Beth El Synagogue's Memorial Service

As a United Methodist clergy woman, I grew up in tradition that spoke of holiness that was not simply personal but social. Our faith is communal. It is relational, and so sometimes our heartbreak is not only personal but social. I think of this as systemic grief. And when I am feeling systemic grief, which can be a lot lately, I lean into the story of two Egyptian midwives. You can find them in the First Chapter of Exodus. It is this space where we can see a country, Egypt, go from welcome and embrace of outsiders escaping hunger in their homeland to systemic oppression, forced labor, and violence as they march towards genocide. The Pharaoh, in this moment of the story, has a new idea to deal destruction. He asks the midwives to kill baby boys born to Hebrew women while their mother is yet on the birthing stool. The narrative we inherit says, “but the midwives fear God,” and say no. They fear God, they stand in awe and openness, a posture of listening and action that makes them fearless in the face of Pharaoh. I suspect they have plenty of reason to fear Pharaoh, nobody likes to be called to the Principal’s office let alone the Pharaoh’s. He has all the systems of wealth and power, funneling privilege and control to his hands. In their resistance they risk everything, and their death at the Pharaoh’s hands would not be murder but state sponsored violence perhaps in the name of keeping the peace.

I imagine them at the birth stool. They dwell in a thin space, life and death so near. Their work is about giving life. They know how to coach the most unsure woman into the fullness of her power, they know how to stand in struggle and bring life into the world. They know how to manage an anxious room, how to quite the auntie who says all the wrong things at all the wrong times. And they know, when the worst outcome is near, how to make room for grief and loss with the most grace, care, and compassion possible. I imagine them, at the birthing stool, looking towards a mammoth wall, as big as a pyramid, of systemic violence, oppression, and destruction, and they give life anyway. They find a way to fight for life in the face of Pharaoh’s executive order to deal death. They give life because they work in a space where they know all the boundaries and barriers and divisions men make mean nothing, absolutely nothing.

So I look to them when I am grieved, systemically grieved. We see seeds of violence, hatred, antisemitism, and white supremacy nurtured rather than uprooted, and systems of injustice seem almost impossible to change. I pause to remember ancient voices that refused to succumb to despair and indifference. I look to the stories of those messy, holy-imperfect people who journeyed before us. We have the stories that can save us. We have the stories of midwives who faced the King of Egypt, we have the stories of those little guys defeating their Goliaths, and the stories of those who would not go back to Egypt but marched on to a bigger promise. Those midwives call to us today. Join in the work that gives life and breaks down the systems that deal death.

May we have the courage. Amen.