Did you ever watch a nature show where there is a herd roaming a savanna and a cheetah or tiger is aiming to pick one off for his lunch? The predator invariably tries one of two tactics. Aim for the center of the pack and pick a meal in the ensuing melee or start the chase and pick off an animal on the fringe. I think this idea of safety in numbers and huddling is instinctive to us for survival as animals. Perhaps it is even where we get the notion of marginalization of individuals who are within a group but on the fringes.
In todays passage we hear about rules and obligatory religious rituals. Many of these rituals are designed for cohesion of the group because the Jews lived in a hostile land and among hostile peoples. Survival was key and unity was essential if they were to survive as a people. Many rules were designed to set themselves apart, to prevent attrition through the community absorbing foreign customs, customs that would have them rebel against their God. In the end, this is still the herd trying to stay together.
We still act this way as humans, trying to stay together. Common rituals are practiced as a way of cohesion. Whether it is a clique at school or work, a religion trying to maintain their own identity and existence, a political party with a myopic view of righteousness or an ethnic group who have been marginalized. We seem to always form these cohesive groups.
To survive though, especially if you are on the fringes, you have to run fast. I'd like to take a twist though on what it means to "run". To me it isn't so much a literally running to survive as with a gazelle trying to avoid its spot on a cheetah's lunch menu. To me running is a decision to survive. Well, more than survive. Are we animals? Yes. Do we have a capacity to be more that just a gazelle on a survannah, no matter how magnificent that might be or look? Are we not designed to be more than that? Our ability to think, make choices and to love are all part of design to allow us to be the most that we can be. It is a design by God. 'Running' to me is more than survival then, it is a personal decision to make each day and each moment more than mere survival.
We are confronted with choices all day long. When we wake up we make a decision, new sunrise and new opportunities. At almost every moment of the day things can 'go wrong' . Challenges abound but again they are opportunities. We decide what we are going to do, what we are going to become. We can immerse ourselves in some clique and disregard the fringes or we can rise above a herd mentality. We can decide to love on an individual basis instead of having someone fro lunch.
What choices will you make today? Right now? Survival or rising above?
Exodus 34:18-35
18 You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.
19 All that first opens the womb is mine, all your male* livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.
No one shall appear before me empty-handed.
21 For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in ploughing time and in harvest time you shall rest. 22You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year. 23Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning.
26 The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.
You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
27 The Lord said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. 28He was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.* <VN>29</VN>
29 Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant* in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. 31But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. 32Afterwards all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; 34but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
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