wilderness of Midian where he
met a man named Reuel, aka Jethro.
Reuel (Exodus 2:16) became Moses’ father-in-law and
mentor. For the first time in his life,
Moses sat under an actively engaged father figure. He learned to be a husband and father. He learned to know and love the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Egypt Moses
spent 40 years learning to lead like a
pharaoh. In Midian, it took just as long
for him to learn to serve like a shepherd (Acts 7:23; Exodus 7:7).
When God spoke to him out of a burning bush Moses had
changed so much that he tried to decline the offer of leadership.
God didn’t support the revolutionary who wanted to be a king. God called the prophet who wanted to be a shepherd.
Maybe this is why OUR attempts at revolutionary reform in and through the church fail: because we fail to get beyond our anger and our ambitions. We need to add a whole new mindset to our highly educated skillset.
The Lord is looking for leaders who have not made their ascent to power a condition of their people's deliverance. God is waiting on us to think less like revolutionaries and more like shepherds.
--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
Support by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
