“The Cost of Freedom”
Exodus 14:19-31
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 14 September, 2008
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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 This weekend we are particularly aware of the power of water. The news is filled with stories and pictures of the destruction left by Hurricane Ike. On Friday authorities warned that “certain death” awaited anyone who did not heed the orders to evacuate. While it appears that many of those who stayed behind survived the brunt of the storm, there was one point on the coast that was hit by a 15 foot wall of water. The fate of anyone standing in its wake could only have been “certain death.”
The storm has begun to pass but flood waters remain, and thousands of people in the area are clamoring for rescue. Those who cannot be rescued, or who still choose to stay behind, face the distinct possibility of drowning.
"So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea.
The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained.
But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. "
This is one of the most recognizable stories in our Bible. Moses parts the Red Sea and the evil Egyptian slavemasters drown, while the Israelites remain safe. We can immediately picture a powerful-looking Charlton Heston raising his hand and commanding the sea or numerous other movie scenes or paintings.
Artistic renderings of Moses parting the Red Sea show a tremendously VIOLENT event. The formerly enslaved Israelites walk across dry land in triumph, but then the Egyptians and their horses are thrown violently into the water to drown. As the Egyptians get stuck in the mud, the water rises around them, similar to those stuck in the floods of Southern Texas. No wall of water comes crashing down upon them, but the end result is their deaths nonetheless.
We are supposed to celebrate this event. I’m pretty sure I sang about it in Sunday School, and we might even have acted the scene out in Vacation Bible School when I was growing up. But now that I am grown up I am shocked by it, especially as I pore over of pictures of hurricane devastation.
I realize that the story of the Israelites’ escape has been hailed for centuries by other victims of slavery. African slaves who had converted to Christianity saw it as a sign that God was on the side of the oppressed rather than their slaveowners. It was a sign for them that God would one day help them to be free.
I realize, too, that victims of slavery -- the Israelites, the Africans who were brought to America and elsewhere, and slaves in every culture, from ancient times to the present, are victims of violence. Many are physically abused, sexually abused, emotionally abused, some even violently killed. Even those who are treated well by their “masters” are still considered the property of another human being and that, in itself, is violence.
I am currently reading the historical novel _Chesapeake_ by James Michener. The book begins in the early 17th century, when settlers were just arriving in North America. As farms were established labor was required, and slaves were brought from Africa and indentured servants from England. The indentured servants were considered the property of their masters until their time of court-ordered servitude was past, and sometimes they were treated even worse than the slaves. I recently got through a part in the book in which an indentured servant hits his master over the head with a shovel and leaves him for dead, before escaping. While I cheered his freedom to some extent (the character is a notorious thief), I struggled with the violent means by which he got it. Even when the most deserving slaves escape their evil masters, I wince at the acts of violence sometimes used to attain such aims.
So, where is the balance? Is it ever okay to use violence (even God’s violence) to achieve one’s ends? Can we rightfully cheer the violent death of the Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds, since they are the oppressors and the Israelites had suffered under them for so long? Can we cheer when slaves (fictional or real) commit acts of violence while attempting to gain freedom?
One article I read this past week mentioned this dilemma briefly but said flat-out that it wasn’t the point. The article, on the UCC web site, notes that “This wasn't one army against another, however outnumbered and outgunned. This was a ragtag group of impoverished ex-slaves escaping their captors not by their own strength or wits or organizational skills or strategic planning, but by the power of God.”1 Most articles I read focused either on the power of God or the marvelous gift of freedom. I, too, marvel at these things, particularly the gift of freedom to an oppressed people.
While I have never been oppressed in the way that the Israelites were and while I have never known the oppression of racism experienced by African Americans, I have heard first-hand stories of racial oppression and read about the desperation of the Israelites. There are terrible stories of cruelty, and the idea of believing that you can own someone boggles my mind. Still, I get caught up on the violence.
With the images of innocent Texans caught in the hurricane fresh in my mind, I imagine the horror of the Egyptian soldiers as they realize they are going to die. I struggle with the idea that God, Creator of humankind, would choose to kill God’s own creations. Of course, this is not the only place in our scriptures where we see this. In the story of the Great Flood, God saves Noah and his family but wipes out the rest of “evil humanity.” At the end of that saga, however, God promises that it will not happen again. Does the fact that the Egyptians did not worship the God of the Israelites factor into God’s willingness to kill them? I struggle with that too.
I do not have an answer to these questions. If I were enslaved and my only opportunity for freedom was to commit violence against my captor, would I do it? Most likely, yes. Would I feel guilty about it? I honestly don’t know. If someone I knew personally was kidnapped and their only chance of escape was to commit violence against their kidnapper, would I chastise them for it? I cannot imagine doing so. But as I sit here, a free woman, the question lingers. How can a loving God kill even the most vile of God’s Creation? Are they not worthy of redemption?
Is it a double standard when I (and many people) believe that violence committed against bad people can be an act of God, while the violence and destruction of a hurricane, and the subsequent suffering of millions of innocent people, is not? --that I believe God frees the oppressed but does not cause the suffering of the innocent?
I have more questions than answers this morning, but perhaps that is not a bad thing. We are called as people of faith to wrestle with the concerns that face our world. My prayer is that you will struggle with these things too -- that you will celebrate the freedom of the oppressed but also question stories describing the violence required to gain that freedom.
I believe in a loving God. I also believe in a powerful God who deplores oppression in all its forms. I cannot always reconcile those two. So I prayerfully wrestle. So, I pray, will you.
Now let us pray.
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1 Sermon Seeds. September 14, 2008, Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Exodus 14:19-31. http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/september-14-2008-twenty-four.html. Accessed 09/13/08.
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