I am continuing an experiment to move away from the
lecturing and academic analysis of Biblical texts and move instead toward reflection
on the events in the Bible and life. Jesus did not lecture, he told stories.
The prophets did not do academic lectures; rather, they shared dreams,
encounters, and sang songs. I will offer my reflection, and then I will take
thoughts from that reflection and make a poem in the French Pontoum form.
Academic lectures pass on what the lecturer thinks is the one simple true point,
while reflection and poetry invite the listener to enter into a deeper
interaction and response.
A Reflection and Poem for Pentecost XIII (proper
18) All Saints’ Church, Southern
Shores, NC September 7, 2014 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
The
Old Man Crosses the Nile
The Old Man climbed aboard the felucca in order to
cross the river to the island where the bricks are made. Then the grizzled old
operator of the craft said, “I know you; you are the one called Moses, the one
who comes through the water. You have turned Waset, the City of the Scepter,
upside down. I am Kumat. My father named me “the one who is
the black land”, after my country of the black rich fertile land of the flooding
of the Nile. I am the land and you are the water. I remember you when my father
used to run this craft, and you were part of the royal party that would inspect
the brick works and grumble about how the Hebrew slaves were not working hard
enough. How does it feel to see contempt from the other side?”
The Old Man replied: “Now I hear the cries of the
people not as complaints from the lazy but as the truth spoken out of pain when
the foot of the oppressor is standing on neck of the oppressed. My God opened
my ears and now I cannot get rid of it. I come to the City of the Scepter to
speak truth to power.”
Kumat said, “I know those cries well, and this
struggle between you and Pharaoh has increased the cries even further. Your
people have had to make more bricks with less straw. Then you and the magicians
of Pharaoh with your competing tricks of competing Gods have turned the economy
into a disaster. Come on - do you think the people are stupid and do not
remember the past? I have been on the River for decades. That bit of turning
the Nile into blood is an illusion which seems to happen from time to time as
the red growth in the river chokes the air out of the water and the entire fish
population dies, leaving the water undrinkable. The Ibis birds die in huge
numbers from eating the rotting fish and, since they usually eat frogs as well,
the frog population gets out of hand and they swarm all over the place. Then
they die and the land is filled with gnats and flies. Don’t even get me started on the hail, the
storms, the boils on the cattle and then the people, the locusts, and the
darkness during the days and nights when the sand blows in from the desert and fills
the air so we cannot see. Give me a break; all of these are natural events.”
The Old Man said: “You are right; they are natural.
They are not the problem, but they are the consequence of the problem caused by
your rulers who are so far removed from neighbor and nature that they no longer
see themselves as stewards of the gifts of the land given by God’s hand. They
simply exploit the people and land for all they can get out of them. I remember a saying by the people on the
Upper Nile: ‘when two bull elephants fight each other over control, it is the
people that are trampled.’ Your leaders are the bull elephants, and blood will
be the result.”
The felucca came to the island and the Old Man
walked down the plank set out by Kumat. However, the boat shifted, and the Old
Man fell off the plank and landed in the red mud. His hands and robe were covered by the bloody
red muck. Kumat laughed and said, “Now it looks as if you are covered with
blood. You and your God create disturbances, and blood is the result of your
challenge of the way things are.”
The Old Man said, “Indeed there will be blood. There
have been centuries of the blood of the oppressed, and now there will be the blood
of those who have benefited from the evil done on their behalf. My wife once
made a joke that I was truly a bridegroom of blood for her. My hands are full
of blood, for the innocent will die as well and the cries of the poor will
resonate with the cries of the powerful having their hopes destroyed.”
Kumat recoiled. “So, your God is like all the other
Gods who rely on horror to cow the people into following them, glorifying in
terror that demands the blood of the innocent for things they never did.”
The Old Man: “My God does not cause that blood to be
shed, but bloodshed is a consequence of the evil that has been done for
generations. We, humans like you and I, are the ones who spend much of our
lives trying to lord it over each other by physical or economic power. Is the
death of a child by lack of freedom or food or medical care less horrific than
a sudden death by physical violence? The second kind of death we call
deplorable, and the first kind of death we call regrettable, but dead is dead either
by things we have done or things we have left undone, and we are all
responsible.”
 |
| Weighing of the Heart from the Egyptian Book of the Dead |
Kumat sighed, “This is true in my religion, where
Anubis takes the “Ka”, the soul of the dead, to the scales and places the heart
on one side and the feather of Ma’at, truth, on the other. If the heart weighs more than the feather, the
heart is fed to Ammit and the soul dies. We are indeed responsible.”
The Old Man agreed. “In the name of my God and in the Spirit of
your God, I have called on this community to repent of the evil of greed and
the neglect of compassion; but you would not. It is now the moment for you to
wake from your sleep, for this is the beginning of months of a new way of
being. Take the blood of a lamb and place it the posts of your house tonight as
a sign that you will shed no more blood by action or inaction, so the angel of
death will pass over your house.”
Kumat replied, “I will not spend my life in fear of
mere superstition. I am content to do my work here on the great river. What have the Hebrews to do with me and me
with them?”
The Old Man sighed. “We are all connected to each
other. There will be weeping in the heavens, echoing the choices your leaders
have made. You and I are different. You are of the land as you have your feet
planted firmly on facts, and I am from the water and have my being in the world
of the spirit. We see the world in
different ways and yet we need each other. I need your solidity and you need my
ability to dream as we meet and have our being in the sacred space between us.
We do not become a “one plus one equals one” - one mass of a combination of
water and land and become mud - nor do we stay always separated, “a one plus
one equals two”. Rather we become “one
plus one equals three” - you, me, and the sacred space between us – constantly,
dynamically, giving to each other new ways of seeing. My God is this way, and I
am called to be in this non-dual way of thinking with neighbor and enemy, who
are both indeed, God’s people with me. When we remember this day in the ages to
come, we will both drink of the tears of memory and ask for the power to
compassionately forgive. There is a song my people sing: ‘For the LORD takes pleasure in the
people * and adorns the poor with victory.’”
Kumat proposed: “May your God and my God find peace
with each other, for we mere mortals seem never to forgive.”
The Old Man said: “It is not for our Gods to make
peace, but for us humans to gather in the name of peace and find the divine in
the space between and within us as we agree to bind and set loose peace here on
earth. That peace will be bound and set free by the name that is above and
beyond all names.”
Kumat waved goodbye and prayed, “May the angel of
death pass over your house this night.”
The Old man replied, “And may you know the peace of
God on this day and forever.”
The
Old Man Crosses the Nile
On the island where
bricks are made
Seeing contempt from
the other side
I hear the cries of the
people
As the truth spoken out
of pain
Seeing contempt from
the other side
Your competing tricks
of competing Gods
As the truth spoken out
of pain
Being an illusion which
seems to happen
Your competing tricks
of competing Gods
The consequence of the
problem
Being an illusion which
seems to happen
Meeting in sacred space
between us
The consequence of the
problem
I hear the cries of the
people
Meeting in sacred space
between us
On the island where
bricks are made
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