Children of Promise

SCRIPTURE TEXT:  Exodus 2:1-10, Rev. Monte Marshall

Today is Children’s Sabbath.  This is the 25^th year that the Children’s Defense Fund has sponsored this national, multi-faith observance.  Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, said this about the purpose of Children’s Sabbath: “All across our nation, in places of worship across the religious spectrum, people of faith will be drawing on the texts and teachings of their religious traditions to hear and respond to the holy and eternal call for love and justice that urges special care and protection for children, especially those who are poor.  Together we can and must change the odds for America’s children with urgency and persistence.”[1]

Let’s pray: “God our Mother and Father, we come to you as children.  Be with us as we learn to see one another with new eyes, hear one another with new hearts, and treat one another in a new way.  Amen.

This morning’s scripture reading from the book of Exodus is a Hebrew folktale.  It’s constructed out of story elements common to other ancient cultures about babies being protected from death by being hidden away and then raised by surrogate parents, only to emerge later as leaders within their societies.[2] 

 The baby of the Exodus story is named Moses.  He was a child of promise and yet, from the moment of his birth, he was vulnerable and at-risk.  Moses was born in Egypt, a Hebrew of the tribe of Levi.  His was born to an immigrant people in a land increasingly hostile to immigrants.  He was born a slave. 

Egypt’s ruler, called Pharaoh by the Hebrews, wanted this child—and every male Hebrew child—dead.  The Hebrew population was exploding.  Pharaoh was afraid.  So, he enacted a brutal public policy of population control:  Every boy born to the Hebrews was to be thrown into the Nile.

Two Hebrew midwives had already outsmarted him to protect their children and themselves.  In this morning’s text, another woman acts.  Moses’ mother hid her newborn son for three months.  She then built him a basket of papyrus, bitumen and pitch.  She placed her son in the basket and then placed the basket in the Nile.  The baby’s sister watched to see what would happen next.

Ironically, the basket was found floating in the reeds by Pharaoh’s daughter.  She sent her maid to pull the basket out of the river.  When Pharaoh’s daughter opened the basket, she saw a crying baby.  The child captured her heart even though she knew that the baby was a Hebrew child.  The baby’s sister then appeared.  She asked:  “’Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?’”  Pharaoh’s daughter agreed.  The mother summoned to nurse the baby was Moses’ mother.  She was paid.  And when the child was weaned, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted the boy as her own son.  “She named him Moses (Pulled-Out)” because she said, “’I pulled him out of the water.’” 

Moses, as the story goes, went on to hear a call from God.  He said “yes” to the call and led the Hebrew people out of slavery and into freedom.  He led them throughout their wilderness wanderings.  He received the commandments atop Mt. Sinai.  He grew close to God.  And he lived long enough to see his people poised and ready to enter the Promised Land.

Moses was surely a child of promise.  But from the moment of his birth, he was vulnerable and at-risk. His life, and the lives of countless male Hebrew children, was threatened by a fearful leader and a brutal public policy.   Moses survived because others acted to protect him.

A similar story unfolds in Matthew’s gospel.  Another child of promise—this one named Jesus—was also vulnerable and at-risk.  King Herod was out to kill him.  Jesus survived only because his parents acted to protect him.  They fled to safety in Egypt, returning home only after King Herod had died.

In our sacred texts, it’s clear:  Both Moses and Jesus are portrayed as children of promise.   But isn’t it true?  Every child is a child of promise.  Marian Wright Edelman reminds us: “Truly each and every one of our children is a child of promise, born with the potential to achieve and become all they are meant to be.” 

But so many children of promise are still vulnerable and at-risk, even in America, the most prosperous nation on the face of the earth.  Edelman writes: “But that inborn promise cannot be fully realized for millions of children because of the deprivation, pitfalls, and obstacles put in their way.  We are squandering and hindering our children’s promise when we allow: 

• more than one in five to live in poverty;
• one in seventeen to lack health coverage;
• one in nine to be at risk of hunger;
• two in five 8^th grade public school children to read or compute below grade level;   and
• nearly one in five children to drop out of high school.

On this Children’s Sabbath weekend, we are dedicated to removing the obstacles and closing the opportunity gaps hindering millions of children in realizing their promise.”[3]

Now it occurs to me that the phrase, “children of promise” can be understood in a different way.  The word “promise” means more than “the potential for future success and achievement.”  The word can also refer to “an assurance or a declaration of commitment—what we say we will do.”  Edelman writes: “In America, we are good at making promises but far less good at keeping them.  We promise all children a free and equal education, but millions of children are consigned to failing schools bereft of adequate resources.  We promise families that if they work hard and play by the rules they can get ahead, but millions of hard-working parents find that a minimum wage doesn’t lift their family above the poverty line.  We promise that all people are created equal with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but children find that the lottery of birth and geography gives some enormous advantages while others face hindrances, and we allow these gaps to grow wider rather than narrower over time.

“On the Children’s Sabbath weekend and in the years to come, we promise to work to close the opportunity gaps so that each and every child has a fair chance to succeed….On this Children’s Sabbath weekend, we must commit to pay attention to the promises politicians are making to children and families and to hold them accountable—to keep our attention focused on policy decisions long after the election spotlight has switched off….On the Children’s Sabbath weekend and throughout the year and years to come, people of faith and goodwill must put their bodies and souls in motion to curb morally obscene and indefensible child poverty rates; wealth and income inequality; massive miseducation of poor children of color; preventable hunger and homelessness; mass incarceration and unjust criminal justice systems that criminalize the poor; and bullying and demagogic politicians encouraging assault of nonviolent protesters.  The time is ripe right now to do what is right and reject the ugliness, violence, demagoguery and greed that have permeated far too much of our political discourse.  We must move forward and not backward and teach our children how to disagree strongly without disagreeing wrongly…. On this Children’s Sabbath weekend, let us send forth the declaration that we will close opportunity gaps.  Let us close those opportunity gaps so that all children can reach adulthood with the education, experience, support, spiritual grounding, and resources to live the lives for which they were created.”[4] 

This, dear friends, is what we can do to protect our children.  As the heirs of Moses and as the followers of Jesus, how, in God’s name, can we settle for anything less?  May God give us strength.  Thanks to be God!  Amen.