"Subversive Saints" - Sermon from August 21, 2011
The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 21, 2011
“Subversive Saints”
Psalm 124
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” – Psalm 19:14Every once in a while somebody will tell me, “I don’t belong to any organized religion.” I quickly reply, “I don’t either! Mine is about as disorganized as you can get!” I think of one of my favorite short stories, “At the Anarchist’s Convention,” by John Sayles. They won’t wear nametags, refuse their designated seats, divide between one faction that wants to elect next year’s leaders before dinner and another that wants to elect them afterwards, while a third quickly organizes to insist they hold the election during dinner. They’re anarchists! “They always started small, the rifts,” writes Sayles, “a title, a phrase, a point of procedure. The Chicago Fire began with a spark.” They can’t agree on anything and begin to disintegrate until the hotel manager comes to say a mistake has been made, they have to move to a different room. In the face of this external threat, they pull together and organize to resist.Sounds like church to me. I’ve seen progressive Baptist groups almost self-destruct over trivia in the name of democracy until some external threat draws us back together. Problem is, we don’t always recognize the threat.Ephesians says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12). Walter Wink calls it “The Domination System” which seeks to be invisible, reduces the social to the personal, demands conformity, and operates by the myth of redemptive violence as necessary to keeping peace. Sheldon Wolin speaks of “managed democracy” and “inverted totalitarianism” where corporate and state power cooperate to shepherd the people who only think their vote makes a difference but who actually serve the system rather than shaping it.We are, most of us, patriotic Americans. We love our country. We benefit from our culture. But we also profess a deeper loyalty to God, and a higher identity, “Christian,” which is international and multicultural. And we know sometimes our Christian values run counter to our culture’s values, so we feel pulled between loyalties.The principalities and powers have always existed in our own country and beyond. They are too powerful for just a few of us to overcome by direct confrontation. Every attempt to do so, from Babylon ‘til now, has simply replaced one domination system with the next.Hence the importance of the story of Shiprah and Puah for the church today. Say those names with me: “Shiphrah!” That means “beautiful.” And “Puah!” That means “pant” or “breathe,” which is what a midwife tells a woman to do as she gives birth. Shiphrah and Puah along with three other women who aren’t even named start the exodus. They show us how Power always behaves and how God’s people resist it.A Pharaoh rises who “does not know Joseph.” That is, the memory of Hebrew participation in power is long gone. We’re shown: Power fears the powerless. It exploits them. Their labor is necessary to Power, but they are too numerous and might rebel, causing Power to lose control. So Power acts “shrewdly,” as Pharaoh puts it, meaning deceitfully and invisibly. First, the Pharaoh works through spokesmen and intermediaries, tells the bosses to make the Hebrew’s work unbearable so they’ll be too busy and too tired to rebel. But the hard work makes them stronger.So Pharaoh calls the two midwives – Shiphrah and Puah – into his court for a secret council. You’ve seen the imposing, intimidating statues from ancient Egypt which represented imperial power? What if you were summoned to the White House or the Governor’s Mansion? Can you imagine how Shiphrah and Puah feel? Pharaoh instructs them: “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth tiles, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” (Ex 1:16).Power tries to co-opt, seduce the powerless to ally so they might rise above the other powerless, compete with each other for the crumbs. “Kill the boy babies,” Power tells Shiphrah and Puah, because the girls don’t matter. They’re no threat to Power which rules by violence and thus only feels threatened by violence.But these women do matter and they have other ways Power does not respect. First, they refuse to be intimidated or co-opted by Power. They simply refuse to do the evil which Power calls them to do. And when they’re called on the carpet for disobedience they explain: “Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women. They’re animals!” (That’s what the word really means: “Animals!”) “They pop out those babies before we can even get there.” Pharaoh believes this, of course, because it fits his prejudice.But notice how these women defeat Power. Not with violence. Not even with direct confrontation by argument and persuasion. They simply refuse to participate. And they find a better way, by being faithful to God one baby at a time.Frustrated, Power moves from fear to hate, from hidden plots to naked aggression. The Pharaoh tells his people: “Throw all the Hebrew baby boys into the Nile. Who cares about the girls?” Well, the Pharaoh should care about the girls because now three more women – not even named in the story – follow the lead of the midwives and disobey.A Levite man and woman marry and have a beautiful boy. Mom obeys the Pharaoh in a way. She throws baby boy into the Nile, in an “ark” – the word appears only here and in the story of Noah – which brings him safely through the waters. Big sister hides in the bulrushes nearby. Of all people, Pharaoh’s own daughter comes to bathe, sees the ark, knows this is a Hebrew baby boy. Pharaoh’s own daughter knows the decree, but Power is never so completely in control as it thinks. Mom throws baby boy