"Disruption and Delay as Resistance"

Exodus 1:15-21

Exodus 1:15–21

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 them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but 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 give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.

This past year, I’ve spent a lot of time working to understand and clarify my core values that propel and guide me in all my life and work. I narrowed it down from a giant list of wonderful values down to six last spring and finally, down to just two: justice and joy. My favorite thing that Jesus said comes from John 10, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.” I want abundant, flourishing, joyful lives for all people. I don’t want some people to have flourishing lives at the expense of others, but equitably and justly for all people. Of course, they are wonderful values but they have their shadow sides. Sometimes, my value of joy means discomfort for lengthy periods of sadness. And justice? Well, that need for justice can also mean desperately, desperately, wanting to be right. I want to be right and I want everything to be right as it should be and most of all, I want everyone to know I was right. Oooh that last one is such a beautiful temptation. To be proven right? *chef’s kiss*

But that is not true justice– that is pride and ego. If my definition of justice is so narrow as to only include the perfect outcome and everyone acknowledging that they were wrong and I was right, then I am not really in the pursuit of justice. Here’s the thing about wanting to be right– it distracts me from the real outcomes I care about. I care about justice because there is so much injustice in this world. There is no end to the suffering of our fellow humans and our beautiful planet. With so much suffering and violence and pain in the world, it can be hard to name and understand who and what we are fighting against. In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12).

Ephesians 6:12

Theologian Walter Wink calls it “The Domination System” which seeks to be invisible, reduces the social to the personal, demands conformity, and operates by the myth of redemptive violence as necessary to keeping peace. If that’s too complicated, we can call it by its other name– The Powers. The Powers distract us with arguments over being right so that we forget to do what is right. The Powers are not about a single person or ideology. We’re not just fighting against specific people, politicians, or political parties, but against the Power and Principalities themselves.

The Powers have always existed in our world and they are too powerful for just a few of us to overcome by direct confrontation. Every attempt to do so, from Babylon ‘til now, has simply replaced one domination system with the next. And the Powers are most certainly at work in our country today.

We are, most of us, patriotic Americans. We love our country. We benefit from our culture. But we also profess a deeper loyalty to God, and a higher identity, “Christian,” which is international and multicultural. And we know sometimes our Christian values run counter to our culture’s values, so we feel pulled between loyalties. How do we have pride in the best of our American identity while remaining guided by God’s ways of justice and mercy?

Today’s scripture passage is not like John the Baptist last week who spoke direct truth to power. Instead, it is of two women who were not concerned with being proven right, but with protecting human lives and so they were willing to disrupt Power’s plans and in doing so, delayed the work of evil. Their names are Shiphrah and Puah. “Shiphrah!” means “beautiful” and “Puah!” means “pant” or “breathe,” which is what a midwife tells a woman to do as she gives birth. Shiphrah and Puah show us how Power always behaves and how God’s people resist it. I give great thanks and credit to Rev. Dr. Larry Bethune from University Baptist Church in Austin for his insights and exegesis of this text.

Our scripture reading this morning began at verse 15, but if we back up a few more verses, we learn that a Pharaoh rises in Egypt who “does not know Joseph.” That is to say, the memory of Hebrew participation in power is long gone. We’re shown the first key truth about the Powers: Power fears the powerless and so it exploits them. The Hebrews’ labor is necessary to Power, but they grow too numerous and might rebel, causing Power to lose control. So Power acts “shrewdly,” as Pharaoh puts it, meaning deceitfully and invisibly.

First, the Pharaoh works through spokesmen and intermediaries, and tells the bosses to make the Hebrews’ work unbearable so they’ll be too busy and too tired to rebel. But the hard work makes them stronger. So Pharaoh calls the two midwives – Shiphrah and Puah – into his court for a secret council. You’ve seen the imposing, intimidating statues from ancient Egypt which represented imperial power? What if you were summoned to the White House or the Governor’s Mansion? Can you imagine how Shiphrah and Puah feel? Pharaoh instructs them: “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth tiles, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” (Ex 1:16). Power tries to co-opt, seduce the powerless to ally so they might rise above the other powerless, compete with each other for the crumbs. “Kill the boy babies,” Power tells Shiphrah and Puah, because the girls don’t matter. They’re no threat to Power which rules by violence and thus only feels threatened by violence.

Exodus 1:16

But these women do matter and they have other ways Power does not respect. First, they refuse to be intimidated or co-opted by Power. They simply refuse to do the evil which Power calls them to do. And when they’re called on the carpet for disobedience they lie: “Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women. They’re animals!” That’s what the word vigorous really means: “Animals!” They tell him, “They pop out those babies before we can even get there.” Pharaoh believes this, of course, because it fits his prejudice. But notice how these women defeat Power. Not with violence. Not even with direct confrontation by argument and persuasion. They simply refuse to participate. And they find a better way, by being faithful to God one baby at a time.

