Transformation and an Ethic of Risk

In her seminal work, A Feminist Ethic of Risk, Sharon Welch wrote, “We are well aware of the costs of systems of injustice but find it impossible to act against them, because no definitive solutions are in sight.”

Welch, a social ethicist (and my instructor and advisor at Meaville Lombard Theological School), argues for moving from an ethic of control to one of risk.

In many ways, we inherited an ethic of control and power from orthodox monotheistic characterizations of the divine as being absolutely omnipotent—all-powerful and all-controlling. In an effort to emulate this notion of the divine, we strive to master and control all that we encounter. Such is the history of Western civilization.

And we (at least those of us who have been members of the dominant groups in our culture) tend not to get involved in situations if we do not believe we have a chance of controlling the outcome.

But our true power lies not in working toward omnipotence but rather in recognizing and reaching toward that which is ominpotential—in other words in moving away from conceptions of the ultimate as all-powerful and instead moving toward the ultimate as all-possible. But to make this move, one must be willing to live with considerable uncertainty and risk.

In a famous midrash about the Israelites leaving Egypt, Moses and the Israelites come to the Red Sea, and, with Pharoah’s army rapidly approaching, God tells Moses to lift his staff and command the sea to part so that the Israelites might cross safely to the other side.

However, in this version of the story, Moses raises his staff and commands the waters to part, but nothing happens. He tries again; still nothing. The Israelites are terrified as they can now hear the hoofbeats of Pharoah’s charioteers getting ever nearer.

At last, a man named Nachshon steps forward and begins wading into the sea. He goes in up to his knees, and his friends and family call out for him to stop, but he goes further still. He walks into the sea until the water is up to his waist, his chest, his chin.

Finally, when the water has covered Nachshon’s mouth and nose, the Red Sea parts, and the Israelites cross safely on dry land just before the water crashes over the Egyptians, forever freeing the Israelites from the cruel grasp of the Pharoah.

Nachshon understood that we are co-creators of our own destinies and, as such, are called to take risks.

In order to free ourselves from the tyranny of control, we must risk wading into the uncertain sea of infinite possibility. When we do so, we are following the path of transformation.