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Rabbi's Corner...
Shabbat Shemot Sermon
Rabbi Lucy H.F. Dinner Temple Beth Or
Shabbat Shemot January 16, 2009
Lifting the Principle, Remembering the Name
I. “I’ve been up to the mountain and seen the promised land.” (April 3, 1968) The night before The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. died, he spoke these ringing words. That mountaintop was a metaphor, for a mountain that we have climbed before. Our ancestors stood on that self same mountaintop. They looked into the promised-land shortly after redemption, shortly after they crossed the Sea of Reeds. They peered down from that mountaintop, and they saw the strong, giant people in the land beneath them, in Eretz Yisrael. And they bemoaned to Moses, where will our food come from? In Egypt we had food to eat, water to drink. They were not yet ready for that promised-land standing feet from its realization, and days from their own slavery.
On that night, the night before he was assassinated King proclaimed: “It really doesn’t matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."
“And then I got to Memphis. And some began to … talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead,” King said. “But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
“And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we're going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demand didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.” (April 3, 1968)
King’s prophetic words spoken some forty years ago when he stood on the brink of the promised land. The Israelites stood on that brink and then they wandered for forty years in the dessert before they would enter that promised land. Now, forty years after King’s death we have elected an African American as president of the United States.
Morris Dees, the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who has gone up against hate groups from the KKK to skinheads and neo-Nazis, and toppled them in the courts, and crippled them financially, and sent them to jail, spoke at NC State this week about King, and these forty years, where we’ve come, and where we still have to go. He sang out in triumph at King’s vision that it would come to be. He reminded us of how far we’ve come: “forty years later 43% of white Americans voted for a black man to become president of the United States. And if you take out the votes of AL, MS, and LA, … it’s a solid majority of white Americans who chose Barak Hussein Obama, to be inaugurated as president the day after Martin Luther King Day in 2009. (Morris Dees, NC State King Lecture, January 14, 2009).
What does it take for the vision of Moses standing on top that mountain to translate into the will of the people,
*the vision of Martin Luther King?
*the vision of Shifrah and Puah?
*What does it take?
It takes the leadership, courage and inspiration of a few, and 40 years for the rest of us to catch up. It doesn’t take violence, quite the opposite, just the resolution to stand up and do what is right despite the violence that may rain upon you.
Shifrah and Puah knew this. These two Egyptian midwives, were resolute from the moment they heard Pharaoh’s decree. They would not carry it out. They simply ignored the horrific proclamation and delivered babies, boys and girls, and lovingly let Hebrew families hide away the boys.
What is the reward that Shifrah and Puah receive for their bravery? Surely there is no promised land for them under Pharaoh’s strong hand. The text speaks of their reward in Exodus 1 vs. 20 & 21: “God was good to the midwives, and the people increased and became very numerous. 1:21 Because the midwives feared God, God gave them great names [of their own].” The reward of the midwives was great names – the sages say that the mothers named their babies after the midwives ben Shifrah, ben Puah, carrying forward their names and their legacy, into the promised land.
When there shall arise in a generation one or two whose vision transforms the future, their names are ingrained in history. Their names become synonymous with liberation. Shifrah and Puah, Moses, Martin Luther King, Jr. None of them lived to see the fruition of the liberation they so keenly knew was to come true. Nonetheless, each of them is synonymous in name with the liberation that they set into motion through their convictions.
Morris Dees spoke about how reluctant people are to cross over into that promise land. And more reluctant still to stand up against the evils that obscure its entrance. He shared a story about one of his early battles against hate in Texas. A group of Vietnamese immigrants had settled there (legal immigrants for those compelled to ask). They were making their livelihood in all kinds of ways, but they longed for their fishing boats from Vietnam and that life on the water. The Vietnamese bought up some old broken down boats, they patched them up and waited for fishing season along side the big fishing yachts in the Texas water. They rowed their boats out and brought in their hall; and the native Texas fisherman were none too happy to see the Vietnamese fisherman bringing in all those fish. The Texans brought out the Klan, they burned some crosses and threatened the fisherman, until they put those boats away.
The Southern Poverty Law Center heard their plight and offered to sue. They were making great progress in the courts, when the Vietnamese called them into a meeting and told them to withdraw the suit. The Vietnamese felt threatened by the Klan, they felt a win in court might turn into a bonfire of wrath upon their boats at sea. The night before the closing arguments, in a case Dees was sure he would win, he addressed the Viet. He told them he would withdraw the suit but before he did he invited them to stand with him on the mountaintop and see what might be if they won.
*The Vietn. Stood on that mountain,
* summonsed courage, and won.
And Dees watched as their boats went out
*surrounded by marshalls
*and the sunset on that sight
*and today they don’t need marshalls.
Dees has taken up the call from the mountain top, he refuses to rest on the last victory, knowing that there are still so many oppressed in our day.
Next Tuesday at the inauguration we can affirm that we have reached one promised land, the one that Martin Luther King knew would come to be from that mountain top. Next Tuesday the flood gates open, the possibilities multiply for a new generation.
As our eyes open wide to this promised land, so too, like Morris Dees, we take in the desolation that is yet to be redeemed. We can elect an African American president, but we have yet to erase the differences between the rich and the poor.
· The Executives of some bankrupt corporations vacation in the Caribbean with their fat bonuses, while the Rescue Mission fills up with those who have defaulted mortgages.
· Madoff lounges in his penthouse while hundreds of charities lay stripped bear of their power to reach out to the needy.
We are closing in on a trillion dollars in bail outs, and there is hardly the glimpse of one new job created.
While we celebrate the entrance into one promised land, we cannot rest until we raise up another Shifrah, or Moses, or Martin, or Morris to lead us into the next promised land.
What does it take to cross that divide? It takes those who are not looking to inflate their name in their own wealth in their day, but rather those whose deeds will proclaim their name for generations to come. It takes the courage to stand on the mountaintop. It takes the vision of those unwilling to rest upon their laurels, who remind us with vigor that there is still work to be done. It takes the voice of the prophet who, as I love to quote: comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. It takes the tenacity of an Amos proclaiming: “Let justice flow down like water, righteousness like a mighty stream.”
This weekend we remember the name of one such prophet; on Tuesday we inaugurate a visionary who came to power on the road built by that prophet. And on Wednesday it is our charge to become that prophet, to stand on that mountaintop, and to work endlessly for that promised land.
AMEN
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