Proper 17A / Exodus 3:1-15
When Moses was a small child – just
a few months old – his mother feared for his safety. The Pharaoh at the time, fearful of the
growing number of foreign born peoples – particularly the Hebrew people - in his beloved country of Egypt, decreed that
all male children should be drowned in the Nile River so that the number of
Hebrew people in the land would begin to decrease. Moses’ mother thwarts the Pharaoh’s plans
when her son is born by hiding him in a basket among the reeds in the river
where he is found by one of the daughters of the Pharaoh. Pharaoh’s daughter
took pity on the child, hired Moses’ own mother to nurse him and then, when he
was older, took him into her own home where he was raised.[1]
The scriptures are unclear whether
Moses, as a youth, knows of his Hebrew roots and yet, we read in Exodus, that
when he had grown up he went out to where the Hebrew people were laboring and
saw an Egyptian beating one of the Hebrew people. Moses was so overcome with anger that “he
killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. . . . When Pharaoh heard of it, he
sought to kill Moses.”[2] Fearing for his life, Moses fled from Pharaoh
and settled on the opposite side of the Red Sea in Midian.[3] When he arrives in Midian he is met by some
women who are drawing water at a well and, perhaps from his accent or maybe
from a conversation that is not recorded in scripture, they identify him as
Egyptian.[4]
The reason I draw this out from the story – a portion of the scriptures that
are omitted from today’s reading – is because it tells us something about
Moses. Moses acts like and/or talks like
and/or identifies as an Egyptian because it is the only country he has ever
called home.
In the United States, there are a
large number of children and young adults who arrived in this country at such
an early age that this is the only country they identify as home. They arrived
with parents who came here illegally dreaming of a better life for themselves
and for their children. Like Moses’ mother,
these parents risked their own life with the hope of securing a better future
for their children. And like Moses who identifies as Egyptian, these children –
many now young adults with children of their own – identify themselves as
Americans.
In 2012, President Obama
implemented a policy called DACA or “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.”
This policy allowed for certain eligible individuals to receive deferred action
with U.S. immigration. In the U.S., more than 1.9 million individuals are
DACA-eligible. And the State of Illinois has the third largest population of
DACA recipients. Once approved, a DACA-recipient
can apply for an Employment Authorization Document allowing them to work
legally in this country. At the time that this policy went into effect,
applicants were told and continue to be told the deferred action status is
“completely discretionary and can be revoked in the future.”[5] And this
week, when I went to an immigration legal help website, I saw the following in
large print at the top of the page: “***At this time, [we] do not recommend
that you file for DACA if you have never done so before.***”[6] And, of course, this was a known issue with
DACA from the beginning – those who applied are now easier to find, easily
identified as persons who arrived in the United States illegally – though, in
most cases, through no choice of their own.
Today, these immigrants are, once
again, living in fear of deportation as President Trump threatens to end DACA.
In Illinois, DACA has allowed nearly 42,400 young people to come forward, pass background
checks, and live and work legally in the country.[7] If
DACA ends, it will cost Illinois nearly $2.3 billion in annual GDP losses.[8] If DACA ends, an estimated 685,000 workers
will be removed from the nation’s economy.[9] DACA
is good for the economy.
Financial data can be a great motivator
for fighting for change that is good for everyone and if that is what moves you
to act, then please do so. But, I have another
reason that is deeply rooted in the stories of our faith. Let’s go back to this
morning’s reading: Moses is at work –
tending his father-in-law’s flock in the wilderness.[10] Something he had, no doubt been doing every
day since he married Zipporah and began living with the family in Midian. And
there, in the midst of his ordinary day, he sees a bush that appears to be on
fire and yet is not burned up. Curiosity gets the best of him and he goes to
have a closer look.[11] As he approaches, God calls out to him and
makes his way quickly through some preliminary introduction – “hey, Moses, it’s
me, God – the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob.”[12]
And then God gets right to the point.
“Moses,” God says, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in
Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings. . . The cry
of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians
oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the
Israelites, out of Egypt.”[13]
You see, God, wants God’s people to
be involved in setting things right in the world. The work of doing justice and showing mercy
is modelled by God but does not belong to God alone. It is our work to do in the world. Now many of us are a bit like Moses. Because Moses sees what needs to be done – in
fact, he experienced it first hand and it’s what has him running from Egypt in
the first place. And so Moses says, “No,
God, you’ve got the wrong guy. Perhaps you didn’t see how things ended for me
over there in Egypt – you see, I killed a guy and Pharaoh’s not so keen on me
right now. So, yes, I know that the Hebrew people are suffering; but I really
can’t be the one to help with this.
You’re going to need to find someone else.”[14]
But God reassures Moses when he
says, “I will be with you.”[15] Five simple words: “I will be with you.” “I will be with you; but Moses, you are going
to need to do the leg work on this one.”
“I will be with you; but St. Mark’s, Pastor Debra, you are going to need
to do the leg work on this one.” And
each of us can start with something very simply. Each of us, can pick up a phone and make two
calls on Tuesday - one to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and one to
Speaker Paul Ryan – to tell them that we hear their cries and their fears that
their families will be ripped apart; to tell them that they are our people - our brothers and our
sisters, our co-workers, our classmates, our neighbors, our friends; to tell
them that Dreamers are part of what makes America great today; to tell them
“Let these Dreamers stay."
 |
| For talking points: https://makecalls.democrats.org/daca/ |
[1]
Exodus 2:1:22-2:10.
[2]
Exodus 2:11-12, 15.
[3]
Exodus 2:15.
[4]
Exodus 2:16-19.
[6]
Ibid.
[7]
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Number of Form I-821D, Consideration
of Deferred action for Childhood Arrivals, by Fiscal Year, Quarter4, Intake,
Biometrics and Case Status Fiscal Year 2012-2017 (U.S. Department of Homelnad
Security, 2017), as quoted on Interfaith Worker Justice “Illinois and DACA: The
Facts,” http://www.iwj.org/resources/state-by-state-daca-fact-sheets,
accessed September 1, 2017.
[8]
Nicole Prchal Svajlenka, Tom Jawetz, and Angie Bautista-Chavez, “A New Threat
to DACA Could Cost States Billions of Dollars” (Washington: Center for American
Progress, 2017), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2017/07/21/436419/new-threat-daca-cost-states-billions-dollars/,
as quoted on Interfaith Worker Justice “Illinois and DACA: The Facts,” http://www.iwj.org/resources/state-by-state-daca-fact-sheets,
accessed September 1, 2017.
[9]
Ibid.
[10]
Exodus 3:1.
[11]
Exodus 3:2-3.
[12]
Exodus 3:6, paraphrase is all mine.
[13]
Exodus 3:7, 9-10.
[14]
Exodus 3:11. Alright, the NRSV actually says, “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I
that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” I
embellished a bit.
[15]
Exodus 3:12a.
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