Exodus and Deuteronomy

Chapter 1. How Liberating Is the Exodus and for Whom? Deconstructing Exodus Motifs in Scripture, Literature, and Life

3 Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan ChAPtEr 1 how Liberating is the Exodus and for Whom? Deconstructing Exodus Motifs in Scripture, Literature, and Life Watching Charlton Heston playing Moses in Cecil B. DeMille’s movie epic The Ten Commandments along with stories in Sunday School record my earliest recognitions of Exodus. Many have yoked the concept of “exodus” with the liberation of the enslaved, the disenfranchised, those deemed other. Being educated toward the end of segregation and the beginnings of court-ordered integration in southern United States of America, our teachers, churches, and families believed we could do well and we did. Education was our exodus from the stereotypes blasted in the media. I knew about racism, though our parents shielded us from a lot of blatant oppression . Reading slave narratives triggered a rude awakening about the depths of racial hatred. During my master’s studies at seminary and my doctoral work, I began to see and hear the concept of exodus other than liberation. My lived experiences have made me more adamant about justice and liberation issues. Womanist thought provides a powerful rubric that allows me to embrace all my rich experiences, framing my own contexts. Contexts situate us in the particularity of our reality. The received Exodus text speaks of Hebraic liberation—those God said, in conversation with Abraham years earlier, would be in bondage. God then tells Moses to tell Pharaoh to “Let my people go.” What about the plight of the Egyptians who were Pharaoh’s subjects? What was the justification for the premeditated, sacrificial murder of the Egyptian first borns, not limited to Pharaoh’s son? 4 Exodus and Deuteronomy Who is the God of the Exodus, and is this God the same God who created the Egyptians? Why did this God never tell Moses or Aaron to preach to the Egyptians, setting them free from their own systems of divinity? Why did this God insist on hardening the heart of Pharaoh, causing tremendous pain and suffering, so that this same God could get the glory of a redeemer? These questions emerge when I wrestle with Exodus 1–15, particularly given the high regard for Exodus by Jews and African Americans. Sermons, song, and film have chronicled this liberation sensibility. Several experiences of African Americans incarnate an exodus experience, from the great migrations to the North and West during the 1930s–50s to the 1960s civil rights movement. Many historians and sociologists, however, argue that the latter did not really change lives of African diasporan or white poor. While you no longer have to enter from the back door, can eat at the lunch counters, and book a room in a hotel, you have to have an education and finances to access these venues. White flight from inner cities to suburbia and shifting tax revenues away from inner cities helped to keep poor school systems poor and further enhanced wealthy school systems. Such flight by middle class persons of all racial-ethnic groups helped to re-segregate society and heighten classism. That the American interstate highway system most frequently went through Black and Brown communities caused a rift in many historic communities . Thus, the village could no longer raise the child, because the village disappeared. So, who gets liberated when an exodus occurs? My essay problematizes the notion of liberation amidst theodicy, visibility , and poverty in Exodus 1–15. Following the mapping out of my interdisciplinary methodology and context, I then: (1) give an overview and examine themes and concepts of liberation in this pericope; (2) place scriptural exodus motifs in dialogue with exodus themes and outcomes in two novels, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Margaret Walker’s Jubilee; (3) explore the notion of theodicy, poverty, and visibility, in Exodus 1–15 and the novels; and (4) analyze the impact of context on how one hears and engages exodus motifs as living biotexts, as liberation of actual persons. Mapping a Contextual Terrain Womanist theory is a tool to name, expose, question, and help transform the oppression of women, particularly those affected by race and class 5 How Liberating Is the Exodus and for Whom? domination daily. Womanists champion theory and praxis, embracing the struggle for freedom for all people. Freedom is a gift and a right bequeathed by a personal God. Taking the use of language seriously, we engage the politics of language, where words and expressions can inspire or subjugate...