One particular Charles Schultz cartoon has remained with me through the years. Linus runs up to Charlie Brown, excited over a football game he has just seen. An unbelievable play with “just three seconds to go won the game for the home team. The fans went wild. They were so happy…hugging and rolling on the ground and screaming. It was fantastic!” Charlie Brown looks at Linus and asks in the final frame: “How did the other team feel?”
The other team in Exodus 15 are the Egyptians who have been cast into the sea.
At the Easter Vigil we sing with enthusiasm:
Let us sing to our God…gloriously triumphant.
Horse and chariot you have cast into the sea.
The floods closed over them,
they sank into the depths like a stone.
In the article “Remembering the Egyptians at the Easter Vigil” (Bible Today, Mar/Apr, 2017), Fr. Craig Morrison, OCarm explores the treatment of the oppressor in the Bible and the violence brought down on those who were not the home team. He cites the Jewish tradition of remembering at the Seder meal the suffering of the Egyptians. In the Talmud “the angels wanted to sing praise to God for the victory over the Egyptians. But God rebuked them, reminding them that the Egyptians are also creatures of God.”
I find it a revelation to do prayerful reading of scripture while being aware of my attitude toward the “other team”. During this year’s reading Pharaoh’s doubts came through to me, and I noticed that he asked of Moses: “Pray for me”. I could hope that a more wholesome attitude would carry over into other situations in which it is tempting to dismiss the “other team”.
Sr. Christa Kreinbrink, OSB
