If God is good, he asked me, if God is good and what God creates is
also good, how is it that we ended up as slaves in Egypt? It is the
Passover; we are telling the stories of God's goodness to us in
rescuing us from slavery, and he asks this. If God is good, and if
everything that God creates is good, how is it that we were ever
slaves in Egypt?

Yes, that is the question. It is a good question, the only question.
We know that God is good. So how is there so much evil in the world?
Yes, that is the question.

What did you say to him? How did you answer this question?

I said to him, I will tell you how this came about. But first, do you
remember the poem, "In the beginning"? He said, do you mean the poem
about the seven days? Yes, I said, that is the one. Do you rememeber
it? And he recited this poem to me.

"In the beginning". This was wise. You set before him the truth that
the sovereign Lord is the beginning of all things, that all order,
all life, all relationship comes first from God, and that matter and
order and life and relationship are good in their essence.

Yes, every created thing is good, is of God. More than that, too. For
when all of creation is complete, when at last even human beings are
in the world, then all of it together is more than good. Creation all
together in all its relationships is very good.

So I had him recite this poem to me as a preface to the story, and I
said to him, remember this as I tell you the story. Remember that God
is good, that God has created a world that is good. And now I will
tell you how it is that we became slaves in Egypt.

						[July 2015]