Sermon on Exodus 1:1-2:10 and Matthew 16:21-26
Pharaoh was a demagogue. A demagogue is a leader who rallies support from people by appealing to their prejudices and to their emotions, especially fear. Demagogues pit people against one another. He told the Egyptian people, “Look, there’s getting to be more of those Hebrews, those Israelites, than there are of us, and they’re getting to be more powerful than we are. We’ve got to do something, or else they will take us over. We’re not safe. If we keep getting more of them, they are going to team up with our enemies and fight against us.”
Pharaoh stirred up enough fear and hate to get enough of the Egyptian population to cooperate with him in turning Egypt into one big forced labor camp. Enslaving the Israelites was aimed at accomplishing two things: keeping their population down, and exploiting their bodies for labor in manufacturing, construction, field work and more. The Egyptians were ruthless in their treatment of the slaves.
This plan worked in that the Israelites did provide the labor that pumped up the Egyptian economy. However, it failed to curb the Israelite population. The more Israelites there were, the more the Egyptians feared and hated them, and the worse they treated them.
So Pharaoh came up with a plan of selective extermination. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill every Hebrew newborn boy. I am sure Pharaoh thought the midwives were the perfect people to implement this evil policy. They could easily snap a newborn’s neck, or prevent him from ever drawing the first breath. They could even tell the mothers that their little boys were stillborn.
The midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, had a choice. They could have done what so many others in so many other holocausts have done down through the ages: obeyed and then absolved themselves of responsibility this way: “We were just following Pharaoh’s orders.”
But they didn’t. There was something more important to Shiphrah and Puah than protecting their own lives or sucking up to the dictator. They had a reverence for God and a reverence for life. Their calling was to usher life in, not snuff it out. So they conspired against Pharaoh and his evil plan. They conspired against death and for life.
When Pharaoh called them back in to demand why they had let the children live, with perfectly straight faces they told a story. It’s clear in the Hebrew text of Exodus 1 that Pharaoh told his people that the Israelites were multiplying like animals. So the midwives said to him, “Well, your majesty, the Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women. They give birth on their own like animals before we can get to them.” It reminds me of the web of lies that certain members of the German medical community concocted to spirit vulnerable people away when Hitler ordered them to kill the weak, the elderly in particular, and people with disabilities.
So Pharaoh sought out other people who would participate in the genocide. Like Nazis ordering people to turn in Jews, gay people, gypsies, and other so-called undesirables, Pharaoh ordered ALL Egyptians to be part of the killing machine: drown every newborn Hebrew boy in the Nile. Scripture doesn’t tell us how many did or didn’t cooperate. I suspect that a few cooperated, ingratiating themselves to Pharaoh, and that many, many people looked the other way, pretending they didn’t know what was happening. We know for sure that a few courageously resisted Pharaoh’s orders, and one of them was Pharaoh’s own daughter.
Pharaoh’s daughter knew what she was doing when she conspired with Moses’ sister and his mother to save him. Moses’ life was saved, and down the road this courageous action would lead to new life for many. What delicious irony that Moses, who would one day lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt, grew up right under Pharaoh’s nose.
People’s lives were saved because all these women conspired for life. They truly were midwives of new life, unleashing the power of life by putting their own lives on the line. They took the path Jesus took many centuries later when he put his own life on the line. He did it because it meant life for everyone else. Jesus did not run away when some of the religious leaders wanted him to stop what he was doing, to stop associating with and being so gracious to the wrong people, to stop throwing forgiveness around so freely, to stop interpreting the scriptures in new ways. Jesus kept right on doing what meant healing and life for others, even though it led to the cross. Jesus defied the powers of evil by facing them squarely, even accepting death, because this way led to life for many. Jesus called his followers to follow his example, putting our lives on the line. That is why he said, “If you want to follow me, you must take up your cross.” Some things are more important than protecting and saving ourselves.
Conspiring for life, we can join Shiphrah and Puah and say no to what demeans and destroys others. We can say no to demagogues and bullies. Conspiring for life, we can seek creative ways to guard and defend others, like Moses’ mother and sister. Conspiring for life, we can say yes, responding to the need God has put right in front of us, like Pharaoh’s daughter pulling that baby out of the water, never mind what her daddy might think or say or do.
I heard an interesting quote this week from an author named Sonya Renee Taylor. It’s a reflection on people’s desire to go back to normal, meaning back to the way things were before COVID-19 hit. She says, “We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.” (https://www.instagram.com/p/B-fc3ejAlvd/?hl=en)
To put that another way, we are being given an opportunity to conspire on the side of life, to midwife new life and new ways into being. Why would we want to go back to a “normal” where some people are considered expendable, as in it’s no big deal if the old and the weak get COVID because they’re going to die anyway? Why would we want to go back to a “normal” where in practice some people’s lives do matter less than others? Why would we want to go back to, or stay in a place where selfishness and greed are celebrated and those who have the most stuff are the most admired? Where injustice and justice delayed is acceptable? Where it is acceptable for millions to simply subsist or even do without adequate food, shelter, medical care or dental care? Why would we want to consider that “normal?”
What would it look like to conspire on the side of something better, to work towards a new normal that is more in line with the kingdom of God that we long for, that we pray for every single time we pray Jesus’ prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?
Jesus invites us to commit ourselves to being midwives who conspire on the side of life, of love, of hope. Follow me, he says. And that means taking up the cross. AMEN.
The Mustard Seed Journal 
Another good sermon. Thank you.
Thank you, David!