Calling Forth Justice
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How many of you have a decent relationship with the Bible —as in, you’ve had at least a couple of conversations and neither of you left angry? So, if you’ve made it through most of Genesis and into Exodus, you’ll have read one of the more famous call stories in the Bible. We refer to them as “call stories” because they’re stories of God calling someone to do something. And as generally happens, the people being called have doubts, misgivings, and basically try to avoid their call. ‘Cause when God calls, folks generally want to let it go to voicemail.
That’s pretty much what happened with Moses when God appeared to him as a burning bush. And, whether you believe in the God described in the story, whether you think Moses literally existed or not, I want to walk through a bit of this story with you—not as a Biblical story, but rather as an expression of some timeless truths that have bearing on how we show up for justice today.
So, Moses is out minding his own business and tending to his father-in-law’s flock when God shows up in a burning bush. Take a moment to put yourself in Moses’ sandals. You’re walking along, minding your own business when boom—there’s a burning bush next to you. And instead of taking off running, you move closer to see what’s going on.
Next thing you know, God’s talking to you.
And the burning bush says, “Moses! Come here! There’s something I need you to do for me.” Moses inquires, “Who are you?”—which is pretty reasonable given that we don’t usually have the experience of verbal flaming topiary.
And God says, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and I have a job for you. I need you to go back to Egypt, visit Pharaoh, and tell him to let the Israelites go.”
Now, keep in mind that Moses had fled Egypt because he was a wanted man; a wanted man now being asked not just to go back to the country he had fled while fearing for his life, but to go back and seek an audience with the ruler of Egypt, and command him to let go a valued portion of his workforce. This is no small task.
So Moses, very understandably, responds, “Who, me? It can’t be. You’ve got the wrong guy.” He asks, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
God says, “Trust me, it’s okay. I will be with you.”
Moses has his doubts, however, and somewhat surprisingly argues with God, saying, “But I am not a good talker. I have never been eloquent, not in the past and not even now that you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. Please send someone else.”
For Moses it was a last-ditch attempt to avoid the call, and it was the last straw for God as well. Really annoyed now with Moses, God says, “Fine. Get your brother Aaron. He’s charming, good with words and people. Grab him. I’ll be with the both of you, and the three of us will get this job done.”
How did it feel being Moses? If you set aside the doubts you may have about the supernatural bits that many of us rebel against, what was it like being called to do something that you don’t feel ready or equipped or able to do?
It isn’t hard to understand how Moses felt, is it? We’ve all felt that way at times, compelled toward something that we’re not quite sure we can really tackle.
We’ve felt that fear, that sense of uncertainty, a deep-in-our-guts hope that someone else get picked for this job.
Moses is called to serve something greater than himself. He is called to liberate, to set free his people. This is fundamentally an act of justice. And he resists. He has doubts. He argues. And then, though still not entirely sure, he moves forward with faith.
And I suspect that, if we’re lucky, we’ve all had moments of feeling called to service by something bigger than ourselves, whether we think that call comes from somewhere out there or somewhere inside ourselves.
For many of us, a call comes in the form of longing for, and acting to create, more justice in the world. Something is unsettled in us, and instead of taking off we move in, like Moses did. It may not be a burning bush, but a voice is calling us to get curious, to dig into that sense of unsettling so that, on our own unique paths, we arrive with a sense that we are called to work for change.
However, this is often the point where, like Moses, we have doubts. And like Moses we argue:
Who am I to do this? Can I do this if I’m not perfect? What if they don’t believe me? I don’t know everything I could about these issues? What if they ask who I am? I know they’ll see some part of my classism, sexism, racism, some part of me that isn’t good.
We argue. We have doubts. But with doubts in hand, we move forward in faith. And it’s a good thing, because I believe we are being called again.
I believe that as people who believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all people and the deeply interconnected web of life, as people who believe in upholding and working to create an ever more just, equitable and peaceful world, that we are being called, loudly, to work for racial justice. To stand with our Black siblings in faith, to find our voices and loudly proclaim that Black Lives Matter.
Perhaps even more than that, we are called to dismantle the scourge of racism, the system of white privilege, the culture of whiteness that pervades our society and uses race explicitly and implicitly to keep people out.
Perhaps you’re tussling with the notion of what it means, right now, to be called to work for racial justice—as a UU, in a movement that is largely white. Am I suggesting that you go to the next Black Lives Matter march? Donate money? Shut down a highway? Protest at a mall? Yes, those are all great contributions, but here’s the thing—those public witness moments, where we show up and draw attention to an issue—are not the actions that change systems.
The theory of change that’s operating when we protest, be it a die-in for Black Lives Matter or a climate justice march and rally, is something like this: We do this protest action in order to draw attention. We disrupt business as usual because in doing so, people are jolted out of their everyday lives just a bit and politicians see that the public is in support of a given issue.
These actions are a display of power that declares something is wrong, something needs attention. As such, they are critical. Please don’t misunderstand me—I am not at all suggesting we should sit them out. On their own, however, they are insufficient. Our public witness must be followed by the harder work of engaging head, heart, and action—our own and that of others—to uproot the virus of racism that sickens this nation.
Moses was called to go to the center of empire in his time, and set free his people. We too are called to confront Pharaoh, to set free our people. Only today, our enslavement isn’t primarily physical. Whiteness and privilege aren’t chains on our bodies, but rather on our minds, our hearts, and our spirits.
Pharaoh isn’t out there as much as in here. That’s one of the things that makes this work so difficult. It is a big call. Who wouldn’t resist it? When Moses was called to confront Pharaoh, he argued with the call. And when he moved forward to confront the power of Empire, he did so with God.
With faith.
How do we do that? What does it look like for us to confront Pharaoh with our faith? Moses had God. Some of us don’t, or can’t the way that Moses did. I think we’ve got something better: The Shining Power of Unitarian Universalism! OK, so I’m being a bit funny, but really, I believe this.
Consider this: As Unitarian Universalists, our non-creedal faith equips us in a unique way for the moment we’re called to. As UUs we’re not told what to believe. No one comes around and says, This is where we go when we die, this is our purpose while we’re here, and here’s why evil exists. Instead, we’re charged with a powerful, potent, and provocative invitation to engage in a search for truth and meaning that requires that we increase our ability to hold and sit with tension.
Sitting with tension matters because of where Pharaoh is, where empire is. The empire that we are called to confront today is, at least in part, inside us. We are all at least a little bit, and perhaps more than a little bit, Pharaoh. There is tension in saying that. It just is. Yet our faith also teaches us that there is liberation in naming things, that in such naming even the greatest evil can be apprehended and undone.
So we are called into conversation—first with ourselves, to listen for the deep call in our hearts, to understand and chip away at our own prejudices and biases. (We all have them.) And then we turn to those closest to us,
and with an open heart, in loving confrontation, ask for and listen to their stories, worries, fears, and pains about a world in which privilege is no longer conferred by skin color.
These conversations can and will set a tidal wave in motion.
Our work isn’t just about meeting the moment we’re in. Even more it is about tilling the soil and preparing the ground so that when the next moment comes there are far more of us ready to put our hands and hearts and backs to the moral arc of the universe and help it to bend toward justice.
- Calling Forth Justice - May 1, 2016
- Uncertainty and Solidarity: Reflections on Shutting it Down with Black Lives Matter - December 29, 2015
