At the press conference held by the family of Jacob Blake,
the young African-American man shot seven times at point blank range by an
officer of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, Police Department, Jacob Blake, Sr., his
father, shouted words that should be self-understood, “He is a human being!” He is a human being. That remained etched in my brain because in
the last month I have read three books which ask the question of what it means
to be a human being. Each book
recognized this question as so critical because what we consider human, we give
“the right to have rights.”[1] Those people we do not consider human, we
suggest they have no right to be at the table, not worthy to have voice and
vote, not worthy to be treated with equal protection under the law, may her
memory become a revolution.[2]
In the Jewish creation story, human beings are created out
of fertile soil (adamah) and Divine breath (ruach)—to be the imago
Dei, the image of God, the shadow of God, in relationship with God’s good
earth. This is the truth of our
existence. You are a wondrous
creation—made in the image of God. I am
a wondrous creation—made in the image of God.
We are a wondrous creation—made in the image of God. Do not let any Pharaoh or Caesar or Sovereign
tell you any different. Repeat that
until it gets deep within you and lodges within you so that absolutely nobody
can tell you any different. We are a
wondrous creation—made in the image of God, God’s shadow in relationship with
this good earth.
After Creator breathes human
beings to life, Creator says, “Be fruitful and multiply.” When Pharaoh seeks to commit genocide against
the Children of Israel in Exodus, Chapter 1, by killing all the male children,
he immediately shows himself to be God’s adversary, contrary to God’s command
in the creation story.
Pharaoh calls for all the
male children to be killed--presumably because he does not consider the females
to be a threat. It is a huge mistake on
his part—evidenced by the strength of the two midwives who break the law in an
act of civil disobedience. They oppose
the genocide. Shiphrah and Puah know
that Pharaoh sees the Hebrews as nothing more than beasts of burden, less than
human, and so they feed his ethnocentrism to spare lives—in the end, the life
of Moses. They say to him that “when the
Hebrew women give birth, they are like lively animals. The child spits right out before they can
arrive on the scene. What can we
possibly do?”
As the story goes, Pharaoh takes their word for it. After all, he has already justified in his
own mind the slavery of an entire people.
They are not human beings like Egyptians are human beings.
We could vest what it means to be a human being with human
rights in empires. But then Pharaoh decides
that the Hebrews are too valuable as slaves to let them go out into the
wilderness to worship their God. We
could, in an age of rights, let nation-states make decisions about what it
means to be a human being with human rights.
But then we need an object of hatred and contempt. So we sterilize African-American and Native
American women, believing them not fully human.
We perform hysterectomies on immigrant and refugee women without their
knowledge, tear children from their parents, and lock families in cages. They are not human beings like we are human
beings—right? We are like
Pharaoh—pretending that we can declare who is made of fertile soil and Divine
breath.
Warning. As a faith leader, I am obligated to tell
you. It never goes well for God’s
adversaries.
Recognizing that we need an
understanding of human rights not rooted in political whim and opportunity to
blame, political scientist, Ayten
Gündoğdu, lodges the ultimate authority for human
rights not merely in the nation-states that allegedly protect them, but in
human beings themselves who demand those rights by migrating contrary to unjust
law.[3] Is Professor Gündoğdu’s definition not our
Exodus story? The Children of Israel
know themselves to be created in the image of God by an exodus, migrating
contrary to unjust law. It is the Living
God who calls them out. Is this not the
story of the Great Migration in our own country? --African American people who
left the South in droves to arrive in places like Jackson, Michigan—human
beings who migrated contrary to the unjust law in the South.
Hear
the intentional language of the Biblical story.
Earlier
in Genesis, the animals are created and become a swarm upon the earth. The waters swarm with a swarm of living
beings and all living beings created upon the land swarmed.[4] In Exodus, the Children of Israel multiply,
with intentional language that tells us they became a swarm upon the
earth. This swarming, almost as if the
Children of Israel are animals, causes great fear in the heart of Pharaoh. But it all begins with a Pharaoh who had no
knowledge of the Children of Israel.
