O God, grant us always to remember who you are, so that we might know that we are your beloved children. Amen.
This
is where find ourselves when we start reading the book of Exodus. This
morning’s reading begins: “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know
Joseph.” This Pharaoh forgot the story of God’s provision through Joseph and
that is how his story began to unravel. The Pharaoh isn’t the main character in
this passage, so I don’t want to waste too much time on him. The authors of
Exodus don’t even bother to record his name. That’s because bad leaders are a
dime a dozen in history; they are nothing but a footnote in God’s story of
salvation.
The
situation is the descendants of Joseph are growing in number and power. They
are being fruitful and multiplying, as God had commanded them. Then, doing what
narcissistic dictators do Pharaoh becomes consumed with fear which turns into
racism. He enslaves the Hebrew people, but they continue to grow. So Pharaoh
introduces a plan of generational genocide. He doesn’t want to lose his source
of labor immediately, so he decides that he’ll slowly exterminate the Hebrew
people by killing all male children. Within a generation, they will be no more.
The
story of the Exodus though is not a tragedy, it is a triumph. The story does
not end with slavery and genocide, but rather freedom, life, and identity. It
is a story about who God is and the story is revealed through five tremendous
women. The first is Jochebed, the child’s mother. I can’t imagine being in her
position. Her son has to be thrown into the Nile a large and flowing river that
has snakes and crocodiles in and around it. Throwing a child into the water was
a sure death sentence. But trying to hide a crying baby isn’t going to work
either. Exodus though tells us that Jochebed sees that her son is a “fine
baby,” as our translation put it. That word for “fine,” is “good.” It’s the
same word that I pointed out in last Sunday’s sermon. It’s not that he was a
cute baby, or a particularly exceptional baby. He was good – good in the sense
that Creation was called “good” back at the start of Genesis. This boy is what
Jochebed had been longing for: a healthy baby and he is the one through whom
God intended to fulfill the promise made to Abraham.
Jochebed
is not willfully disobedient; she does exactly what was ordered: she tossed her
son in the Nile. But she cunningly circumvents the order by placing him in a
basket first. The only other time the word used for “basket” shows up in the
Old Testament is back in Genesis when God told Noah to build an ark. Jochebed
placed her son in an ark. And just as God saved Noah and his family in an ark
placed in the waters, God is going to save Jochebed’s son in an ark. This, too,
is our story. In 1 Peter we are told that we are saved through the waters of
Baptism just as these arks in water prefigured God’s salvation story. Jochebed
also displays tremendous trust in God to care for her baby in the Nile. It’s
one thing to hatch a plan like putting a baby in the ark, but it’s an incredible
act of faith to put that plan into action. She shows us that God is a God we can
trust and who subverts the death-defying ways of this world with life-giving
possibilities.
The
next two women are the midwives Shiphrah and Puah. Remember their names. If all
you remember of this sermon is their names, then that’s enough. Scripture doesn’t
give us names of many women, but it does here and we would do well to also
include Shiphrah and Puah when we tell the story of faith. Pharaoh is a fool.
He has ordered a slaughter of the innocents, but why are there still Hebrew
boys running around? Shiphrah and Puah outsmart Pharaoh, which didn’t take
much. They play on his racist view of the Hebrew people. When these midwives
tell Pharaoh that these Hebrew women are vigorous and birth the babies before
the midwives can even arrive, the phrase they use is related to one used for
wild animals. They use a racist trope about the Hebrew people with Pharaoh as
an excuse for disobeying. His contempt for the Hebrew people blinds him from
seeing the traitors in his midst.
What
holy people Shiphrah and Puah are! Through defenseless resistance, they are
trusting in God’s creativity to make a way out of no way in this awful
situation. They trust that God will save and that gives them the courage to
disobey an unethical command. While knowing where that line between civil
disobedience and anarchy is can be a challenge, Shiphrah and Puah found that
line and walked it faithfully with the God who sides with the oppressed. And in
doing so, they become holy examples for others to follow. In more recent times,
the witness of Shiphrah and Puah is seen in people like Harriet Tubman who led
the Underground Railroad and Corrie ten Boom or Oskar Schindler who helped Jews
escape from the Nazis. Just because a tyrant issues orders doesn’t mean that
the people of God waver from ways of the Lord.
