Out of Egypt · Question 3 of 4
What are we leaving behind, and what are we entering into?
All of the people are given a choice, empire or God, and it is a daily one.
In Exodus
What is being left behind is the whole apparatus of empire: fear, greed, violence, material wealth, and scarcity. Consider this: when Pharaoh was at the pinnacle of power, with endless resources and wealth, Pharaoh was endlessly anxious. He had almost all of the land. He had all of the grain in the world, yet he's afraid. His fear is tied up in the future. That's what anxiety is: it's fear of the future. And that fear asks us to use a demonic imagination, creating a narrative that says I must participate and partner with evil today in order to prevent tomorrow's evil.
What the people enter is covenant. Three months after leaving Egypt they arrive at the mountain of God, and God says: you yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself; you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. That covenant is ordered around rest, the instruction that sits in the middle as the hinge on which the other six rest. Because we have to have faith that God will provide for us in order for us to rest. Otherwise, we will assume it all depends on us, and if that's the case then we have to labor and work. But if it all depends on God, we can enter into rest.
“I got you out of Egypt; these principles, these instructions, are designed to get Egypt (and empire) out of you.”
In Acts
What gets left behind here is a bordered self. When the goal is nationalism, every step is towards self-determination, control of land and resources, and membership in a global economy. It rejects a picture of the world where we belong to each other, and care for each other, and instead focuses on borders, and bodies. The borders help identify who belongs and who doesn't. The Empire tells us that if we don't look out for ourselves, no one else will. Jesus calls this a lie.
What the church enters is a King who already has a Kingdom, and the borders of this kingdom are the whole earth and everyone in it. In practice that looks like tables. It looks like a community where no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, where there were no needy persons among them. It looks like a Spirit who prods disciples to cross borders, to share tables, to share space, and to share life with those the disciple would rather avoid. And it looks like the work we've been up to as a church, trying to create a welcoming space where everyone is wanted and a new culture can emerge: not diversity in appearance only, but a new culture, because I don't want to do church without you; without you I will miss God at work.
“Partnering with God's goal of a reconstituted family requires us to erase borders, to cross bridges, and place our bodies at new tables.”
The Common Ask
Every week of this series carries the same invitation:
Name your Egypt. Trust the God who brought you out. Take one step toward the family God is forming.
The questions stand over the whole series: What borders are we willing to erase? What bridges are we willing to cross? At whose tables are we willing to sit our bodies? Naming your Egypt only matters if you're willing to take the step across.