>Exodus
Let My People Go
Daniel Berrigan
with a foreword by
Ched Myers
EXODUS
Let My People Go
Copyright © 2008 Daniel Berrigan. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf & Stock, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Cascade Books
A Division of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
isbn 13: 978-1-55635-105-1
eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-7038-0
Cataloging-in-Publication data:
Berrigan, Daniel.
Exodus : Let my people go / Daniel Berrigan. With a foreword by Ched Myers.
xiv + 168 p. ; 23 cm.
isbn: 978-1-55635-105-1
1. Bible. O.T. Exodus—Commentaries. I. Myers, Ched. II. Title.
bs1245. 53 .b47 2008
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Whither bound
we know not.
And yet
we know.
Foreword
The first time I heard Daniel Berrigan speak was early in 1976 at the Newman Center in Berkeley. National myths were already running hot and heavy during the country’s bicentennial, touting imperial grandeur wrapped in noble innocence. Dan, however, was talking about America in terms of Babylon, reading John’s Revelation and the newspaper synoptically.
I was a new convert to the faith, intrigued by the Bible but aghast at the church and searching for some version of the tradition with backbone and balls. I left that evening knowing I’d heard a gospel to be reckoned with. I was never the same. Dan became a mentor, true north on my discipleship compass.
To put it plainly: Many of us would not be members of the North American faith-based justice and peace movement were it not for Dan’s showing and telling of the gospel. For five decades he has opened political spaces through public witness, ignited theological imagination with his pen, and given us language of sanity and grace in a time when lies are sovereign. These kaleidoscopic gifts have helped us find enough courage to embrace something of the Way.
Exodus is the latest in Dan’s venerable series of biblical reflections in which he blows the dust off sacred scrolls long buried in the cellars of a compromised church, blinks bemusedly at our pretenses of discipleship, and refuses to concede an inch to imperial shock and awe. It is vintage stuff from a prophetic reader of prophetic texts.
¶
The last thing the Risen Jesus said to his disciples, before he was swooped like Elijah up into the heavens, was that the life and death of the church would depend upon its biblical literacy. Luke’s Emmaus Road story reports that “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted the scriptures to the disciples” (Luke 24:27). The verb here is diermēneuen, an intensification of the word from which we derive “hermeneutics” (the art of interpretation). In every other appearance of this verb in the New Testament it means “to translate from one language to another” (Acts 9:36), especially the interpretation of ecstatic tongues (1 Cor 12:30; 14:5, 13, 27). The Risen Jesus is, in other words, portrayed here as a patient translator of counterintuitive biblical wisdom into a parlance that his demoralized disciples can fathom.
This inaugural Bible study in the history of the church makes it clear that the prophetic tradition should be the lens through which we make sense of our national history. Israel’s prophets were forever engaging the way things were with the vision of what should be: questioning authority, picketing palaces, refusing to settle, interrupting business as usual, speaking truth to power, giving voice to the voiceless, stirring up the troops.
The prophets were accused of treason in times of warmaking for being an inconvenient conscience, and were inevitably jailed, exiled, or killed. Only after they were disposed of did they become nostalgic celebrities, honored with national holidays and street names. As in our own context with Martin, César, Dorothy, even Dan’s own brother Phil once canonized, thereafter ignored. Nevertheless, insists Jesus, it is these very prophets who teach us how the sacred story should be read. Their witness, though first maligned and then mystified by those in power, represents the “hermeneutic key” to the whole tradition.
Luke reiterates this point later in Jesus’ upper room appearance to the cowering disciples. “Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:45). The two verbs here tell an interesting story. Dianoigō elsewhere in the New Testament refers to the opening of deaf ears (Mark 7:34f), of a closed womb (Luke 2:23), of blind eyes (Luke 24:31), or of a hardened heart (Acts 16:14). The verb “to understand,” meanwhile (suniemi), means to bring together all the data—to “connect the dots,” so to speak. In the New Testament it is usually employed to describe those many situations in which disciples are unable to make such connections (e.g., Luke 2:50; 18:34; Acts 7:25). Both verbs are specifically connected in the gospels with the story of the call of Isaiah (Isa 6:8–10), in order to remind us that the reason we fail to understand the prophetic Word is ultimately because we are unable or unwilling to change our way of life.
The prophets exhort us to defend the poor; but we lionize the rich. They assure us that chariots and missiles cannot save us; yet we seek refuge under their cold shadow. They urge us to forgo idolatry; but we compulsively fetishize the work of our hands. Above all, the prophetic Word warns us that the way to liberation in a world locked down by the spiral of violence, the way to redemption in a world of enslaving addictions, the way to genuine transformation in a world of deadened conscience and numbing conformity, is the way of nonviolent, sacrificial, creative love. But neither polite religion nor society is remotely interested in this—which is why Jesus had to “translate” and “midwife” the prophetic insights for his companions in their historical moment.
Dan has done the same for us in ours. As this reading of Exodus attests, he has a keen eye for both text and context, and exegetes both with his life. Thus does he help us shed our denial, connect the dots, and move from our pews to the streets.
¶
The unique poetry of both Dan’s words and deeds has made an extraordinary impact. It has animated discipleship communities of resistance and renewal to an extent none of us can tally or fully fathom. In particular, he and his co-conspirators singularly helped rehabilitate the prophetic tradition of embodied symbolism in public space. For this Dan holds a special place in the history of social change movements.
Actions at Catonsville (1968)
