Sermons
"God, the Oppressed and Us"
May the God who creates us, redeems us and sustains us-be with us now and always.
Amen.
Please be seated.
Good Morning.
Tell ol' Pharaoh-to let my people go.
I have good news
and bad news for us this morning.
First the Good News:
ours is a God-
-a God who takes sides.
That's the good news.
The bad news is-it's probably not our side.
Over and over again
history has shown
-scripture has predicted
and this morning's passage describes
a passionate, involved Deity.
A God who is not removed
from the day-to-day pains of this our world.
God says to Moses
-from the interior of the burning bush,
"I have observed the misery of my people
-I have heard their cry
on account of their taskmasters.
Indeed, I know their suffering
-and I have come to deliver them"(Ex 3:3-9).
Ours is a God who takes sides.
Not in the manner
that some of our politicians
would have us believe.
God is not on the Americans' side,
or the Christian side,
the Muslim side
or for that matter the Jewish side.
Our God chooses the side
over and over again
of those who are oppressed.
God is intimately involved,
intrinsically connected,
with every person in our world
who is oppressed;
every person in our world
who through
economic,
social, or religious circumstances
finds themselves without choice.
Because in the end
that is what oppression is all about
-the loss of choice.
When we are oppressed
we lose the opportunity
to make willful decisions about our lives.
From the beginning ours is a God of choices
-for better or for worse
-ours is a God of free will. Oppression ends freewill.
Our God sides with the oppressed.
And then---then calls us-
people of means-to set the captives free.
God hears the cries of the Israelites
as they labored in the Egyptian work camps.
God hears the cries
and then calls Moses,
Pharaoh's adopted son,
an Egyptian raised aristocrat
-a man intimately acquainted
with the ways of the royal hierarchy
-to set the people free.
Moses.
God calls Moses
to change the lives of the Hebrew slaves.
God uses those of us with means
-to eradicate the bonds
-to change the conditions
-to end the oppression-
-God calls people of wealth and power
to set the captives free.
God called Moses then and God calls us now.
Certainly most of us in this room
-are not what we would consider wealthy
-wealthy by American standards
-and yet
-one check of international statistics
will leave us humbled in our denials.
Measured against the rest of the world
-we are at least well off
and in many instances-rich.
And that's okay.
God needed Moses and God desperately needs us.
Let me tell you two stories.
Both connected to our lives.
The first appeared
in a January 27, 2004 New York Times article.
It's entitled,
"How a goat led a girl up the Path to an Education"
by Stephanie Strom
"A goat is responsible
for Beatrice Biira's arrival
from her home village
just south of the Equator in Uganda
to this frosty New England town,
where even
thermal underwear,
sturdy duck boots
and a puffy parka
fail to keep
the cold from her bones.
Without the goat,
Miss Biira would almost certainly
never have gone to school
or finished filling out applications
to 11 American colleges and universities,
from
Manchester College in Indiana to Harvard.
Three years ago,
Miss Biira was immortalized
in a best-selling children's book,
Beatrice's Goat,
which tells how a goat named Mugisa
-a gift from Heifer International
-helped her get an education.
By selling Mugisa's milk and offspring,
Miss Biira's family
was able to send her,
and later
her seven brothers and sisters,
to school.
"I just want people to understand
what a big difference
a goat can make in people's lives,"
she said.
Every recipient of a Heifer animal
is charged with passing it on
by giving the first female offspring
to someone else in need.
"It becomes a chain," Miss Biira said.
"Almost everyone in my village now has a goat."
Heifer has never financed Miss Biira's education. [However,]
she showed such promise in primary school,
breezing through
first, second and third grade
in three months each
that a producer of one of the Heifer films,
helped pay for her to attend
what she calls,
"A fancy girl's school" in Kampala, Uganda.
With a family income
of less than a $1,000 a year
her education would have stopped right there. Instead she won a full scholarship
for a postgraduate year at
Northfield Mount Hermon School
-a prestigious boarding school in New England.
She is hoping that
her academic record,
her test scores, and [her] story
will win her a college scholarship.
What little pocket money Miss Biira has
she has is spent on phone cards,
but even so,
she can only call home
about once a month
because her mother must travel
three hours by taxi
to reach a town
with electricity and telephone reception.
Beyond college, her plans are unclear.
"I don't know
what trail I will takeÖ
I want to go back home and work,
most likely with Heifer."
A goat-a $50 goat changed her life.
The second
is the story of Elizabeth Atong John.
A fourteen year old Sudanese girl
who lives with
her mother and her brother
in a refugee camp.
They live in the refugee camp
because warring,
murdering gangs chased
she and her family
from her home in Southern Sudan.
We know Elizabeth's story
because her uncle Abraham,
an Anglican priest,
studied at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. Abraham spent
many an afternoon
in parishioner, Connie Wilson's office at Seabury, talking about his country
and his family.
Like many of us
Connie knew that that Sudan was in Africa.
But like many of us
she knew little to nothing
about the horrific war
that has raged in that country
for twenty years
and claimed more than two million lives.
(That's like 7000 September 11ths.)
Can you imagine?
One day, after months of conversations,
Abraham walked into Connie's office
with pictures of his niece and nephew
-Elizabeth and David.
He asked Connie
if she might be able to help with their schooling. Connie looked at this
picture-
A picture of this lovely young woman
and said, "Yes."
Connie explained,
"I guess you could say it was my burning bush."
Every quarter
Connie sends $175 to Elizabeth's school
to pay for
her room and board,
clothing and school supplies.
Not long ago
we found out we found out
that Elizabeth has a gastric ulcer.
She needs medical assistance.
Connie has spoken to Elizabeth's headmaster,
the bishop of the diocese
and yesterday
to the Italian Medical Missionaries
who are treating Elizabeth. The medical treatment is available
-but the problem
is finding the money
to pay for her transportation to the clinic
that is miles and miles away.
Elizabeth needs our help.
Today with our auction at 10:00
and with our open plate collections
at all three of the services
we can do as Moses did.
Consider this-OUR burning bush.
I'm inviting us to have fun.
I'm inviting us
to have fun figuring out
how much money we can give away
-how much money we can raise
for the Heifer Project
and
for Elizabeth Atong John.
So that we can assist
a1000 more Beatrice's
-so that Elizabeth will be
a healthy, happy, educated woman.
God takes sides.
God calls people like us
to set the captives free.
God called Moses then
and God is calling us now.
God is saying,
"Tell Ole' Pharaoh-to Let my People Go."
Amen.