Posts
Exodus 1:8-22
1:8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did
not know Joseph.
1:9 He said to his people, "Look, the
Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.
1:10 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."
1:11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them
to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and
Rameses, for Pharaoh.
1:12 But the more they were oppressed, the more
they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.
1:13 The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing
tasks on the Israelites,
1:14 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.
1:15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew
midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah,
1:16 "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."
1:17 But the midwives feared God; they did not
do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.
1:18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives
and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to
live?"
1:19 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."
1:20 So God dealt well with the midwives; and
the people multiplied and became very strong.
1:21 And because the midwives feared God, he
gave them families.
1:22 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."
Romans 12:1-8
12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and
sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the
will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect.
12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to
everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to
think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith
that God has assigned.
12:4 For as in one body we have many members,
and not all the members have the same function,
12:5 so we, who are many, are one body in
Christ, and individually we are members one of another.
12:6 We have gifts that differ according to the
grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith;
12:7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in
teaching;
12:8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver,
in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
The Importance of Remembering
The story of the Hebrew midwives is
familiar. Their names are less familiar,
but the writers of the Torah made sure to include them so that we could know them: Shiphrah and Puah. They are crucial to the history of God’s
salvation of Israel, and through Israel, the world. Let’s say their names: Shiphrah and Puah.
They were important members of the community
because they played an important role at a crucial moment in everyone’s
life. They weren’t like the bakers or
fishers to whom people might go every day for bread or fish to eat. You didn’t stop by once a week to get any
needed supplies. No one depended on them
to lead periodic religious ceremonies, either weekly or monthly. Children didn’t go to them on school days to
practice their reading or math. But
Shiphrah and Puah were important.
When the time came to need the services of
Shiphrah and Puah, a family would hate to have to do without them. Probably someone in any family had some
experience with helping a woman through childbirth; however, Shiphrah and Puah
were the communal stewards of the wisdom of generations. Moreover, they had seen it all. They knew well that every baby did not come
into the world in the same way and at the same pace. They knew that women’s bodies and emotional strength
were different. They had learned ways to
encourage and calm and comfort mothers dealing with the pain and anxiety of
giving birth. They could recognize when
a baby was under stress or in danger.
When it came time for Shiphrah and Puah to do their job, people would be
foolish to ignore their gifts and skill.
That’s why the King of Egypt strategically
chose them to carry out his diabolical plan.
He was jealous of the prosperity of the Hebrew people. He was fearful they might rise up in
rebellion. He was concerned about the
loyalty to one another and their commitment to justice. Over the years, he and his predecessors had
found the Hebrews to be useful as cheap immigrant labor. He knew that the Pharaohs had not always
treated the Hebrew workers fairly. He
needed a plan to make sure they would continue to be unable or unwilling to
stir up a revolution.
Sadly, the King of Egypt did not understand his
own formative history. He did not know
how his ancestors had benefited greatly from the unexpected appearance of this
sheep-herding clan from the northeast.
He must not have been told the stories of the visions and dreams that
the slave boy named Joseph had interpreted for the Pharaoh. Someone had not bothered to clarify that
Joseph of the Hebrews had been vice-regent of the entire kingdom, supervising
an era of great prosperity and power for Egypt among the nations who were their
neighbors. So the Bible tells us that
this Pharaoh did not know Joseph.
Not knowing Joseph meant that he was willing to
use and abuse the descendants of Joseph for his own greed and ambition. Not knowing Joseph means he was not thinking
about how “all
life is interrelated.” He had not
reflected on the fact that “We are all caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.” He apparently did not realize that “Whatever
affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (MLK, Jr.) Those, of course, are words from Dr.
King. Ken Medema has another way to say
it pertaining to our being created by God:
we are “bound together and finely woven with love.” But Pharaoh did not seem to know that.
He thought that he could get his way by
dividing society into warring groups. If
he could make the immigrants seem dangerous in the eyes of others, then he
could try to leverage that fear and hate to get some things that he
wanted. If he could single out a group
who look and talk and eat and pray differently, then he could get others to
flock to his agenda and follow him down any path.
