In their first full chapter, “The Cry of the Oppressed,” Bell and Golden try to establish with their readers the importance of Exodus – the book and the concept – as a continuous motif throughout the entirely of both Testaments of Scripture. It’s noted that the Old Testament refers to the God “who brought you out of Egypt” thirty-two times, while only referring to God as “Creator” six times. The book of Exodus depicts a God who hears the cries of enslaved Israelites. It’s clear that God is participating in a suffering humanity even before Sinai or Calvary, even if humanity’s “east of Eden” state is not as things should be. (pgs. 22-24, 187)
Chapter One establishes Egypt as the result of systemic sin, beginning with the Fall and immediately progressing to the murder of Abel, to Lamech’s lamentation that descendants of Cain deeply feel the impact of his violence (Gen. 4.24), and finally to an entire nation operating out of violence and greed – those “east of Eden” impulses. To Bell and Golden, Egypt (used as an image as well as that place in that time) is an “anti-kingdom,” “what happens when sin builds up a head of steam.” Egypt is an example of how “human nature bends toward using power to preserve privilege at the expense of the weak.” (pgs. 25-27)
JWSC flows with the biblical narrative as God sends Moses to challenge Pharaoh and lead the Israelites to exodus, out of Egypt and straight toward Sinai. The role – the importance and effectiveness – of Sinai cannot be underestimated here. To quote Bell and Golden:
“It’s here at Sinai, that God speaks.
God hasn’t talked to a group of people since Eden. Things have been quiet, an eerie sort of silence. There have been exchanges with individuals – such as Abraham and Noah – but not with the masses.
So when Moses tells the people to ‘prepare yourselves’ and then leads them out of the camp ‘to meet with God,’ this is about way more than a group of wilderness wanderers gathering for a message from the heavens. This is about humanity estranged from its maker. This is about the primal distance that exists between the divine and the human, the gap deep in the soul of humanity. Sinai is an answer to God’s question to Adam, ‘Where are you?’ This moment at Sinai is about the reversal of the consequences of Eden.” (pgs. 28-29)
The coverage and explanation of Sinai is one of the gems in JWSC. Sinai is viewed not as just some type of covenantal pacifier, but as a very Edenic occurrence in a very “east of Eden” world.
JWSC explains Sinai as an invitation to marriage as well as an invitation to be priests and a holy nation. Bell and Golden explain this as “an invitation to show the world who this God is and this God is like.” The need for this priestly, holy nation is connected to justice and human suffering. To quote, “God needs [this flesh-and-blood body of people] so that Pharaoh will know just who this God is he’s dealing with and how this God acts in the world.” (pgs. 30-32)
The authors succeed in explaining the Ten Commandments as right, positive, “pro-” instruction rather than the restrictive prohibition generally portrayed when the Ten Commandments are preached today.
The Commandments are an answer to Egypt, the authors say. It’s for this reason that the Commandments are given by “The LORD your God, who brought you ought of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Gen. 20.2). There is a context of relationship for this instruction; God is making Israel everything a nation should be, everything that Egypt was not. God is instructing the Israelites, who were dehumanized in Egypt, how to be human in the right way. (pgs. 32-33)
Bell and Golden explain that the first commandment, to “have no other gods” (Gen. 20.3), is about remembering their own story of being liberated by this God. It’s through the context of God in relationship that they (and we today) learn and remember who God is and who we are. To infer on Bell and Golden’s words: by remembering that their God is the sort of God who liberates the oppressed, they will not only understand more about God and themselves (as formerly oppressed), but how they should represent this God to the oppressed and the oppressors around them. This ties directly into the second commandment that they mustn’t create idols. Why avoid the idol-making? Because they themselves are God’s images, His eikons, in the world. (pgs. 33-34)
The third commandment is a continuation of this stream of instruction, noting that the Israelites should not misuse God’s name. The authors note that the Hebrew word translated “misuse” may also be translated “carry.” They are to carry God’s name – His reputation and personality – to the world rightly.