in; Pharaoh’s daughter draws him out. And three women conspire to have this baby boy baptized in the Nile be raised in Pharoah’s own household by his own Hebrew Mom. He is named: “Moshe” – Moses, which means “one who draws out,” for as surely as he was drawn out from the Nile, he will draw out his people from the Nile in days to come.Power poses as almighty, Divinely blessed, eternal, even when it sponsors violence, suffering, and death. But these five women defeat Power and pave the way for the liberation. They don’t do it by resorting to the values of Power, by becoming its shadow image in a mano y mano contest. They don’t raise an army, plot assassinations, or even argue their ideas. Instead, they overcome Power with action, replace evil with good, offer a dying world an alternative new creation.In the Bible being subversive to the chapter and verse of systemic Power does not mean becoming contrarian, negative, cynical, sarcastic, bitter, or divisive. Those are expressions of powerlessness and defeat. No. Being subversive means bringing something new to life. Being prophetic means offering an alternative, creating a choice which shows people a better way.Instead of every one for self the church offers community. Instead of violence as a means to power, the church offers love as a means to health. Instead of avoiding the outcast, the church includes them at the table. Instead of defining your worth by how you dress, what you drive, and where you work, the church defines your worth by the relationships you create and the good you do. We don’t oppose Power by seizing Power. We expose its emptiness and evil. And we propose instead what is beautiful and true and good because it is God’s way and therefore the inevitable, indomitable truth.When you simply refuse to buy into the world the way Power defines it and follow the way of life as God defines it, Power loses its hold on you. As Paul said to the Christians living at the epicenter of “The Domination System” of his day, Rome itself: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2).In his documentary “Weapons of the Spirit,” Pierre Sauvage returns to the village in France where he was born to Jewish parents in 1943. In France in 1943 the Vichy government signed an accord with Hitler that allowed Germany to arrest and deport refugees, which meant they could extend their search for Jews. Le Chambon-sur-Lignon was a tiny Protestant farming village in the mountains of south-central France. Defying the Nazis and the collaborating French government, the villagers of the area of Le Chambon provided a safe haven until the end of the war for whoever knocked on their doors.Most of the villagers were descendants of the Huguenots, the first Protestants in Catholic France. They remembered their own history of persecution, and it mattered to them. They also read the Bible, and tried to heed the admonition to love your neighbor as yourself. The day after France surrendered to Nazi Germany, ” their pastor, André Trocmé, reminded them: “The responsibility of Christians is to resist the violence that will be brought to bear on their consciences through the weapons of the spirit.” In the next few years the 5,000 Christians of Le Chambon saved the lives of 5,000 Jews. The women led the way because they were usually the ones answering the knock at the door and making the invitation to come in.When asked years later why they had done this, the people seemed embarrassed. They did not think of themselves as heroes. They just did what was right, what seemed natural for them to do, what they had always practiced as a community. And their resistance to evil was not expressed by tortured consciences or agonized debates. It was expressed by simple nonviolent action.Are we a community of the Spirit like that? Can we learn from Shiphrah and Puah and three women who prepared the way for God’s liberation long ago? Do we see where Power may be at work against God in our world today even in the name of God to oppress and destroy and uphold the myth of “good” violence? Or has the Power acting invisibly fooled us into joining it, by attaching God’s name to it? And where we see our values are different, do we become bitter and negative and divisive, or do we bring something better to birth among us by the transforming power of God’s Spirit?We are not the Anarchist’s Convention. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, midwives of a new creation, celebrating the second birth into eternal, abundant, shared life. The old ways are passing. Even the old ways of doing church. Even the Powers that once seemed so unshakeable. What is being born among us now that might bring hope and joy and possibility to people whose burdens are heavy, who feel despised and rejected by Power? And what shall we do to encourage this birth? You are Shiphrah! You are Puah! Breathe deep! The church is what’s coming to birth here. You and I are being born again. Say goodbye to the old; the new has come. And the gates of hell will not withstand it. Amen and amen. May we pray?Lifegiving God, stand on the birth tiles with us.The pain is too much to bear.The world has dealt so “shrewdly” with your peoplethat your renewal seems impossible.Fears of economic uncertainty confront us alland seem to limit our choices;Fears of immigrants and strangers in our midstseem to require building walls;Fears about changing traditionsseem to require blocks to new family expressions.We hold on to the past, resist the new, and fail to trust in the tomorrow you bring.Help us to push through the pain and fear.Let us open ourselves to labor with you.Stand on the birth tiles with us.Push us to labor in your love, as we follow the way of our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen.
-Rev. Dr. Larry Bethune