Monday 12 July 2021

Psalm 19

Background

It is likely that this text was written at a time when the Israelites were in exile in Babylon, or shortly afterwards, to remind them that God remains true and present and, ultimately, offers liberation.

God introduces to Moses the idea that it is God’s intention to liberate the Israelite slaves from their long period of bondage in Egypt. God co-opts Moses as a messenger in this plan but, perhaps strangely to us, when Moses tells the Israelites what God has in mind, the Israelites aren’t interested. We are told that their spirit is broken.

 I remember two particular occasions in ministry when I worked long and hard to secure accommodation and support for someone vulnerable, only to find that when the time came, they could not accept the help. It can be almost impossible for someone who is safely housed and used to the comforts of life to understand why someone who is homeless, or subject to domestic violence, or living in abject poverty would reject support and the offer of a way out from their circumstances. Economic and social poverty, prejudice, abuse, isolation, trauma – all  have the power to break someone’s spirit, and freedom is costly, sometimes unwelcome, certainly never straightforward. Sometimes it is just easier to stay with what you know, however hard it is. Pride, fear of the unknown, the impact of suffering, all these things can mean that hopelessness wins out in the face of the offer of hope. Slavery can be a psychological as well as a physical state.

Eventually God urges Moses to involve the oppressor (Pharaoh) and it takes a long, long time, and a lot of work on behalf of Moses to win the trust of the people, before God works a miraculous liberation.

As a Church, it is often easy to think we have the answers to other people’s problems. We forget that ultimately it is God who liberates and transforms. Our task, as God’s hands in the world, is to work with those who are oppressed, those whose spirits are broken and to place ourselves with them at the margins. We are called to listen and work with them to reveal God’s liberating activity (even if they might not call it that!). We also work with the people and systems that cause oppression, recognising that freedom is costly both for the oppressor and the oppressed so that together there can be the imagination and realisation of a better and freer future for all.

To Ponder:

• Have there been times when you offered help and it was rejected? How did you feel and respond? 
• Who might represent the enslaved Israelites and the powerful regime of the Pharaoh in our own society and what, as a Church, might we need to do to allow God’s liberating purposes to be revealed?
• Let's pray for all in the world today whose spirits are broken and who live without any sense of hope.