Bell and Golden’s explanation for the Commandments as anti-Egypt really peaks with their description of the fourth commandment:
“The fourth commandment is to take a Sabbath, a day each week, and not do any work. In Egypt, they worked every day without a break, being treated as objects to be exploited, not people. The Sabbath is the command to take a day a week to remind themselves that they aren’t in Egypt anymore, that their value doesn’t come from how many bricks they produce. Their significance comes from the God who rescued them, the God who loves them.” (pg. 34)
Their value is not in how many bricks they produce. Their labor does not define them. They have value that has been deposited to them as human beings, and that inherent worth (that God loves them) is completely independent of their accomplishments and exploits.
JWSC leaves the fourth commandment talk there, but I wish the authors would have done more with it later in the book, especially when explaining how the contemporary Church is in exile. (***See the long aside at the end of this post.)
In all, Bell and Golden do a fantastic job of explaining just how life-giving and shalom-outlining the Commandments were for those at Sinai. The Commandments are laced with “echoes of Egypt”; they are about faith identity just as much as they’re about conduct and behavior. As the authors write, “It’s as if God is saying, ‘The thing that has happened to you – go make it happen for others.’” (pg. 35)
Chapter One progresses from Sinai to Egypt and then, generations later, to Jerusalem, where Bell and Golden explain what went wrong in Solomon’s reign. Solomon inherits the kingdom of the promised land, and comes into a great amount of wealth and power. What did Solomon do with his power? He became like Pharaoh.
Solomon used slaves to construct buildings. He begins to build an empire of wealth that is so big that his priority turns to building the many military bases necessary for preserving his empire of wealth. He goes back into Egypt to gather more horses and chariots, which Moses explicitly said not to do (Deut. 17.16-17). Not only that, but Solomon is importing and exporting chariots to other nations – as Bell and Golden put it, Solomon turns into an arms dealer. (pgs. 39-41)
“In just a few generations, the oppressed have become the oppressors… Solomon has created an empire of indifference. He has forgotten the story of his ancestors… Solomon isn’t maintaining justice; he’s now perpetuating the very injustice his people once needed redemption from and, in the process, building a kingdom of comfort.” (pg. 39)
Solomon isn’t doing things the Sinai way, Bell and Golden explain. In their words, “Jerusalem is the new Egypt, Solomon is the new Pharaoh, and Sinai has been forgotten.” (pg. 46)
Enter exile.
One of the highlights of Bell and Golden’s book is their robust explanation for exile. JWSC explains it as follows:
“There’s a word for this. A word for what happens when you still have the power and the wealth and the influence, and yet in some profound way you’ve blown it because you’ve forgotten why you were given it in the first place.
The word is exile.
Exile is when you forget your story.
Exile isn’t just about location; exile is about the state of your soul.
Exile is when you fail to convert your blessings into blessings for others.
Exile is when you find yourself a stranger to the purposes of God.” (pgs. 44-45)
Through the exile, the Israelites find themselves as slaves in a foreign land all over again. Exodus and Sinai have been squandered, and they’re crying out for God’s deliverance all over again. (Which will lead straight into Chapter Two…)
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(***From asterisks above.) Let me draw from Bell and Golden’s words a bit in order to make a point that is probably unpopular, but a truth I find beneficial nonetheless.
When you are in exile, “east of Eden,” it is easy for you to adopt the mentalities of a society that propels systemic sin, especially when you yourself suffer from its systemic oppression. Bell and Golden talk in Chapter One about the Israelites suffering as slaves in Egypt. One component of injustice in Egypt centers around the view of humanity’s role and purpose as it relates with labor and production.
