Broadway Christian Church ·Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship ·August 21, 2005

Prayer of the Day

God of power, courage, and compassion; open our lives to the movement of your Spirit.  Fill those places where we are powerless, fearful, and unloving.  Amen.

Scripture
Exodus 1:6:22; 2:1-10

Joseph, who had been kidnapped and taken to Egypt and saved Egypt and his own Israelite people from the famine that had plagued that country, has died.  And the Israelites have been fruitful and multiplied in Egypt.  They grew exceedingly strong, and the land was filled with them.

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.  He said to his people, “Look; the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.  Come; let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase, and in the event of war, they will join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land. 

Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor.  They were forced to build supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh.  But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.  The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks upon them 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 upon them. 

The king of Egyptsaid to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the birthing stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”  The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypthad told them to do; they let the boys live.  Then the king of Egyptsummoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this?  Why have you let the boys live?”

The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.  And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people:  “Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levi woman.  The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him for three months.  When she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with tar and pitch.  She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the banks of the river.  His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her attendants walked beside the river.  She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it, and when she opened it, she saw the baby.  He was crying, and she took pity on him.  “This must be one of the Hebrew’s children,” she said.

Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get a nurse from the Hebrew women who can nurse this child for you?”

And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.”  So the girl went and called the child’s mother.  Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will give you wages.”  So the woman, his mother, took him and nursed him.  And when the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son.  She named him Moses, a word that means “to draw out,” because she had drawn him out of the water.

Message
Power, Courage, Compassion
Kim Ryan

I must tell you, that story is one of my very favorite stories from the Bible.  When I read it a few weeks ago anticipating this worship service today, I instantly was taken back to where I first heard that story – First Baptist Church, Vacation Bible School, with Shirley Thoms.  Now Shirley Thoms was my neighbor across the street on the street where I grew up.  Shirley was one of five children.  I was an only child, and I was drawn to those five kids like a moth to a flame.  They were wild!  Now, as an adult and with children of my own, I have to think, “What was my mother thinking?”  Oh, my gosh!  But they were so much fun.  I got to go to Vacation Bible School with them at their church, First Baptist Church.  Then later in the summer, they would go to Vacation Bible School with me at the Christian Church.

It was at that Vacation Bible School that I first heard this story.  I can remember the room we were in.  I remember the way the room smelled.  Do you have memories like that?  I remember how it was decorated.  It was decorated like the Nile River.  There were costumes, and we were given those costumes.  We weren’t just hearing the story of baby Moses; we were being the story of baby Moses.  At age seven, I was asked to be Moses’ sister.  Wow!  It was a great part in that amazing drama of women.

These were courageous women, saving the life of one baby.  This one who would grow up to be powerful, indeed, would be a powerful man of God and lead those oppressed, enslaved people into God’s desire for freedom.  But this is how the story begins.  Baby Moses, found by a riverbank, with women acting in courage and compassion beyond their fear, and in spite of the power of the king.  But actually, it’s not quite how the story begins, or where the courage and the compassion begin.  Something extremely important happens earlier than the riverbank scene, but it would be many, many years later in my life before I ever read that part of the story.

When we look back to the first chapter of Exodus, there is that little paragraph that is well worth paying attention to.

“The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see the woman on the birth stool, if it is a boy, kill him, and if it is a girl, she shall live.”

Now don’t think he’s being kind there.  He could just use women in other ways.  It was the males that were more threatening to him.  But the midwives, the Scripture says, “feared God,” which means they adored God, they loved God, they lived their lives for God.  And they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them.  They let the boys live. 

So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?”

The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous, and they give birth before the midwife comes to them.”

They lied!  That’s not what the Bible says.  That is my commentary.

Shiphrah and Puah probably would not make anyone’s list of the ten most powerful people in the Bible.  Most of us have never even heard of Shiphrah and Puah.  And yet here they are, critical players in God’s hope and intention toward the freedom for the slaves.  “Let my people go,” would be God’s message through Moses.  But it was a message that first was heard through Shiphrah and Puah.  “Let my people go.”  Here they are in one of the Bible’s most profound stories, a story that will echo the hearts of the imprisoned, and the enslaved, and the oppressed people for all generations that will follow him.

In fact, in our own country, the civil rights movement was formed in the heart and soul of this story, through its Christian leaders.  Martin Luther King, Jr. identified with the power of God through Moses and through God’s message of “Let my people go.”  So our spiritual heritage and our national heritage begin literally in the hands of these women who held life and death, and chose life.

Our story begins in the heart of a mother trusting her three-month-old baby to a river.  Now I will tell you… I just trusted my 18-year-old baby on a plane to go to Brazil.  That is nothing.  Well, it is kind of like trusting a three-month-old baby to the river and to the possibility of another woman’s heart finding that baby.

Our story begins in the wisdom of the sister watching and waiting to see what was going to happen next – what could happen – and then stepping up at just the right moment to ask the right question, to intervene.  Our story begins in the boldness of a princess who defies her father’s cruelty, and paranoia, and his fear-led national policies.

The point?  Well, there are lots of points to this story.  But one point, the point I want to share today, is that none of us can claim to be unimportant, to be powerless, to be inadequate in God’s ongoing drama in this world.  One act of compassionate defiance, one decision for courageous boldness, one question, one answer, yes, can literally change the world for good.

This week a friend sent a piece to me via e-mail, and it is just too perfect not to share it with you in closing.  This is not a list of the ten most powerful people in the Bible.  It’s possibly the list of the 25 most powerless people in the Bible, made known only by God’s power through them, and their courage, and their compassion.  Now if these names are unfamiliar to you, or if the description attached with these names is unfamiliar to you, don’t feel badly.  But here is a quick commercial.  We can help you with that.  We have Bible study starting in just a few weeks!  So, you, too, can learn these amazing stories.

Here is the list.  The next time you feel like God can’t use you, just remember:

• Noah was a drunk.
• Abraham was too old.
• Isaac was a daydreamer.
• Jacob was a liar.
• Leah was unattractive.
• Joseph was abused.
• Moses had a stuttering problem.
• Gideon was afraid.
• Samson had long hair and was a womanizer.
• Rahab was a prostitute.
• Jeremiah and Timothy were too young.
• King David had an affair and was a murderer.
• Elijah was suicidal.
• Isaiah preached naked.
• Jonah ran from God.
• Naomi was a widow.
• Job went bankrupt.
• John the Baptist ate bugs.
• Peter denied Jesus.
• The disciples fell asleep while praying.
• Martha worried about everything.
• The Samarian woman was divorced more than once.
• Zacchaeus was too small.
• Paul was too religious.
• Timothy had an ulcer.
• Lazarus … Lazarus was dead!

And then it says, “No more excuses now.  God can use you to your full potential.  Besides, you are not the message.  You are just the messenger.”

Well said?  Yes, well said!

Amen.

Benediction

God of power and might; you supply our energies and are the source of our empowerment.  Give us a charge to be your strength in an aching world, to be your light in the hours of darkness, and to keep going and going and going.  Amen.