Standing Up For Justice by Rose Schwab
Today I’m going to tell you an astounding story, and amazing story, a liberating story. A story about justice. A story about someone who, like yourselves, was asked to give too much. Someone who like yourselves, was weary. Someone whose back wrenched, someone whose mind swirled, someone who felt forsaken. She is a women, a woman whose name we will never know. And the amazing thing that I’m going to tell you today is that she refused to be degraded, and stood up for herself against a mighty power.
She is a widow, out for the day doing her work. She is gathering sticks by the well on a boiling, dry day. She is bending down and picking up a stick, straightening, and placing it in her apron, and bending down again. Her knees ache. Her ankles crunch. Her neck pulls. Her knuckles are raw and chapped, cracked from the dryness of the desert sand. She can feel her heart beat in her stomach because she is so hungry. Can you see her? Can you see her face? She is a tired woman: thin, worn, calloused, dirty. She is at the end of her rope, hanging on by a thread. Can you see her? Have you seen her? Does she live in your building? Does she ride the bus with you? Is she you? She is a widow, who is making her way without a partner, raising a child by herself, eating what there is. Have you seen her?
So, she was out gathering sticks on what might be the last day of her life. Little does she know, there is a man named elijah who is going to approach her on this day. Elijah has come from far away, commanded by God to leave his land and go to Zeraphath, where the widow woman lives. Before he left on this God ordained journey, Elijah was told that there was a plan to keep him safe, and little does our widow woman know, but she is part of this God’s plan, too. Oh yes, God has told elijah that when he gets to Zeraphath, he will see a widow woman gathering sticks by the well. And it has been decreed that when Elijah asks her for water, she will fetch him some water, and when Elijah asks her for food, she will fetch him some food.
Can you see her? She is clawing her cracked and brittle finger tips around a small twig, and she hears a call from across the square: “bring me some water.” Can you see her? realizing that he is a man she has never seen before, calling her out of her work. But she is expected, so she goes. She drops her bundle, she finds her cup, she walks to the well, fills up the cup and before she can even get the water to him, he says, “bring me some food.”
You see, she there is no food. You see, there is no water. It is a drought that is killing her. It is this drought that has caused her husband to die, the drought that is causing her to starve, the drought that is killing her and her only child. And can you imagine the hatred churning in her belly, when she sees that this man is an Israelite. Because it is the Israelite God that has caused the drought, to win a war against her God, the rain god, to make a point about who is most powerful.
If we look back to the passage, these are the words she says, “As surely as your God lives, I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” If we step back, and look at the first and last phrases in this passage, they are bookends to her message. We see that she is essentially saying, “As your God lives, I am dying.”
You see, the Israelite God won the war against the rain God, and is now in charge, but keeps this drought going, just to drive the point home. These Gods were interested in being THE God, interested in having the most power, regardless of how they got it. They hungered to rule over more. They were so engrossed in an egotistical battle over material that people’s very lives were ending.
Do you know anything about this? Do you know anything about egotistical battles for power that are causing people’s very lives to end? yes, you do. Can you imagine a world where people in power make decisions that will never affect them? yes, you can. Do you know about systems that use the poor, the vulnerable, the people of color, the women as pawns? Yes you do. I know you do, because this is where we are. Because we live in a world where people’s rights are being taken away. Where Texas is soon to have only 5 women’s health clinics in the entire state. We live in a world where some people are protected and some people aren’t. Some people get health care, some people don’t. Some people get sex education, some people don’t.
We live in a world where two people, male and female, might have a baby. In our world, it common that neither of them have the resources to raise the child. They are both stuck, they are both wishing that this had never happened. So what option do they have? Well, the male person can just leave. That’s biological privilege. That’s the privilege of someone whose body doesn’t stand in the way of their emotional safety, their financial safety, their psychological safety. But the female body, the female body could walk and walk and walk, clear across the state of Texas, looking for a clinic, and be carrying that physical reality the whole time. The option to put oneself first is very different for male and female bodies. And the fact that women are not supported in this is wrong.
