‘Who bakes the bricks?’

This is an important question, from many different points of view. We need to consider who bakes the bricks from an economic perspective, from a practical and social justice perspective, from the perspective of gender roles and unconscious bias. The question of who bakes the bricks becomes all the more important when the people as a whole are asked to bake more bricks with less straw.

Yet at that sort of time, there might be a more urgent question than who bakes the bricks. There might be a calling from someone named Moses, or his brother Aaron, saying ‘set my people free’. There might be an almighty – even an Almighty – struggle going on between the establishment powers and the insurgent powers. The question of who bakes the bricks, which is an important question, might have to take second place to an even more important question, which is: where shall we bake the bricks?

Shall we bake the bricks in the promised land?

The people cry out for relief, for they struggle under the weight of oppression, and their existing leaders are comfortable with the status quo. So strange leaders come among them, who do not have impeccable credentials, one might even be a murderer. Yet the Lord is with them. They are aware that the Lord has decided to liberate his people, he has heard their crying unto Heaven and now look! He is doing a new thing.

Those who argue about the baking of bricks do not know what to make of this. They are trapped within the Royal Consciousness, and the world made by Pharaoh is the only world that they can conceive of. They cannot see the new thing that the Lord is doing. They do know what to do about bricks, though. So they concentrate their time on arguing about the production of bricks, for this too is an important question and it is important to get the right answer. Perhaps we can lead the Hebrews to a new place just outside the city walls, and continue to contribute to the baking of bricks from there? Would that be alright please, Mr Pharaoh?

Where shall we bake the bricks?

The church wrings its hands over Brexit, and seeks earnestly and sincerely for the overcoming of divisions and the reconciliation between estranged parties. If only we could be nicer then perhaps that nice Mr Pharaoh and that mostly nice (but a bit uncouth) Mr Moses can come together in a happy compromise…. Meanwhile the Lord Almighty changes the world and asks those who truly respond to His will to daub the frames of their doors with blood and to get ready to move at short notice.

We in the church have so many great and important questions to wrestle with, questions of justice and economy and sexuality and gender, and these truly are important questions. Yet sometimes what is most important is not to resolve questions such as these but rather to simply listen and pay attention and seek to discern what God is actually doing in a time such as this.

Were we to do this, were we to look up from our parochial concerns and truly take in the newly forming vision for our national life together then perhaps we might agree to not resolve the questions around the baking of bricks for a year or three in order to stride forward with faith into the wilderness, not turning to look behind.

The Church of England doesn’t have a functioning theology of the nation, and this is all the more problematic when questions of nationhood – of where we are to bake the bricks, of what sort of country it shall be wherein the baking of bricks shall be done – are so important. We fret ourselves into frenzied activity trying to show how relevant we are, yet the most relevant and timely claim upon our involvement is one that we are now so ill-equipped to handle. For it is not a question of who bakes the bricks. It is a question of ‘can you see what the Lord is doing?’ and ‘is this not a marvellous thing in your eyes?’

Hear the word of the Lord you peoples of the United Kingdom, for these dry bones shall live again. The Lord is going to destroy Pharaoh and all his works – we have only to stand aside and be still.