Little-Known Heroines

“WHEN IT’S TIME TO SAY NO”
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Faith United
August 24, 2008


What do you care about?
I mean, what do you care DEEPLY, passionately about?
Someone said this week that 24 hour news coverage
has a way of making us too tired to care
We’re inundated with news, inundated with BAD news
from all over the world, 24 hours a day
every stupid thing someone said
every horrifying act of violence
every mistake, every blunder
every injustice
so much so
that we can’t possibly care about it all
it’s too much
If we care, we’ll feel overwhelmed
by our inability to change anything
So we become numb
we are focused on our lives
and the things that crop up each day
to go beyond that is just too exhausting
and yet, I think we suspect
that there is more to our lives
than making a living, paying the bills
trying to stay healthy
and reasonably sane
If we ever take time to think
we recognize that there is more to living
than just breathing in and out each day
But in the onslaught of words and passions and conflicts
that assault us every day in the media
how can we possibly discern what really matters?
How can we know where we fit into the picture
and what we can possibly do?
I used to hate history
especially the way it was taught in school
REALLY BORING
a list of facts and dates to memorize
that I thought, had nothing to do with me
But during my sophomore year of high school
I had a teacher named Mr. Mann
who taught U.S. History
I was prepared to numb out during that class
because history was so boring
But Mr. Mann wouldn’t let you numb out
He didn’t just lecture
He told stories
He walked around the classroom
and talked about history as if he were there
He knew those people
He saw them
He heard them
He put his whole body into it
He was funny, scary, intimidating
and he spoke as if everything he said mattered
I remember one day he scared the bejeebies out of me
cause I was the wallflower kid
I just liked to stay in the background
and I was really shy
and one day, Mr. Mann was doing his thing
talking about the South
and he came up to my desk
leaned in close
and said,
“Do you know what the name of the very first
grocery store in the United States was called?”
My eyes got wide
and I think I stopped breathing
because he was right in my face
I shook my head and gulped
He narrowed his eyes
shook his head
and said, looking right into my eyes
as if I should truly appreciate the absurdity of this truth
and he said,
“Piggly… Wiggly.”
“Piggly Wiggly!!” He said, “That is the name of the first self-serve grocery store
in the United States!”
Well, I was impressed,
because I’d actually been to Piggly Wiggly
down in Mississippi
and when I started breathing again after class
I was able to tell him that
In seminary, I had a similar professor
Dr. Bull, an unfortunate name…
but he was the same way with Church History
he was THERE
He was THERE when St. Paul started all those churches
he was THERE when councils met to discuss
whether Jesus was fully divine and fully human
or just one or the other
He was THERE when Constantine took power
and changed how the church functioned in society
He, too, would get right in your face
and say things as if you should be as equally appalled
at the truth as he is
He knew Augustine personally….
and he was adamant, by the way,
that it is pronounced AuGUStine…
and not AUGustine, like the place in Florida
But from those two men
I learned that history is important
that knowing history is important
because if you learn enough,
you’ll see that we keep doing the same things over and over
that we really haven’t learned what we need to learn
from history
We talked about Jacob and Joseph
in the last couple of weeks
and their crazy families
Well, this passage comes about 400 years after Joseph
brought his family to Egypt
to escape the famine
The Bible tends to skip through centuries pretty fast
But in 400 years, the descendents of Joseph
multiplied, as would be expected
they made their home in Egypt
and many generations followed
And Egypt was a hospitable place for these immigrants
they allowed them to grow and thrive there
until 400 years after Joseph
It took 400 years for there to be leadership in Egypt
a Pharoah who didn’t know the history of Joseph’s family
or if he did, he didn’t care
He didn’t care about the history of Egypt’s hospitality
to those Hebrew immigrants
all he saw was a foreign people growing in number
and pretty soon, native Egyptians
would be in the minority in their own country
and that terrified him
Now, you have to understand that Egypt had a history
of being invaded
at the time of this current Pharoah
there had been foreign invaders residing in the East
The Egyptians captured the invaders and made them do forced labor
So after awhile, Egypt was always on the alert
for any possible threats to their country
They maintained a war-like stance
in relation to outsiders
always believing they could be potential terrorists…
oops, I mean invaders…
So it was a highly charged time
the world was changing rapidly
the Pharoah and his leaders of Egypt
tended to be paranoid about strangers
So it was during this time
that Pharoah started getting nervous
about the growing population of Hebrews
it was getting out of hand
and he thought, hey, you know, they’re getting to be so many
they could join our enemies in the East
and form an army and take us over…
we can’t let that happen
He was afraid
He was paranoid
He was defensive
There is no indication that the Hebrews gave him reason to be afraid
all they did was multiply
there is no indication that they showed any interest
in taking over Egypt
They lived their lives,
followed their customs, tried to live out their own culture
from their homeland
here in this foreign land
that had been so hospitable to them for so long
Until now
Seemingly out of nowhere
just at the whim of a paranoid leader
the Pharoah imposed hard labor onto the Hebrews
took them into slavery
men, women, and children
Made them do the hard work of building his statues
and empires
and symbols of the Pharoah’s power
He thought that would do it
would keep them subdued
and remind them that they were only immigrants
foreigners
and they better not forget that
But it seemed that the more he enslaved them
the more they multiplied
even under the harsh conditions of their new lives in Egypt
So the Pharoah went straight to the source
he told the Egyptian midwives,
who assisted in the births of Hebrew children
He instructed them that when the Hebrew mothers came to the birthing stool
that the midwives were to kill every male child
born to the Hebrews
Well, these were midwives
they were committed to bringing forth new life,
they were not killers
They were most likely mothers themselves
and therefore knew that intimate bond
with your own child
Their names were Shiprah and Puah
I don’t know why we know their names
most women in the Old Testament don’t have names
or their names are not remembered
and these are just a couple of midwives
in Pharoah’s service
Why did they do it?
