An alien in a foreign land

Today we move on. Today we look at Exodus 2:15-21. Today is a new day.

Yesterday we heard how Moses killed an Egyptian in anger (in part righteous anger but uncontrollable nevertheless) who was beating a Hebrew slave. Now it is time for Moses to move on – to run away and escape from Pharaoh who wants to kill him (and must feel totally betrayed – after all, he had welcomed Moses into his home and his own daughter had been like a mother to the boy).

And now it’s time for a heroic act from our Moses. Seven sisters come to the well where he is resting and are chased away by local shepherds and

Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.  Exodus 2:17

How can someone who has committed murder now do something so compassionate? Maybe both acts stem from a desire to stand up for the underdog. It just highlights how every human being is capable of acts of extreme good and evil. There is compassion to be found in every individual. We are all made in God’s image and ‘the divine in me bows to the divine in you’, remember?

When the girls return home, they tell their father –

An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds.  Exodus 2:19

An Egyptian. Even though Moses was born a Hebrew and felt like a Hebrew, he looked like an Egyptian and came across as an Egyptian and talked like an Egyptian and walked like an Egyptian (excuse the corny song link to put a smile on Andy’s face!). More on that in a moment.

The girls’ father cannot believe that they have forgotten THE number one golden rule – hospitality –

Where is he? Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat. Exodus 2:20

In my dreams!

I think a lot of people these days have forgotten about hospitality. Andy and I were brought up on it. Many Sunday lunches and most Christmases, when Andy was a kid, his grandma used to invite anyone and everyone to join them for lunch – anyone who would otherwise be alone…..which often led to some very interesting topics of conversation and heated discussions! My parents would often invite people round for a meal – and my dad is 86 and still does! At least once a week, he orders in a takeaway to share with a family or takes someone out for a meal. So we both have always naturally adopted an open door policy. We have our friend Rita from church every Sunday – she has been coming pretty much every week for approaching ten years! The meal is not always the best; the family arguments are not always nice to witness; the entertainment is not always the most exciting – but she has a place to come and relax and do a jigsaw and potter around and eat with a family.

We find it easy. We know that. We were raised that way. Others find it much harder, I know that. When a group of friends started doing a film night in each other’s houses once a month, I know it was a massive deal for some of my friends to open their door and let people in to their home. Our society does not encourage it. It encourages us to be suspicious of other people and anxious of how they will judge us and our homes. But hospitality does still matter. Loneliness is one of the massive issues in our society and is linked to all sorts of mental health issues. We need to be challenged to open our doors and invite people in…….

Reuel does more than that – he offers his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage! They have a son and name him Gershom, saying –

I have become an alien in a foreign land.

We have already talked about this in ‘They’re taking all our jobs!’  There are plenty of people all around us in Britain today who must feel this way. It is our job to make them feel welcome and accepted. I really believe that – it seems to be what God has been saying on this journey so far – that’s why I struggle so much with all the racist posts on Facebook about Burkas and pork dinners and homeless soldiers which are downright nasty and generalise about issues that are complex and difficult, but needed to be addressed with wisdom and compassion, not vitriol.

My final point for today is that there are many other people who feel that way – who have lived here their whole life, in the same part of the world or town or community and yet still feel isolated and different and like they don’t belong. I grew up feeling actively encouraged to be different. We were part of the Brethren church, which had a more extreme wing called the Exclusive Brethren who believed it was right to live as separate from the rest of society as possible and not be tainted by ‘the world’ and the people in it. We were not that extreme but there was still that feeling that we should not have close friends (and definitely not boyfriends) who were not Christians (unless we were out to convert them); we should not enjoy the things of this world; we should be above reproach; we should be seen to be different. I found this hard because I love people and I love books and films and music and the things of this world! So I ended up feeling I didn’t belong anywhere. I didn’t come up to the standard required by my church however hard I tried and ‘being me’ was not acceptable. And yet I could never relax into being myself in any situation or in any group of friends. I’m sure this all contributed to my feelings of isolation and depression that started in my teenage years and that I have carried with me through most of my life. Finally now I am approaching 50, I have found a way to be set free from these expectations and have discovered the freedom to be me (warts and all) and feel accepted by others and by God – and by myself!

Sometimes we find ourselves as an alien in a foreign land – in a room full of people with degrees when we feel uneducated; the only gay colleague in a workplace; feeling deeply depressed when the whole world is smiling; a single person at a party full of couples; someone with no children at a coffee morning of women discussing their kids; a person with little or no faith in a church;  an introvert with a crazy bunch of extroverts……….. Let’s actively look out for the outsider and draw them in – be interested in them, be accepting of them, love them for who they are. Find the common ground. We are all created in God’s image.  There is always common ground. Look for what unites us rather than what makes us different – even if it is just a love of donuts or doing a jigsaw or laughing at funny cat videos on Youtube.