Sermon
8-23-20
Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our
Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.
One of the curious side effects of being under lockdown
this spring is having a little extra time to try new things….. in my case, I
downloaded TikTok. I was surprised and pleased to find a substantial subset of
TikTok dedicated to … retelling stories in the Old Testament in 90 second
snippets. Just grab a bathrobe and put a towel over your head, and boom – you
too can be a TikTok star while playing Abraham, Sarah, Moses, David, and others!
Who knew so many of the Gen Z generation was so biblical literate and
creative!
(This TikTok by fellow ELCA pastor is probably the best one for today!)
We can’t help ourselves – no matter what the new
technology came along, be it written word, the codex, the printing press,
radio, television, the internet, email, youtube, facebook, TikTok…. We retell
these ancient stories in these new mediums, because if we don’t know our
stories, then we don’t know who we are.
If you, like me, are making your way through the 90 Day
Bible Challenge, you notice that most of the Old Testament – yes, even most of
the New Testament too – is a remix or retelling of a few important moments in
the history of God’s people. Arguably, the most important one is the Exodus –
the liberation of God’s people from slavery to freedom. Moses – later the hero
and liberator of God’s people – when he first shows up here, he is nothing more
than a tiny, helpless baby in need of the actions of some strong, bold, defiant
women.
This story almost begins like our familiar and favorite
fairy tales –Once Upon a Time, in the faraway Kingdom of Egypt, King Evil
McBad-Guy came to power. He oppressed and enslaved God’s favored people in an
almost Cinderella-like way. They were forced into slavery, making bricks and
building monuments to honor the power of the evil king, for hundreds of year,
with no end in sight. Who will come to save them? A super human super hero? As
it turns out, it was the women who
got salvation and liberation started.
These brave and bold women didn’t leave to go on an epic
quest, fight a dragon, or win a great battle against a powerful army. These
women did small things – small acts of great defiance. And by these small acts,
they began the work of interrupting great power run amok and toppling an
oppressive regime in order to pave the way of the salvation and liberation of
their people.
The work of deliverance began… with two women who
delivered babies. Shiphrah and Puah may not be considered with in “the same league”
as other “Disney Princess / Bible Heroines” like Sarah, Rebekah, Mary, but I
think they should be. The same goes for Moses’ mom. And Moses’s sister. And for
Pharaoh’s daughter, even though only some of these women are given names in the
story.
Individually, their act might not have added up to much,
at a moment in history that must have felt like there was no way forward. But,
in the face of these difficult times, Shiphrah and Puah let the baby boys live,
and used Pharaoh’s already racist believe against him to get away with it. They
refused to do the dirty work of this evil king.
Next, a woman got married, had a baby boy, and hid him.
Not a huge deal, right – what’s one kid saved out of the rest of the boy
children of her fellow moms? And when she couldn’t hide him any longer, this
fierce mamma didn’t give up fighting to give her son his best chance, even when
everything seemed hopeless.
When Pharaoh’s daughter – an actual princess - found the
basket floating in the river, her heart had compassion for this one tiny baby
born of slaves, and used what little power she had at her disposal to save this
one slave child.
In a brilliant twist, the baby’s sister saw her chance,
and spoke up at just the right moment. She had been watching everything, and
she was ready. And so, her mother was given back her son for a brief time,
assured that he would survive and thrive. Together, each woman took her part to
do the next thing necessary. Through all these tiny actions, these women
midwifed the birth of the deliverance of God’s people.
We know the end of THIS story – Moses grows up, leads
God’s people out of slavery, parts the Red Sea, delivers the 10 Commandments,
and ushers the people into the Promised Land after 40 years in the
wilderness.
But, we don’t know the end of our own stories, and we
know that life is not a fairy tale, especially now, when we are facing some
dark times, and anticipating things to get harder before they get better. But
sometimes we forget that there are plenty of moments in fairy tales themselves
when the way forward seems impossible.
Early during the first Coronavirus lockdown, Disney Plus
released the movie Frozen 2 to be available for streaming earlier than
anticipated. So we watched it one night, and some parts definitely exceeded our
expectations. In a particularly dark and frightening moment, Princess Anna of
Arendelle literally finds herself at
rock bottom – laying on the floor of
a cave, having just experienced
heartbreaking loss. “I've seen dark before, But not like this,” she
sings as she slowly picks herself up off the ground, puts her bag over her
shoulder, and makes her way out of the cave, continuing to sing: “This grief
has a gravity, it pulls me down. But a tiny voice whispers in my mind: "You
are lost, hope is gone, but you must go on. And do the next right thing"
Remember, this is “just a children’s movie,” populated
with magical characters including a talking snowman and a fire gecko. But it’s
also more than that. I would hope that our children – and their parents - who
watch this movie might realize that life can be tough even for a Disney
Princess… but this Disney princess can also show us the way through – that to
be strong is accepting and working through our grief. We too can take the next
step and the next breath even though we don’t yet know where it is leading us, and
to take a stand where it is necessary, even when you feel powerless. To do the
Next Right thing. And then do the NEXT right thing. And the next.
Sometimes we will get it Really Right – as Simon Peter
did – for once! - When Jesus asked the twelve disciples “Who do you say the Son
of Man is?” Simon Peter even gets a new name – Peter, Petros, literally meaning
Rock. He got the answer right this time, even though he often – along with the
other male disciples – tend to bumble around pretty cluelessly. Which is more
like how I feel most days, especially right now.
We are in good company as we figure this out. We are not
alone in trying to live in the tough stuff. We have Shiphrah and Puah to be our
models, we have Moses’ mom and sister, we have Pharaoh’s daughter.
If you have been reading along as we wrap up our 90 Day
Bible Challenge, I hope that you have found LOTS of people to be models on our
way along the journey – Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael, Rebekah, Tamar,
Abigail, Rahab, Elijah, Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene, and many, many more. No
one was perfect. But they all did their part, in taking the next step, in doing
their part in the “next right thing,” in continuing God’s Great Story.
We aren’t perfect either, and we can’t guarantee every
step we take will be perfect. But we take our cue especially from these bold
women, and take our place next to them as fellow midwives, witnessing the contractions
of our liberation in the process of being born, as we speak. We do what we can,
as we wait to take the next step, to write the next chapter, to do the Next
Right Thing for our neighbors…. In continuing God’s Great Story.
Thanks be to God, amen.
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