Mahatma Gandhi when contemplating how to free India from the British Empire found the writings of Henry David Thoreau and wrote an essay which included:
Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. He was one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced. At the time of the abolition of slavery movement, he wrote his famous essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. He went to jail for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable.
— "For Passive Resisters" (1907).
When we think of non-violent resistance in our modern world, the top three names commonly shared in our country are Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau. In Henry David Thoreau's time, he was against the Mexican War and the institution of slavery in our country. Building upon this essay, Gandhi used resistance movements to drive out the British Empire. When King thought about equality in America, he studied Thoreau and Gandhi, even going to India to meet with him, to win freedoms from the Jim Crow laws and segregation and to bring the principles of the power of love as the tool in which to win their cause.
It is interesting that Moses was called in the next chapter to free the people from a 'burning bush' and that he was granted powers through a staff that could do power and harmful things. It is interesting that the King or Pharaoh was often wanting to free the Hebrew people until God hardened his heart so we could go on to the next plague until throughout all the land the first born was killed, whether livestock or human, unless they had the blood on the door so the Angel of Death may passover their house and spare their offspring. These are manly men doing macho, manly things with power and zeal and violence. However, none of this would have been possible unless the women in this story decided, without God telling them to, to disobey the laws, which was the king's commands. It was first the Hebrew midwives who were ordered to kill all male children, but spared their lives and lied to the King of Egypt's face that the boys were already born when they showed up. Then the King ordered all the male children to be thrown into the river, presumably the Nile which was filled with crocodiles to eat those male children. Moses' mother hid him for as long as she could and then put him in the river in a basket so he would not immediately drown and presumably have a chance at being rescued, which his older sister helped to facilitate by following the basket and a daughter of the Pharaoh, knowing that her father wanted them to die choose to save Moses. His sister, acting quickly, arranged a wet nurse of his own mother to care for him under the protection of that daughter. Without the midwives, without Moses' mother, without Moses' sister, and without the daughter of the Pharaoh having compassion and disobeying an unjust command and law, we would not have the story of Moses. Period!
And that list continues with names we know, like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, and Greta Thunberg. Greta started protesting by stopping going to class on Friday's because she pointed out that if the world is falling apart, what was the use of learning things for a future she would never have. More and more youth have joined her in this protest. And there are many people out there, people of all genders, nationalities, and languages who are putting themselves on the line for the betterment of the world and others.
When I started the environmental group in Aberdeen about 10 years ago, we talked about what we could do and how we would go about it. One of the number one concerns was that we couldn't recycle glass in our community. I suggested that we could have a protest where everyone brought their glass garbage and put it on the lawn of the county offices which was just down the street from city hall to force our elected officials to deal with the problem. Most of them recoiled and thought that would only antagonize our leaders and divide the community. That let me know the boundary of what this group would do and not do.
We have many very passionate, intelligent, and committed people in our community and in this church. We have a range of issues in which we are working on, individually, as a church, as a community, and through many different organizations like Water Legacy, Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, the Isaiah Project, Interfaith Committee for Migrant Justice, Cook County Local Energy Project, and what others? Are any of these in such a need that we have to do something more than just educate, write and call our public servants, give money and time and carry signs? Are there things we can do to not participate in the injustice or the harming of others and our planet? Maybe we stop paying our taxes like Henry David Thoreau? Maybe we leave our plastic in the stores when we buy something because it is not something we want in our homes, community, or world? Maybe we find the immigrant who won't give up her spot and help bring her justice? What ways are we already working on this?
The weight of the world isn't upon our shoulders in this room, but it doesn't excuse us from being a part of a system and a society that has unjust laws and not doing anything about it. Above all, above all, we follow in their footsteps, those of the women in this story and let our compassion lead us. Let us be compassionate as our God in heaven is compassionate. Amen? Amen!
Comments
Post a Comment