I don’t know who Pharaoh’s advisers
were. I suspect some had big investments
in the construction industry. Some were
in the extraction business, cutting and transporting stones for monumental
construction projects. Other advisers
probably had trained security teams for managing work projects. And he kept his generals close to try to make
himself seem more patriotic. He had to
know people who knew how to get financing for big projects. Above all, he loved building big towers to
show off his power. His advisers knew
how to manipulate their king to make him feel good about himself while deciding
to do things that they wanted him to do.
To build his construction projects—cities,
towers, roads, monuments—he needed a ready, inexpensive work force, so he was
working the Hebrews as forced labor, drafted into “public service.” He made their working conditions worse and
worse, without adequate compensation.
They had to go home from a hard day of building cities and monuments and
work more just to get food on the table.
The King of Egypt had enough insight to realize he might not be able to
keep these people down forever, so he huddled with his most devious advisors to
come up with a plan. He was ready to
compose and promulgate another Pharaoh-dential executive order. The one about making bricks without straw had
been very unpopular. His advisers
suggested that he work a back channel this time. They had an idea of where the weak spot was
among his opposition.
He called Shiphrah and Puah to a
meeting. He had nice chariot go by and
pick them up. They were brought into the
plush palace of the king for a face-to-face meeting. Anyone might be impressed and honored by such
an opportunity. He was counting on the “wow”
factor to win them over. He tried
talking with them like they were buddies and allies. He explained to them what he wanted them to
do.
Shiphrah and Puah were certainly
overwhelmed by being in the palace. They
may not have been reacting the way the Pharaoh wanted, but they were
intimidated. They knew the cost of
opposing the people in power. So they played
along. He gave them some parting gifts
and sent them back home to do his bidding.
Shiphrah and Puah are the predecessors
of some more famous Hebrews who came along many centuries later. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were three
Hebrew young men who were told by a great king to do something they knew they
should not do. We know them by the names
that king called them—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They had another friend named Daniel, whom
the king liked to call Belteshazzar. But
just as these young men understood that they could not meet the expectations of
the king if they were to meet the expectations of God, so did Shiphrah and
Puah.
The Pharaoh had asked the midwives to
do something unspeakable. He wanted them
to kill babies when they were born.
Worried that the Hebrew boys would grow up to be “bad hombres,” Pharaoh
wanted them killed before they had a chance to breathe the fresh air of the
world God had made them to live in and love in.
Pharaoh wanted to end their hopes and possibilities before they could
ever get started. He had figured out
that a secret deal with the midwives would solve his problems. But the problem with this Pharaoh, this most
powerful ruler of his era, was that he had fallen into forgetfulness.
One of the great sins of power is
forgetfulness. Now stop before you jump
to conclusions. I’m not saying that when
we sometimes forget the things we meant to do that it’s sin. I’m not saying that as we get older and names
and words slip out of reach in the middle of a conversation that we are
sinning. That’s not what I mean by
forgetfulness today. The forgetfulness I
am talking about has to do with the way violence and power work in
society. Often when people scheme and
cheat and push and shove to get what they want, they turn around and talk about
how they earned it through virtue and character. This kind of forgetfulness retells the
history to make the people with power the heroes. It retells the story to sanitize out the
oppression and violence. The textbooks
don’t call forced laborers slaves, but immigrant employees. They call forced segregation school
choice. They call slaves happy members
of the extended family. Forgetfulness
becomes self-congratulation that erases the memory of violent, murderous
schemes to gain and maintain control.
If everything had worked out the way
Pharaoh was planning, he would have had little problem forgetting the conniving
violence he employed to weaken the Hebrews.
A cover story about disease or genetic defects would have been invented
to rationalize so many infant deaths.
All who knew the truth would be paid off or eliminated. Pharaoh was playing a dangerous game, but the
stakes were high and the potential rewards were great. Pharaoh was willing to do what it takes to achieve
his objectives and make Egypt great again.
Shiphrah and Puah returned to their
homes and their work with a new resolve.
