HOMILY Sunday, August 23, 2020 Canon Clyde Kunz, Licensed Lay Homilist

The first two stanzas of Psalm 124 both begin repetitively with the words “If the Lord had not been on our side.” That repetition reminds me of my favorite section of the Passover Seder liturgy, which of course recounts the story of the Hebrew people’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt. In that part of the Seder celebration, the response to each line of the text is “DAYENU” which means “It would have been enough and we are grateful.” It goes something like this:

Had God brought us out of Egypt but not executed judgments against the Egyptians, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God executed judgements against them, but not but parted the Sea for us, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had god parted the Sea for us, but not led us through it on dry land, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God led us through on dry land, but not provided for our needs in the desert for 40 years, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God provided for our needs in the desert, but not fed us Manna, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God fed us Manna, but not brought us to Mount Sinai, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought us to Mount Sinai, but not given us the Torah, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God given us the Torah, but not brought us into the Land of Israel, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

I absolutely love the literary use of repetition in this prayer to emphasize the multi- layered blessings God bestows upon His people. Gratitude for God’s love. Gratitude for the people’s deliverance. And at every stage, declaring that God’s generosity has been sufficient.

Last week we completed our readings from the Book of Genesis, and have moved into the beginning of the Book of Exodus. In Hebrew, Exodus is called “Shemot” which means – not Exodus – but “The Book of Names.” But notice that in this first reading from that book, we encounter this well-known story in which most of the characters are not named. 1

Despite what you might remember from the movie version (and with apologies to Charlton Heston and Cecil B. DeMille, who took a lot of liberties to re-write the script) Pharaoh is never named. Pharaoh’s daughter is never named. Moses’ mother is not named, and his sister is not named.

Two women, however, are named: Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives who helped other Hebrew women through childbirth. These two women, slaves, people considered by Pharaoh nothing more than property, used their cunning and a bit of deception to outwit him. And in doing so, they pointed the Hebrew people on a path of liberation.

You know how some Bibles put little sub-titles on particular passages to tell you what they are about? This story is often cited as “The Birth of Moses” or “Moses Being Saved.” But this story really isn’t about Moses at all. It’s about these two seemingly- powerless women, Shiphrah and Puah, the only ones named in the telling of this story. They are the ones who set God’s people on the path to deliverance.

And notice the way in which they did it. Pharaoh obviously believed that he had power over the life and the death of slaves, and considered it his absolute right to order all male babies killed. To him, the Hebrew slaves were sub-human, little more than animals. Shiphrah and Puah, in their wisdom, used the King’s own racism against him.

These midwives told him that the Hebrew women were too “vigorous” to need the assistance of midwives. But the Hebrew word translated in our reading today as “vigorous” more correctly would be translated “brutish” or “animalistic.” They knew that Pharaoh considered Hebrews to be little more than animals, and they fed into his racist belief in order to provide cover for sparing the lives of the newborn babies.

Three other women – Moses’ mother, sister and the daughter of Pharaoh – though nameless – also played important roles in deceiving Pharaoh, and ultimately in the liberation of the people. And the king? He who was supposed to hold all the power, was undermined by those who should have had no power whatsoever.

This past week, we celebrated as a nation the lives and accomplishments of other seemingly-powerless women – many of whom remain nameless – who fought for decades and finally secured the right of women to vote in this country. 100 years ago this past week, the 19th Amendment was finally ratified by a sufficient number of states and codified into the Constitution of the United States.

But of course, not all women were automatically granted voting rights. Many women of color continued to be denied that privilege until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 – 45 years later.

And despite numerous hurdles made in the rights afforded to women throughout the 20th century, it took 54 years after passage of the 19th Amendment for women to be 2 ordained in the Episcopal Church – once more through acts of deception and without the full blessing of the Church. But on that transformative day in 1974, the Rev. Alison Cheek and 10 other women became Episcopal priests. To which we should all respond: DEYANU!

Our denomination, or what Presiding Bishop Michael Curry often calls “The Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement,” has more often than not led other mainline denominations in confronting gender and racial discrimination. But sometimes we too have been slow to act, and have only done so when the rest of society has mostly moved on.

Nonetheless, today the Church (for the most part) embraces people of all stripes who have heard a call to ordination or to lay ministry, be they women, people of color, people with disabilities, or people from the LGBT community. But change has sometimes come slowly, and more often than not, only after the years-long struggle of many nameless women and men who have stood up to those in power until they made it happen.

We are finally becoming a very diverse church. And as Paul told those saints in Rome almost 2000 years ago: “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function. So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are all members of one another.”

The Church – the Body of Christ – cannot be sustained, cannot grow, cannot thrive, if any one of us is excluded. Yet, for the progress that has been made, we are grateful.

Had God brought us Samuel Seabury, first American Bishop to be consecrated in 1784, but not brought us Absolom Jones, the first African-American priest ordained, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought us the ordination of Absolom Jones in 1804, but not brought James Holly, an African-American consecrated as Missionary Bishop of Haiti in 1874, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought us the consecration of James Holly, but not brought us passage of the Church’s General Convention Anti-Lynching Resolution in 1919, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

If God brough us the Church’s Anti-Lynching Resolution, but not brought in 1970 the consecration of James Burgess, the first African-American Bishop Diocesan, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought the consecration of Bishop John Burgess, but not yet the ordination of women, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

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Had God brought us the ordination of those 11 women in 1974, but not yet the consecration of Bishop Barbara Harris, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought us Barbara Harris’ consecration in 1989 – the first female Bishop, also African-American – but not yet the consecration of an openly gay Bishop, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought us the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2004, but not yet a woman as Presiding Bishop, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought us the election of Katherine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop in 2006, but not yet the election of an African-American in that position, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought us the election of Michael Curry as Presiding Bishop of the Church in 2015, but not yet a woman as Bishop of Arizona, it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Had God brought us Jennifer Reddall as the Sixth Bishop of Arizona in 2018, but not yet [whatever moves of inclusion God has in store for us] it would have been enough. DAYENU!

Psalm 124 calls us to give thanks to God for all things. The liturgy of the Passover Seder reminds us to have gratitude for every step in the journey to which God is calling us.

And the Apostle Paul calls us to embrace diversity, reminding us not only that we collectively make up the Body of Christ, but that we all bring different and important gifts to the Church and its ministries. Individually we can do little. Collectively, discriminating against none, we can create the Kingdom of God on earth.

Today we recognize the forgotten bravery of Shiphrah and Puah. This year we especially remember the Suffragettes who fought for the right of women to vote. And we celebrate all of the other powerless, the nameless, those excluded from power, those who through perseverance and with the Spirit of God on their side, have made change happen – in society and in the Church – and in doing so have made us a better people.

DEYANU! Thanks be to God. Amen.

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