This next section seems to me to illustrate very clearly that several different sources or traditions have been brought together in one place - the chronology is untidy and the text is somewhat repetitive.  It is also part of the most familiar aspect of the story and so possibly one that we think we know inisde out.

The Status of Moses, and the Act of Plundering

This section opens with a statement about the status of Moses - a man of great importance in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's officials and in the sight of the people.  This pretty much follows on from the shift observed in the preceding accounts of the plagues, but here it is stated unambiguously. 

When Moses tells the people to ask their Egyptian neighbours for silver and gold, the neighbours readily comply... they are probably by now willing to do anything to rid themselves of the Hebrews.  This plundering of the Egyptians, which is restated further on in this pair of chapters (possibly from a different original source) does not make for easy reading, it offends my sensibilties at the very least.

Reading this reminds me of the question that emerged for me when I saw the film "Suffragette" and the tendency to romanticise and even justify vandalism and worse because these were the 'goodies'... that peaceful means had failed and now the women resorted to letter bombs and smashing windows.  I grew up viewing the Hebrews as the goodies and the Egyptians as the baddies - it all seemed so simple and reasonable to a child!

I struggle with the justification of violence and crime, but it does seem to be something that recurs throughout history and that, when a story is retold looking backwards, such behavour is assimilated into acceptability, so oong as it was perpetrated by the vcitors.  Which means, perhaps, that instead of raging at the Biblical narrative, we may do well to ask ourselves how we tell the stories of our own time, what distortions or justifications we employ to justify our actions or attitudes.

A New Calendar and a New Ritual

The flow of the narrative is disrupted - and the chronology fouled up - by the detailed description of the establishment of a new calendar and a new, perpetual ordinance.  (In the opening verses Moses announces the death of the first born as imminent, now we discover that preparations will take have  taken several days).

A new calendar - a new beginning, potentially a paradigm shift.  This is to be 'day one of month one' and on day ten you are to choose the lamb/kid that will be eaten.  Four days later the animal is slaughtered, blood daubed on lintels, and the meal hastily eaten.

This seems a very stark and significant moment in the story of these people.  A line drawn in the sand.  An irrevocable change.  I wonder if it felt like that, or if, at the time it was just another demand from Moses?  Was it only later that they could look back and say 'this was the defining moment'?  The way the text is worded, what we have is the institution of a religious ritual, a 'perpetual ordinance' not plans for an escape from a hostile land!  Strict rules for cleansing of homes, purging all leaven and the stern consequences for failure to comply.  Seven days in which no work is permitted beyond the preparation of meals (which surely would not have been feasible for slaves in Egypt).  I am pretty sure this is a 'writing back' of later practice.

What strikes me is something about our personal calendars and rituals, as inidividuals, families and as churches.  Our practice of marking birthdays and anniversaries is tantamount to 'new calendars', as is the commemoration of significant dates in the lives of communities and nations.  From this point, this birth, this marriage, this diagnosis, this ordination, this divorce, this new job...

Whether it is red roses and unsigned cards for Valentine's day, candles on a birthday cake, the laying of flowers at a grave or any number of other things, we have our own perpetual ordinances, the rituals that shape our lives.

When my little church in Dibley was forced to move out of our building, I developed a careful 'ritual', a service to mark that ending-beginning.  That wasn't a 'lasting ordinance' no-one keeps 'leaving the building' day; nonetheless it was important in its own right.

Rituals around significant events are important, what merits further thought, perhaps, is which of these are 'lasting ordinances' and which are definitely 'one off'.

When your children ask...

The Passover Seder is built around children asking questions.  This echoes the establishment of the Passover ritual we read here... when your children ask 'why' this is what you are to tell them.

I wonder what aspects of our faith and life might prompt questions from our children, and what responses we might offer?  I wonder too, if the ritualised remembering of the Passover has a sense of catechesis lost to our much more ad hoc, informal responses to questions?  Might there be merit in creating rites/rituals around our own major festivals and practices that are based on questions?  I do recall a creative communion liturgy used first at the BUGB-BMS Assembly (and then borrowed by the BUS-BMS Assembly!) that did just that - two children as 'observers' asking and exploring questions about what the adults were doing.

Only for Insiders

The Passover ritual is a 'closed' rite - only circumcised men may partake, foreigners or slaves are excluded unless they are first circumcised, women and children are included implicitly provided they are racially Hebrew.  In our age of 'open' Communion, and increasingly with a welcome extended to all comers, this seems very strange.  The restriction is ritualised and possibly as much racial as it is religious.  In the context of an emergent nation, seeking to establish itself, such restrictions make some degree of sense - to open this rite to all and sundry would be to dilute their national-religious identity.  The context is utterly different from that we experience on a typical Sunday morning, even though the rite we share emerged from this ancient practice.

There is a question to ponder, though, and that is about the insider/outsider distinction, and the place of formal, covenanted Church membership.  At one level, the legal frameworks of this nation necessitates such distinction, at least when it comes to matters of charitable governance and employment.  At another level, even when couched in the softest of terms, as covenant comitment to walk together, with God, it is anathema to some people, for all sorts of reasons.  I don't have any answers, and I don't think there are any easy solutions... even if it continues to frustrate me that sometimes people will express commitment to a community covenant and still decline to covenant as members!  Ah well.  That's me and my opinions.

