I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.
Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did, as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.” We must not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. And do not complain, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Therefore, my beloved, flee from the worship of idols. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.
There is a relatively new aspect to the culture war that has been happening in the United States for decades. It is the controversy over history, historical revision occurring over slavery and what followed, and in other ways as well. History is complicated. You can’t paint anything or any person as black or white. There are various shades of gray with everything and with all of us.
We don’t do well to brush off or set aside faults of the present or the past, though we are surely often blind to some if not much of that. In a system in which, unbeknownst to us, we take for granted privilege that others don’t have, we can be mostly or entirely unaware of the gap between us and others, the advantage we have that others don’t. As someone has well said, we’re not guilty, but we are responsible for what we do with this today. We need to become informed and then we need to address this not only in the way of charity, handouts, but in seeking to change the system and redress wrongs done, a project which will include the nation, all of us together.
Paul pointed his finger at the story of Israel in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament as important for believers in his time, certainly inclusive of us today. If we don’t pay attention and learn from the past, we’ll repeat the same mistakes, even fatal missteps done then. As it is said, history may not repeat itself, but it can rhyme. Certainly the believers in Paul’s day were not in the exact situation as Israel of old with Moses, but idolatry and its results were and are most surely present.
None of us are off the hook in this regard. This is an individual matter, but even more, communal. We’re in this together and we have to think that way, learn from each other, and hold each other accountable. If we think this is strictly an individualistic matter, the result will be piecemeal, relatively little, and likely in the end, negligible. I am thinking about taking seriously issues which affect certain peoples in the United States from what has happened in the past. I am definitely thinking about slavery, how much of US wealth came from that, how systemic racism has evolved over time, right up to the present with “the new Jim Crow.” See also the Equal Justice Initiative. Also the often treacherous (treaties broken), brutal displacement of indigenous peoples.
What Paul was getting at was similar. Learn from the past. Don’t repeat the mistakes made back then. And in the spirit of that, work at righting past wrongs. All of Scripture should be read partly with these kind of things in mind.
Jesus community 