“God’s Children”

       You can tell a lot about a society by looking at its children.
    That’s what Anna Carter Florence said - - as she reflected on this morning’s reading from the book of Exodus. And I think she’s right. So I invite you listen to the reading from Exodus, and think about it from that perspective: “You can learn a lot about a society by looking at its children”…
        [ read Exodus 1:8-2:10 ]

    You can tell a lot about a society by looking at its children.
        We learn a lot about Pharaoh by looking at Moses in the basket in the river…
        But we also learn a lot about Hebrew and Egyptian women…
    It was true then and it is still true today.
    You can tell a lot about a nation…
    And about a state…
    And about a church…by looking at its children.
    So…as we look at our children…what do we see?
    Look behind the big sunglasses…look into the ears and into the mind, that are plugged into the i pod…   What I want to get at this morning is not really about fashion.  This is not about baggy pants, or flared jeans versus skinny ankle jeans. 
    What I think the scripture reading for this morning asks us to get real about is the conditions the children in our society are living in, and how they got that way. This morning’s text is about courage and injustice. It is about both the challenge and the hope.
    It seems to me that one of the greatest challenges we all face right now is economic.
    It seems like it’s in the news all the time.
    A report was released this week that looks at how that effects children.
    The 2011 Kids Count Data Book was released last week. For the past 20 years this annual report has been the project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. It tracks the well-being of children at national, state and local levels. It does this by ranking states according to 10 indicators including mortality rates, birth rates, educational levels and economic indicators. 
      Its release was reported on Oregon Live, and this year’s study reinforces something we all basically know: Oregon has been hit hard by the recession. What we might NOT have considered is what this means for Oregon’s children. Specifically, Oregon ranked third worst in the economic conditions of children, measured by unemployed parents, and living below the poverty level.
    If you look further, you find that over the past 20 years this is a reversal.
    Nationally, between 1994 and 2000 the child poverty rate fell by 30 percent. But…since 2000 the child poverty rate has increased by 18 percent.
    Set this data next to other census data from May that shows that Oregon homes have fewer children than last year - - and Oregon is lower than many other parts of the nation in children per household - - and it gets you thinking. 
    It gets me thinking because I don’t have biological children.
    And I live in Portland.
    So this statistic is me.
    But I have nieces and nephews…and children from Westminster who I care about.
    And I vote.  All the time I find myself voting…on funding for schools…and things that would effect the lives of children.
    If the Old Testament text for this morning is saying anything to me…I hear something about the fact that my well-being, and the well being of the society in which I live…is linked…to the well being of children.
    So as we look at our children what do we see?
    This week a LOT of Westminster children are at the All Church Retreat on the beach. They are in Rockaway Oregon. Which means that there aren’t many here. Which might be disappointing. But it also means that there ARE a lot of children…connected to THIS church community…we just don’t always see them. Which might be a good metaphor…for other things…
    And the question is this:
Whether we physically see them or not, DO WE act as if they matter?
And what would it mean, if we did?
        Would it change anything?
    In this morning’s scripture reading, Moses is a child.
    Moses is born into a society run by the Pharaoh, in which his people are slaves. But even though they are poor slaves, they threaten the power of Pharaoh.
    Because maybe…power is more fragile than we think:
        Power is no match…for courage.
    And five women in the story show amazing courage.
    Two Hebrew midwives…two women from Moses’ own family, his mother and his sister…and even an Egyptian princess…these women courageously foil the plans of the Pharaoh.
    First we meet the two midwives. These are women whose job it is to deliver babies. They help bring children into the world. But we know MORE than just their vocation. We know their names!
    Shiphrah and Puah are their names.
    We don’t even know the Pharaoh’s name!
        Pharaoh is a title, like president, it’s not a name.
    And that tells you something about who the Bible thought was important.
    They would have been relatively powerless in their society.
    But they don’t act that way.
    Shiphrah and Puah outsmart Pharaoh by remaining true to their vocation. They help babies live. They will not kill them, even when power demands it.
    The bringer of death meets - - two bringers of life.
    This new pharaoh did not really know his history. We are told that he did not know Joseph. Joseph was the Hebrew who had been thrown into the pit, and then saved to rule in Egypt under the former Pharaoh. This new pharaoh didn’t remember that his empire had been saved from famine by a Hebrew. Or if he did…he just didn’t care anymore.
    I wonder what those midwives thought about when they returned home after defying Pharaoh’s orders. Did their hands shake from fear…and then become strong again…in their fear of God?
    Pharaoh’s daughter is the next woman we meet. And if it is not embarrassing enough for Pharaoh to be outwitted by midwives, embarrassment turns to irony. Now his own daughter saves Moses. Pharaoh’s daughter had come to the river to wash, and along came Moses in a basket.
Or so it seemed. Actually Moses mother had been waiting for just such a moment to release the basket. And when she did, Pharaoh’s daughter meets Moses sister. And Moses is BOTH adopted by an Egyptian…and nursed to boyhood by his own biological mother.
    This near dead baby boy:
        Saved by midwives
        Adopted by an Egyptian into the family of power
        And nursed to life by his own mother
    You can tell a lot about a society by how it treats its children.
    As we hear this ancient tale, children continue to be born.
    What are our stories?
        Of power and corruption and attempted child murder?
        Of adoption and courage and hope?
    It is no surprise to me that the rioters in Britain last week were young.  According to the Associated Press, “Each of the young rioters who clogged Britain’s courthouses painted a bleak picture of a lost generation: a 17 year-old who followed his cousin into the mayhem, an 11 year old arrested for stealing a garbage can”. Britain is bitterly divided on the reasons for the riots, of course. But it is the young who are feeling the hopelessness, and reacting.
    In another part of the world, girls are writing and speaking in South Africa, about their experiences. They are known as the “Born Frees”. The first generation of Black South Africans coming of age after apartheid, comprise the group.
    The August edition of Sojourners  has an article on a writing group formed by these girls. Along with the freedom, the “Born Frees” inherited a country plagued by poverty and extreme levels of income disparity, violence, unemployment, and one of the highest HIV/AIDs rates in the world. Their elders are calling them the “girl-child”. Increasingly global poverty experts are pointing to the well-being of girls in a society, as a key indicator of development prospects, and health of a society.   
    Anna suena is 18 and from South Africa. She is a part of this group and she writes this:
        I am a writer by birth
        A vocalist by choice
        An expressionist by nature
        And an instrumentalist by voice.

