Defiant Love

Exodus 1:8-2:10
August 21, 2011


“Then a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”


The Hebrew people have met a huge bump in the road. Here they are in Egypt and the last we heard about them back in Genesis, they were doing very, very well. They had thrived in Egypt under the ruler who had known Joseph. But time has moved on, new generations of people have been born and as Exodus begins a new king sits on the throne, a king who sees the Hebrew people radically differently, a king who did not know Joseph.


What the new king sees is a powerful people, a people who are strong and numerous and mighty. And he feels threatened by their presence. The king is worried that these Hebrew people will rise up against him, fight against him and run away from Egypt. And the new king moves into action the same way so many rulers before and after him have moved. He actively seeks to oppress these people in an effort to subdue them, to let them know who’s boss. Threatened and fearful, the king’s anxiety level increases dramatically which causes him to treat the Hebrew people ruthlessly, unjustly and disdainfully. And for a moment we wonder what will become of them.


Enter the women. When the king sends out word to the midwives Shiphrah and Puah that all baby boys born to the Hebrew women are to be killed, the midwives do not do what the king of Egypt commands them to do and let the boys live, knowing it might cost them their lives. These midwives in their radical devotion to God and maternal instincts seem to show no fear toward the king and use their power to bring forth life. On the other hand the king shows a deep fear of the Hebrews rebelling against him and tries to use his power for death. As the story moves along we see a Hebrew mother who chooses life for her son and a sister who chooses life for her brother as she places him in a basket among the reeds on the Nile. Soon after, Pharoah’s daughter sees this Hebrew baby and has compassion for him. What the king is determined to make bitter, these women make sweet. What the king is determined to divide, the women unify. It is as if there is a silent conspiracy of women, women who all in the face of great danger and at great risk, choose to defy the king, the deadly force, and choose life. And what is behind that choice of life is a defiant love, a divine love.


I remember a friend of mine telling me of a time when he, his wife and very young children were driving down the road in their car; the children were in the back seat. At some point, early in the journey no doubt, the son whined to his father about his sister, “She’s looking out my window!” The young boy had no idea at the time that his statement was so representative of the human condition. What the young boy saw was something rightfully his, his window being invaded and he felt threatened by it. He was already locking into the self-serving life!


The Hebrews’ liberation story is in direct conflict with our story of individual consumerism. The Exodus narrative commands us to switch stories if we have not already, to consider where we see oppression and act upon it, to alleviate suffering, to be bearers of God’s liberating power in the world. That we as individuals and as groups of people can be so easily threatened when we don’t get all that we think we are due often exposes a vulnerability within and a tendency to want to crush the threat, even if by passive means, which can lead to denigrating, oppressing and devaluing people. When we oppress or devalue others we cut ourselves off from our maker and fail to see God’s image in ourselves and in one another. Our world becomes smaller as we cut off life. This text from Exodus is calling us to see those in our midst who are hurting, who are oppressed, who are devalued, to see them the way the women in our story saw and make a way to give life in the midst of oppression, to use our power for good. Just as God acts through the courageous women of this story, God calls each and every one of us to be agents of social transformation, to bear light, to bring freedom and justice to those who have no voice.


This week at Trinity, many have been God’s agents of justice and love. One member has been writing her congressmen and even the President to express concerns about justice; your rector has been planning a 9/11 Commemoration service, which will include praying for all of us to be peacemakers; one member has begun organizing a fundraiser for our friends at a church in Honduras when he saw the need and heard that they would like to replace their dirt floor with a tile floor but lack the funds; just this week parishioners and friends from the community served over 150 meals to friends in our midst who cannot afford lunch right now; many parishioners in their work as teachers, nurses or just plain people reached out to the hurting to sweeten that which was bitter, to unify that which was divided and to lift up those who have been torn down.


It is a dangerous thing to allow ourselves to be God’s loving hands in the world. He won’t give us all the answers, sometimes He won’t let us even see the results, sometimes we don’t get a pat on the back, worse yet sometimes we suffer because we love! He requires a radical devotion for us to be his agents for love and justice in this world. And we do it because even though it seems mad at times, it is through the giving of ourselves that we become fully human. It is in giving of ourselves that we become our true selves. Jesus knew and understood this fully. He reached out to the loved and the unloved but seemed to have had a special eye for those who had no power, no voice and was willing to give his very life for all that we might all be redeemed through that love. Look and see and do what Jesus did..love!


Hadewijch of Antwerp, 13th c. poet and mystic:


The madness of love
is a blessed fate;
and if we understood this
we would seek no other:
it brings into unity
what was divided,
and this is the truth:
bitterness it makes sweet,
it makes the stranger a neighbor,
and what was lowly it raises on high.


Love is madness? Maybe. Love anyway. With every act of love, God’s salvation is at hand.


Amen.