A Journey Begins

This section sees the Hebrew people begin their long journey.  After '430' years (or umpteen generations anyway) they leave behind all that they have ever known and head off from Ramases to Succoth.  I wonder what emotions they experienced?  What were there hopes and dreams?  Their fears and anxieties?

I wonder, too, how we feel on the brink of our own new journeys, whatever they may be?  Sometimes we just have to take the first steps and find out!

Today I fancied cornflakes for a change from my usual porridge, which reminded me of these two 'graces'...

Allegedly English Version:
Lord, grant that we may not be like porridge: stiff, stodgy and hard to stir, but like cornflakes: crisp, fresh and ready to serve.

(For anyone carefully counting, this is the fifth reflection, but as the fourth was on the Home Communion not a service, I've renumbered!)

It continues to be a pleasure to listen to the podcasts of services at the Gathering Place, providing a sense of connectedness even if running a week behind!  The service from last Sunday, which I listened to this morning was another I really appreciated.  It was also one that took my thoughts in directions less about the sermon (sorry M!) and more about factors that are worth considering for future worship leading in the light of my experience today.

First, though, some thoughts on the sermon.  I liked the way the sermon made connections between two very different stories from the life of Jesus - the Presentation in the Temple (technically the Candlemas gospel reading) and the Transfiguration (traditionally the one just before Lent). 

The implied question of "who is this Jesus" was explored in the light of the reactions of the witnesses in each case, with time allowed for the congregation to ponder for themselves their own response to the question. 

There was skillful link noting the potential 'Law and Prophets' motif evidenced in each event.  I say 'potential' not because I don't think it is discernible, but because I would make it on a different basis from the preacher.  During the sermon, reference was made to Simeon being a priest, and my immediate reaction was "it doesn't say that!"  I checked.  It doesn't.  It refers to him as a righteous man.  However, a little bit of online research revealed that many people consider it 'implicit' in the narrative that he is the priest to whom Mary and  Joseph came with Jesus.  Certainly plausible but not proven and, forgive me, I'm not yet convinced... if, as I've always been told, Luke was a Gentile writing for Gentiles, then I think he would have named a priest as such rather than as a righteous man.  Even so, and even if Simeon was not a priest, he appears in the story at a point where the demands of the Law are being met - affirming that Jesus is a 'kosher' Jew if you like.  And that is important.  Simeon stands within that tradition and so, if only indirectly, may well represent the Law.  To set alongside each other Simeon & Anna and Moses & Elijah, and then Simeon & Anna and Peter, James & John was novel and clever... and merits some more pondering on my part.

But it wasn't the sermon that struck me this time, it was the difference it makes to be listening to the service via a podcast compared with being present in the Gathering Place.  And I don't mean the obvious things, such as that visual material does not and cannot 'translate', but things such as announcing the hymns.  Increasingly, I don't give out hymn numbers, or at least not all of them, not because I like to project words on-screen but because it sometimes feels clumsy.  Yet, as I've listened to services, I've found it really helpful to known which book and what number, so that I can turn up the words if I don't know them.

The other thing that struck me was the Communion, and how dependent that can be on visual cues, as well as how odd it is to listen to it without actively participating.  Many moons ago there was a Sunday morning television broadcast that included communion-by-any-other-name and for which viewers were invited, if they wished, to join in by lighting a candle, eating some bread and drinking some wine/water/juice.  I think I should have thought of this, and prepared myself better!  Even so, because of slight differences in how Communion was shared (in terms of words) the cues on when to eat and when to drink were less clear than I am used to.  More food for thought!

So, today I learned something about Simeon - maybe! - that forty years of consitent church attendance have never before revealed.  And I learned some useful tips that will mean future services I lead might be more accessible when podcast.  Each of these seems equally valuable in its own way.

If nothing else, maybe this reflection may help to illustrate that there is no one 'right' message to take away from an act of worship!!

I had planned to take a break from my reading today (and I would have had I been working) but I got quite intrigued by my close reading of the plague narrative, and the various details that I have glibly overlooked over the decades.  Perhaps I could set the blame at the feet of my 'O' level RE teacher who was concerned only that we could recite the list in the correct order (one of various things we were expected to know by heart from a HUGE chunk of OT and one an a bit gospels!!).

Chapters nine and ten take us through a sequence of five further plagues: death of livestock, boils, hail & thunderstorm, locusts and darkness.  As each successive plague arises, there is, if we have eyes to see it, a steady change in the responses of those in Pharaoh's court and in Pharaoh's verbal responses.  And the notes that come alongside the descriptions of the plagues are interesting in thier own right.

All the Livestock?

The plague affecting the Egyptians livestock apparently wipes it out in its entirety... at least for a few verses!  Such statements arise in varous parts of the Old Testament as a kind of hyperpole, notably perhaps in the book of Job, whose animals seem to die several times over...  Exageration for dramatic effect is a familiar technique - as one of my old bosses used to say to me sometimes, "I've told you a million times, don't exagerate!"

