Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost, August 24, 2014

Hebrew Bible Reading: Exodus 1:8-2:10  

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born (to the Hebrews) you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Reflections:  Nothing has changed, has it? We—and people of every society—begin to feel uncomfortable about groups of people who don’t fit in—especially when the group starts to increase in size. Throughout history, and certainly American history, we’ve seen the story play out again and again.

The truth is, our status quo is threatened by growing numbers of people who are not like us. There’s a real danger of losing the benefits we enjoy, of seeing the dilution of our culture and our values. It’s natural, really, that persecution and oppression are the built-in response.

On the other hand, what does God ask of us? The text today clearly supports the midwives’ defiance of the pharaoh—a leader who “did not know Joseph,” who didn’t understand the important role this “different” people had played in the survival of his own culture. We see that God rewards the midwives’ resistance to his orders—for which they doubtless risked punishment. They overcame the instinct to self-preservation, showing compassion in their face-to-face encounters, instead.

It is easy to be frightened by abstract threats. Perhaps this is why it is so uncomfortable to look people who are really different from us in the eyes. We don’t want to engage them, and eye-to-eye contact goes straight to the soul. It cuts through the insulation we wrap tightly around our hearts.

But sometimes, as in the case of the women in this story, it seems to be precisely what God asks of us. What does this mean for you and me today?