They would have to redouble their efforts to save the lives of the
Hebrew children. They could not be
careless. If they openly disregarded the
Pharaoh’s authority and flaunted their disobedience in order to look heroic,
Pharaoh would find other agents to carry out his plan. And who knows what would happen to them for
their rebellion? So Shiphrah and Puah
had to have a workable plan. They had to
get their story straight. Lives were at
stake.
They realized that the very
forgetfulness that was Pharaoh’s modus operandi could work in their
favor. The King of Egypt did not know
Joseph. He had forgotten the common
history of the Egyptian Kingdom and the Hebrew immigrants. He had replaced it with a narrative rooted in
the logic of difference. The logic of
difference says that if you and I are different in a few ways, then perhaps we
should conclude that we are different in every way. We might even be complete opposites. If my skin is light and yours is dark, then
the logic of difference says that whatever I think is good about me must be the
opposite about you. If I am good
looking, you must not be. If I am
hard-working, you must be lazy. The
logic of difference is insidious and demonic.
It hides the obvious truth we could see if we would just look at one
another and get to know one another. It
replaces our opportunity to know one another with the assumption of
inscrutability, of unknowability. It is
a reasoning process that has shaped the invention of the races in the modern
world. We use it all the time in how we
think about men and women, too. The
logic of difference is an intentional kind of forgetfulness.
So when the Pharaoh had time to realize
that there were still lots of new little Hebrew boys running around in the ‘hood,
he sent his chariot out to get Shiphrah and Puah to bring them before a board
of inquiry. He asked them why they would
go against the specific instructions he gave them. They played on his prejudice. They leveraged his ignorance. They offered a story about how Hebrew women
were different from Egyptian women. Of
course, he knew that had to be true. He
believed in the logic of difference with all his heart. So they set him up. They said that when they got called to help
with a birth, these Hebrew women with short labor and fast childbirth would
already be finished. The baby would be
born, and their chance to secretly kill the baby boys was past. They didn’t say whether they had still
managed to kill a few of the boys—they let him think maybe they had, or at
least they were trying. Wow! Pharoah
thought. This plan was harder than I
thought! So it seems he sent them away
with instructions to work harder and move faster to carry out their plan. Shiphrah and Puah survived another brush with
the empire, and Hebrew parents and children were a little safer for a little longer.
It is a powerful story. It sets up the story of Moses’ birth. The desire to keep baby boys alive made it
very difficult for Hebrew families in this time. Eventually, Pharaoh made it a patriotic duty
for Egyptians to kill Hebrew baby boys.
That led to the unique turn of events of Moses’ floating in the river
and adoption into the household of the Pharaoh. How many other little boys did not survive the
murderous plot against them? “Rachel,
weeping for her children” was a cultural memory that flowed down through the
centuries, all the way to the Exile.
This contrast of forgetfulness and
remembering strikes me as a crucial message for today. We gather here in a commissioning service for
those who have answered the calling of God to minister among God’s people and
in the homes and streets and halls of power where we find the people God
loves. What will be our modus
operandi as we do this work? Will we
surrender to forgetfulness and leave behind the people who brought us this
far? Will we use our commission to lord
over others and to use them to serve our greed and lust for power? Will we forget who Joseph was, or will we
remember?
This story points to at least three
ways in which remembering is crucial to taking up the mantle of servant
leadership. First, we can see that
Shiphrah and Puah remembered who they were.
Second, we can recognize that they remembered who called them. And third, they remembered why they had been
called.
The story of Shiphrah and Puah leaves
one important detail uncertain. Were
these midwives from the tribes of the Hebrews, or were they Egyptians who
worked among the Hebrews? Some have
argued that Pharaoh would have had little reason to trust them to do this
horrible task if they were Hebrews. He
would have selected Egyptians with whom he might hope to share a common
prejudice against the immigrant Hebrews.
That seems possible. Many,
however, have argued that the midwives were part of the Hebrew community which
was where they did their work. Various
rabbis have supported this view down through the centuries. The wording in the text is ambiguous, but I
think it doesn’t make a big difference for our purposes. In either case, whether Egyptian or Hebrew,
these women remembered better who they were than did the Pharaoh.
