day no. 14,287: suffering or sumptuousness?

Exodus 2:11-15

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.

Moses chose to identify himself with the suffering of slaves rather than the sufficiency of sumptuousness. He deliberately stepped out from under the luxury of licentiousness and joined the abuse of the abject. Moses was stirred to do something. He knew enough to know that something ought to be done and that if he didn't, no one else would. So he acted. He defended the poor, the abused and abased. He used his strength to defend the weak. He did check to see if anyone was looking, but either overlooked someone or assumed the ones he saw were on his team. Moses was astonished to discover later those he had rescued tattled on him, their deliverer. Perhaps this trial run as rescuer is what later led to his sheepishness in accepting God's commission. Perhaps not. But either way, he made a move in boldness only to be met with ingratitude and treason. And it would be to these very ungrateful, treasonous people that God would call him to deliver on a much grander scale as we shall soon see.