This talk was prepared as a video address for the Chapel of Hertford College, Oxford. My sincere thanks go to Mia Smith for her kind invitation. A transcript can be found below.

 

It is hard to escape the language and the implications of the social contract today. A steady stream of newspaper articles argue that we need a new social contract in the wake of COVID-19, while the Black Lives Matter movement in the US and beyond paints a vivid and powerful picture of a broken social contract

The social contract as it is commonly understood today is a modern idea, classically formulated by John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and, of course, Thomas Hobbes of this parish. But it draws heavily on a number of biblical themes, notably covenant and law. Let’s consider two ways in which the Exodus and the Sinai covenant can cast a fresh and constructive light on our current cultural moment.

 

1. Call before contract

Before God makes his covenant with his people on mount Sinai, before the giving of the law, and long before Joshua instructs the nation “choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15) – before all these events, God rescues his people from slavery in Egypt.

In fact the ten commandments of Exodus 20—the archetypal passage headlining how God’s people are to live in covenant relationship with him—begins not with a command but a proclamation of liberation:

And God spoke all these words, saying,

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

—Exodus 20:1-2

God’s rescue from slavery precedes his covenant renewal; his call precedes his contract with his people. Obeying God’s commands is not a condition of being saved. This is in notable contrast to classical and modern social contract theories, where freedom is a consequence of the contract, not its precondition.

The nation is to be freed from slavery before it can enter the covenant. In a similar way, those in our society who are enslaved by debt, or by racism, or are held fast in any of the other modern-day slaveries, are not able freely to participate in a renewal of the social contract until they are liberated from those chains. If we are serious about rewriting the social contract in the wake of COVID-19, then we have to admit and address the slavery that persists in our society. Only free people can be meaningful stakeholders in a renewed social settlement.

 

2. You’re gonna have to serve somebody

The second way in which the Exodus narrative can inform the rewriting of the social contract today is this: there is no absolute freedom. We always serve somebody or something.

Moses’ cry “Let my people go” has ignited freedom struggles down the centuries, never more potently than on the lips of Martin Luther King. The imperative “let my people go” is used seven times in Exodus, and each time it is followed by the same idea: “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” (Exodus 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13, 10:3).

“How ridiculous” our contemporary culture cries! Having just been liberated, why would you go and immediately enslave yourself again by serving God? Yet at the same time that we dismiss this voluntary service of God we are busy enslaving ourselves to the fickle masters of ambition, or reputation, or fame, or power, or even to the ideology of our own freedom.

A track from Bob Dylan’s 1979 album Slow Train Coming captures this biblical truth:

You might be a rock ‘n’ roll addict prancing on the stage
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage
You may be a business man or some high-degree thief
They may call you doctor or they may call you chief
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

So the question ringing out from the pages of Exodus to us and to our society today is not whether we will serve something, but what, or who, we will serve. And its injunction to us is to choose wisely: choose to serve one who loves you, who rescues you, who has committed to you in covenant.

As our society fights and struggles to renew and rewrite its social contract, Christians can prayerfully and humbly model how a covenant community of liberated people from every tribe, tongue and nation can live together under the loving rule of a rescuing God. And we can work for the liberation and the reconciliation that our divided and hurting society needs if it is to rewrite its own social contract in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic.