Late is the Hour

Exodus 21:5-6 ESV

But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

In reading the book The Civil War – as a – Theological Crisis Mark Noll points to the reality that the church in the United States was never able to come to conclusion on slavery. For decades prior to the Civil War pastors and theologians from the north and south would come to scripture and try and determine what God thought of slavery. The crux of the matter was that God clearly allowed slavery and therefore it was hard for the north to say God clearly condemns it. A few were able to make reasoned argument that, as practiced in the south, slavery was evil, but their arguments would never gain traction.

One of those passages that clearly show God allowing slavery is this text. I would also point out that this passage clearly shows God isn’t talking about chattel slavery as practiced in the United States. Nonetheless, here it is. A man sells himself into slavery because he is unable to provide for himself. His master provides for him, room and board, wife, and work. Because he is ultimately God’s he is permitted to go free after seven years, but enjoying the life of being cared for he rejects that and chooses to remain a slave, so a permanent mark is given to him that all may know and he won’t be able to later claim he never chose this fate.

Being an American citizen, I have always looked at this man in disgust and wonder. Why would you choose slavery! God has made us that we might be free. “For freedom he has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1) What kind of fool is this person. How can one come to such a point where they would prefer slavery? He can work and buy his wife and children’s freedom. Why give yourself over to such a fate?

Today, I think I see the man’s position more accurately. I still may think him foolish and unwise but that is the point I suppose. If such a man was unable to provide for himself before, why should he see himself as able to now? He is like the mass of men and women in the United States that bemoan “Adulting” as hard, rather than precious. That whine about how hard it is to get up and work, unable to control their passions they foolishly squander their time on idle pursuits, and find themselves, like the grasshopper, bound to the ant.

Yet, even in this I leave the fault far from my own doorstep. I am able to look down my nose in disgust and wonder. I can ridicule the millennials and think how pathetic they are, but what of my generation? Those with the capitol and experience to own their own business? Lincoln, Kansas is like most small towns in this nation, full of empty downtown stores. Each one used to hold a small business. Men and women willing to sacrifice vacations, weekends, and some holidays that they might be free. That they would be their own boss and slave to no one. Slavery starts to look good when discipline is looked at as hard. I will have another man, even out my income that I don’t have to plan for ups and downs, I will have another man plan for when I will be sick, so I don’t have to. He can help me manage my leisure as well, two days a week, two weeks a year. He can help me know when I am too old to work and give me a pension (or 401k) after I have worked so long.

Is it too late? Have we lost the ability to work, not the ability, per say, but the desire to be our own master, to chart our own course? Do we need to bore a hole in our ear?

“We’re doomed” and with that he exhaled, beaten and came to grips with his fate. But with that breath everything changed and doom was not his fate but hope and victory. Much like Henry the VIII, who did not think it much of a stretch to go from one earthly head, the pope, to another, the state, was much of a change, so is it much of a change to go from trusting another man, or business, with your care to a government?

Last weekend I was blessed by a friend who took our family pictures. We gathered around and ate before going out. I heard of how his oldest wished to own his own restaurant. All I could think was, that’s a lot of work. To my shame I think I even commented as such. In my sin dissuading a young man from hard work and being a blessing to his community. Thinking he had not rightly counted the cost of weekends, vacations, and family, but it is I who have not rightly counted the cost. As a church we must raise men that love work. Not men that pick habits they love and try to make a go at it, but ones that love working and the freedom that comes from it. Men and women who enjoy the challenge of owning their own business and the work associated with it.

Is it too late, for me? This, I think, is what I fear the most. Have I already trained myself to enjoy the blessing of employment more than the blessing of freedom? Is the awl already through my ear? I pray that the hour is only late for, how will my children live free if I cannot train them? How can a generation learn to work if no one showed them the way? If one generation longs for retirement more than work, why should the next generation long for work at all?