Whether it be in a well-written novel, a movie, or a
Biblical story, not having knowledge of a people has led to sometimes
well-meaning but heartless mission strategies, city planning, national agendas,
or foreign policy. The late Pat Buchanan
used the term “swarm” to refer to the population of undocumented workers or, to
use inappropriate language, illegal aliens in our country.
And I remember the day when
I was watching Lou Dobbs, way back when he was still on CNN, he started in and I
knew it was coming. I distinctly
remember watching and saying, out loud, “Don’t say it, don’t say it, he said
it.” He referenced an “invasion of
illegal aliens” was bringing “highly contagious diseases” to our country in an
April 14, 2005, broadcast on CNN. We
were warned, as Pharaoh contemplated in his own heart for Egypt, that these
hoards have come to reclaim the land for Mexico.[5] “Swarms,” “hoards,” and “invasion” all begin
to make people sound less than
human. You would not be surprised then
to learn that a number of articles written about the children coming across our
border described it as “a swarm”—all so that it might get into your head, under
your skin, and into your bloodstream that violence can be done to these
children because they are less than human.[6] We used the same language to destroy
democratic and human rights movements in the very countries from where these
children now are making that exodus.
In the Biblical story,
Pharaoh worries that, as Rev. David Lose puts it, these people who once were
allies and honored guests may become terrorists in the land.[7] This story sounds vaguely familiar. The Southern Poverty Law Center came out with
a report stating that the guest worker policy and practice in our country is
“close to slavery.”[8] Pharaoh begins to understand the Children of
Israel as something less than human—without complexity, born for slavery,
willing to do the jobs the Egyptians would rather not do.
Beware the people who do not
know
the plight of another.
But again, two women flip
the script, and these two women do what Rev. Lose refers to as the “Butterfly
Effect” in justice-making. Lose
writes, “[The Butterfly Effect] is a
courageous act of civil disobedience that changes history, for one of the
boys that is spared will be called Moses and he will lead the Israelites
out of Egyptian captivity.”[9] Every justice-making movement needs Hebrew
midwives who will wisely and resolutely stand against the bullying, flip the
script, and help give birth to God’s plans for liberation and freedom. Pharaohs will forever claim that the world
is not ready. Midwives forever see the
world pregnant with God’s promise. As
midwife, Bernice Reagon would sing, “There’s a new day coming. Everything is going to be turning over. Everything is going to be changing over. Where are you going to be standing when it
comes?”
The wording used for the
Exodus story is critical. Throughout
this prologue, the Hebrew people are not referred to as slaves but as
strangers.[10] The Hebrew people, the Children of Israel are
referred to as strangers in the land of Egypt.
Said then 36 times[11],
36 times!, in the Torah, the heart of Jewish morality, as an injunction to
Jewish understanding and spiritual practice is how the Jewish people should
treat the stranger. Said over and over
again, “Remember you were once strangers in the land of Egypt, so you should
treat the stranger in your own land.” In other words, do not de-humanize, do not
minimize, do not trivialize the people . . . the people or beings or things
that are not like you, for it is the beginning of violence and will get into
your head, under your skin, and into your bloodstream so that you can justify
bullying, evil, and contemptible things—as those things were done to you.
In reality, the stranger is
the one who is necessary for our moral and spiritual development as
compassionate people. Our moral and
spiritual lives depend on our relationship to the stranger. As Jesus taught in the Good Samaritan story,
it is the stranger who saves our lives. As
the Syro-Phoenician woman changed the heart and mind of Jesus, it is the
stranger who broadens and enlarges our table and saves us, makes our hearts
more full of compassion. The stranger teaches us things about the breadth and
width and length of God’s love that we could not have imagined.
