Spring Up, O Well!

It's Labor Day.  So here is a biblical story about water and work.

Towards the end of Israel’s 40 year migration from Egypt, the people and their flocks were - as always - in dire need of water. God told Moses, 'you assemble the people; I’ll provide the water.'

The next thing we know, the people are celebrating around a fresh flowing artesian spring. Imagine the ooohs and ahhhs of relief, the laughter and splashing, the cheers of thirsty, sun-weary souls enjoying fresh cold spring-water.

Then everyone burst into a rousing rendition of an old folk-song, "Spring up, O Well!"  In case we don’t know the song, the writer quotes a couple of lines:
Sing about it,
about the well that the princes dug,
that the nobles of the people sank—
the nobles with scepters and staffs."
It’s a song about an unusual work project where the nobility rolled up their sleeves, climbed down into the pit and dug until they found water.

When the Queen plants a tree or the prime minister flips burgers at a summer BBQ, it’s a photo-op – the elite among the commoners, affirming their work. But when celebs set aside privilege and immunity and get dirty and sweaty, scratched and bruised and weary, that’s worth a song.

Sometime in the distant past something like this occurred – princes got involved using their ceremonial scepters as prybars and pikes, digging a well. Chiefs didn’t just commission the work; they engaged in it side-by-side with their people. They closed the status gap; they led by example and shared the prize at the end.

And a song was born – a song that entered Israel’s psyche as an ideal – the notion that leadership involves hard work and that the rich would not enjoy privilege at the expense of those who worked for them.
  

Survival of the Fattest , Copenhagen2009

I wonder . . . if this is why Yahweh told Moses to “gather the people together”. As they prepared to enter settled society in a new land, God reminded them of his vision of a just and flourishing society.

This song foreshadows the example of Jesus who said,
"Kings like to lord it over their subjects and adopt prestigious titles. Don’t be like them. The highest among you should be like the lowest; leaders among you must learn to serve, just as I have been a servant among you."  Luke 22

A society that lives like that will always be a well-spring of joy and hope. 

Happy Labor Day!