2016 Sermon MLK Weekend Corinthian Baptist Church
2016 Sermon MLK Weekend Corinthian Baptist Church
Some say it is a coincidence of the calendar, but I prefer to view it asBeshert,Yiddish for“meant to be” that every yr.Martin Luther King Jr. Day always coincides in the Jewish scriptural reading cyclewith the Book of Exodus – the biblical book thatchangedthe world. Withthis story, theTorah, or 5Books of Moses,introducedanewparadigmtohumanaffairs. Throughout most of human history, kings & emperors have been granted god-like status. The king was unlike other hu- mans, & the king’s word was law. The Torah, however, posit- ted a Powerintheuniverse that was greater than any king. (Hence “King of Kings” becomes one of the names for GodintheJewishtradition.)This Power created all human beings in the Divine image, thereforeearly Judaism presented a dir- rect refutation to the concept that any single human being couldclaim divine status.
This was a revolutionary concept. No man’s word or whim couldbelaw. Amorallaw transcended even the king’sdesire. Todehumanize any person, to treat themaslesshumanthan oneself, was a desecration of the very essence of creation. The Torah offers a “new world order”: kings & tyrants be- ware! Humans were created to live in freedom & dignity. Do notsubjectsubvert them to your will forpower.” The Torah sends a hero, Moses, to carry the message of this great new understanding, & to lead the oppressed to freedom. But Moses’wayispreparedbyothers–specificallyby2women.
First a little background.
Exodus picks up around 400 yrs.after Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream & became Chief of Staff. In the Torah, Joseph is remembered as the man who helped save not only his family but also all of Egypt.
A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. Most commentators believe that this Pharaoh knew Joseph had saved Egypt, but did not care. He did not let that information change his outlook."Look,"he said to his people, "theIsraeliteshave become muchtoonumerousforus. Come, wemustdealshrewdlywith them or they will become evenmorenumerous, ifconflict breaksout, theywilljoinour enemies, fight against us & “v’alah min ha’retz – “literally rise from the ground” an idiom that means the “Israelites will rise from their inferior state,” or gain ascendancy” [Ex. 1:8-10].
This new King fears the potential power of the Israelites. It is not that there were more Israelites than there were Egyp- tians - it is that there were too many Israelites.To allay his fear Pharaoh implements systemic oppression to discourage any thought of resistance. Pharaoh wanted the people of Is- rael to believe that they, the Egyptians, were the dominant ones, & that their human dignity & worth was dependent on Pharaoh.Pharaoh’s systemic oppression didn’t work.Systemic oppression never works in the longrun. “The more they were oppressed,” scripture says, “the more they multi- plied spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.” This is where we meet the 2 women, who paved the way for Moses.
Itoccurs in 1 small episode that is a turning point in the Exo- dusstory& perhaps in the historyofhumanity. Its heroines areShifraPuah. Wedonotknowwho they were. Scripture gives us no further information aboutthemthan that they weremidwives,instructed by Pharaoh: ‘Whenyouarehelping theHebrewwomenduringchildbirthonthedeliverystool, ifyou seethatthebabyis a boy, kill him;” but if it is a girl let her live.
Ironically, Pharaoh’sfeelingthat girls were of such little worth that he need not fear them was his greatest mistake. For these 2 women, Shifrah & Puah, & 3 other women, Moses’ mother, his sister, & his own daughter, the princess of Egypt, these women led to Pharaoh’s final undoing.But we’re gett- ing a little ahead of ourselves.
TheHebrewdescriptionofShifraPuahasha-m’yaldotha -ivriyot is ambiguous. Itcouldmean“the Hebrewmidwives,” as most translations read it. But it could equally mean, “the midwivestothe Hebrews,”inwhichcasetheywereEgypt-ian. That is howseveralJewishcommentators understand it, arguing that itissimply implausibleto supposethat Hebrewwomenwould have been party to an act of genocide against their own people. Whatwedoknow, however, isthattheyrefusedtocarry out the order: “The midwives, however, fearedGod & did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they letthe boyslive”(1:17).
This act may have been the1st recorded instance in history of [non-violent]civil disobedience.
Refusing, to obey an order, givenby the most powerful man,in the most powerful empire of the ancient world, simply be- cause it was immoral, unethical, inhuman. Their act of couragesavedinnocent lives &eventuallysetin motionaseriesofeventsthatchanged Egyptiansociety(&theworld)forever.
Personally, I especially love that the Torah pits midwives against Pharaoh as the 1st confrontation against oppression.Midwivesservelife.ThatPharaohwouldinsistthatthemidwivesdestroy life highlights his almost total disconnection from life.
In our story, Pharaoh is the embodiment of self-absorbed egomania, like a ruthlessDonaldTrump.The worldexistsonly for his gratification. Shifra & Puah’s lives are other-centered, dedicatedtobringingnew lifeinto theworld. Whenever they bring a baby into the world, they see the face of God, as it were. How could they not revere & be devoted to the won- drous Creator of all? How could they participate in the horror of the king’s decree?
Let’s not forgetShifraPuaharefacedwithalife-threaten- ingdilemma. They cannot defy Pharaoh to his face. He will certainly have them killed. Shifra Puah must resort to the arsenalofthepowerless: by speakingdeceptionto power.And so when the Pharaoh confronted the midwives, they shrewdly used his own racism against him.They shrugged their shoulders in puzzlement & claimed that they were pow- erless to carry out his decree. “The Hebrew womenarenotlikeEgyptianwomen,Ki chayot hey-nathey are like animals. They give birth soquickly, before we even get there.”
