Scripture Exodus 1:22, 2:1-10
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank 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. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 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 it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, [Mosheh] “because,” she said, “I drew him out [masheh] of the water.”
Meditation
Don't you love that old trope, “Well, there are two kinds of people…” and then you find out that those kinds are:
People who plan everything and people who let life come at them willy nilly.
People who follow the recipe exactly and people who improvise at every turn.
People who place the toilet paper on the holder with the tissue coming over the top, or people who place it with the tissue coming down the back.
So, here goes:
There are two kinds of people in this world:
People who say, “Everything I have ever done has led me right to this moment,” and people who say, in the ever relevant words of David Byrne and the Talking Heads, “How did I get here?”
I look at all the characters in today’s scripture story, and I wonder which kind of person each of them was?
The Pharaoh: frightened by what he perceives as an uncontrollable infestation of these not-quite-people to him, these Hebrews. His illusions of power and control completely unraveled by a situation that brings out every instinct he has to hurt, to punish, to dominate. Does he wonder, How did I get here?
The mother of the brand new baby: normally, or ideally, a joy… and yet, of course, under these circumstances, the circumstances of that baby boy being the target of that angry, frightened leader, surely more terrifying than joyful. All her dreams for her child unraveling as she struggles to figure out what to do. And her solution involves waterproofing a papyrus basket and hoping and praying. Does she, like the Pharoah, look at the world she is living in and wonder how on earth she has come to this moment?
The little girl who is a big sister: Maybe, young enough to still be living in the moment, and not according to the kinds of plans grown-ups make. Maybe old enough to understand danger. Maybe looking at sticking around to find out what happened to her baby brother as a bit of an adventure, a game. Maybe worrying when the baby boy starts crying, wondering, who will help him? Until the princess comes along, when play disappears, and a plan springs up, deadly serious.
The princess: Daughter of the Pharaoh, coming down by the river to bathe—i.e., child o the guy with murderous intentions towards the child she discovers in the basket. How might her plans be unraveling? Or does the child offer her an opportunity to weave new plans together? Does she pray to her deity, “Perhaps everything that has happened has led me to this moment, praise Ra!”
And see the way each of these people is connected to the others. Pharaoh to Hebrews; mother to children; children to stranger—perhaps a dangerous stranger, perhaps a benevolent one. Stranger—princess—to child, and child, and mother.
And let’s not forget the attendants of the princess, whose job is to be quiet, and invisible, and efficient, and to do their work in a way that pleases.
All of them connected, at this moment—this moment that could go either way, for good or for ill.
I talked to the Bible Study group on Tuesday about the movie “Prince of Egypt,” which I highly recommend—it’s the Moses story, the story of the Exodus, and Israel’s escape from slavery, with gorgeous music and visuals. I was complaining, though, because, as we have just read, Moses’ mother instead of wisely places the basket with the baby in the reeds at the river’s edge. Whereas, the movie mother of Moses mother wades out into the river and recklessly sets the basket adrift, and, following the part we watched with our young people: the current speeds up, and a crocodile surfaces, and hippopotami swamp the basket, and a fishing vessel hauls it up in its nets… and so on.
I suppose the creators of the movie were trying to convey the danger to the child, which makes sense. But, for me, the danger is already palpable, with a heartbroken, desperate mother leaving a three-month-old infant behind, and a tense little girl standing guard, and everyone holding their breath.
Will the situation unravel further? We are in the midst of a series of sermons on “unraveling,” and I don’t have to tell any of you how our plans can unravel in an instant. Every one of us has things we had planned to do this year, and places we had planned to go, and people we had planned to see. I felt sick, when I realized my adult kids won’t get to see their dad this year. That’s not what I want for them—for any of us.
There’s a saying, that humans plan, and God laughs. I don’t believe God laughs at us, though I can certainly imagine a divine eye roll. My perspective is; we plan, and we hope and pray that God works with and through those plans.
Moses’ parents brought a baby into a world filled with danger. Then, they created a desperate plan for his safety, one that depended on their trust that God would take a hand in the situation.
Moses’ big sister seems to have concocted a spur-of-the-moment plan for what to do if someone discovered her brother, and decided to take him home—maybe Moses’ mother whispered that part of the plan in her ear.
I wonder what the Princess’ plan was? She seems to have been a young woman. Was she married, or single? Was she waiting for children to arrive in her life, or was she not ready in the least? We read in our passage that she “took pity” on the child, who was crying. Did his wails evoke her pity? Or did her heart go out because she knew he was a targeted child of an oppressed minority, and she knew that she had a better chance of keeping him safe than just about anyone. What awaited him in her home? A suspicious Pharaoh, always hovering outside the door? An education, of the kind royalty tend to get more often than regular people can manage? Certainly, the kind of fierce devotion we all know you can find among adoptive parents. (And regular parents, of course.)
No matter the plans of each of these people… alongside those plans, were God’s plans… living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. God stood ready to weave together the threads that had unraveled in each life, so that, at the end, an astonishing tapestry was revealed… a tapestry that brought together each of these individuals, each of these families, and, ultimately, the fates of two peoples, two nations.
And at this point, the tapestry reveals, in the blues of rolling waters, and the greens of reeds at the river’s edge, a vision—not of certainty. Not of rescue. But of hope.
The princess lifts the baby out of his little ark, and hope is born.
Thanks be to God. Amen.