For many of us when we talk about the book of Exodus what comes to mind of course are the burning bush, God, Moses, and God’s instructions to Moses concerning the people held as slaves in Egypt. Join us here in the Pew today as we take a little bit different perspective about the book of Exodus.  At the time of the 10 Commandments, the Israelites existed as a freed tribal society, transitioning into a holy and covenantal theocracy. The first thing that takes place of note is that these  slaves become a covenant people. They’re free now from their bondage in Egypt. They had become a large travel collective of former slaves, newly organized around a shared lineage from Abraham and a direct religious identity. They have no king or centralized government of any kind, their supreme ruler and law giver was viewed as God himself, it’s a theocracy on the move. Now if we follow this, according to biblical tradition, the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai served as a formal constitution. We must remember that this was just a mass of people with a common interest, that being they had just been freed from slavery and the 10 Commandments given at Mount Sinai served as a formal constitution. It bound the different tribes together into a unified religious nation with mutual moral and legal obligations. They were basically a nomadic group of stateless souls. They did not possess a permanent territory, capital, or sovereign land. They were a nomadic community traveling through the wilderness before entering Canaan. God gave them purpose and goal.

You know it’s hard for us to imagine that the God we serve, the God who created us and all could have been possibly a nation builder. So I’m going to go out on the limb here in this blog and say that that’s one of the thoughts that crossed my mind while doing research for this week. There are two things in our society today that almost always create instant division. Politics and religion, and I think we all agree they don’t go well together. I was quite surprised when the pastor at the church I now attend, announced his new sermon series…Faith, and Politics. I think I can make this statement and be fairly confident of its accuracy. If you were to ask me, what’s the top two subjects that Pastor’s really don’t like to talk about…I would have to say politics and tithing, I will repeat again, I was rather surprised. A group I am involved with right now is pursuing a study in the book of Exodus and I wanted to share something from that book with you that brought this subject that I am writing about today to mind. Was God really involved in nation building? I’m going to focus on chapter 21 from the book of exodus which is sometimes known as the book of the Covenant. I wrote earlier about these people who Moses had freed from slavery in Egypt as being basically a group of nomadic, stateless souls. They didn’t have any permanent territory, no capital or sovereign land. They were just simply a nomadic community traveling through the wilderness before entering Canaan. That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that this mass of undisciplined, unruly and wandering people, who now at this point have become God’s chosen people and become the subject of nation building. Let that sink in just a little bit and consider that the content of this chapter details rules about property, restitution, theft, social justice, and care for the vulnerable and religious offerings. These are God’s people, people who God has chosen and will build into a nation that will last to the very end of time. Chapter 21 deals with the outlines of the foundational civil and social set of laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai applying the 10 Commandments to daily Israeli life. If we really look at it honestly, this was as I’ve written before a massive group of people with no purpose, and totally leaderless. God had appointed Moses to lead them out of Egypt and to take them to the promised land and it’s at this point that God begins to form a covenant that will create a nation.

Now, haveing written all of this let’s do keep in mind that this is simply a theory on my part. But the pastors sermons the past few weeks at my church, directed towards Faith in Politics, rises to the level of a questionable task. I believe that it’s important that we emphasize that when we get into Exodus 22 it is God who is speaking, communicating his laws and commands to Moses on Mount Sinai. So the speaker is the Lord God/YHWH who’s delivering the civic, moral and religious laws. The recipient is Moses, who receives these instructions on the mountain to relay now to the soon to be Nation of Israel. I keep trying to think how I might write this that would resonate with my readers and in my simple mind, I simply look at this as God taking a massive number of people and using Moses to sort out that mess. Choosing them to be his people bringing them out of danger into the danger of the wilderness and then preparing them and bringing them together as a nation that they might serve him and glorify His will here on earth. Now there are a lot of things here in these chapters of 20, 21 and 22 but one of the things I did find extremely interested and wanted to show you or bring to your attention to the fact that even in that day and time in the Bible, we have mention of Sanctuary Cities, in biblical reference, they were referred to as Cities of Refuge. I’m using this as an example to impress upon you, the influence of the Bible and the influence of God’s word upon his people over all of this time. The sanctuary cities that we have now today, protect undocumented immigrants from federal deportation, biblical cities of refuse were part of an official legal and judicial system that was designed to halt blood fuels and guarantee due process for accidental occurrences. So think about all of this carefully. Moses chosen by God to bring his people out of slavery into the promised land led them into the desert and for a period of time God begin to build a nation that had laws, had certain ways of how things were to be done and certain expectations. They were no longer without a purpose and a leader. The God we serve is one of order and purpose. The God we serve is not one of condemnation, but one of raising the expectations of his people and allowing them to flourish in a manner that brings glory to Him. This has been a rather strange post, but in a day and time when we are so divided within our nation, I don’t think we can escape the fact that God was in the Nation Building business, and He built a nation… Israel, in some of the most trying circumstances, and it endures to this very day.

Life is Good 

jk