Israelites were forced to make and lay bricks in order to build Pharaoh’s empire. Every single day the Israelites built Pharaoh’s kingdom. So when the exodus came and God established Israel as the anti-Egypt and taught them a thing or two about right living at Sinai, He explained that they should take the seventh day and make it a Sabbath. Whereas people in Egypt were assessed and valued on the basis of their brick-building, God wanted people to grasp wholeness by pointing their entire week toward a day when no bricks are laid, when people are just people.
And this wasn’t just for them, either. The things that happened at Sinai established some guidelines for how Israel could live out the Abrahamic Covenant. Bell and Golden make the point that this event – Sinai – happened in the wilderness so that it could not be attached to one nation or city; it was for all the world. At Sinai, the Israelites are called to be a priesthood. In other words they are mediating God to the world, showing everyone who God is – what He cares about, what He values. One of the ways in which they did this was to live out Sabbath, God’s recommended rhythm to help humanity understand their value. (pg. 30)
I imagine that, once the Israelites were in their promised land, that most people appreciated living in God’s recommended (and now commanded) rhythm. This is conjecture, but I’ll bet that there was a small minority (but possibly a powerful and influential minority) who were benefitting from the labor and industry in Jerusalem, and would’ve much rather done away with Sabbath and gone back to the brick-after-brick, day-after-day ways of Egypt. Because when industry happened, this small minority were the foremost beneficiaries. Whether or not they succumbed to it, I believe a temptation was there for those in power to do away with Sabbath, God’s recommended rhythm for life.
Fast-forward to the councils and decisions of the early Church fathers in the second, third and fourth centuries CE. As leaders like Justin Martyr, Ignatius, and Marcion looked to create a post-Judaism rendition of Christianity – one that would be more agreeable with the Greco-Roman society and political power of their day – the nail in the coffin, in terms of forcing Jewish Christians out of the church and ending what had been a steady stream of Jews adopting the Messiah, was the removal of the Jewish Sabbath from the spiritual rhythm of the church. For a Christian (Jewish or Gentile) to honor the weekly spiritual rhythm (six days of work that point toward a day of content resting) supplied to them by God at Sinai was to “sabbatize” and “Judaize.” This decision to abandon the Exodus version of Sabbath (finalized at Laodicea, I believe), is the foremost image of an early Church trading their Exodus identity for the convenience of cozy public relations with the local anti-kingdom.
Just as it didn’t take long after Sinai for things to fall apart, it was shortly after Calvary that Christians in geo-political centers chose false kingdoms, “kingdoms of comfort” as Bell and Golden term them, over-against the God who led the Israelites out of Egypt. It’s no wonder that serious Jews, who had been raised to know the difference between Egypt and Israel and knew which of those the Roman Empire resembled, were wary of exchanging their Law (which they viewed as life-giving instruction for how to be human) for a Caesar-Jesus-Constantine hybrid.
Fast-forward yet again, to the Western (but especially American) empire, the capitalist machine. Human beings are in a new sort of anti-kingdom. Unlike Egypt, they get a share of the prize (so long as they can climb up the rungs of socio-economic divide and push others beneath them). And, like in Egypt, value is attributed to human beings based on accomplishments and exploits. Western humanity is about having the right degrees, the best job title, the highest-paying career, the largest house possible to contain 2.8 family members, and even the newest vehicle by which to travel back and forth between prestige job and prestige home. Westerners are “free” to take hold of all these perks in the kingdom.
(Sometimes we use the word “liberty” to describe the most entangling, debilitating constructs of our society.)
The Western world is an anti-kingdom (very much the warning of Bell and Golden’s book). The Western world is “east of Eden.” Like Egypt, the Western world, through systemic sin, implies that human value is based upon accomplishments and exploits.
How do Christians today respond? Of course the situation calls for a multi-layered response, but it sure seems like one of those layers would be Sabbath observance, yes? Much like the Israelite who doesn’t want to ruffle with the system (afraid of being beaten by his master if he fails to lay his share of bricks), or the members of the early Church who decided that cooperating with the political powers of their day (and adopting the societal rhythm and constructs of that culture) was a lucrative priority, Christians today, when offered a Sabbath, choose the way of the anti-kingdom.
