By Rev. Jennifer Harris Dault, an ordained Mennonite minister who lives in the Rochester, NY area.
Scripture: Matthew 2:13-18
When Pastor Roberto texted me to say that you’ve been doing a series on Christmas themes with a call to action, I was excited. Expanding Christmas into Epiphany – lovely! Then they told me what the Scripture was last week and invited me to follow it . . . so I opened my Bible to discover the next section is . . . the Slaughter of the Innocents. I tried flipping the pages to see if maybe something got stuck. Surely something else was next. Of course, this was not helpful at all, because this section was, in fact, on the same page as the Scripture from last week.
This isn’t a text we like to hear. In fact, I’ve not seen a single nativity play that covers this – we stop with the Magi being warned in a dream to go back a different way. Whew! Crisis averted! We tricked Herod – all is well! . . . Wouldn’t that be great? If only it could be as simple as Herod forgetting about the mysterious travelers who spoke of a newborn king. It makes for a lovely story, but as we know, humanity is messier than that. Jesus was born precisely because the world was not as it should be — is not as it should be. And so Herod did not forget. He stewed. He became frightened. And he became angry. He would not lose his power. Not to this baby. Not to anyone. He would do anything it took to defend his power, including wiping out every single male infant and toddler in order to make sure any upcoming usurpers of his throne would be quashed.
As we still celebrate the angels singing over a newborn Christ, the weeping of Rachel grows louder. Her sorrow is unending, her cries continuing on and on. The grief too much to bear.
And this story is not new. It isn’t even new in the Bible – we see this same scenario play out in the book of Exodus, where Pharaoh has decided that the Hebews have become too numerous – he is afraid that the people he has enslaved will revolt, will realize that they can overthrow their oppressors, can overthrow him. And so he issues a decree that all newborn Hebrew boys should be thrown into the Nile River.
And this cycle repeats throughout history – it doesn’t always look the same, but we see tyrants afraid of losing power, who will stop at nothing to hold onto it. As Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann says, “if you have seen one pharaoh, you have seen them all. They all act the same way in their greedy, uncaring, violent self-sufficiency.”
“Get up,” the angel of the Lord says to Joseph as he dreamed. “Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.”
I haven’t experienced warnings in dreams, but I do know what it is to lose sleep at night wondering when it is time to flee. As I think most of you know, I am the parent of a transgender child. My husband and I had discussions for nearly two years before we packed up everything we owned and fled here to New York. We watched as our child’s rights, her body, her personhood were considered fair game for political debate. A dear friend of mine, who I routinely traveled with to the state Capitol building, referred to the place as Pharaoh’s Palace. And indeed, the fear that led to hatred was palpable in that space.
My family left when a law was signed into effect, making lifesaving healthcare illegal for minors. That same legislative session determined that transgender kids as young as 5 years old were forbidden to play on school sports teams aligning with their gender identity. It was clear that this was not far enough for a government who had made children like mine the legislative priority. And indeed, the bills attacking trans children continue to come.
Even after leaving, our youngest child continued to have nightmares about the Pharaohs in our lives. They appeared as monsters trying to get into her room and harm her. When I asked about these monsters, she told me “they are the bad people in Missouri,” her words for the government that forced us to leave. “What if they come here?” she asked. “What if the people here become bad, too?”
As we have watched more and more states pass transphobic laws, and as we have heard that the incoming Congress intends to make anti-trans legislation a priority, my daughter’s question haunts me. What if the bad people do come here?
They have certainly started. This year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which passed with bipartisan support in the House and the Senate, then signed by President Biden, included a section banning Tricare from covering gender affirming care for minors. Children of military members will now have to pay out of pocket for puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and blood tests monitoring proper dosages — an expense that is cost prohibitive for many people.
I want to be clear that this is life-saving medical care that is seen as the standard of care by every major medical and psychological association in the country. Peer-reviewed studies have shown overwhelmingly, over and over, that gender affirming care is both safe and effective, with one of the lowest regret rates in medical care and major life decisions.
On the other hand, gender affirming care bans — and even the threat of bans — are having a profoundly negative impact on our transgender and gender-nonconforming kids. Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people, reported that their call volume went up 400% the day after the November election. The director of Rochester LGBTQ+ Together told me that since the election, his inbox has been flooded both by people seeking access to legal services and people who currently live in states attacking trans rights inquiring about moving to Rochester. I have regular conversations with people who are looking into what it takes to emigrate to other countries. I have my own list of possibilities, although my family is unlikely to have the means to make such a move unless changes in rights here qualify US residents for asylum status.
All of this to say – fleeing is occurring. It has been occurring for a few years and is continually being amplified by changes to laws and threats of laws to come. But like the families in Jesus’s time, not everyone is able to flee. It is costly – financially, professionally, familially.
Rachel’s unending cry is sounding. Her heart broken for the kids already lost, the kids whose lives are threatened. The transgender and gender-nonconforming adults who are being banned from bathrooms, targeted in schools and other workplaces, in neighborhoods, shops, and housing. We are already seeing states that banned healthcare for minors begin to attack gender affirming care for all – well, all people who are trans and gender nonconforming, that is. The same care remains legal and available for those who are cisgender, that is, those whose gender identity matches what was assumed at birth.
As it turns out, Herod’s fear and rage are never satisfied. And, of course, that rage extends to so many groups: Immigrants and people with uteruses, black and brown people and those without generational wealth. The disabled, the immune-compromised, victims of natural disasters, and on and on and on. God is weeping for Her beloved. Do you hear it?
So what do we do? In the face of Herod, of Pharaoh, we can feel so insignificant. But they can be overcome! They have been overcome before.
In the case of Pharaoh in Egypt, we have the lovely story of Shiphrah and Puah, two midwives who refused to follow Pharaoh’s orders. When he asked them about it, they simply shrugged and said that the Hebrew women were different – they gave birth before the midwives could even get there. In other words, they risked their own lives lying to Pharaoh, because they refused to harm the children in their care.
We have books and movies all about those in Nazi Germany who hid their Jewish neighbors. Here in New York, we know well the history of Frederick Douglass and the work of slavery abolitionists who helped harbor those fleeing enslavement.
What do we do? We use ourselves, our bodies and voices to say “no!” to stop the violence being carrying out in our names. This can look like lobbying your elected officials to let them know that you see what they are doing. Tell them how you would like them to vote. It can look like talking to your neighbors and family members and coworkers to counter disinformation. It can look like supporting organizations like Pink Haven, which helps those needing to flee connect with community in their new home. Or supporting local LGBTQIA+ organizations. Or raising money to help people travel to access medical care. Or being loud about your love and support of transgender and gender nonconforming people. If you are on social media, amplify trans voices. I suggest looking to do this in community – it isn’t something you need or even should do alone.
Most of all, it means believing that in the Kindom of God, love and justice are plentiful. We serve a God that doesn’t cower in fear in the face of Herod — God that enters into the grief, into the messiness; a God that inspires creative justice-making; a God that is a safe harbor.
May we be people who honor Rachel’s tears by doing everything in our power to end the injustice that causes them.
Amen.