Hard and Holy Work
A Lenten Journey through the Book of Exodus
By Mary Alice Birdwhistell and Tyler D. Mayfield
A Review by Dwight A. Moody
Lent has never been an important season of my Christian life, but this book may change that.
I ordered it because co-author Mary Alice Birdwhistell once sat in my office and interviewed for a scholarship to attend Georgetown College. Four years later she graduated with great honors and went on to ministerial formation and education in Texas. Along the way, she became AoP’10, meaning she preached in the inaugural Festival of Young Preachers, sponsored by the Academy of Preachers (which I launched and led). Now she is pastor of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville and doing a bang-up job.
One of her parishioners helped her write this book. More accurately, they are co-authors of the book, which makes sense because he, Tyler D. Mayfield, is a professor (of Hebrew Bible) at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Which helps, because this book is a treatment of one of the prime pieces of literature in the ancient world, Exodus.
Exodus tells the story of a journey, and Lent is often perceived as the “journey to the cross” preparing the believer to encounter God once again in the death and resurrection of Jesus—Good Friday and Easter.
The book is divided into two parts. There is a chapter for each of the six weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter. They are short chapters, making for a short, 100-page book. I intended to read the book slowly, over the six weeks, meditating through each of these six chapters. But I could not. Once I started, I could not stop. There are too many insights, too many wonderful phrases (“a day dedicated to dust”), too many short stories to put it down. My journey to the cross took all of 36 hours!
Week two of the journey called us to “pay attention” and week six encouraged us to do “the next right thing.” These two made me slow down and think and resolve to do some things. The murder of Breonna Taylor was a pivotal episode in the life of Louisville, Highland Church, and these two ministers. I connected with their grief and their anger because a month earlier (on February 23, 2020), in my small-town neighborhood, Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down. It was a hard year, as we all remember. But it helps make for compelling writing and reading. It is a bumpy road to Calvary.
The other part of the book is the self-help, group-help feature, which they call Paying Attention, Sharing Together, and Taking Action. In a decisive break from a life-time of book learning, I actually read every word of these brief guides. “Paying Attention will ask you to be present to God, to Scripture, to the world around you, and to yourself” (8). Normally, I need somebody to rope me down for such exercises, but this time, not so much. No, I did not slow down as much as I am sure they wished; but I did think about all these things. “Research the sacred geography of your own community” (12); “Think of a moment when you failed to notice” (37); “Where specifically are you finding holy ground this week?” (55); and “If God is with us, why does the world seem to be falling apart right now?” (99).
The world is falling apart, and it unnerves this old man. But I am encouraged when younger adults like Birdwhistell and Mayfield take their impressive gifts, filter through the biblical story, and speak them into the minds and imaginations of faithful people who gather in sanctuary and seminary in an effort to follow Jesus. His world fell apart, for sure, and those Hebrew people following Moses through the water and the sand were marching straight out of their world. Into nothing they had ever known. We all need help, and this book offers help, and I urge you to make it part of your Lenten journey, this year or next. Because next year, the world will still be in a perilous state, and we will still be following Jesus and needing help doing it.
