Text: Numbers 27:1–11
Video (Courtesy of Hamline Church United Methodist in St. Paul, MN)

Good morning! I’m grateful for the invitation and opportunity to be with you in worship on such a lovely day of baptisms. I’ve served as a minister in the United Church of Christ since 2009, and for the past seven years I’ve been pastor of what is now Edina Morningside and Linden Hills United Church of Christ. Even though I serve in the far-off country of Edina, my husband and I have lived here in the Midway neighborhood for ten years, attending events and occasionally a service at Hamline Church. We regularly admire the church’s gardens in our morning walks, marvel at what it takes to maintain such a hospitable building, and celebrate the courageous public witness you extend in Christ’s name. Thank you for who you are; I’m honored to be with you today.

When Pastor Mariah shared that your summer series is “Heroes of the Faith”, I recalled this little story tucked away in the Hebrew scriptures about the daughters of Zelophehad. Though these women may be unfamiliar, we regularly and rightly celebrate people like them—persistent, underdog heroes who stand up for what is right even when it is unpopular, unlawful, or dangerous. We praise folks like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, breaking the slave-holding laws that kept people in chains, Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person, and the multiracial queens protesting police brutality at the Stonewall uprising—all those who stand their ground and break the rules if needed, to call attention to unjust laws that needed to be fixed. With the perspective of time and history, we see their legacy and praise their courageous persistence.

To these more recent examples we can add the women in this short Bible story from Numbers 27. Say their names, even though they may not easily roll off our tongues: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah—great baby names! Known collectively as the “daughters of Zelophehad”, they challenge an unjust status quo and use their voices to help create a new law. Recall that in ancient Hebrew society, women rarely owned property and were mostly treated as property themselves—first belonging to their fathers and then to their husbands. But here, the injustice of denying women their own property becomes clear.

Moses and the other leaders conduct a census of every household in every clan and tribe among the Hebrews. They’re counting the men only to do this, and once the count is complete the land will be divvied up among the clans according to the numbers of men. But that would leave out these five daughters of Zelophehad. Their father has died, and evidently they were unmarried, or at least in such solidarity with each other that no husbands are mentioned. The daughters of Zelophehad recognize that since he is dead and they have no brothers, the land that they have relied on for their livelihood would be taken away and given to others, simply because they are women. Instead, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah go to the decision-makers—Moses, Eleazar, and other leaders (all men)—at the entrance to God’s house. They ask for a favorable judgment on their claim to their father’s property: “Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.” Lauren Wright Pittman points out that when the women came forward, “they stood, they spoke, they questioned, and they even demanded. Any one of those actions alone is difficult for the unseen and unheard. …[B]ut they needed to be recognized, valued, and seen as human beings in order to survive.” Pittman adds that seeking an answer for this injustice “also took a man in power to listen, to open his heart, to wrestle, and to offer his grasp over this patriarchal law to God. When Moses offered up his control and dared to consider a new way, God heard the voices of these women.”

What a moment to imagine, when Moses comes back to the gathered leaders to report what God says: “The daughters of Zelophehad are right”. God agrees that their argument is valid and grants them the inheritance that would otherwise have gone to their uncles. Not only that—the law also changes so that other women in this same situation would be treated with more justice going forward. By speaking up even when the tables were so dramatically tilted against them, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah gain a measure of autonomy for themselves and for women after them, creating a new and lasting precedent for their people. Their story is an admirable example of an aggrieved people lobbying leadership and thereby changing unjust laws and statutes.

Often, it is people on the margins who make clear the need for change. Other times though, it’s people with privilege who see the need for justice also, who find their voices and their power (like Moses) to advocate for it. Hamline Church, you have been on both the margins and in the center through your faithful efforts to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. You did the work to become a Reconciling Church all the way back in 1999, welcoming the full identities and families of LGBTQ people into the church, and you have carried that cause ever since. You know the heartbreak and challenge of leaning into this calling in light of global Methodist conversations in recent years. When our Christian faith is being used against queer people every day; when the name of Christ is invoked to take away health care, public accommodations, and basic human dignity from transgender people in the year 2023, your witness to God’s all-embracing welcome is urgent, essential and lifesaving.

I learned this week about the longstanding Community Conversations you’ve been having with other neighborhood organizations about racial justice. If you’ve been to any of those, or are familiar with them,
you might have met a woman named Linda Finney. Linda grew up in the Miami-Dade part of Florida in the 1950s, experienced Jim Crow discrimination and “Whites Only” drinking fountains firsthand, and as an adult living in Minnesota has seen the impact of racial segregation here too. Through her faith community, Holy Trinity Episcopal Church nearby, Linda and others reached out to Hamline Church in 2017 for the first of what remains an ongoing series of Community Conversations. The partnership that she helped spark are still with us, including this year’s Community Conversation on the Rondo neighborhood legacy, and the celebration hosted by Hamline Church last Thursday night. Linda Finney’s faith gave her a lens to understand the injustice of her own experience, the conviction that racial segregation was not the will of an all-embracing God, and a community with whom to work for change.

Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” One voice or five—those with privilege and those without—can make all the difference when put to good use by the loving and just God in whose name we gather. Reflecting on the story of the daughters of Zelophehad, Lauren Wright Pittman says “This text invites us to come forward, to stand, to speak, to question, and to demand change when we experience injustice. When the powers in place don’t budge, that is not the end of the story. When you personally aren’t experiencing injustice, that does not mean you should bask in your comfort.” We may be slipping recently in the causes of full LGBTQ inclusion and racial equality, but God has not given up or run out of power to keep bringing about greater justice. It’s our calling as Christians to receive and extend the good work of Christ, to add our weight against the wheels of history, turning them toward God’s beloved community. This is the conviction by which we baptize Evan, Naomi and Dionne, and which we promise to keep cultivating as they grow up to adulthood. We trust that one day our descendants in faith will look back at moments like ours, tracing how the Holy Spirit used such prophetic voices to bring about justice.

The daughters of Zelophehad and more recent examples affirm the proverb that, “Every great oak was once a little nut that held its ground.” This day, let the simple words and actions we take—in baptism, prayer, liturgy, song, and praise—be the small, strong, persistent voices that call humanity to greater love for God, neighbor, creation and self, “little nuts” by which we do God’s sacred work, expanding obedience to God’s justice. The daughters of Zelophehad, Linda Finney, and countless others were each a tiny acorn that stood its ground. And we are the descendants from the great trees that grow from them. We ourselves, acorns in our own right. When we see something that is not right, will we just roll along with it? Or will we stand ground in our own day—becoming the seed for another great oak tree in God’s growing grove of righteousness? May God help us find our voices, our power, and our holy groundedness, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Cover image: The Daughters of Zelophehad, print, after Frederick Richard Pickersgill, Dalziel Brothers.