Invisible Handcuffs
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 8/31/2014
Based on Exodus 3:
1-15
A
week ago this past Saturday, our Hot Cakes and Hot Topics focused on Prison,
Re-entry, and Alternatives to Violence.
Out of the 16 people attending, four where from a church in Denver
searching and hoping for some ways in which to deal with a specific situation
that was going on in their congregation.
Another person who attended, learned about this particular forum and
received an invitation by Njeri Kingangi.
This forum was of particular interest to her because she had personal
experience with the prison system as an inmate, as well as re-entry as a
parolee. Much of our conversations
focused around the idea of “victim”. The
standard wisdom in our culture is in order to have a victim, you must also have
a perpetrator. One of the major
breakthroughs in the discussions was to understand that the “victim” might also
be a “victimizer.”
In other words the
issue of being wronged and of wronging is very fluid. For the representatives of the visiting
congregation, the issue centers on a group of members who in the past have been
victims of a particular action and remain with that insight. There is a new member to the faith community
that represents the prior activities that remind those who were victimized of
the trauma they experienced. The
reactions of those original victims are now causing them to become the
victimizers of a person who has no direct connection to the original incident.
As a voice of
experience of being both in prison and on parole, the Rev Tammy
Garrett-Williams was able to provide some very pointed and helpful incites to
those of us who have never experienced incarceration. Her newest e-book “Invisible Handcuffs” is
the inspiration of this morning’s reflection title. To me, her life parallels in some ways to
that of the story of Moses and the burning bush. Both had been convicted of a crime, Tammy
went to prison; Moses ran and lived in exile in the land of Midia. After Tammy’s release on parole, she encountered
God, who (she feels) has asked her to expose the invisible handcuffs that exist
in our judicial system of those who are re-entering society. Moses after many years of living in exile encounters
God and is asked to go to back to Egypt and face Pharaoh and speak out about
the injustice to the Hebrew people. For
either story to continue, both have had to accept God’s request.
This morning’s
story about Moses and the burning bush is such a familiar story to most of us
that I wonder sometimes if we forget just how significant it is. We hear about this story as a little child
and think, “what a cool thing that the
bush was on fire but never burned up.”
As we grow older and learn more about the relationships between science
and physics, we start to dismiss the factualness of the event because it
doesn’t hold up to the laws of science. As
we mature into our senior years of life, I suspect we can start to dismiss this
story as, “what does it have to do with
me at this stage of my life?”
For those of you
who have grown up listening to this story of Moses and the burning bush, I am
sure you have heard many explanations of its meaning. I would be willing to bet that the most
common theme you have heard about this story centers on the response that Moses
gave God when asked to go Pharaoh and demand the release of the Hebrew slaves,
“Who
am I that I should go…?” Since
the Jesus movement of the 1960’s the American Evangelical Christian has been
plagued with this question in one form or another; generally asking “what does God want me to do with my life?”
Now there are many possible
ways to look at this morning’s scripture as it is so very rich with a variety
of information. You have the enslaved
Hebrews, the oppressive Egyptians, a baby boy who was supposed to be killed by
royal decree ,yet raised in the royal household by the Pharaoh’s sister
becoming an elite part of society. Moses
then becomes a convicted murderer and runs, living a good deal of his life in
exile in a barren land. He then
encounters God and is ordained to become the leader and savior of the Hebrew
slaves. Also, a major theme of this
story is the reality that God is invisibly present in the lives of the Hebrew
people and specifically with Moses.
Yet with all these
possibilities to reflect upon, I believe that all the possibilities hinge on
this particular question, “Do we have the
courage to listen and respond?”
Today’s story is the foundation for the celebration of Passover. Through the courage of Moses to go and
investigate the burning bush, to then listen to God’s concern about the Hebrews
unjust existence, and then on an act of faith respond to God’s call is the most
basic message to each of us here this morning.
It is a story asking each one of us, “if we have the courage to listen
and to respond?”
No one likes to be
taken advantage of, yet each of us has been taken advantage of in one way or
another. We are capable of abusing
others all the time in ways that we generally aren’t even aware of, that is
until someone or something brings it to our attention. It is at that point that we have a choice to
either “listen” and hear, or listen and not hear. Our response will be based on either our willingness
or refusal to listen, even if we think we are not responding, we are making a
response. Generally, most of this
congregation does not take advantage of the Hot Cakes and Hot Topics for one
reason or another, but these topics are the burning bushes of our day. I hope that many of you will make the
commitment to attend the upcoming forum as we watch the documentary, “Injustice
for all.” It speaks to the reasons of
the shrinking middle-class and explains the reasons for the prolonged recession
this country is in. It is truly a
burning bush that we need to have the courage to listen to and then respond.
In the Gospel
stories, the reason why Jesus is often compared by its authors to Moses is
because of the actions of Jesus toward the injustice of the system in which the
Israelites were living by the rule of Rome.
Moses was asked by God to take action about the injustice of the Hebrew
people by the Egyptians. This injustice
was not about “legal” justice or injustice as we in today’s world think about
the term justice. The justice that God
is addressing both through Moses and through Jesus is about “distributive justice”, the fairness of
resources for all to have access to.
We are quickly
approaching the 13th anniversary of the 9/11, an act that has done
immense damage upon the American psyche and as a result has cost us as a nation
not only lives, and money, but the loss of ethical stances that we once lived
by. The then Vice-President Cheney declared
that, “the U.S. had to work the dark
side, using any means at our disposal and without any discussion.” Is it possible that as we asked the questions
of “why did this happen to us”, asked with a perspective of beyond “being a
victim”, would we have been able to see this as a burning bush about
“distributive justice”? I do not condone
violent actions in any way, shape, or form, but I do see this type of behavior
as extreme measures, demanding by those who perpetrate these acts of violence as
cries to be heard. We are now faced with
many more horrors of terrorist activities, the most recent labeled as
ISIS. Do we have the courage to truly
listen to what they are trying to say to the world, or do we want to close our
ears and see them only as deranged individuals and a threat to humanity? As Americans, we have to come to the
realization that we are a part of the domination system that restricts access
to basic resource in under developed countries.
The World Trade Center was a beacon of the world domination system that
we operate under. Jesus challenged Caesar
about the injustice of the domination system by Rome. Moses challenged Pharaoh about the injustice
of the domination system by Egypt. As
disciples of Christ, we too are called to challenge the injustice of the
domination system. As a citizen of the
United States, I love the level of economic comfort that is available to
me. But you know what: God asks me to look beyond myself, and hear
the cries of his people all over the world and face the tyrants that enslave
the majority.
The story of Moses
is a story about God’s desire and God’s ability to accomplish “distributive
justice” in the world that belongs to God.
It is a story that provoked Jesus to stand up against the oppressors of
his day. It is a story that calls us to
“have the courage to listen and to respond” against the invisible handcuffs
that we encounter today, not just between one another, or in this country, but
worldwide. This morning’s story about
Moses and the burning bush is a story about whether we have the courage to
approach God, to recognize that we are living on sacred soil, and to respond to
God’s call for justice. Amen
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