Moses and Pharaoh's Daughter

 “Moses and Pharaoh's Daughter” 

Friends, as I start a second month here with you (I know, right?!), I wanted to put together a 6 part sermon series, something I really enjoy doing with my preaching. And I thought it would be illuminating for us to spend these 6 weeks looking in depth at one of our most important biblical patriarchs: Moses.

It’s important to understand the historical background that precedes Moses. Moses’ story begins right after the conclusion of Joseph’s story, or after the finale of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for you theater fans. Joseph’s prediction of a great famine, and his saving the Egyptians from it by helping them plan ahead, lands his father, his mother, his three stepmothers, his brothers, his sister, their spouses, and all of their children in Egypt. Genesis chapter 46 gives us a head count of how many people that was, but the author specifically mentioned that he wasn’t counting any of the wives, and y’all know Pastor Natalie isn’t gonna let that slide, so I went through those verses with a fine tooth comb and, by my count, that’s 86 people from that bloodline that settled in Egypt, and they started from a huge place of privilege because the Pharaoh of that time loved Joseph so much.

Well, when you’re already starting with 86 people, and they all get married and continue having children, you quickly have quite a large population. What started out being the twelve sons and one daughter of a man named Israel has now become an entire ethnicity. And while the new Pharaoh doesn’t know or care who Joseph was, he has managed to remember that all of these folks are refugees. And he loudly voices his fears: there’s too many of “them”. They’ll outnumber us. They’ll take all of our resources. They’re a threat, and they can’t be trusted. They could defeat us in war if it came to that. It’s amazingly sad how history keeps repeating itself because we don’t learn from it.

The Pharaoh is only one xenophobic man, but he shows us how much damage one person can do. He orders the enslavement of the descendants of Israel, the Hebrews. When hard labor doesn’t slow down their population growth, Pharaoh orders the Hebrew midwives to kill all the boys they deliver. But if you know the story about Shiphrah and Puah, you know that their compassion and quick thinking saves those boys, one of whom was Moses.

Even though Moses survived Pharaoh’s order to kill him at birth, he’s still an undocumented person who isn’t allowed to exist where he is. When his mom realizes she can’t hide him forever–babies are really loud, after all–she puts him right where Pharaoh wanted to throw him, in the Nile, but protected by a basket. I can hardly fathom having to make a decision like that for your child to have a shot at life. Moses’ fate rests in the hands of whoever finds him first.

And then, by random chance, Pharaoh’s daughter decides it’s time for a bath in the Nile. 

Pharaoh’s daughter grew up in the lap of luxury. The daughter of a royal, she was immersed in palace life and very likely knew nothing else. In her lifetime she’s only watched her father’s disdain for the Hebrews grow, and she’s only seen them at a distance, doing slave labor. They’re “the other” to her, and she knows how her father feels about them.

But instead of having someone kill this baby, like her father would, she decides to break the cycle. She adopts him, and loves him. Love breaks the cycle, every time. If Pharaoh teaches us how much harm a single person can do, his daughter teaches us how much a single person can heal, especially when that person identifies her position of privilege and decides to use it for the empowerment of her neighbor. Or, in Paul’s words, she walks in a manner worthy of her calling. She speaks truth in love, rather than perpetuating her father’s trickery and scheming.

How can we do the same? It’s so easy for us to look at the world around us and feel hopeless. In English we have this phrase “world weariness”, and it might capture that feeling well enough, but in German we have a better word that cuts straight to the core of that feeling: “Weltschmerz”. Literally “world pain.” We’ve inherited generation upon generation upon generation of our ancestor’s mistakes, and children could pay the price if we do nothing. We’re three months away from a Presidential election that promises to be even more contentious than the last two. And our neighbors are fighting over the same issues that Pharaoh saw 5,000 years ago: migrants and refugees, racism, reproductive freedom and the agency of women, poverty, homelessness, and food insecurity–especially when children face those hardships.

The first piece of Good News for us is that one person can make a big difference by speaking truth in love, and walking in a manner worthy of our calling, like Pharaoh’s daughter did. We don’t have to all go out and adopt babies out of rivers to make life better for our neighbors. We need to act in love. And in moments when we realize that we, like Pharaoh’s daughter, have some privilege, we need to use it to be good allies. 20 some years ago, when I did a foreign exchange program with my friend Katherina, who was from Germany, she shared with me a motto she used at her Gymnasium, her high school, recently as part of a community service project: “Es ist nicht dein Schuld das die Welt ist wie es ist. Es ist nur dein Schuld wenn es so bleibt.” It’s not your fault the world is the way it is. It’s only your fault if it stays like that.

You can use the privilege you have for loving outcomes in a lot of little ways, and some big ones. First, and I’ll be repeating this before November: vote. Don’t stay home on election day and give your voice away. Support the social networks that help our friends who are going without–the food banks, the shelters, the community health clinics, the free lunch programs. Stay curious and open minded. When you feel intimidated by someone who is different from you, seek to learn and understand rather than shutting them out. And if you have the energy at your disposal to make some big moves, I’ve already shared with y’all that I’ve done work with the Poor People’s Campaign. And a few years ago I had the honor of restoring a few abandoned lots and starting construction on new homes in Schenectady, all for Habitat for Humanity. All four of the houses I helped work on then now shelter single parents who needed a boost from someone who had the ability to give them a hand.

In the words of author LR Knost: “Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”

Amen.