Lent

March 7, 2023

Scripture Reading: Exodus 17:1-7
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

The problem with slavery is that it is designed to rob people of self-sufficiency. The slave spends their life trying to survive under the oversight of a master puppeteer pulling their strings until they submit to their master’s desire. I believe that innately humans know there is something very wrong with that, but if it is the only thing slaves know from birth, it is very hard to transition to be the person they were created to be. The exiles from Egypt were ready to return to slavery (Numbers 14:1–4) when they first faced self-determination.

While we may not have actual slavery in America, we do have a caste system that may be as bad, whereby people must learn and practice their place or suffer the consequences. For example, we cannot solve our “border problem” because it is financially more rewarding for businesses to “hire”  undocumented refugees fleeing danger. These businesses escape paying a minimum wage, providing workers comp, and providing Social Security or Medicare benefits for the undocumented. Our policing of such work practices is not directed at the businesses as much as at the undocumented. Fines placed on businesses are the cost of doing business if they get caught. The undocumented are deported back to face again the challenges they tried to escape.  I have wondered how quickly this problem would be solved if the business owners went to jail for their illegal acts and the undocumented were allowed to apply for legal entrance. If they qualified, they would be allowed to stay and work. There is a shortage of workers in some areas that immigrants could fill. The other people who are impacted by this system are US citizens who do the type of work for which the undocumented are being used but are not hired because they would cost more.

Prayer: Lord, help us see beyond our culturally judgmental viewpoints and recognize the potential in all people. Amen.

*For more insight into this situation, read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.