And what happens if the female person takes into account all the factors: physical, emotional, spiritual, social…and decides to terminate the pregnancy? Biologically, both the male and female people are in this, but who is the one who is barred by male-centered legislation from making a decision for their lives? Who can make the decision by turning away, and who has to put themselves in danger to make the same decision? Who has invasive medical procedures? Who is the one who hears the rasp of adrenaline echoing in their bodies as they move through a hoard of people yelling hateful slurs at them? Who has to take 2 days off work, and be in strange place as they wait out the 24 hours that the state insists they need to contemplate a decision they’ve already thought about over and over again? The female alone may carry the weight of this decision. This is an injustice.
And when there is an injustice upon us, our only option is to stand up, to pull ourselves up to our full height take a stand. When God told Elijah that our widow would bring him water, she brought him water, but when God told Elijah that she would bring him food, she said over my dead body.
Literally. She says “I would rather die than do the bidding of your unjust God.”
She says, you have asked too much of me. She pulls herself up to her full height and stands up. And she knows that she is standing on holy ground, not matter what that God says, because she knows that what she is saying is real. She says, hold on, pump the breaks, because I am weary. I am riding the greyhound bus across the state before dawn, on the way to one of few women’s health clinics, I am alone with strangers in the dark, anxious about where I will stay tonight as I endure the waiting period, afraid of who will assault me on the way in to the clinic, unsure if I will still have a job when I get home. I am weary. Or I am someone else, unable to even get any care at all, perhaps resorting to even more dangerous measures to put myself first.
No. No. This is not happening. It is our work as Unitarian Universalists to name the cycles of destruction that are happening around us, and to bring healing to our world. It is out of a need for the safety of our children, our neighbors, and ourselves that we are not going to let our right to health be taken away.
We can speak our truths too, we can stand up and say, this way of living, where poor people and women are the first to go, this way is killing us. We are all dying because we are not all safe. And when we say this, we will be standing on holy ground. We will say that we see this injustice in our streets, we see it in our schools, we see it in ourselves. We will stand up.
And when we do stand up, something beautiful will happen. When the widow stood up, when she raised herself up and spoke defiance and refusal, God heard. God heard her say that she was dying because God’s system was killing her, and God’s mind was changed. The entire passage pivots on her refusal. This passage is about a nameless, dying woman changing the mind of GOD by saying her truth, as ugly and raw as it was. This is about the lowest, poorest, most vulnerable of us all speaking a truth that rings out so clear across the great sky that even God recognized that she was standing on holy ground. In fact, she was shifting holy ground. Saying, you think you’ve got the Holy ground, but let me tell you something so real, so pure, that our entire concept of Holy will morph into something that cares for people rather than putting them down.
So let’s us stand up on our holy ground. Let’s name this ground as Holy and stand on it. Let’s look at ourselves and see that we are who we have been waiting for. If you feel the call to stand up today, let’s do it together. We’ll be in the Frances white room after the service. You could write a letter to government officials stating where you stand on reproductive justice, you could speak with advocates who escort to and from abortion clinics, or you write about how you plan stand up for justice. We’ll do it together.
Because when we do stand up, there will be something to celebrate. Not only did our widow woman stand up and change the mind of God, she was rewarded. Because she stood up, her jar of meal did not run out, and her jug of oil did not run dry. Because she stood up, a miracle occurred.
And when we stand up for justice, we will be rewarded. Do not be weary, because when we stand for justice, we will all benefit from the bounty of healthy women in our midst. Things will be good again. Can you taste it? When we do stand up, we will be closer to the divine light, closer to our truest yearnings, tasting the fruits of a more beautiful and bountiful world. Living in a more just world. And it is possible. Oh yes, it is possible. There is hope, that which is broken will not remain broken if we stand up. That which is hurt will be healed if we stand up. Minds can be changed, if we stand up. And we will once again feel the warmth of being surrounded by people who want so badly to stand with us, to hold our hands and rise up together. And then, we will know that we stand on holy ground. And we will once again be on fire with the blaze of our closeness to that which is most sacred.
