Sunday, March 27, 2011: Exodus 17:1-7
Why not lead these refugees directly to safety, milk and honey? Why the desert, the wandering, the long years so far from home?
Translated literally, the Spanish word desahogarse means "to undrown oneself." It refers to disclosing a story of grief or difficulty in a way that liberates the teller, or at least lightens her load. Have you traveled for days across the Sonoran Desert, skirting the barbed-wired walls and the border patrol, risking your life for the sake of your family back home, all in the hope of landing work that pays more than a few dollars a day? Then rest here awhile; tell me your story. Undrown yourself. There isn't much water out there in the wilderness, God knows, but there are plenty of ways to be swallowed up by sorrow.
We've heard of the exodus, that great escape out of slavery; we've heard of the promised land, that home of milk of honey; and we've heard of the wilderness wandering that comes in between. But for the author of Exodus 17, the desert chapter in Israel's history is more than a 40-year interlude between the drama's beginning and end; it's a full-blown second act in its own right. In fact, it's arguably the center of the story.
In Act I, for example, as the Egyptian plagues come and go, God repeatedly instructs Moses to demand that the pharaoh "let my people go"—not "so they may enjoy the land of milk and honey," but "so they may worship me in the wilderness" (Exod. 7:16). The point is to worship God; the eventual arrival at the promised land is more the denouement than the climax of Israel's liberating adventure.
