Small actions matter
Last week and the week before, we heard stories about Joseph, the son of Jacob who was sold into slavery, but caught Pharaoh’s attention, rose to greatness, and eventually brought his brothers and his father to join him in Egypt. A happy ending.
Years pass. The descendants of Joseph and his brothers fill the land. And “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”
The new Pharaoh and his advisors are afraid. Afraid of these strangers who live in their midst, part of Egyptian society, but also apart, maintaining their own traditions, their own religion, maybe even their own language. Pharaoh worries that the Hebrews might continue to multiply, and eventually ally with Egypt’s enemies. And so he enslaves them, forcing them to work in the fields and build his cities.
But still their numbers grow. And so Pharaoh takes matters a step further. He calls for two Hebrew midwives, and he orders them to kill all male children at birth. We learn the midwives’ names: Shiphrah and Puah. The two women fear God more than the king, and so they don’t obey. When Pharaoh demands an explanation, they lie, taking advantage of Pharaoh’s ignorance about childbirth. “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
And so still their numbers grow.
Then Pharaoh goes further still. This time he makes the order public, telling all his people to throw male Hebrew babies into the Nile River.
A woman named Jochebed gives birth to a son. She wants him to live, so she hides him for three months, and when she can’t hide him any longer, she puts him in a floating basket among the reeds that line the Nile. The boy’s sister Miriam stands at a distance to watch.
Pharaoh’s daughter comes to the river to bathe and finds the basket. She knows the baby is a Hebrew child. She knows her father’s command. But still she takes the child from the river.
Then Miriam steps forward. “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter says yes, and Miriam goes to get the baby’s own mother.
Pharaoh’s daughter says to Jochebed, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.”
Pharaoh’s daughter eventually adopts the boy and names him Moses.
And that’s the story of how a mother saved her son’s life (and got a paycheck thrown in too). It’s also the story of how the child who would one day lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt survived.
Notice who is named in this story. Pharaoh is just Pharaoh – a title, not a name. His daughter is simply “Pharaoh’s daughter.” But the midwives are Shiphrah and Puah. Later scripture tells us that Moses’s mother and sister are Jochebed and Miriam. You might expect Pharaoh to be the one to go down in history, but his isn’t the name we remember. There might be a hint there about where God’s priorities lie.
The story of the book of Exodus is powerful. It’s a story of slavery and oppression, and of hope, and of freedom.
The Jewish people remember Exodus every Passover. “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord, our God, took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm.”
American slaves heard this story, and they also found hope within it. They sang, “Go down, Moses, tell old Pharaoh, let my people go!” When Harriet Tubman led people to freedom through the Underground Railroad, some called her “Moses.”
Other oppressed people throughout history have found a similar hope in Exodus. Latin American theologians in the twentieth century read this story and developed what came to be known as “liberation theology.” They found here, and throughout scripture, what they described as a “preferential option for the poor.”
At the heart of liberation theology is a claim that Exodus makes clearly: that the people Pharaoh and his advisors fear as strangers in their midst are the very same people God hears and leads to freedom. It’s a claim echoed centuries after Exodus in Mary’s song, in her faith that God puts down the mighty and exalts the humble and meek.
Exodus as a whole is a story of God intervening in history, a tale of plagues and miracles and wonders. But we’re not to that point of the narrative just yet. In the portion we read today, God has not yet spoken from a burning bush. Moses is still a child. There’ve been no miracles. But God’s work has already begun – through the work of human hands.
The midwives Shiphrah and Puah fear God more than they fear Pharaoh, and so they lie to him, gumming up the works of oppression. Jochebed finds a way to hide her child, at least for a while, setting aside Pharaoh’s orders in the process. Pharaoh’s daughter breaks the rules too, using what power she has to save one child.
St. Paul writes that “we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.” We have different gifts, different calls – but we’re all called to some sort of service.
The women in Exodus show us just how varied and just how powerful such gifts can be.
Scripture doesn’t ask us all to be Moses or Peter or Paul. It teaches us that small actions matter. That God can work through midwives refusing an order, a mother making a basket, a sister keeping watch, and a princess breaking her father’s rules.
None of them knew where their story was going. They couldn’t bring down Pharaoh. They couldn’t free the Hebrew people from oppression. But they could save one child from death.
Cover image: Detail of hands from the oil painting Moses and Jochebed (1884) by Pedro Américo (1843-1905). Via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pedro_Am%C3%A9rico_-_Mois%C3%A9s_e_Jocabed.jpg