        I pledge to speak my mind
        And utter the words that define
        My solitude, senses, and space.

        I pledge to provoke all existing
        Thought and explore every and
        Any feeling and emotion of all
        Human race.

    Maybe Shiphrah and Puah live on.
    Maybe if we had all the lost Biblical texts, there would be one much like that poem, written by Shiphrah and Puah on the morning after Moses rescue.
    Imagine if Moses had NOT been rescued.
    On the one hand, we still have poverty and power with us even now.  So Moses rescue didn’t really solve anything.
Or did it?
    Maybe freedom is part of an unstoppable story that needs to be told, and lived.
    Maybe even in spite of power, it matters how we live our lives in response.
    I believe it does matter.
    I believe that is what this Biblical text is all about.
    You can tell a lot about a society by looking at its children.
        You can tell a lot about the injustice of power and poverty in a society…
    But you can ALSO learn a lot… FROM the children.
        Children who write poems like Anna suena in South Africa.
        Children like Moses.
        Children who still hope.
        Children like an 11 year-old Silverton boy who was mentioned in a little article in the Oregonian that caught my eye two weeks ago and so I saved it, not quite sure why. But I will end with it today. Here’s what happened:
    A 9 year-old Hawiian girl found a message in a bottle that floated across the Pacific Ocean from this 11 year-old Oregon boy. West Hawaii Today show reported that the girl was beach combing on the Big Island when she saw a bottle floating in a tide pool. Inside the bottle was a note scribbled by Thomas Craig of Silverton, asking for friendship and an email address for his mother. The boy tossed the bottle in Oregon’s Winchester Bay last year.
    Well so much for Facebook.
    Old technology or new, the longing remains the same:
        We long for a world of hope connected by friendship.
    And that, instead of the alienation of power and violence and greed.
        Do we long for that?
            Well, some of the world’s children still do.
            And some of God’s children still do…