From there, Moses lives in the legacy of the freedom-bringing, life-protecting midwives before him. He sees, as I imagine he has many times before, an Egyptian slave driver abusing Hebrew slaves and, taking justice into his own hands, Moses kills the abuser. His attempts to do “right” only make his own people afraid of him, and he is forced to flee to a third culture, that of the Midianites in the wilderness. At this point in Moses’s life, it would be hard to see his culture as a gift. His own character flaws, namely his uncontrolled anger and propensity toward violence, prevent his good desire--the desire for justice--from creating peace in the world. His stories don’t seem to serve him as he navigates being a man on the run, going from the royal court to the wilderness. The journey of discovering the beauty of our stories comes as we figure out who we are, who God is, and look at both the failures and successes of our lives to ask where God might be inviting us.
Many years pass while Moses is a shepherd. I imagine the quiet of the wilderness, combined with decades of time, helped mature his understanding of his culture. It is at this point that God calls to him from a bush, knowing who he is in all of his fullness, and invites Moses to use his identity as a multicultural, complex person for the liberation of God's people.
Moses’s life shows us that our stories and our formation matters. As we step into ourselves, messiness and all, we step deeper into God’s story. What is striking about Moses, among many others in the Bible, is that they don’t have control of what shapes them and their culture. They can only control how they respond in each moment. The journey of discovering the beauty of our stories comes as we figure out who we are, who God is, and look at both the failures and successes of our lives to ask where God might be inviting us. When Moses partners with God to emancipate the Hebrews, he does so with the language of power, experience in the wilderness, and a desire for justice for his people.
Making Peace with Ourselves
Moses likely carries his story and experience of his culture with mixed emotions: anger, shame, despair, and hope. He is like us. We may want to be bearers of peace in the world, but may not have taken the time to ask God who we are and who we are being invited to become. God is aware of our stories and the world we live in. He is gracious as we discover how it all works together. We need to lean into this. Some of us, before we can bring peace to the world, need to make peace in and of ourselves.
If we are to know and honor God, it is imperative that we honor the people God creates. This is easy to do in a disconnected way as we seek justice, freedom, and peace for others. It’s harder to do for ourselves. To honor God, we must honor the person and culture that we embody. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is a challenge to love those that you don’t know, yet many of us try without understanding who we are and who we are becoming. Some of us, before we can bring peace to the world, need to make peace with ourselves. Then can we partner with God for the renewal and healing of all things, including our cultural identities.
We start this journey where we are. God doesn’t expect that we would start elsewhere. The journey of becoming who we are is a lifelong one, but the earlier we start to figure out who we are becoming, the more likely we are to honor the beauty of the people and places that formed us. There are countless stories in the Scriptures to guide us, to offer us grace, and to help us see the countless and expansive ways that God works to redeem all parts of his people so they can live at peace with themselves and their world.