Witness of Moses Part I
August 26, 2007
Acts 7: 17-29
I remind us that we are hearing this story out of the context of the book of Acts. We are hearing the story of Moses today. A story told by Stephan. Stephan who is defending his right to be an apostle, his right to be a teacher of the faith, his right to be a Holy Man. Stephan tells the story of Moses with awe and wonder because his accusers say that he is blaspheming Moses in his ministry. To prove he understands the story, he tells his version. It’s not the version we have in exodus, it’s Stephen’s version. It’s the Moses story according to the wisdom, experience, history, and context of Stephen. It’s permission giving that if God is still speaking, we can not exclude our own wisdom, experience reason and context from the knowledge of what has come before.
Stephen tells the story of Moses. Moses was born into a time when a brutal King was in power. This king had very different morals and values than the Israelites. This King was forcing the Israelites to abandon their babies. Moses was one of these fated babies. And, at 3 months he was forced into abandonment. Moses was beautiful before God. That little tiny being. That little helpless defenseless three month old being, born into the Israelite tribe, he was beautiful before God Stephen reminds. God was not abandoning this baby, powers and principalities were abandoning this baby.
Moses does not die but instead gets adopted by Pharoah’s daughter. He was an Israelite, raised in an Egyptian household. He was an outsider, a slave grown up in the ruling palace as an Egyptian, even though everyone knew he was an Israelite. Stephen says that Moses grew to be wise and powerful in Egyptian ways.
At 40 years old, Moses had a life crisis…who am I? I am an Isrealite. I am an Egyptian. I am neither I am both. I must go to be with my people. On the way to his relative’s home he encounters trouble. One man is oppressing another man. The oppressor is an Eyptian man. The oppressed is an Isrealite. A rage comes over Moses and he kills the Egyptian.
The Next day Moses is walking along and tries to make peace between two fighting Israelites. He interjects in their argument talking about being brothers calling out harm between brothers. The man who is perpetrating the fight, he pushes Moses away and says, “Will you kill me too for being the one at fault brother?’ Moses is shocked that people know what happened and flees out of shame and fear to a strange land. He becomes a stranger in his own land, a resident alien.
I was thrilled to see that on Transgender Sunday we find ourselves looking at a passionate retelling of the story of early Moses. Here we have a prominent biblical figure from our Old Testament roots. A prominent figure that is present in all the Abrahamic faith traditions. A story of a child who was abandoned for who he was by his birth family. A child who is raised as one person all the time knowing he is another person. Someone who was raised in the ways of his adopted mother, yet always knowing he was not really one of them. How did he know? It wasn’t his own memory at 3 months old of remember his birth family. Was it the looks of the others around him. Was it the whispering of the slaves that cared for him within the Egyptian household? Was it the jeering of the other children of the palace that he did not fit, he was not right, what he saw in the mirror was a lie?
When he is a grown man he goes searching for his kinfolk. Who were these relatives of his family of origin. How would he know them? He wasn’t really Egyptian even though he had been schooled in their ways and was a powerful man amongst Egyptians. He wasn’t an Israelite knowing none of their customs in spite of being born into that holy covenant. He did all of his maturing and growing not allowed to be but always forced to stand on a boundary between two worlds neither world accepting of who he was.
It seems no surprise to me that Moses goes out to find himself in his adulthood. It seems no surprise to me that early on this road a great violence comes over him. For the ways in which he had been shamed for not fitting in. The shame of not knowing who he really was or being able to become who he thought he was called to be. The frustration and anger of never totally belonging would build into a rage. It’s the ultimate danger of being closeted, lying about our very being. Seeing the embodiment of his struggle an Egyptian overpowering an Israelite…isn’t that the embodiment of all that was struggling within Moses. So he kills that part of himself, literally. He kills the bully.
And, when his methodology is confronted by one of the Israelites. When he confronts the other part of himself and is challenged about his methodology and his concept of brotherhood he flees out of his fear and shame. He sees his error in method but still out of a crisis of identity goes to be a resident alien. A stranger in a foreign homeland. Again, mirroring his internal struggle with external reality.
This is Transgender reality. To be raised and immersed in one family as one person sometimes all the time knowing, I am not that person I see in the mirror. Often times families know this about their family member and the whispering, the name calling, the disdain begins early, keeping the family member to toe the line, to internalize that shame, to prevent them from being, to keep them fractured.
