A conspiracy of mercy: a sermon (Exodus 1:8 - 2:10)

Our lesson from the book of Exodus tells of a number of women in ancient Egypt who chose to take personal responsibility for events in:

• their community,
• their nation, and
• their world. 

In so doing, they became co-conspirators in a conspiracy of mercy.

As I worked on this sermon, blue-tacked on the top section of my computer desk was a postcard with a famous quotation from a German Lutheran pastor named Martin Niemoeller.  Niemoeller spent the eight years from 1937 to 1945 as a prisoner of the Nazis, including four years in the concentration camp at Dachau.  After his release at the end of the war, Niemoeller said, in words that have become a well-known (if frequently revised) quotation:

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a Jew.

 

Then they came for the communists

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a communist.

 

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a trade unionist.

 

Then they came for me -

and there was no one left

to speak out for me.

Niemoeller’s words are a challenge to all people

• to people around the world
• to people in this community,
• to each one of us

to take personal responsibility for events in

• our community,
• our nation, and
• our world.

We find such an acceptance of personal responsibility for events in today’s lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures.  The Hebrews had become slaves in Egypt, because a new Pharaoh was on the throne:

• a Pharaoh who “knew not Joseph”;
• a Pharaoh who conveniently forgot the role of Joseph in saving Egypt from mass starvation, just a few generations before:
• that very dangerous sort of political leader who had no knowledge of - or interest in - history.

This Pharaoh wanted to enslave the Israelites, so he began to build up a level of fear among his people toward the Hebrews:  “There’s an awful lot of them, isn’t there?  It feels as if there’s more of them than there are of us.  What if they side with our enemies?”  You know the drill.  Many politicians in the past hundred or so years in many different countries made their careers by spinning such a story about some group or another , including (sadly enough) a number of recent – and current - politicians in this country. 

And after enslaving the Hebrew people, the Pharaoh saw that the Hebrews were still numerous and vigorous.  So the slavemasters became that much more ruthless in imposing the tasks on the slaves.  And yet, the Hebrews kept thriving.

So Pharaoh’s plans turned from slavery to genocide.  He ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill any baby boys at birth.  The girls could grow up and be married off to Egyptians.  Their children would become Egyptianised, but the boys were to be killed.  The midwives, Shiprah and Puah, disobeyed the order.  They spun a creative line of absolute codswallop to cover up for their disobedience.  And, thanks be to God, they got away with it. 

Shiprah and Puah chose to take personal responsibility for events in:

• their community,
• their nation, and
• their world. 

In so doing, they began a “conspiracy of mercy”.

The Pharaoh eventually commanded all the people to take the law into their own hands.  “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews, you shall throw into the Nile.”  It was getting worse.  Mob violence was a worse prospect.  You could always reason with individuals.  Dealing with mob action, you always ran the chance of finding someone in the mob who actually believed in Pharaoh’s policy toward the Hebrews. 

One young woman, whose mother had a baby ... a baby boy ... a baby boy named Moses ... she tried to hide the baby.  She made a basket of papyrus.  She hid the basket with the baby in the reeds along the river ... the reeds were called “bulrushes” in some older English versions of the story.  She watched ... in a combination of hope and fear ...  to see who would find the basket ... and the baby … her brother.  The young woman chose to take personal responsibility for events in:

• her community,
• her nation, and
• her world. 

She joined the “conspiracy of mercy”.

She soon saw another young woman coming to the river to take a bath.  This woman was a princess, the daughter of the Pharaoh.  The princess recognised that the baby was a boy, and probably one of these Hebrews that her father was trying to kill off.  But she would have no bar of her father’s murderous plans.  She took the child home, and raised him as her own.  Pharaoh’s daughter also chose to take personal responsibility for events in:

• her community,
• her nation, and
• her world. 

Moses’s sister revealed herself to Pharaoh’s daughter.  “Do you want me to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you?” she asked.  I have no doubt that Pharaoh’s daughter knew that this girl was related ... related closely ... related very closely ... to the baby.

• Pharaoh’s daughter knew.
• And Moses’s sister knew that Pharaoh’s daughter knew.
• And Pharaoh’s daughter knew that Moses’s sister knew that she knew.
• And so on ... and so on.

Moses’s sister got her mother - Moses’s mother, too - to be the nurse.  It’s a nice bit of irony here, isn’t it?  I’ll bet Pharaoh’s daughter realised the connection as well.  She was obviously nobody’s fool. 

So Pharoah’s daughter became a co-conspirator with Moses’s sister and Moses’s mother.  She also became a co-conspirator with God in God’s conspiracy of mercy.

Now we really don’t know the name of Pharaoh’s daughter here. 

For that matter, we’re not 100% sure of the name of Moses’s big sister in this story.  Later on in the story, we hear of a sister of Moses named Miriam.  But we don’t really know if Miriam and the sister in this story were the same sister.

The two midwives, Shiprah and Puah, we know their names.

But all five of them:   Shiprah, Puah, Moses’s sister, Moses’s mother, and the Egyptian princess, each of those five feisty women chose to take personal responsibility for events in:

• their community,
• their nation, and
• their world. 

We know the living God is still challenging each of us:

• like Shiprah and Puah,
• like Moses’s big sister,
• like Moses’s mother,
• like the unnamed Egyptian princess;

to take personal responsibility for events in:

• our community,
• our nation, and
• our world;

to become co-conspirators in God’s conspiracy of mercy.

It won’t be easy to get involved in God’s conspiracy of mercy.  You’ll be called names:  names like “do-gooder”, names like “bleeding heart”, names like “politically correct”.  But never fear, God will have some other names for you as well:  names like “righteous”, names like “blessed”, names like “saint”.

Niemoeller’s lament of inaction sounds throughout our world:

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a Jew.

 

Then they came for the communists

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a communist.

 

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a trade unionist.

 

Then they came for me -

and there was no one left

to speak out for me.

Instead may we choose, as God’s people, to take personal responsibility for events in:

• our community,
• our nation, and
• our world,

to the glory of God and in the service of our neighbour, as co-conspirators in God’s conspiracy of mercy.