And
here’s where the story really gets interesting as two young girls get involved:
Miriam is the child’s sister and though Pharaoh’s daughter isn’t named in this
text, tradition calls her Thermuthis. These two young girls from completely
different worlds with completely different agendas, showing us that God is one
who works through the unexpected. Miriam shows us godly boldness. Can you
imagine? As one of the enslaved, hated, and oppressed Hebrew people she makes
her way to where Thermuthis is bathing and has the audacity to speak to
royalty. She reminds me of Malala Yousafzai or Greta Thunberg – young girls who
don’t really care what the adults have to say about them, but speak with the boldness
of God in the name of justice. Miriam knew that God was with her, and like the
young Jewish girl named Mary who would bear her name centuries later, she knows
that with God, all things are possible. She shows a courage that is the paragon
of faith.
Thermuthis
is no less inspiring. Here she is, the daughter of Pharaoh, out of the palace
and taking a bath in the river when she hears crying in the reeds. She
investigates and finds a crying baby boy who she immediately recognizes as
Hebrew. Undoubtedly, she’s heard of her father’s decree about Hebrew boys. But Exodus
tells us that she had pity on the child. In the Old Testament, the most common
subject of this verb of having pity is God, so Thermuthis is having a godly
emotion here. And the verb for “pity” carries a connotation of also having compassion
and even sparing or saving. When God speaks about sparing the people, it comes
from this sense of compassion that Thermuthis feels. Pay attention to your
emotions, often that’s how God will speak to you. She takes the time to not
simply react in the way that she had been taught to despise the Hebrews.
Instead, she sees the humanity of this baby and is moved with compassion and
mercy. So she adopts him as her own. And in doing so, she demonstrates that
power and privilege are not inherently bad things. These things only become
dangerous when they are unrecognized or abused. Thermuthis shows us how God is
one who will bring salvation, even bringing enemies together if that is what it
takes.
It
is telling that this part of the narrative happens when these two young girls are
away from their parents. Miriam has snuck down to the river to watch her
brother and Thermuthis is taking a bath. It’s a reminder to those of us who are
parents to give our children enough space to grow into the person God is
calling them to be. As we know from Scripture, a child shall lead them. We
would do well to let them lead. And the result of these two girls’ actions is
that we see that God has an exceptionally good sense of humor. Jochebed is paid
out of Pharaoh’s treasury to nurse her own son. In an amazing and comical turn
of events, Pharaoh’s plan is foiled by the women all around him and the plan of
salvation has been set in motion.
The
final detail in this section is that this child finally gets his name: Moses,
which we are told is derived from the phrase “to draw out of water.” This was a
traumatic event in Moses’ and all of the Hebrew people’s lives. We don’t know
how many boys were drowned in the Nile, but one would have been too many. Yet
in his name, Moses carries this story. And God will transform and give a deeper
and fuller meaning to Moses’ name when God will be the one to draw him and the
Hebrew people out of the waters of the Red Sea as they leave behind the slavery
and oppression of Egypt and move into the liberation and calling of freedom.
God redeems our past and uses our stories for the purposes of salvation. Never
be ashamed of what is in your past. Make amends for it if there is something to
repent of, but never throw away part of your story because that just might be
the part that God intends to use.
We
see in this foundational passage from Exodus that God is one who is on the side
of the oppressed, who acts through the creative disobedience of people on the
margins, that God is one that we can trust, one who communicates through our holy
emotions, and one who makes the impossible possible. The story of Exodus and
these faithful women show us who God is. And we forget that story at our own
peril.
Which
leads us into Jesus’ question as one to carry with us – Who do you say that I
am? It is a deep and direct question: Who do you say that Jesus is? Spend some
time with that question this week because that’s the central question of faith
and life. It’s not about figuring out where Jesus fits into our stories, but
rather recognizing that, by grace, we have become a part of God’s story of
love, redemption, and abundant life.
And
this is precisely what the Eucharist helps us to do – to remember. The world has
a way of giving us amnesia, in which we forget who God is and what the story is.
The Eucharist is the opposite of amnesia. Jesus gives us his Body and Blood so that
we might remember that we are the beloved, redeemed, and empowered children of
God. Turning to that great paraphrase from St. Augustine – remember who you are
and become what you receive.