These women had worked and built
relationships among the Hebrew immigrants for long enough that they had become
well-known, even respected in their work.
When Pharaoh wanted to scheme with some midwives, these were the ones
well-known enough to get the invitation to his palace. Even though he did not remember Joseph,
apparently Shiphrah and Puah did.
Now the text does not mention that they
knew Joseph. But they did clearly know
the people of Joseph. They knew the
goodness of family life, the love of friendship, the joy of new beginnings, the
struggle of poverty, the pain of grief and loss. They knew flesh and blood human beings,
created by God, made for love, given gifts and strength for work, striving to
make the most of their situation. They
knew the stories of cousins and aunts and uncles, of parents and grandparents
and great-grandparents. They remembered
the history of where they had come from, whether as Hebrew immigrants or as
Egyptians who had cast their lot in friendship with the Hebrews sojourning in
their homeland. They knew the people of
Joseph. They remembered the many ways
his character and virtue had been taught, shared, and passed down through
generations of Hebrew children. They
remembered the welcome of the Hebrews into Egypt and the gratitude and service the
Hebrews offered in return. They
remembered that they stood on the shoulders of giants. They remembered who they were.
In taking up Christian ministry, can
you remember who you are? Not many among
you were noble, not many wise, not many powerful. But each one has been given grace gifts by
the Holy Spirit. Each earthen vessel is
capable of having the power and wisdom of God poured into it for God’s use. God didn’t have to use you, but God has
called you. The church didn’t have to notice
you, but the church has acknowledged your potential and called you to a task. The Spirit didn’t have to fill you, but you
have known the unction that only comes from God. Do you remember who you are?
In small towns and in some
neighborhoods, it was traditional to get to know someone by asking, “Who is
your momma? Who is your daddy? Are you so-and-so’s boy? Are you what’s-her-name’s girl?” It is about figuring out who you are by
remembering who you come from. Are you
from Joseph’s people? If you weren’t
born to them, have you been grafted into their family? Do you remember what kind of people Joseph
taught them to be? Are we going to see
Joseph when we see how you live? Are you
going to be the Jesus we see in the world?
If you want to be God’s servant and a minister, then remember who you
are.
We can also see that Shiphrah and Puah
remembered who called them. Part way
through the story, we might start thinking that the midwives who got called to
the Pharaoh’s palace would become the Pharaoh’s agents. We might think they would be answering the
call of their king and becoming his servants.
But the story turned out differently.
He was accustomed to being able to impress people or throw his weight
around and get them to do his bidding.
He was used to being the boss and hiring and firing according to his
whims. So he seemed surprised when what
he asked Shiphrah and Puah to do did not happen. When he called them back, he was probably
looking forward to getting to say, “You’re fired!”
The story took a different turn. Not only did the Pharaoh stay oblivious to
what was happening in the birthing rooms of the Hebrews, the One who really
called these midwives took care of them.
Shiphrah and Puah knew who they worked for. They knew who had called them out as
leaders. We don’t know how many midwives
served the Hebrew women, but it probably was more than two. So Shiphrah and Puah are representative
figures. Maybe they were the leaders and
organizers of the midwives. Whatever
their role, they had a clear understanding who it was they worked for. So when the Pharaoh stepped in to try to be
their new supervisor, they were polite and immediately disobeyed. They served the one who had put them to their
task, not the one who wanted to use them to do his dirty work. And the story tells us that God stood by
them, protected them, and blessed them mightily for remembering that it was God
who called them.
Will you remember who you work
for? One of the first things that
usually happens in a church when a new minister comes along is that everyone
tries to get a piece of her or of him.
Folks want to have coffee or go out for lunch. They come by the office or call on the
phone. The conversations may start very
general and encouraging, but many of them end up playing an angle. People have grudges against other church
members, or they have been upset ever since some group or program got
eliminated. They have visited a church
and seen something they like, or they are never satisfied with the way the
Bible is taught. So they start recruiting
the new minister to be on their side, to join their cause, or even to do their
dirty work. They plant seeds of suspicion
or communicate veiled ultimatums.
