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Pharaoh’s anxiety can move communities from their call to care for one another by giving authority over to “professionalism” to assume and meet needs.

Three disabling effects grow from professionalized assumptions of need:

1.  First is the translation of a need into a deficiency. A need could be understood as a condition, a want, a right, an obligation of another, an illusion, or an unresolvable problem. Professional practice consistently defines a need as an unfortunate absence or emptiness in another…
2. The second disabling characteristic of professionalized definitions of need is the professionalpractice of placing the perceived deficiency inthe client…[legitimizing those] human beings whose capacity is to see their neighbor as half-empty.
3. The third disabling effect of professionalized definitions of need results from specialization-the major “product” of advanced systems of technique and technology… [removing] even the potential for individual action. People are, instead, a set of pieces in need, in both time and space. ^[1]

Think of the work you do. What are ways to see those you serve as dignified and not deficient? What are ways to see your work as a community partnership with the whole person, and not expertise that only cares for a part of an individual? How might you let go of the anxiety of Pharaoh and the “professionalism” that creates a vision of scarcity and deficiency; trading that for a vision of a community abundant with gifts, sufficient for serving the needs of the whole?

^[1]John Mcknight. The Careless Society: Community And Its Counterfeits (Kindle Locations 486-517). Kindle Edition.

With reference to the common good, we may formulate a tentative conclusion about the narrative of Pharaoh: Those who are living in anxiety and fear, most especially fear of scarcity, have no time or energy for the common good. Anxiety is no adequate basis for the common good; anxiety will cause the formulation of policy and of exploitative practices that are inimical to the common good, a systemic greediness that precludes the common good. “Orange alert” is a poor beginning point for policy!

By the end of the book of Genesis, we have a deteriorated social situation consisting in Pharaoh and the state slaves who submit their bodies to slavery in order to receive food from the state monopoly. All parties in this arrangement are beset by anxiety, the slaves because they are exploited, Pharaoh because he is fearful and on guard. The narrative of the book of Exodus is organized into a great contest that is, politically and theologically, an exhibit of the ongoing contest between the urge to control and the power of emancipation that in ancient Israel is perennially linked to the God of the exodus.^[1]

Take a moment to reflect on your calendar. What things are urgent and why? What space do you have planned in your life that is not rooted in “solving” “producing” “maximizing” or “eliminating anxiety?”  This shared commitment to the common good will come at odds with the cult of “busy is better” and “more is better.”  Why not call a friend now and plan a space that is not urgent; space to connect about your dreams; space to enjoy food or laughter, space of freedom in which you are not responsible to control the outcome.

^[1]Brueggemann, Walter. Journey to the Common Good (p. 7). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

The dream of Moses sharply contrasts with the nightmare of Pharaoh. It is that dream that propels the biblical narrative. Pharaoh and Moses, along with all of his people, had been contained in a system of anxiety. There was enough anxiety for everyone, but there was not and could not be a common good. The anxiety system of Pharaoh precluded the common good. The imperial arrangement made everyone into a master or a slave, a threat or an accomplice, a rival or a slave. For the sake of the common good, it was necessary to depart the anxiety systemthat produces nightmares of scarcity.^[1]

Notice the nightmares and dreams you come across in your day. What pops up in your smart-phone feed? What is on the news? What is on the headlines of newspapers and billboards?  How often do you see the face of another and anxiously assume they must be only a threat or an accomplice? Why not consider them a neighbor? How often to you sidle up to a story looking for a reinforcing “gotcha moments” or “sign of death?” Why not look for signs of life?

Now notice how these nightmares influence your body. Do they keep you awake at night and asleep to possibilities at day? Do you feel your chest tighten as you read this?

Take a breath and return to Moses’ dream of an abundant community, a common good. Neuroscientists now teach that a negative thought works like velcro, bonding to our memory in less than a second, while a positive thought is more like teflon, taking as many as 15 seconds to bond to memory. If it took 400 years for the children of Israel to be ready to leave, and 40 years in the wilderness to reframe that living memory, what time will it take for our memory of scarcity to be retrained? To prepare to leave Egypt, would you commit to 5 minutes now to simply breath and note the signs of life in your community and relationships? Could you find others to do this with regularly?

^[1] Brueggemann, Walter. Journey to the Common Good (pp. 12-13). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.