Raised for Wonder: The Plague of Hail

"So that you may know...."  The drama of the plagues sequence in Exodus is the Lord's revelation to Pharaoh of what he quite obviously doesn't want to know.  לַיהוָ֖ה הָאָֽרֶץ:  the earth belongs to the Lord.  The temptation for human beings is to take that which God has entrusted to them (Gen. 1:26) and treat it as though they had been its makers.  The plague of hail is a mercy to Pharaoh to remind him of his place within the earth, as of it and not over it.  Fit stewardship requires solidarity rather than separation.  And humans are not equipped to "rule" those among whom they refuse to live.  The leaders of the Gentiles lord it over them, but it is not to be so among you.

Shelter: yes. Separation, no.  We are properly over
the earth when we remember that we are of it.
"Remember O man, that thou art dust..."

The earth has been given to human beings, for food, for use, and for shelter.  But we too often forget that the first and most important role of creation is to be a divine gift—to draw us into relationship with a God who gives.  Creation is an invitatio into gratitude.  But the desire to master the earth, to use the earth to shield us from any contact with the earth, has a drastic effect on the way we read the world.  Hence the OT prophetic critique of cities and the cultural decay that takes place in them.  Chronic separation from the earth might make us, eventually, deaf to the heavens and the earth as they declare the glory of God.  And if God has to turn up the volume, that is a frightening reminder that the earth and its maker are perpetually "wild" to us.

In The Lion's World, Rowan Williams notes that the first and most important thing to notice about Aslan is that he is an animal.  The experience of seeing an animal in charge, an animal of such fear-inducing power, is a proper analogue for discovering a God whose relationship to us is as the wholly other.  And this is never more cleary demonstrated than when we attempt to resist our createdness.   The Abolition of Man picks up a similar thread:  "Man's conquest of nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be nature's conquest of man...all nature's apparent reverses have been but tactical withdrawals.  We thought we were beating her back when she was luring us on.  What looked to us like hands held up in surrender was really the opening of arms to enfold us forever."  God brings Pharaoh and us, by a severe compassion, back to the earth from which we have so eagerly alienated ourselves.  And in a paradox of divine judgment, Pharaoh is offered a restoration to his original vocation, to be the strange being of and over the earth.  Thus, when God says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you up to show my wonders," he alerts Pharaoh to the reality that he is earth and as such is bound to declaration of God's glory.  To be human is to have one's own existence given and taken away; insofar as we live, we are raised for God's wonder, willingly or no.  All our attempted mastery over nature has not prevented this.  To resist God is to find oneself fulfilling the human vocation by God in an ironic way.  We are called into being by God; whether or not this is good news depends on our turn of mind, and it is just such a repentance (metanoia) to which the king is invited.