Who do you work for? Of course, Shiphrah and Puah worked for the
families they served at times of childbirth, and you work for the people God is
sending your way. But don’t get that
mixed up. You work for them because you
work for God. Your work for them is to
do the work of God, not to join in schemes for power or influence, for greed or
status. You are not their stepping
stone, but they are not your stepping stone either. God is the one who has called, us, and we are
pressing on toward the high calling of Christ Jesus. God took hold of you, and now you are
striving to take hold of that for which you were taken hold of by God. You have to lay aside the weights. You have to shun the temptations to sin that
so easily get your imagination. You have
to leave some things behind so you can reach out for the fresh gifts of God’s
Spirit. Remember who called you. Remember who you work for. In all your ways, acknowledge God, and God
will direct your paths. If you want to
be God’s servant and a minister, then remember who called you.
Let me highlight a third way of
remembering that we can see in the story of Shiphrah and Puah—they remembered
why they had been called. They were
midwives. That was their job. It was their calling. They knew they served God’s people. They knew that it was God who called
them. And they also remembered what is
was they had been called to do. They
remembered why they had been called.
Their job was helping families bring healthy children into the
world. They had to learn the traditions,
learn from experience, develop the science through observation, be alert and
rested for the job, give their best every time, and find the joy and fulfillment
that comes from a job well done, a life lived in faithfulness.
Now and then a birth might not go as
hoped. There might be complications and
injury to the mother. There might be
problems that keep a child from being born strong, or alive. Shiphrah and Puah had to be ready for these
times as well. They were called to do
their best to help a family bring a baby into the world, and they also were
called to support and care for families who struggled with the vicissitudes of
life that can come with childbirth. They
had a mission. They were servants of God
and servants of their fellow human beings.
They were called with a purpose, and they could not let that purpose
slip away from their vision.
Too often, a change in role can cause a
change in how a person relates to others.
We all have seen it. It can
happen in even the most minor of situations.
Sometimes, in a church committee, people have worked together for many
years, sharing, speaking up, listening, and carrying their loads as equals, as
children of God seeking to do what they are called to do. Then one of the group who has not been the
chair of the committee before becomes the chair. Suddenly, the new chair acts like a different
person. Because of a title, she or he
starts behaving as if the other committee members should only do the listening
part, not the thinking and talking and deciding parts. It starts becoming a one-way relationship of
boss and underling rather than equal partners.
And all that can happen when there isn’t even any program money to
decide how to use. Rising into an office
can confuse some people so they forget what they were called to do.
Pharaoh thought he could get Shiphrah
and Puah to forget that they were called to help life flourish and get them to
become murderers and life-destroyers. He
thought that their promotion to being in his inner circle would change their
view of their work. Thank God that he
was mistaken. They could not see any way
to accept his orders to kill the baby boys.
They were strategic in finding a plan to make sure they could prevent
that from happening under their watch.
They knew their calling, their purpose, and they kept their eyes on the
prize.
You are called to be a servant. Minister is the translation of the Greek word
diakonia, which is also translated as servant. You are not overlord. You may oversee some programming, some
budget, some mission tasks, but oversight is not the same as being the boss of
me, the boss of him, or the boss of her.
God has called you to serve. By
now you may know some specific ways in which God wants you to serve. So if you are called to preach, do so with
truth and conviction. If you are called
to teach, study to show yourself approved.
If you are called to evangelize, make your life good news to those God
sends your way. If you are called to
hospitality, then receive God’s children with joy and generosity. If you are called to pray, then make yourself
a vessel of God’s work as you are transformed to do his will.
The lectionary epistle text for today
reminds me of my own calling to ministry.
It seems centuries ago that I was 18, but at that tender age I accepted
God’s call to minister. I had no idea
where it would lead, and could not have predicted I would ever be in a position
to stand before you here today. But in
those early days of my calling, I often returned to this epistle text from
Romans 12.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and
sisters, [I beseech you] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and
acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among
you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think
with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has
assigned.
