The Israelites as a people originate in an escape from slavery in Egypt. The ancient Pharaoh, who in golden ceremonial armor incarnated the sun god, is a prototype oppressor. He doesn’t respect human beings but makes them slaves for his own purposes. He values the Hebrews only for making bricks and building cities, not as people made in God’s image with certain rights.
The slaves cry out to God. They speak their suffering to the only one they can imagine to be more powerful than Pharaoh, the only one in whom they can hope for freedom. God hears their cry and remembers them.
At the heart of Israel’s origin is their experience of being an alien — the neighbor who is different, other, less, and dangerous, yet useful for physical work. Israel’s law draws on that experience to teach new generations to treat aliens as if they were kin and to recognize that God hears the oppressed — the slave, the widow, the orphan, those at the bottom whose only hope is God.
God is compassionate.
“You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.
“If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner by demanding interest. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it before sunset; for this cloak is the only covering the person has. What else has he or she to sleep in? If he or she cries out to me, I will hear; for I am compassionate.”
Exodus 22.20-26
Many among us experience being powerless, without voice in decisions. Some of us get let go from work, marginalized, put aside as useless. Some of us experience exploitation, benefiting others without sufficient benefit to ourselves. Those of us left out, left behind, exploited, or violated call the rest of us to mend our society.
At great risk immigrants ride trains north to a better life from Central America through Mexico to the United States. They find work in egg plants, meat packing, dairies; they settle down and have children — only to have raids split up families, deport fathers, and leave mothers confined with ankle bracelets and unable to work.
Boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to France or Italy capsize, drowning immigrants escaping violence in Sudan or looking for work in developed countries. Women migrate now more than in the past, many young and vulnerable to trafficking. Most migrate to find work, sometimes to escape war or disasters. They become aliens in new lands.
The exodus story provides scriptural testimony that God hears the voices of the oppressed. In the Egypts of every age the voices of the oppressed call those at the center to act with justice and make the human family whole.
- For whom in the news are you feeling compassion? Whose cries do you hear?
- Who have you seen exploited?
- To what work for justice do these experiences call you?