Of all the instructions to not only disobey but generally reject, Christians choose God’s offering of a Sabbath, a day when they should set down their proverbial bricks and gear their whole day toward accepting that God loves them – not for their exploits, but for their personhood.
Why do you think that is? Why do Christians openly reject one of God’s most enjoyable instructions?
It would be extremely difficult to argue that the Sabbath has little practical value in today’s culture. In A.J. Jacobs’ book The Year of Living Biblically, Jacobs, after his Law-keeping experiment, identifies the Sabbath as the single-most beneficial practice to which he adhered (and he adhered to many). I’ve heard of other similar experiments and studies – some by self-proclaimed “secular” people – reaching the same conclusion. (Maybe this hits at Bell and Golden’s point about Solomon and Sheba, that sometimes it’s the “pagans” around us who see God’s realities better than the people who claim to have it all together.) (pgs. 37-38)
I suppose someone could say that Westerners (but again, this is American even more than it is Western) only work 40-50 hours each week, whereas the Israelites pulled much longer shifts in Egypt. I would counter that by saying that yes, while only 40 or 50 hours of the Western week are documented as salary-earning, many more hours (nearly all waking hours) in the Western world are devoted to the quest of obtaining power and accumulating wealth. And as the Sabbath rubbed harshly against the work schedule of Egypt, today it also runs counter to our mentality of ownership and wealth.
In other words, even though the Sabbath commandment is relatively easy and enjoyable, that’s only the case if we aren’t allegiant and in love with our local anti-kingdom.
When people of affluence live in a spiritual rhythm that emphasizes humanity’s worth (loved by God) as independent of labor and production, that is the very moment when their view of less-affluent human beings will change. Sabbath is connected to justice. Sabbath is bigger than social class and economics (exactly what Jesus is showing us in all of those passages we’ve perverted in translation and preaching to indicate that Jesus somehow violates or abolishes the Sabbath, which is the same degree of heretical vomit than if we called Jesus a murderer, a crook, and an adulterer).
Sinai, as Bell and Golden point out, is God speaking to the Israelites, explaining a new way to be human to this group of people who have been dehumanized. These Commandments are God’s wisdom. So where do we come off deciding that because we place our faith in Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, the perfect Israelite, that God’s wisdom is somehow rendered obsolete? Jesus embodied the perfection and fulfillment of the Law, put flesh and blood on it and showed us how it’s done. In other words, if you do what Jesus does, you will have perfectly kept the Law. Being forgiven for violating the Law does not imply that the Commandments are no longer life-giving.
There are still, after all these years, ten Commandments and not nine. That’s not to say that we keep the other ones very well, either, but we don’t adamantly “theologize” against them like we do with the Sabbath. If an elder of your church committed a drive-by shooting on the way to church and you confronted him or her about the drive-by, would you be dismissed as a legalist? Would the people in your church tell you that, because we now have Jesus, murder is kosher? Or that because Jesus is the Prince of Peace, we have a new symbol, so whether or not we murder is arbitrary?
This isn’t complicated. It’s a matter of obedience and, more so, trust.
Christians today do not want to ruffle the system of the empire. They, like secular culture, want to assess human beings on the basis of accomplishments and exploits. Why? Because they believe they can benefit within the empire. Christians today are no better than those early Church fathers who sold the teaching of Jesus for political and cultural convenience, and no better than Solomon and those Israelites who chose to dismiss Sinai. In each case, it’s an issue of trusting that the promises of the anti-kingdom provide more life than does God’s Law.
The dismissal of Sabbath is powerfully symbolic throughout Judeo-Christian history for the behavior of people who want the anti-kingdom rather than New Jerusalem. We see it after Sinai. We see it after Calvary. We see it still today, here in our Western anti-kingdom.
