My Sunday school class spent several weeks studying Exodus. From the first story of Moses in the -bulrushes, I was swept into the drama of bricks without straw, the plagues and, most of all, the Red Sea. 

When I was young, there was a children’s historical fiction book titled Henry’s Red Sea. The protagonist, Henry, was a boy fleeing Soviet Russia after World War II with his family and Mennonite community. 

At the climax of the story, their train was stopped at a checkpoint. Powerless, the Mennonites can only hope for a miracle. 

Like the miracle at the Red Sea, God acted: The border gate lifted, and Henry crossed to freedom.  

I thrilled at the story’s danger and deliverance. My childish heart longed to be Henry and have such a thrilling experience. In truth, I felt a little cheated. Henry was Mennonite, and I was Mennonite. Where was my Red Sea? 

As I contemplate the story of Exodus decades later, I still struggle to fully identify with the Israelites. I’ve never experienced persecution as a persistent reality, nor a decisive act of liberation.

I shared these feelings in Sunday school — hoping, frankly, for some empathy and encouragement. 

Turns out, everyone else was way ahead of me. Not only did they not identify with the Israelites, they assigned us all to Pharaoh’s team.  

One woman said, “I think we are the people God would be wanting to drown.”

I was taken aback. In the most miraculous deliverance story ever told, we’re the bad guys? 

I need to back up a bit. Pharaoh is the personification of evil, despotic rule that denies and defies God. For the people in my Sunday school class, this includes societal systems that keep the powerful in power and everyone else in their place. 

If the Egyptians are the haves and the Hebrews the have-nots, then yes, we belong in a gold chariot, moving through the world in a bubble of protection and privilege. 

I’m uneasy, however, about the Exodus story being interpreted that way. Exodus 15 tells us Pharaoh was in direct opposition to God. Pharaoh and his riders boasted of the ways they would hurt God’s people. Pharaoh is called God’s enemy. 

I left Sunday school with a heavy heart. God went to all the trouble of establishing blood covenants and the concept of redemption. God sent prophets and worked miracles. God, the Creator of all things, became the Passover lamb because God loves us and desires our freedom. And still, we believe we are not worthy. We are bad. We are Pharaoh. 

Surely this grieves the heart of God.  

Identifying with Pharaoh not only means we miss God’s redeeming love, but we paralyze our ability to act for God. 

After Moses returned to Egypt, we are told several times, “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” I believe this is the ancient writer’s way of saying Pharaoh cannot be redeemed. There is no hope for him. 

By identifying with Pharaoh, we accept this same fate. In a tragic twist of logic, our deep desire for justice and mercy toward others denies God’s mercy toward us. 

We cannot move forward into the sea to do the work of God, breaking cycles of violence and systemic injustice, because somewhere deep inside we don’t believe we’re capable. 

My classmates were not wrong that we live in an unjust world and need to recognize our personal culpability in that injustice. 

But I’d like to pick a different character in the Bible with which to identify. A Pharisee. 

The Pharisees cloaked themselves in self-righteous piety. They controlled the economy and political systems. They “enslaved” others in order to be wealthy and powerful. They were, by and large, a pretty nasty bunch. 

But unlike Pharaoh, they were never God’s enemy. They were drawn to Jesus, always hanging around the edges of crowds while he taught. Jesus reached out to them time and again. Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came with questions and became a believer. Some were leaders in the new Jesus movement, sharing their possessions communally and taking the good news beyond their borders and to all people. 

Pharisees could change. 

When I am trapped between the sea and Pharaoh’s army, I take heart that God does not, actually, want to drown me. 

God wants to send me through terrifying walls of water and eventually out of the tomb, freed to love as God does.