Frustrated, Power moves from fear to hate, from hidden plots to naked aggression. The Pharaoh tells his people: “Throw all the Hebrew baby boys into the Nile. If it is a girl, let her live.” Because who cares about the girls? Well, the Pharaoh should care about the girls because now three more women – not even named in the story – follow the lead of the midwives and disobey. A Levite man and woman marry and have a beautiful boy. Mom obeys the Pharaoh… in a way. She throws the baby boy into the Nile, in an “ark” – the word appears only here and in the story of Noah – which brings him safely through the waters. His big sister hides in the bulrushes nearby. Of all people, Pharaoh’s own daughter comes to bathe, sees the ark, and knows this is a Hebrew baby boy. Pharaoh’s own daughter knows the decree, but Power is never so completely in control as it thinks. Mom throws baby boy in; Pharaoh’s daughter draws him out. And so this baby boy, baptized in the Nile, was raised in Pharoah’s own household by his own Hebrew Mom. He is named: “Moshe” – Moses, which means “one who draws out,” for as surely as he was drawn out from the Nile, he will draw out his people from the Nile in days to come

And so it was the very women that Pharaoh underestimated that prepared the way for the Exodus. Power poses as almighty and Divinely blessed, even when it leads with violence, suffering, and death. But these five women defeat Power and pave the way for the liberation of God’s people, not by resorting to the tactics of Power, by becoming its opposite. They don’t raise an army, plot assassinations, or even argue their ideas. Instead, they overcome Power with action, replace evil with good, offering a dying world an alternative new creation.

We who believe in justice and flourishing cannot oppose Power by seizing Power. We must expose its emptiness and evil. And instead, we propose what is beautiful and true and good because it is God’s way and therefore the inevitable, indomitable truth. When you simply refuse to buy into the world the way Power defines it and follow the way of life as God defines it, Power loses its hold on you.

So how do we follow in the sacred footsteps of Shiphrah and Puah? We cannot look to the halls of power, even those there who we agree with. We must look not to the people trying to use Power’s tactics against itself. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” So we look to the streets and what we see is neighbors showing up for their neighbors. In Minneapolis, the Department of Homeland Security is targeting bus stops, school pick-up lines, and immigrant businesses in an attempt to capture, detain, and deport people who may have been born on the wrong side of a line we drew on a map. ICE’s tactics have turned violent– breaking a window to get a special ED teacher, capturing a 5 year old to bait his father, tear gassing entire families, including children, and killing unarmed protestors, including an ICU nurse, Alex Preitti, who was shot and killed yesterday.

The people of Minnesota by and large have said, “not here. Not today.” In a matter of days, neighbors started food deliveries for people who are scared to leave their homes. They are accompanying children at bus stops and serving as door monitors at Hispanic bakeries, all in blisteringly cold negative temperatures. But my favorite story of all, are the seniors of Edina who are buying salt.

Target is headquartered in Minneapolis and has supported ICE’s takeover of their city, allowing employees to be captured and allowing ICE to use their parking lots as staging areas. The senior citizens of one of the wealthiest suburbs in the city were not able to protest in the negative temperatures or perhaps didn’t feel safe standing up directly to armed and masked agents, but what they could do was buy salt because salt melts ice. And then, after buying salt and only salt, they got in line to return it. Over and over and over again. There is a video of over 70 people, all older white folks, standing in line with carts full of salt to slow down and disrupt Target’s operations to drive home their message “Not here. Not anywhere. Not our neighbors.” These actions disrupt Power’s mode of operating. It reminds them that Power has good reason to fear the powerless. Because we are only powerless when we are divided.

But when the people start to gather together, the Power has another great trick up its sleeve– it loves a bad faith question. No one did it better than the Pharisees. When Jesus came to teach and save, he disrupted not just Roman Power, but also the Power that lived within God’s people. The Pharisees were threatened by him and so they tried to trap him with a question that would lead him to only answers that would get him in trouble- “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” If he says they shouldn’t stone her, they charge him for not being faithful to the Torah, but if he says yes, they can point to his followers, “see? It’s his fault this woman was stoned to death.” But Jesus is the exact opposite of the Powers so he knows its tricks. He does not fall for it. Instead, he turns back on them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” You know what happens next– person by person, they drop their stones and walk away, too embarrassed to do anything else.

There are bad actors today who are asking bad faith questions to try and trap you. “You think it’s okay for people to just break the law? Do laws mean nothing to you?” This week in Minneapolis, Vice President J.D. Vance looked straight at the camera and asked you, the American people, “Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America? Are they supposed to let a five year old child freeze to death?” These are not good faith questions that you should try to answer. You cannot win a rhetorical argument against the Powers even when you are right. Asking such morally indefensible questions tells us that the Powers know they are vulnerable. They know they are on the wrong side of history and so they cannot engage in good faith debate. All they have left is bad faith questions that reveal the moral rot within.

We will not overcome evil with evil. We follow Jesus, the only person without sin who had the right to throw a stone and chose not to. How dare we do anything else? Who do we want to be? Do we want to be people of Power, or do we want to be like the women– named and unnamed– who prepared the way for God’s liberation long ago?

Can we see where Power is at work against God in our world today? Or has the Power acting invisibly fooled us into joining it, by attaching God’s name to it?

We are the Church of Jesus Christ, midwives of a new creation, celebrating the second birth into eternal, abundant, shared life. The old ways are passing. Even the old ways of doing church. Even the Powers that once seemed so unshakeable. What is being born among us now that might bring hope and joy and possibility to people whose burdens are heavy, who feel despised and rejected by Power?

But how can we encourage this birth? You are Shiphrah! You are Puah! Breathe deep! The church is what’s coming to birth here. You and I are being born again. Say goodbye to the old; the new has come. And the gates of hell will not withstand it. Amen and amen.