From the Pastor |
Exodus 1:8-2:10
If I were to tell you that something you will do this week could change the world? What would you say? Would you believe me? Or would you scoff at the idea? In 1758, Benjamin Franklin printed a poetic version of an old proverb, in his publication Poor Richard's Almanack: For want of a nail the shoe was lost, For want of a shoe the horse was lost, For want of a horse the rider was lost, For want of a rider the battle was lost, For want of a battle the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. The point… small things can have large, unseen, unimaginable consequences. We can see the truth of this in our reading from Exodus today. A small group of women… women who were for the most part insignificant in status and power, made decisions and small actions that would have very large and world changing consequences. These women had no idea that they themselves would function as saviors of a nation. In Genesis, when Joseph saves Egypt from a time of great famine… Jacob and his family and their households move to the land of Egypt. In the generations that span the time between the end of Genesis and beginning of Exodus, the Israelites have thrived in Egypt and have grown substantially in number. We are given no indication that they were anything besides loyal subjects to Pharaoh throughout these generations… However, a lot of time has passed… “a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.” The political landscaped has changed and the memory of Joseph’s contribution to the country’s success and wellbeing had faded. The new Pharaoh had his own agenda, and is able to exploit the fear people have those who are different. He identifies for the Egyptian people a common threat… the Israelites: He says, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” They are different… there are too many… they are a threat to our national security. So Pharaoh begins by ordering this ‘threat’ to be enslaved and the extreme oppression of the Israelites begins… they are forced into hard labor… building cities and monuments for Pharaoh. But even as slaves and under great oppression… the Israelites continue to grow in number, and “the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.” Fear takes over… So Pharaoh does the unthinkable… he orders a couple of Hebrew midwives to kill any newborn male babies born to the Israelites… This is where the women I spoke of enter the story… Shiphrah and Puah are the Hebrew midwives. When Pharaoh ordered them to carry out his plan for genocide… they refuse to do so because, as the scripture tells us, they “feared God…” These two, lowly women, made a decision… they took a great chance, and they disobeyed the orders of Pharaoh. They acted as they did because of the powerful reverence and respect they had for God. It is a courageous act of civil disobedience… but they are not alone in their disobedience. We are also told of 3 other women… the first… a Levite woman who gives birth to a baby boy. She too defied the law set by Pharaoh… “When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.” The second… is Pharaoh’s own daughter… she finds the baby boy and recognizes that he is a Hebrew child… She could have allowed fear to guide her actions… after all this was a child of another race… a race deemed a threat by her own father… a child she knew was under a death sentence… She could have feared her father’s reaction if he found out. But, she didn’t. She was driven by compassion and not by fear. She chose life for this helpless child… adopting him as her own son. The third was a young girl… the child’s sister who had remained to watch over the baby and when he was found offered to “go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby”… bringing the baby’s own mother back to fill the position. Five women… who all followed the dictates of their hearts… and acted with compassion instead of fear… Five women who had no idea that they were bringing great change to the world… That their acts of civil disobedience would have amazing and life changing consequences because the child saved from the waters of the Nile was Moses… the man God would later use to lead the Israelites OUT of bondage in Egypt… to freedom in the Promised Land. The next time you wonder, “Can God really use me? I’m nobody special… what can I possibly do to change things in this world?” Remember these women… Remember how they simply acted out of compassion… following their hearts instead of giving in to fear. This is what we should be doing… Our decisions and our actions should be patterned on this same powerful reverence and respect for God… Our faith should be driving us daily to stop and stand in the way of injustice. After all… that is the vow we take when we are baptized or join the United Methodist Church: We are asked: “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? (The United Methodist Book of Worship, Baptismal Covenant I, 88). This is our pledge… to give of ourselves without concern for the cost… without fear of reprisal… simply knowing that we were serving God’s will as we resist evil, injustice and oppression. Truthfully… We don’t always live up this vow very well. We let fear, and apathy stop us from addressing the injustices we see around us… we tend to turn a blind eye unless it directly affects us. I confess that I’m far from perfect in doing so myself. But when I stood up at my confirmation almost 38 years ago, I answered ‘yes’ to this very question. I vowed before God that I would resist evil… that I would fight injustice and oppression “in whatever forms they present themselves.” The Hebrew midwives did what they did because they “feared God…” they are wonderful examples of faithful children of God who displayed tremendous loyalty to God’s kingdom. This wasn’t the motivation of Pharaoh’s daughter, but she found great compassion in her heart that overrode any fear she felt. I hope that I, and that all of us, will… with God’s help and grace… strive to live and act as these 5 women did… following the paths of compassion and justice… being willing to act with civil disobedience works toward what is good and right and just for all people in this world… working in the ways of God’s kingdom. Too often we fail to realize just how inter-connected we all really are… Even our simplest actions can create an unforeseen “butterfly effect” that can cause a ripple that affects the lives of so many others. The things we do this week… our actions and even the small choices we make… will have consequences both seen and unseen that will ripple out into the world… The consequences might be for good or not so good… they might bring damage or healing… Our actions might be big, bold, and courageous, or they may be small, hardly noticeable. Either way… They will all have the potential to ripple out… of affecting countless lives… of making great changes. So what if I told you that what you do this week could change the world? What would you say… what would you do? My hope is that you will act in God’s ways, with kindness and compassion, and that because of some small action or gesture the world will change for the better
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Yeon Shin
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