Our God through the voice of Stephen cries out to us, “Moses was beautiful before God.” God was with this child from the beginning. God was with this child as he grew. God loved him because of his unique created being. God loved him out of his boundary crossing ability. God loved and called Moses into important service out of his unique understanding of being one between two worlds. Who else could have helped an enslaved people understand the concept of freedom but someone who was from both places of oppressor and oppressed, enslaved and free, Israelite and Egyptian.
We oftentimes think that our new realities are beyond the ancient texts. We oftentimes think that there is no purpose in studying these old stories because they are archane and irrelevant to the work and purpose of a modern world. However, these stories provide ancient truths that are embedded in our struggles of every time and place. And we look to these stories to consel us in any time on how God has spoken in the past and how people responded to God.
Jesus came to witness to building community around loving God and our neighbors as ourselves. Throwing everything else out, just modeling deep compassion and joy with a holy, sacred family working in every aspect to love. This Jesus inspired Stephen to reach out to God in new ways, to begin to live in the world in new ways. Ways that threatened the established way of living. When Stephen began to bridge that gap between the Greeks and the Israelites, when he became a boundary crosser, the establishment brought him up on charges. It is threatening to see the embodiment of our stretching and growing. It is threatening to see God working to expand us beyond who we think we are. And the authorities wanted to put that light out, content with the way things always were.
But the deep lie in that movement is that Stephen embodied the way things always were. We have always had people who were told they are not enough nor welcome in God’s sight. We have always had people who were willing to make those judgments on God’s behalf. And, we have always had boundary crossers who in those moments and times came to challenge both of those stories with the fabric of their beings.
The Good news today I believe is that God welcomes and celebrates all the people, no matter where you are on life’s journey. God embraces, knows by name and celebrates those of us who identify as transgender in this world. God thinks they are beautiful in God’s sight. They are part of the holy sacred family. And, our work is not to raise them as broken people torn between two realities. Our work is not to program them to be something they are not. And, we do this.
I’ve been looking for childcare for my youngest daughter the last two weeks. It has been an eye opening experience. In trying to get you to join the child care community you are given a handbook to read and help you determine if this is the place for your child. Many handbooks have sections broken down by age group to explain what your child would be learning in that particular age group. In one of the really excellent places along the way, a place I would allow my daughter to attend, which was not my experience of most of the places I visited. At three years of age the class has an emphasis on gender identity. This was in all bold letters. At three years of age, it will be important to know that role she must play according to the gender we have assigned her on her birth certificate. It’s the only bold sentence besides a heading in the entire handbook. My daughter has just started this funny game of pushing a piece of food, or getting on her push car at home and making a car noise. Would this be forbidden after the age of three, not appropriate play for her gender identity? And, if she did choose it, would she be reprimanded for not “being a girl”?
It is not enough to be tolerant of the human beings on this planet. It is not enough. Moses did not flee, exiling himself because it was OK to be tolerant. Stephan was not putting his life breath on the line because being tolerant is part of the answer. Our still speaking God calls us from many places on this journey, telling our stories, wild, crazy stories from the most unlikely places, because we mirror these people. We are called to be open to all human beings and to affirm them as children of God. We, the people of faith are not called to divide, to cast out, to shame. We are called to celebrate the love and light of God within each human being and to cultivate that love and light. If only Moses could have been embraced, if only their could have been a mentor like Stephan shouting out, here is a light for us, one of our own who has risen into power. Let us school him. Let us name him. Let us draw him out as a boundary crosser that can bring life and light into our captivity.
We create the environment of shame and humiliation that leads to so many death dealing activities. We, human beings create the self loathing and hatred in those that we perceive as different and out of our box of creation. But, the Creator calls to us and reminds, I am the Creator. I know this beautiful Moses. God does not say, I know this beautiful boy. God says, Moses was beautiful. God is within our created beings. God calls to us to be more wholly ourselves not divided internally. But, working to be more of who we are called to be. And as community of faith we are required to support the building of an environment where we see signs of inner conflict and we support that work of sorting and stewing. We can not force people into exile. We are those who lead people through the exile. For our God is big enough to know who we are. And God’s love is one of extravagant welcome.
I pray that we will take this message so very seriously that we will not be Open Always All ways open and decide today to cast out those who are transgender. I pray today that we will take this message of shame and self loathing and proclaim that all children are beautiful in our sight. I pray today that we will affirm what God has already called blessed and good by recognizing we proclaim and affirm the transgendered members of our holy family. And I pray that we do all of this out of our deep desire to be signs that God’s calling us into a different kind of community that throws of division, throws of shame and embraces the deepest, purest, healing love the one of the great midwife who calls us into the breath of life no matter who we will become or where we have come from. Let us be that holy family that welcomes all home. Amen.