Bringing Forth the Holy

Exodus 1:8-2:10:Romans 12:1-8

Trinity Community, United Church

August 21,2011

Rev. Loren McGrail

            The summer has been boiling hot and there are a handful of ways to cool off but the one that I prefer is swimming in cool water. It could be a swimming pool, a lake, or a river but the point is to get into the water and stay there preferably with friends. And so it is with people all over the world in summertime. There is nothing unusual about it unless you are a Palestinian then you cannot just leave the West Bank and go to the Mediterranean for a day at the beach.  You need a permit to enter and those are few and far between.

            And so it is for this reason that every summer, seven now, that a group of Israeli women called “We will not Obey” take a group of Palestinian women from the southern West Bank to the Jaffa beach for the day. The disrobed Palestinian women are smuggled in illegally in violation of the Law of Entry.

            As one of the women said after their most recent trip, “ They, and we, all ordinary citizens took this step with a clear and resolute mind. In this way we were privileged to experience one of the most beautiful and exciting days of our lives, to meet and befriend our brave Palestinian neighbors and together with them, to be free women, if only for one day.” Anna Rubenstein from Tel Aviv put it more sharply, “One day in the future, people will ask, like they did of the Germans, “Did you know? And I can say, “I knew. And I acted.”  Another woman names the action as an act of civil disobedience, “ For 44 years I have occupied another country. I am 53, which means most of my life I have been an occupier. I don’t want to be an occupier. I am engaged in an illegal act of disobedience. I am not Rosa Parks, but I admire her, because she had the courage to break a law that was not right.”

            Like the midwives before them, these women did not do as they were told.  Like Miriam, Moses’ sister, they used their knowledge of the system to out think the system. Like Pharaoh’s daughter they chose to wade in the water and save lives even if it was just for a day.  We are told that the midwives feared God, which is why they decided to defy the state authorities that said they should kill the newborn male babies. These women, Shiphrah and Puah, exploited Pharaoh’s fears that the Hebrews were breeding like animals, too fast to get there in time. They capitalized on this derogatory stereotype and used it as part of their defense. Shiphrah and Puah stood in the royal chambers and defied their king; they let “Pharaoh go” in order to follow their own life giving ways, God’s ways. They resisted the temptation to go against their own values. They refused to kill the children, to let them go. Their non-cooperation with authority paved the way for a mass resistance movement, an exodus toward freedom. Some say they are the first practitioners of non-violent resistance or civil disobedience.

            They may be the first but the Israeli women have made sure they are not the last as witnessed by these courageous law defying swimming women.And there are other women too who are currently working to end the occupation like the Women in Black who vigil every Friday at noon at a busy intersection in West Jerusalem with their large black hands that say in Hebrew and English, “Down with the Occupation.” I had the pleasure a few times to stand with these courageous women who endure all kinds of verbal abuse and insults for their stance against the occupation. Their witness has been going on since 1998. They have inspired women all over the world to take to the streets in the name of peace.

            In defiance of the uncivil ways the soldiers sometimes act at the checkpoints throughout the West Bank, the women of Maschom Watch come every day to observe or intervene. They step forward when necessary and speak or yell back at the soldiers who could be their sons when something is going down that is not right by moral or international law. As members of Pharaoh’s court they are able to speak to Pharaoh’s soldiers in their native tongue, in Hebrew. They are able to not only call them out but to remind them of their conscience or their humanity, their ethics as Jews.

            All of these women refuse to conform to the powers of this world. Instead they have chosen to transform it by re-membering that all life is holy and deserving of respect. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Most people are thermometers that record or register the temperature of majority opinion, they are not thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society.”  It is not easy to resist being conformed to this world, to allow ourselves to be transformed by the renewing of our minds in order to discern God’s will. It takes guts and always a risk. It usually means going up against Pharaoh’s empire or Pharaoh’s unjust laws or both.

            For us here in the imperial United States who care about ending the occupation and standing on the side of justice, freedom, and equal rights, we too have ample opportunities to act. These include but are not limited to exercising “economic leverage”, or demanding our government support international or humanitarian law.

            Like the midwives or Pharaoh’s daughter, we in the United States are members of the court and we have choices about what we will tolerate in our name or not.  Like the women of Israel, we too can choose to comply with the way things are or stand up and speak out for justice and freedom. 

            For example, we can choose to act by withdrawing our support for products and/or companies who profit by the occupation. We can support the Palestinian call for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, a call also seconded by the World Council of Churches. We can petition our representatives to withdraw or limit military spending to Israel thus disabling their ability to maintain the occupation. We can stand up for the Palestinian right to self- determination and demand that our government not veto the Palestinian bid for statehood in the United Nations next month or withdraw funding if they succeed.

Like the midwives and all these strong and ornery women, we too are invited to be God’s redemptive agents in the world, thermostats transforming the temperature of society into one that is more just for all.

            I would like to close with a poem I wrote to the women, our mentors, our leaders.

God of life, you labor with all creation

to bring forth the holy.

Be with us, breathe through us

as we seek to be your midwives

by our acts of nonconformity

by defying Pharaoh and empire

by fearing You and serving life.

Give us the courage to not obey

commands or unjust laws.

Like Puah, give us the words to utter charms

for deep remembering,

breaking silence, truth telling.

Help us to stand tall together

to denounce violence

on every street corner

where military occupation intersects

with excessive force

where war making knocks out peace.

Help us to speak to our soldier children

at all the checkpoints in our lives

with the power of a loving mother

who knows how to call back her own

or to defend others.

Give us the courage to cross boundaries

to enter familiar or new territories

to let go of privilege

to disrobe

to wade in the waters of freedom

to swim with abandonment and joy

God of life, you labor with all creation

to bring forth the holy.

Count us in.