What it Means to Have Power
Year
A Pentecost 11
It would be easy to read this story from
Exodus and say that it is a story about Moses.
After all, it is the first time we see Moses’ names and he’s clearly the
star. We know what happens after Moses
grows up. He ends up leading the Hebrew
people out of Egypt. But this story is
not about Moses. Then it must be about
Pharaoh. He’s an important guy, clearly
very powerful. It’s not about Pharaoh either.
If it was about Pharaoh, we would probably have a name for him. We don’t. This story is not about the powerful. It is about the powerless, at least the
people who were perceived to be powerless.
It is full of irony and
intrigue. It starts with a new Pharaoh
who did not know Joseph, which means he did not know the story of Joseph. He did not know how this Israelite had actually
saved Egypt from a devastating famine, which brought more Israelites to
Egypt. This Pharaoh was probably only
alive because of the actions of an Israelite who lived long ago. He was at a disadvantage because of his
self-inflicted ignorance. He also seemed
a bit paranoid, or possibly just horribly insecure. He was worried that if the Israelites
continued to increase in number, they would join the enemies of Egypt and
overthrow them. So he oppressed them,
because as we know that is always an effective way to keep people in line. He also hoped that by working them so much,
they would not procreate as much…they would not have the time and energy. Alas, this plan did not work. The more they were oppressed, the more
numerous they got.
The Pharaoh called on two Hebrew
midwives, Shiphrah and Puah. Midwives
were usually women who were barren.
Barren women were pretty much the lowest social status you could be in
this time since a woman’s main reason for being was procreation. The Pharaoh asked these women to kill all the
male babies. The girls did not concern
him. The midwives feared God more than they feared Pharaoh.
A lot of people are uncomfortable with
the idea of fear of God. The word
translated to fear is a tricky one.
There is no direct translation, no English word that really works. A translation that might be more
understandable is honor. They honored God more than they honored Pharaoh. They knew that the Pharaoh’s power was
temporary and God’s was eternal. They did not tell him that they refused. They just didn’t obey. When Pharaoh realized
all these baby boys were still being born, he brought them back in and
questioned them. Their response is
pretty hysterical. They essentially
said, “The Hebrew women are just popping them out so fast, the baby is
delivered before we even get there.”
Apparently he bought that.
The Pharaoh then called on the Egyptian
people to throw every male baby in the Nile so that they would drown. One woman hid her child and put him in a
basket in the Nile River. When we hear
basket, we think of a flimsy wicker thing.
This was no ordinary basket. The
Hebrew word translated to basket is the very same word that is translated to
ark in the story of Noah and the Ark.
Clearly, the mother of Moses had put some time and effort into this
little ark. She wanted this child to be
carried to safety, much like God wanted that ark to carry the people and
animals to safety.
As luck would have it, the daughter of
the Pharaoh just happened to be bathing by the river and she saw this little
ark passing by. Of course, we know it
had nothing to do with luck. God wanted
her to be there. She knew that this was a Hebrew child, a child that her father
had ordered to death. But compassion
moved her when she saw him and heard his cries.
I am sure she knew about her father’s policy, but seeing the effects of
this horrific policy must been more than she could bear. So she pulled him out
of the river. She knew that the ark
while sturdy, could not last forever without her intervention. So the daughter of the Pharaoh disobeyed her
own father and saved the one man that would end up delivering an entire
nation.
It is fascinating to me that while the
Pharaoh was so intent on killing all the males, it was the females, the ones
who were already alive, who would be the means of his undoing. He feared that the Israelites would become so
numerous that they would create an army.
They didn’t need an army. They
needed a couple of women who were considered completely powerless who would
risk their own safety to save a child and to honor God. The Pharaoh’s daughter was probably not a
worshipper of the one true God, but maybe she was. Jewish rabbis have surmised that she was at
the river to cleanse herself of idolatry because she had discovered the one
true God. There is absolutely no
evidence to prove this, but it’s an interesting idea. What we know is that she was moved by
compassion, a compassion that moved her to sacrifice her own interests for that
of another. That is love in its truest sense.
That is God.
There is another theory that the rabbis
have for this story. They wrote that it
was not the maid of the Pharaoh’s daughter who pulled the baby out of the
water. It was actually her own arm. However, her arm extended to double or
triple its length as she went to reach for this child allowing her to pull him
out of the river. We hear the phrase
divine intervention all the time. But
God has always been fond of using human intervention for his divine
purposes. Sure, he could have destroyed
Pharaoh in some fantastic way and then carried the people of Israel in a cloud
to the Promised Land. That is not how
God operates. God likes humans to
intervene.
God especially loves to use those people
who would be considered powerless by most.
Those Hebrew midwives had nothing but their courage and their faith in
God. Moses’ mother had nothing but
courage, love and faith. The daughter of the Pharaoh probably had more power
than most women in that time, but it was still not very much. The power that each woman had was her
willingness to risk her life for another.
That is a power that God honors.
That is the power that Jesus wielded centuries later to save all
humanity.
There are so many times in life when
people do not act because they feel powerless.
They are powerless to change themselves or their lives or the world
around them. God proves again and again
that power does not come with wealth, prestige or connections but in an openness
to the will of God, to the possibility of something more. We think that we can
only reach as far as our arm will extend.
Yet when we reach our arm out in love, God will always stretch us in
ways that we never expected. We will
find that we are more powerful than we ever imagined.
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