A colleague of mine in
seminary, Samuel Lubongo, a pastor from Kenya, encouraged me to go on
international mission trips, “Because,” he said, “because, Mike, if you stay in
your own country, you think only your own mother cooks well.” We learn of the expanse of God’s love through
the stranger. But it is against
strangers that we have dug the deepest trenches, built the highest walls, and
constructed the largest prisons.[12]
Over and over again, this
Biblical story is told in our wider culture.
We are deciding every day what it means to be “human.” Corporate lobbyists are humans, afforded full
protection of Pharaoh. Hobby Lobby is
considered a “person” afforded protection of religious freedom. But when prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, invoking the same protection given to Hobby Lobby, asked
for religious freedom to pray during the Obama Administration, the Justice
Department argued that they should not be afforded these same protections
because they are not human beings.
Defense attorney Jon Eisenberg said: "It is truly grotesque for the
Obama folks to insist that a for-profit corporation is a person, but a
flesh-and-blood human being at Guantánamo Bay is not."[13]
I
relate that story because it is critical to recognize that we know that this
betrayal of the imago Dei is not Republican or Democrat, did not begin
with Stephen Mitchell or the Trump Administration. No, it is a disfiguring of the imago Dei
within us, a violence and an open wound found within who we are supposed to be
as human beings. We too often look to
people who are enemies on the playground, across the aisle, and those who
disagree with us at church and see them as less than human beings. We are prepping ourselves—getting ready to do
violence to others. That violence
becomes even more manifest when our fear overtakes us to make city, state, and
national policy about who is a human being and who is not.
It
is instructive that the first thing Moses asks Pharaoh to do is to let his
people go so that they may only make a three day journey in the wilderness to
worship and pray to God.[14] Pharaoh, afraid of the swarm, with no
knowledge of God or these people, enjoins the Children of Israel to work
harder. “They are lazy!” he says, “Work
harder, work longer, bring your children.”
A
whole group of people are seen as beasts of burden, marked as lazy, and the
only antidote is for them to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, is to work
harder and longer with less resources--Arbeit
macht frei, work brings your freedom, that infamous phrase above the gate
of the Auschwitz concentration camp. We de-humanize to justify our bullying,
our violent behavior. Pharaoh’s words
and language are being repeated regularly, consistently, and persistently so
that words might be forged into action and action might then define who we are
and turn our neighbor into a stranger we do not know.
But,
sisters and brothers, siblings and cousins . . . there is good news. What the Exodus story teaches is that God’s
purposes are being worked out by people who flip the script to midwife new life
and a new day. Pharaoh does not carry
the day. Already, from underneath, there
are people who transform stranger into neighbor, teach nonviolence, and stand
resolutely in that new day. Pharaoh does
not carry the day. There’s a new day
coming. Everything’s going to be turning
over. Everything’s going to be changing
over. Where you going to be standing
when it comes? A new birth is
happening. Midwives are needed. Thanks be to God for Shiphrah and Puah. For you are made in the image of God. I am made in the image of God. Glory hallelujah . . . we are made in the
image of God. Amen.
[2] An ode to Justice Ginsburg.
[3] Ayten Gündoğdu, Rightlessness in an Age of Rights: Hannah Arendt and the Contemporary Struggles of Migrants (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
[4] Genesis 1:20-21.
[5] Eric Pfeiffer, "Buchanan warns of flood of illegals," Washington Times, August 22, 2006, referencing Pat Buchanan’s book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006).
[7] http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=501
[8] That, in fact, is the title of their report, “Close to Slavery.” It can be found here: http://www.gpn.org/splcenter.org.SPLCguestworker.pdf
[9] http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=501
[10] Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses
[12] Rev. Aric Clark, “Make Haste to Be Kind,” Fort Morgan Times, http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/opinion-columnists/ci_26161863/aric-clark-make-haste-be-kind.
[13] “Headlines,” Democracy Now! July 14, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/14/headlines#71415
[14] Exodus 5:1
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