At 18 I was a mixed up mess of overconfidence
and fear. I had been told by everyone
that I was smart and gifted, and I often believed the hype. But some of the time I knew it was just
hype. I knew I was just a scared kid trying
to make it in a bigger world. I was
trying to listen to God and trying to be somebody. I didn’t want to disappoint my family, and I
wanted my friends to like me. And no
small part of me was trying to impress the girls I couldn’t get my eyes off
of. If that’s not a description of an
earthen vessel, I don’t know what is. So
when I read Romans 12, it reminded me I had some changing to do. I needed to grow up from my immaturity. I needed to put aside the wants and ways of
the world that I had learned growing up, and I needed to take on the wants and
ways of God. I needed to follow the way
of Jesus, which this verse describes as presenting oneself onto the altar as a
living sacrifice to God. It’s a
complicated metaphor. I was relieved that
it said I could be a living sacrifice, even if I also realized in the back of
my mind that when Jesus lived that way it had cost him his life.
This giving up of my self-made image, my self
of my own construction, was the crucial step to learning God’s will for me. I longed to hear God’s call, and this epistle
text told me that by giving myself, I could find my way to discern the will of
God, and that it would be good. It would
be excellent. That’s what I wanted. To achieve as high as I could, but within the
scope of what God wanted me to do. I
couldn’t think too highly of myself, but had to put myself on God’s altar to be
remade, to be transformed, to become God’s servant to do God’s will. If I would walk that path, God promised to
make the most of me for a particular task in my time and my place.
Do you remember why you have been called? Too many lose sight of it when they get
dollar signs, TV ratings, and big buildings on their minds. Others just want to go their own way and can’t
figure out how not to try to be the one who is large and in charge, even if it
means only with a tiny flock of longsuffering church people. God has a good purpose for you. It means putting yourself aside and letting
God replace your ambition and greed with God’s own purpose and grace. If you want to serve God and be a minister, then
remember why you were called.
I rejoiced when I saw that this story of
Shiphrah and Puah was the lectionary text for this Sunday. For any of you who heard it preached this
morning, I pray that the Holy Spirit has brought you an additional gift from
the richness of the Holy Scriptures as you heard it again. But there is one more thing I want to point
out about the importance of remembering as we close.
There are many times when the Bible lets us
down concerning God’s love for and calling of women to lead and work for the
Kingdom of God. Written in times when women had little status in society, too often the texts omit and forget their names. In the story of the
great flood, we never learn the names of the very important characters who are
the wives of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Even in the stories of Jesus, a Samaritan woman from Sychar who comes to
get water at the well, a Syro-Phoenecian woman who gives Jesus the opportunity
to expand the grace of God to Gentiles, a woman who gives all she has to God, a
woman who touches his garment in faith, a woman he forgives when the crowd
wants to stone her—so many who are central to communicating his gospel life go
unnamed. But this story is not one of
those.
We know the names of Shiphrah and Puah. The Books of Moses tell us their names. The Torah, God’s gift of love to the people
of Israel, names them. But did you
notice, there was a so-called famous character in this story. He is called the King of Egypt. He is called by the Egyptian imperial title,
Pharaoh. But we don’t know his
name. Scholars argue about which of the
known rulers of the Egyptian empires this character might be. They compare the dynasties and their
writings, and some theories seem sort of right, and sort of wrong, to fit the Bible
story.
We don’t remember this Pharaoh’s name. The Bible doesn’t remember this Pharaoh’s
name. The Books of Moses do not remember
this Pharaoh’s name, although surely Moses, who lived in the household of
Pharaoh knew who this king was. But we
do remember the names of a couple of midwives who worked among an outcast
immigrant people. We know these women
who were instruments of God’s work.
We
know these ministers, even though we don’t know the Pharoah. He already demonstrated that he had a bad memory. He forgot what he did not want to know, and he
did not know Joseph. But Shiphrah and Puah
knew Joseph. They remembered who they
were. They remembered who called
them. And they remembered why they were
called. Go forth today in the spirit of
Shiphrah and Puah and serve God with the same faithfulness they demonstrated so
many centuries ago. Speak their
names. Remember. Amen
