Thursday, 6 May, 2004

Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann in “Inscribing the Text” will be the focus of this series of devotions.



The truth Moses utters is the truth of YHWH: Pharaoh is penultimate and accountable to YHWH, and YHWH, not Pharaoh, must be glorified and obeyed. The familiar “Let my people go” is in fact an imperative – Send my people! – which YHWH issues through Moses. The king of Egypt is hardly accustomed to hearing imperatives spoken to him, but the truth is the he is out of business. YHWH is sovereign and the power of Pharaoh is dissolved. As a consequence and by product, Israel is emancipated. That is the truth, the truth of YHWH; it is, moreover, the disastrous truth of Pharaoh.



With eyes of the day, Moses words were ridiculous. Truth for Pharaoh would have been more like: “Get out of my face and get back to work…I’m Pharaoh.” But in this voice of Moses, comes the voice of the truth of God’s power and life and no power can resist in the face of such truth. Let us not merely pick on Pharaoh and his inability to hear truth being spoken to him. Any time and any one who steps into try and control the world in which we live often steps beyond the word of truth into something we try to call truth but it is never truth when it is nothing more than our veiled attempts to secure power and place for ourselves. Truthfulness in the face of power is a word that opens up the world and opens up possibilities that are as endless as the possibilities within the swirl of the Spirit at creation. It is indeed an imperative.



Connection: Today simply give yourself the opportunity to listen. Listen to the voices of power and how they cannot see beyond their own domain and rule. It is a bitter experience for within those voices we may find ourselves and that is tough to hear. Then remember the voice of God’s, loving truthfulness.



Your Word, O God, demands wholeness and healing within our lives. Your healing reunites the broken apart so that we may live in peace and share in the domain of your truth for life. Grand us the ability to hear your Word in the midst of all the other voices around us. Amen.