Bricks Without Straw
February 20, 2011
Excerpt from Exodus 5:6-7
"That same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmaster of the people, as well as their supervisors, 'You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks.'"
Reflection by Anthony B. Robinson
Lately, I've been running into one gay and lesbian couple after another who have adopted children with special needs. Often the children they have welcomed into their lives are the kids no one else wants, children with problems associated with the addictions of their birth mother.
Somehow this strikes me as like the Exodus story of the Egyptian taskmasters making the already hard life of their Hebrew slaves harder by telling them to make bricks without straw or to find their own straw, and yet still meet the same brick-production quotient.
Society says to gay and lesbian people: we're not sure you belong. We doubt you should be married. We're not at all sure you should be parents. And yet I keep bumping into these couples who are doing parenting I can hardly imagine.
One such couple, two gay men from our church, went to court to finalize an adoption of two children with fetal alcohol syndrome. Someone objected saying that they were not fit parents, though they have been successfully fostering the children for several years. The judge, an older man, looked with startled disbelief at the person who protested and said, "These boys (the gay couple) are heroes."
As a society we've pretty much said to people who are gay and lesbian, "Make bricks without straw." Make a sane life without any of the usual supports. It's time to leave Egypt behind.
Prayer
Lord, I pray today for the kids who are born with tough challenges and for the parents who love them and raise them. Let the children and parents know they are precious to you. Amen.
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