Ki chayot hey-nais actually a double entendre: Chayot comes from a Hebrew root meaning‘life’.So, reading be- tween the lines, the midwives were actually telling Pharaoh, “Hebrew women aretoofull of life to be containedby yourplan, or treatedin such a dehumanizing fashion.”
What is also so astounding to me is the matter-of-fact- nessof theentire incident.There is no report of fuss or drama bythemidwives.Itremindsusof1ofthemostsalient findings about the courage of those who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. They had little in common except for the fact that they saw nothing remarkablein what theydid.Often the mark of realmoralheroes is thattheydo not see themselves as moral heroes. They do what they do because that is what a human being is supposed to do. That is probably themean- ing of the statement that they ‘feared God.’ It’s the Torah’s generic description of those who have a moral sense. Thestoryofthemidwiveshasbeenrepeatedanytime the powerful have abused their authority. This means it has been most often repeated on Southern slave plantations, in Naziconcentrationcamps, duringtheabolitionist, civilrightsmovements. Anytime Christians or Jews have gone against thegrainof anunjustcivilsocietythisstoryhasbeenasource ofstrength.Nomatterofresistanceistoo small. You have no ideahowasmallactofdefiancemightendupbeingabigdeal somewhere down the road.Without Shifra Puah, there would have been no Moses to lead the people to freedom, there would have been no people of Israel; there would have been no nation to march on into the Promised Land.
BecauseI am a person of faith,I believe whattheabolitionist TerenceParkersaidJan.29, 1858istrue,“Thearcofthemoral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Just like in the Exodus, action is required to move it along: Pharaohs do not just let their slaves go free! In one of my favorite King sermons, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” Dr King speaks to the need for action:
“Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through tireless efforts & the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time & realize that the time is always ripe to do right.” The truth our heroes’ShifraPuahdidn’tknowwhatwouldcome oftheirdefiance of Pharaoh, though it eventuallysetin motionaseries of events that changed Egyptian society (& the world) forever.
In an essential way, these women’s defiance is the same as when Rosa Parksrefused to comply with the order of the bus driver to give up her seat to a white person in the 1strow of the section reserved for blacks. How could she have known thather quiet actofdefiancewouldset off a social revolution.In her autobiography, Rosa told how when the driver was issuing his demands, she just wanted to protect herself & her rights. The 3 black men near her moved, but Rosa just scoot- ed over towards the window seat.
The bus driver then asked her why she did not get up & move & she told him that she did not feel that she should have to. In her autobiography, Parks wrote, "People always say that I didn't giveupmy seat becauseIwas tired, butthat isn'ttrue.I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was 42. No,the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. I knew someonehad to take the 1st step & I made up my mind not to move.Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it."
The bus driver then proceeded to call the police, who subse- quently arrested Rosa. Her arrest helped inspire the Mont- gomery Bus Boycott. Edgar Nixon, president of the NAACP. Said, thathe“feltthat they had finally founda subjectworthy of being in the middle of a civil rights uprising. Parks was a good, ordinary upstanding, married, & employed citizen who was politically, yet quietly, active in her community.”
Following Park’s historic act of civil disobedience, as we all know here today, a young Baptist minister in Montgomery by the name Martin Luther King Jr. was called by God & his people to stand up for justice.Though reluctant at first, the modern day Moses we honor today,emerged bysuccessfully helping to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. After the Montgomery bus boycott, King founded & led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to coordinate civil rights activities throughout the South.The rest as we say is history.
For the quiet act of defiance that resonated throughout the world, Rosa Parks is known & revered as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement."
Like Shifra & Puah, who figuratively birthed the great hero of the Torah - Moses, so Rosa Parks’ act of resistance birthed the great leader of civil rights movement Martin Luther King. The story of the midwives like the story of Rosa Parks belongs to a larger vision implicit throughout the Bible the civil rights struggles that continue to this day: that right is sovereign over might.
Though,“The arc of the moral universe is long, it does bend towards justice.” It bends becausethe countless acts ofordi- naryanonymous courageresistance maintain the hidden springsof hopehuman dignity, ready for the moment when justicerighteousnessfinallybegintorolllikeamightystream.So all praise to the ShifrahsPuahs throughout history, in this larger Dayton community, around our country & around theworld today;thecountlessresourceful, brave, determined almost always unsung heroes who usually don’t get named in the history books. Without their courage & wits, we would not be here to tell the tale.
While we appropriately laud the great heroes like Moses & Martin Luther King we also honor them by going about our lives being faithful in the little things, doing therightthings even when we are not sure it makes a difference, even when all the odds are against us, even when our hope & faith feels foolish.
We honor them by attending to the people & situations & causes that life puts in front of us: Trusting God to make a way, making lemonade out of lemons & boats out of baskets, crossing lines of difference & indifference, & following thru, —to nurture a new & better future for all God’s people.
Every individualmatters because every human life has pro- found dignity, rooted in our creation in the image of God. As Shifra & Puah show us,each individual counts in the fightforjustice, equality & human dignity against the Pharaohs who would claim otherwise. Whatever the challenge, with hope, courage & faith, “We shall overcome.”
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