I mean come on, they were citizens of Egypt
they answered to the Pharoah
as all Egyptians did
Disobeying the Pharoah was like breaking a law
and yet, for these midwives, the punishment
for disobedience would not just be imprisonment
it would be death
They most likely had children of their own to think about
why did they defy the Pharoah’s direct and clear orders?
Because they knew that something else was going on
They weren’t believers in the Hebrew God
but they knew that God was powerful
They saw something in those Hebrews
that demonstrated the powers of their God
Not a dominating power
not an oppressive power,
but the power of life
and not only did they fear this God
which fear in the Bible does not mean terror or fright
but fear of God is an awe of God
a respect for the power of God
a humble knowledge of God’s sovereignty
They feared this God of the Hebrews
enough so that they were willing to risk their lives
to preserve life
To Pharoah those Hebrews weren’t real people
with human hearts and emotions
and human passions
They were just foreigners
a mass of them, he didn’t see individual people
precious lives
he saw a threat and he wanted to get rid of them
But Shiprah and Puah were not killers
even though they had been given sanction to kill
by the leader of their government
they would not be arrested,
in fact, they would be commended
for their act of putting down the perceived enemies of Egypt
But they would not do it
They said NO
They appealed to a law higher than the Pharoah
the law of life, the law of mercy and justice
And when Pharaoh brought them in to question them
why the male Hebrew babies were surviving
they shrugged their shoulders
“We don’t know, those Hebrew women are amazing…
they pop those babies out before we can get near them …”
And clearly the Pharoah was stupid enough
and clueless enough
to believe them
otherwise he would have killed them
for not only disobeying him
but for trying to deceive him
They were nothing
they were nobody
just midwives, they had everything to lose
and nothing to gain
except the horror of having Hebrew blood on their hands
and they said No
at the risk of the lives
And God honored them, these pagan women
God gave them families and lives of their own
for standing up to the powers that be
And then you know the rest of the story from Sunday School
The Pharaoh was determined to kill those Hebrew babies
to keep them from taking over his country
so he ordered that all male Hebrew babies be thrown into the river
to die
and one Hebrew mother, the mother of Moses
put him in a basket and sent him down the river
in hopes that someone would find him and care for him
and it the daughter of Pharoah
who found the basket and the Hebrew baby inside it
and took him into her care
protected him, nurtured him, and even got his own mother
to nurse him
again, in direct defiance of her father
She saved the life of a baby that her father
had sentenced to die
just because of his race
Apparently Pharoah didn’t have very good control of his women!
The daughter, too, said No
to her own father, to his ways of paranoia and death
to his complete disregard for human life
The Pharoah was not a sentimental man
he was not above killing his own daughter
for the sake of preserving unity
so she, too, took a huge risk
taking in the Baby Moses
and as we’ll find in the rest of the story
Shiprah, Puah and the Pharoah’s daughter
all saved not just a few babies
but they saved the nation of Israel
from the destruction of the paranoid Pharaoh
The world is constantly changing
and we are no less afraid of those changes
than the people of ancient Egypt
What will we do in the midst of those changes?
What do we care about?
We love our country, we are proud to be Americans
but is there ever a time when our faith
may conflict with our citizenship?
Do we agree with everything that goes on in our country?
I watch a lot of movies and read history now
I was just a little kid in the 60s
so I didn’t know what was going on
and I often wonder what I would have done
if I’d been an adult during that time
Would I have stuck up for African Americans
in the Civil Rights Movement ?
Or would I have been the an angry voice of piety
saying that they should know their place?
Would I have condoned the violence that was sanctioned
by police and institutions?
Or would I have had the guts to say “no, this is wrong”?
We live in a highly charged atmosphere now,
since 9/11
We’ve become very suspicious of the foreigner
among us
especially ones with middle eastern accents
We live in a culture of fear and paranoia
fed by cable news
we are encouraged every day to be afraid
and to be especially afraid of people who don’t look like us
or speak like us
yet we’re also told that in a few decades
Anglo-Saxan, white Americans will be in the minority
it’s going to happen, no matter how many walls we put up
at the borders
it’ll happen whether we like it or not
Throughout history, people have become fearful and paranoid
of the stranger
have responded with violence
We have a history of enslaving people ourselves
and even when they were legally free
we enslaved them in other ways
we enslaved their dignity
We can get a lot of justification and support
in our world, even in our own government
to hate the stranger
to dispose of them
to keep them from taking over our country
We haven’t changed too much, really
since the days of Pharoah
and the enslavement of the Hebrews
What do we care about?
What do we care about beyond our own homes?
Do we believe that God can use us
like he used those insignificant powerless midwives
who stood up to a king?
Who had had enough of killing and violence
and disregard for human lives?
Who had the ovaries to say NO
when it could have cost them their lives??
Do we care about the stranger?
who, like us, has a beating heart
that can feel pain?
Will we stand up for the stranger
who is not like us,
but in fact is like us
in just wanting to find a better life?
Are we willing to share the gifts
that we’ve been blessed with?
Or will we play it safe
keep our heads low, not stir up any trouble
and do what we’re told without question
even when we see human suffering
that is government-sanctioned?
Are we more afraid of political leaders
than we are of God
whom we will ultimately answer to
in regard to how we treated God’s other children?
Will we ever stop saying yes
when we know deep down
that God would have us say NO?
What DO we care about most??