Oct 2, 2006
Just in Case You Thought the Exodus Is Irrelevant
We don’t have the book of Exodus or the story of Israel’s Exodus just for the 10 Commandments. They’re great and everything, but there is so much more to the story.
Apparently, Penny Woolcock, a film-maker in Britain has caught on to that.
Over the weekend “Margate staged an Exodus of its own, re-enacting the Bible story in modern terms with a cast of several thousand local people, a phalanx of film crews and assorted news media and cultural celebrities to help out with the locusts, flies and lice.”
Woolcock stated,
“It haunted me as the subject for a community arts project that I could also make into a film,” she said. “Who are the Jews today? Who are the people we don’t want among us and herd into ghettos, where they wait for release?
“That we settled on Margate was accidental — the result of a misplaced phone call — but it fit the bill. The town had seen better days, morale was low, and the presence of a high percentage of asylum seekers temporarily placed in its empty hotels and guesthouses had generated a lot of social tension. People here knew the issues.” NY times article
And there you have it. The Bible isn’t just a collection of rules and truth. It is a narrative that we can be a part of and that relates to us here and now.
The context of the stories may be foreign, but there is so much that connects with our struggles and desires today.