I guess the thing here is not to get hung up over the problems a literal reading would give us, and accept that this was, within the narrative, loss of livestock of catastrophic proportions.  As later plagues will show us, the livestock was restored or replenished only to suffer further catastrophe.

The Magicians

After their inability to conjure up gnats/midges, and their suggestion to Pharaoh that this really was the work of God, they disappear from the story until the plague of boils.  Afflicted by boils, the magicians can no longer stand before Moses.  I'm not entirely sure why we are told this detail, but if these are the wise men of Egypt, the philosophers and thinkers, the ones who perhaps would be expected to understand health matters, it is possible that their seeming inability to defy the plague or to heal themselves has some significance.  I don't know, and I don't have a commentary to check.

What it does mean, presumably, is that Pharaoh loses one 'layer' of support.

The Officials

With the 'promise' of the plague of hail and thunderstorm comes a warning and an opportunity to take action.  Moses advises the court officials to shelter their livestock (see, it's back!) their families and slaves because this severe storm will prove fatal.  They are divided, some believe Moses, some don't.  And when the storm comes, those who have taken precautions are safe whilst those who didn't are lost.

After this plague, the officials implore Pharaoh to let the people go - life is becoming increasingly unbearable and their society faces ruin.

The magicians are out of the picture; the officials, having become first divided and now reunited, no longer support Pharaoh's position... his power is starting to crumble, his authority is being questioned.  The "gentleman may not be for turning" but his days are surely numbered.

Pharaoh

We continue to see Pharaoh asking Moses to pray for him, and whilst Moses continues to do so, he also starts to speak out.  After the plague of hail, Moses tells Pharaoh that he does not believe that he fears God.

What we also see is a wearing down of Pharaoh's resistance.  Having lost the unquestioning support of his officials, Pharaoh offers Moses permission for the men alone to go to worship God.  Perhaps he hopes this will appease at least one side.  Moses is having none of it, and next comes the plague of locusts to polish off such plants as the hail could not (in the account we have an explanation of which crops the hail destroyed and which had yet to grow... ancient rationalisation perhaps?)

Once again Pharaoh asks for prayer, once again the plague abates, once again his heart hardens.

Now comes a three day period of darkness [aside - are there resonances here with (a) the darkness at the time of the crucifixion and (b) the three days Jesus was in the tomb?] at the end of which Pharaoh declares his willingness to allow all the people to go ionto the wilderness to worship, but they must leave behind all their livestock.  Of course, this is not acceptable to Moses.

It is intriguing reading these accounts and pondering the attitude and action of Pharaoh, especially at a time when the daily news is full of accounts of powerful men (and posisbly also women) behaving in ways that express some similar traits.  I suppose what it make me wonder is who are the equivalents of the magicians and the officials?  Who are the advisers and researchers who can point out that this path is doomed to disaster?  Who are the cabinet members, permanent under-secretaries, civil servants, colleagues and so forth who can say, "enough".

Perhaps we do well to remind ourselves of the call to pray for all in authority, and especially to pray for those who feel led to challenge the voices and policies of the powerful.

Cliffhanger

Chapter ten ends with a scary stand-off between Pharaoh and Moses:

Then Pharaoh said to him, ‘Get away from me! Take care that you do not see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.’ Moses said, ‘Just as you say! I will never see your face again.’

If this was East Enders it would be time for the "duff duff", as it has become known.  If it was a thriller, there would be teasers and spoilers for the next episode.  But it's the Bible, we know what comes next, we know that one final plague has yet to come and we even known what it is.

When we look at the world around us, when we are fearful of the seemingly inevitable outcomes of the workings of powerful leaders, at home or overseas, we don't know what comes next.  Our own cliffhangers are not obvious, there are no spoilers or teasers, it is down to us to write the next chapter.

Whether it is Jeremy Hunt and his plans for NHS England (and even with devolved powers there can only be ripples elsewhere, surely)...  Whether it is Donald Trump (and the even more scary, so I understand, alternatives)...  Whether it is Syrian refugee crisis... Whether it is the choices we make in our small spheres of influence and power...

Who are the voices we listen to?  What the prayers we pray?  What small difference can we, will we, make?

OK, it's confession time: this morning I put on my dog-collar and went to visit one of our elderly folk who is very ill.

I know this was bad of me, dangerous in so far as I risked getting overtired, or physically over-stretching and hurting myself.  When I set out it was cold and grey, so I had a scarf and gloves, by the time I arrived drizzle had turned to rain had turned to sleet had turned to snow... When I left an hour later I did so in a taxi, warmed up with a hot drink, had some lunch and settled down to do a lot of nothing.

Sometimes it is so hard doing the 'right' thing and maybe sometimes breaking the rules is the 'right thing' anyway.  Sometimes it seems as if 'crises' choose to occur when I am on holiday or away on business trips or, in this case, on sick leave.  And it's hard - you can take the minister out of the church, but you can't take the ministry out of the girl.