Sermon by The Rev Ben Adam, 8/27/2023, Matthew 16:13-20
As of August 3rd I am now the parent of a two year old. His name is Arto and he is a great little kid and wonderful older brother to his three month old sister Saana. He is full of imagination and he’s funny, but as he has been discovering who he is, and what he is capable of, he has also discovered the art of defiance.
Just a little example of what I’m talking about, the other day he had gotten out his favorite board game, Monkey Around, it’s a simple and cute game with little prompts and a stuffed banana that you have to balance on your head, or pretend to eat, or pass back and forth with your partner.
So he gets the box out and dumps all the pieces on the floor to play. Now that’s not the defiant part. It’s pretty normal for him to just dump things out while playing, but it was what he did after that that really showed his defiant side.
So he dumps out the pieces then he then puts the empty top of the box on the ground, and me being his Dad watching all this take place, could see that as he did that, the wheels in his head started turning. It was as if he looked at the top of the game box, and started to wonder, hmmm, I bet that box could support my body weight.
So he starts to test that theory and as he began to lift his foot and put it on top of the box, I said in my usual way, Arrtooo. And he stopped and looked at me knowing now that I was watching and did not want him to stand on the top of the game box which would inevitably crush it.
And so now we’re in this battle of wills locked eye to eye and he is waiting for me to break so he can do what he intended to do, but I’m not backing down. He starts to give me a little smirk as if he thinks this is now a game, he gives a couple of half hearted lifts of his foot like uhhh, uhhh. And with each raise of his foot he wanted so bad to defy my wishes that he not destroy that game box, but ultimately after the short battle of wills had ended, I did prevail this time and I was able to deter him this time from his defiance, and direct his attention and energy were to something else.
But as a Dad, and as a person of faith, I don’t always want to deter Arto from his defiant side. In most cases, I want to nurture his defiant side. And this isn’t to try to raise him to be some kind of contrarian or obstinate person, it’s in line with the story of God to faithfully defy.
Just off the top of my head I can think of many stories of defiance from our scriptures, from Daniel defying the kings orders to bow down to him in worship and being thrown in the lion's den, to Esther breaking the law to plead before the king to save the Jewish people, to Jesus’s lesson to turn the other cheek, to our story today of Shiphrah and Puah one of my favorite stories of faithful defiance in all of scripture.
As we heard read in our first reading, Shriphrah and Puah were Hebrew midwives and had been instructed by the insecure king to kill all of the boys in childbirth. This was to try and prevent the Israelites from becoming more numerous and powerful than the Egyptians because the slavery and forced labor of the Hebrews was not cutting it for as we were told the more the Hebrews were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.
So this is where the King decides he needs to change tactics and go from oppression to murder in order to stop the Hebrews from multiplying. The only problem is that he chose the wrong women to carry out his murderous plans.
Little did the king know that Shiphrah and Puah were God fearing women, so they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So when the king of Egypt realizes that his plan is not really working, he summoned the midwives and says to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
These women are not just courageous in their defiance, but they are smart and because of their cunning they are blessed by God. This is what faithful defiance looks like. It is standing up to the empire of death and destruction and fighting for life and creation.
Paul goes on in our Epistle today to encourage us to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect. Well I’d say that is exactly what Shiphrah and Puah have done here. They were given a command to kill all of the Israelite babies born male, but they did not just conform to that order, they discerned the will of God and they discerned that they were called to defy.
It’s been about a year and a half since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia first took place. It started in February of 2022 to be exact. And for many farmers in Ukraine, this posed a great moment of discernment that led to a great opportunity for faithful defiance. Peter Greer, CEO of HOPE International, shares how the everyday work of the farmers in Ukraine was a powerful source of light and hope in the midst of unfathomable darkness:
“Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe. Its abundant harvests feed people throughout Eastern Europe and beyond. Many of the entrepreneurs HOPE Intl. serve work in agriculture, and amid attacks they’ve had to determine whether to leave their homes and businesses to move west. For greenhouse farmers, this would mean abandoning their already-planted crops. For those who farm in open fields, this is the time to plant. If farmers wait to see the war’s outcome, they will miss the window to yield a successful harvest. If they plant now, with the outcome of the war still unknown, occupying Russian forces might seize their harvests.
Yet many chose to plant.”
In my Lutheran tradition we often credit Luther with a quote that he said after being asked what he would do if the world were to end tomorrow to which he says, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
That’s the commitment to life and creation that Shiphrah and Puah knew, that the wheat farmers in Ukraine know, and that Luther knew as well. This kind of faithful defiance in the face of death and destruction is what we are called to each and every day. But the world can grind us down and we can become weary and more susceptible to conforming to the death dealing ways of the world.
It is in these moments that we can be like Peter and call on our Messiah for strength and salvation. In its own way, just calling on the name of Jesus, our messiah is an act of faithful defiance. In Peter’s time, calling Jesus the Messiah would likely get him killed by the Roman empire and that is why Jesus advises the disciples to be strategically defiant in telling others that Jesus was the Messiah. And while calling Jesus the Messiah will not likely get you killed in this day and age; it is still radically defiant to put our hope in Christ and not in the things of this world.
I hope my Son Arto learns that kind of faithful defiance, and that we too can be transformed by the renewing of our minds here in worship through the water, the word, and the sacrament so that we may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Amen.