Rev. George
Miller
Aug 9, 2020
Judges
11:30-36
“Children are called the
future as an act of love…”
These aren’t words from
Scripture, or Shakespeare, but the opening lyrics to a song by Janet Jackson, titled
“Living In A World They Did Not Make.”
Originally I planned to use
this song as a means to discuss the ways in which our children are forced to
endure great pain and suffering…until the Holy Spirit prompted me to contact a
member of Emmanuel.
This gentle soul shared how
blessed she was to grow up with fond memories of always going to church.
Church school, Sunday
School, youth fellowship, church camp, hearing the choir sing hymns around the
piano.
I thought “How wonderful, beautiful. How peaceful that must have been.” The roots that were planted clearly took
bloom in all this person is.
We thank God for that call because
it creates a Balm of Gilead for a biblical story that is not so easy to
process.
Here we are in the 2nd
week of our Women’s Equality celebration.
Last week we began by laughing
with Rachel as she tricked the patriarchy to reclaim what was hers. Today we
take a more serious tone.
Why?
Because in order to truly celebrate
where we are, we must recall where we were, knowing that not everyone had those
moments of God as a refuge.
Today we have a painful
story about a father with such a need to win a war that he’s willing to offer whoever
walks through his front door his as a sacrifice.
It turns out that person is
his only child, a daughter full of music and life.
The father cries “Oh my
daughter, you have brought me great pain and sorrow. I have opened my mouth and can’t take back my
promise.”
To which the daughter, most
likely a teen, says “If you made a promise to the Lord, do what you must to me
to thank God for giving you vengeance against your enemies.”
It is a sad, horrifying story.
It’s also not the 1st story
in the Bible that features children dying in a world they did not make.
Noah and the Ark is a
horrific tale about God flooding the earth and killing everyone, including children.
The Exodus features both pharaoh
and God having innocent children perish.
But there’s something so
visceral, so clearly off about this story.
Perhaps because it’s so focused on a single parent and a child, and we hear
both of their voices.
How could such an event even
happen?
It took place when women and
children had no rights and were told their lives did not matter.
Girls were the property of
their dad. Their father could legally do
what he wanted. He could leave his female
baby behind.
He could sell his daughter
to pay off a debt. Work her dry. Some even sacrificed their daughters to the
gods.
It’s painful to hear. Girls basically
served the purpose to work the land and produce male heirs.
We like to think we’re above
the actions of the father in today’s story, but let’s be honest, we still has a
long way of treating our daughters kindly.
1 out of 4 girls is sexually
abused before they’re 16. Parents bring kids
to places unmasked.
Our state Rep used his
daughters as a shield to dismiss why he called someone else’s daughter an effin’
b.
There are still many ways we
sacrifice our daughters to the gods of the world.
This story makes me angry.
I want to say to the
daughter “Don’t let him do this. Don’t
be an object. Run!”
I want to yell to her dad “You
idiot! Fight for your daughter, argue with
God, do what you must to let her live.”
I want to scream at God “No! You can’t let this happen. Make it stop!”
If God can part a Red Sea or
speak a word to Micah, surely God can move mountains to save her life.
But none of those things
happen, and this young daughter has no more future; a victim to the world she
did not make.
…so, where is the Good News?
The Good News comes from knowing
that we have a different understanding of God.
We are Emmanuel UCC. We love, we give, we share. Emmanuel means “God With Us.” The Emmanuel we claim is Jesus Christ.
We claim that out of passion
and compassion God so loved us that God slipped into human flesh, and that
flesh grew into a person named Jesus, who walked among us and showed us who God
truly is.
Jesus showed us that God is the
Heavenly Father who cares about our daughters and does not want harm to come
their way.
How do we know that? We look to the stories of Jesus and listen to
the words that were used.
Do you recall when we walked
with Jesus in Mark 5:21-43? The story
about Jesus healing Jairus’ daughter and the woman who was bleeding?
In that story, Jesus uses an
important word- “Daughter.”
When the bleeding woman encounters
Jesus, he stops everything he is doing, looks at her, and says “Daughter, your
faith has made you well; go in peace.”
When Jairus’ 12 year-old
daughter is pronounced dead, Jesus still makes his way to her home, up the
stairs, into her room in which he speaks her back to life, saying “Little girl, get up.”
This becomes the 1st
story in the Bible in which a woman seeks healing for herself, and a female
child is healed.
The love Jesus has for the
daughters of the world comes across when he heels the Gentile girl. When he speaks to the woman at the well.
When he stood between a
murderous mob and a woman, boldly stating “Let he without sin throw the 1st
stone.”
That woman was somebody’s
daughter; Jesus did all he could to preserve her life.
Because that’s who God
is. THAT is the Savior we know and
worship.
The one who sat before the
crowd, saying “Let the children come to me.”
In Jesus Christ we witness the
Living Lord who cares about all children, regardless if they are Jew or Gentile,
male or female.
In Christ we witness a God
who does not ask for children to be sacrificed, but a God who is willing to sacrifice
God’s self for the sake of the children.
Yes, today’s story is uncomfortable,
but it empowers us to better understand just how revolutionary our faith really
is, just what Christ is really about.
That when Jesus calls us “daughter”
or Christ calls us “son” it is a term of love.
It is an affirmation of life
and the value of it.
Daughter.
The world may want to hurt,
burn, or deny, but the God made known in Jesus most wants to heal, soothe, and
affirm.
For that we can all say “Amen.”
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