Yes!
Exodus 1: 8-2: 10
Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch, Preacher
The other day I heard about a teacher at American University in DC, Lynn Ganek. When she was studying to be a teacher, she received a student mini-grant for her project. That project ultimately became The Reading Rainbow. Now, she and her family aren’t rich, but they believe in education. They wanted to put their money where their hearts are. So this is what they do: every year, they provide ten grants of $500 each to student teachers who develop projects they feel are making a difference. It’s a time-consuming task that requires developing and reviewing piles of applications and narrowing the field to the ten best-qualified. Then they have a big celebration dinner. They go to all this trouble, $5000 plus the expense of the dinner, because they believe that good teachers make the world a better place.
Now here’s what is also interesting. They developed this grant program in 2007, the year of the financial meltdown. In this time when belt-tightening is something we’re all doing, they still felt it was critically important to provide these grants.
The other day I was talking to a friend of mine, who is in my opinion, already doing so much for the world, and she said that she hopes someday to marry a man who will want to do what the Ganek family did—provide their own personal money to create grants to support projects they care about.
It was inspiring, to hear about people who were willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the larger good, even in a time of economic crisis. It is a story of saying “yes” when the world says “no.”
Our OT reading is the beginning of Exodus. The political leadership in Egypt has changed, and with it has changed the fortunes of the Hebrews. When they first came to Egypt, they were honored because of Joseph, who was the Pharaoh’s main advisor. But the new Pharaoh considers the Hebrews a threat and, Scripture says, he decides to make their lives “bitter.”
Bitter. We know bitter. With an economic downtown now into its fourth year—with politicians dithering or grandstanding and playing with our nation’s economic future but not doing a thing about providing much-needed jobs—with lay-offs and cutbacks—with no or poor insurance—with college grads who can’t find jobs—we know bitter.
But we don’t know near as bitter as the Hebrews did when Israel was in Egypt Land. They were forced into slavery, herded into work camps called Pithom and Rameses. Pharaoh feared their numbers increasing, and so he decreed genocide, the killing of Hebrew firstborn. The lot of the Children of Abraham was bitter indeed. Yet, perversely, they were never more prolific. They kept having children. Their childbirth was an act of defiance: it was them saying “yes” to Pharaoh’s “no.”
The midwives Shiphrah and Puah helped birth these supposedly illegal children, then lied to Pharaoh about it, thus saving a generation from death. But to do this, they were putting themselves at risk. Once again, they were saying “yes” to Pharaoh’s “no.”
There’s a lot of “no” today. With increased national belt-tightening, I know the folks in our community who provide for the needs of the homeless are already hearing “no” a lot from state and federal government entities that provide money for services. In fact, a lot of service providers have already started layoffs. And a pretty fair number of folks in our church are hearing ‘no’ from employers or banks; and we’re saying ‘no’ a lot to things that might once of looked essential but now appear to be luxuries.
In the midst of all that, here comes Amelia Grace and her parents Sydney and Tyler, a typical young couple with typical jobs, taking on the incredible expense both financially and emotionally of having a child. And now they are bringing her here to the church where Sydney grew up and saying, “We want St. Stephen to be Amelia’s family as they’ve been Sydney’s.”
In a time where it seems like the world is full of “no,” Sydney and Tyler are saying, “Yes, yes, yes.” Yes, we think this is time to start up new life, to take on new responsibility. Yes, we want to be part of a believing community, a family of faith. Yes, we want our child baptized because we believe God’s “yes” is stronger than the world’s “no.”
I’m probably making this whole event seem more fraught with meaning than it seems to be to Sydney and Tyler—certainly more than it means to Amelia, who probably would overall prefer to be asleep!– but really the truth is infant baptism is always fraught with this kind of meaning. It is always God’s yes to the world’s no. It is always a family saying, This child is not our possession, but God’s own creation. It is always, We do not raise this child by ourselves in isolation, but together, in a community. And it is always throwing ourselves and the destiny of our child on the mercy and Grace of God—stepping out in faith that no matter what life brings to our family, or to our children, that God is with us and God is stronger than the worst that life will throw at us. It is always yes to life, yes to hope, yes to community, and yes yes yes to God.
That faith will get sorely tested for the Munsons, as those of us who’ve raised kids can attest—as most of us who remember what we put our own parents through can attest! We get caught up in the troubles of the moment and it’s easy to forget that we can and MUST trust God. We tend to crawl into our isolated enclave of family concern and forget that we are not alone—that Jesus is with us, and that we are part of a community of loving, caring people called the church.
But it’s precisely those times we get wrapped up in the “no” of the world around us that we can use as the opportunity to remember this moment—this moment when we as a church, we as a family, we as individuals, framed a new life in her larger context. It is the context of God’s love. The context of the covenant community of believers, the adopted and adoptive family of God, the church. The context of the faithful “yes” to life, “yes” to grace and mercy, “yes” to generosity and hope, the faithful “yes’ that is as defiant of the world’s “no” as the Hebrew slaves were, as the rebel midwives Shiphrah and Puah were.
We show that faithful defiance anytime we say “yes” to God’s Kingdom—whenever we are generous to the least of these at precisely the time we’re being told they’re parasites; whenever we make a sacrifice for the sake of another at precisely the time we’re being told that we can’t afford it; whenever take a risk for the good of others or for the future that seems like it is most untimely. Whenever we do these things we show that faithful “yes” that stands in defiance of Pharaoh’s “no.”
When we do these things, we defiantly affirm that the grace of God that embraces and surrounds Amelia, also embraces and surrounds the world.