Hope and Freedom

Our spiritual formation class this fall has been studying and discussing a video series entitled Living the Questions. The ideas are intriguing, especially when we discuss the three major theologies of the Bible: the exodus, the atonement, and the priest (or redemption) models. One of the speakers on video this past Sunday was an African-American scholar who focused on the first model: liberation theology. She has now realized that, instead of being a story focusing on God's great deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt, it is much more complex. It is complex because she is now thinking of her ancestors, who likely were those whose first-born children were slaughtered during the passover and who were drowned in the Red Sea. What was their perspective of the plagues, she wonders.

When we think of the Hebrews in slavery during their time in Egypt, it is easy to see why they needed to be free. Who would like to do hard, physical work every day for impossible-to-please taskmasters and given onions and leeks as a steady diet? Moses was to lead his people to a promised land of milk and honey. In the forty year process of being in the wilderness while trying to arrive at their destination, they were given not only the ten commandments but also a multitude of other laws that they were expected to keep. The people mumbled and grumbled and disobeyed so much that the second generation was given the privilege of living in the new land but not the older generation, not even Moses.

The Buddhists evidently believe in the idea that until one loses hope, he or she has no freedom. How can this be? Some would even say that disobedience is the true foundation of liberty; the obedient must continue to be slaves. In other words, as long as we are tethered to God's laws, we have no real liberty. It is only when we become self-actualized and empowered that we can be truly free and, therefore, bring help to others who are oppressed.

I am not able fully to wrap my mind around these new ideas, but I am intrigued and challenged to think more deeply about the exodus and the concept of liberation theology.