Believing and Behaving the Gospel
A bishop was visiting one of his churches on Mother’s Day and the pastor of the church started the sermon saying ‘I spent the best years of my life, in the arms of another mans wife.’ [Pause] ‘My father’s wife’
The bishop thought that’s really good! He thought, tonight when I go and preach at another church I’ll start with that illustration. So in the evening, he gets to the next church, and begins his remarks saying:
‘I spent the best years of my life in the arms of another mans wife’ [Pause]
And then his mind went blank! [Pause] And he said, ‘I just can’t remember who.’
May 8, 2011
Exodus 2:1–10, Believing and Behaving the Gospel
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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There’s an old saying that behind every successful man there is a woman…telling him what to do. Well it’s something like that. Perhaps we should note that human beings have a tendency to remember an individual without recognizing the numerous people whose assistance, protection, and guidance enabled the individual leader, champion, or hero to be successful. This is certainly true in the case of Moses, one of the greatest persons we meet in the pages of the Bible. Moses is remembered reverently at the close of the book of Deuteronomy 34:10-12, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.” What an experience it will be this week to be able to stand on Mount Nebo where Moses stood and look west toward the Promised Land.
Moses is remembered as the deliverer of God’s people and the giver of God’s law. Yet without the care and courage of the women around him from before he was born through his childhood and youth, Moses never would have seen adulthood, much less have been used by God in such a significant way. The Bible is sometimes criticized for the way in which women are portrayed and some of that criticism is justified. However, we must also remember that for the time in which the books of the Bible were written and the culture out of which the scriptures arose, the Bible was ahead of its time.
As far back as the book of Exodus, women play a prominent role in God’s story of deliverance and salvation. Before God acted through Moses to deliver the people from slavery and oppression; first God acted through the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah (see Exodus 1:15), Moses’ mother, his sister, and the daughter of Pharoah to deliver the people. The ancient story of the birth of Moses affirms for us that women as well as men are instruments of God’s deliverance and salvation. So that is why I thought it would be an appropriate theme for this Sunday.
Listen to Exodus 2:1-10,
“Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3 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. 4
His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
5 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. 6 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. 7 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?” 8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 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. 10 When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses,a “because,” she said, “I drew him outb of the water.”
The story of Moses begins in Egypt when a new king took power who didn’t know the Hebrew Joseph the son of Jacob whose wisdom and leadership had helped successfully guide Egypt through seven years of famine. The new Pharaoh, usually thought to be Seti I (1308-1290 BC) was threatened by a growing Hebrew population. So we’re told the Egyptians became ruthless toward the Hebrews and made their lives bitter with hard work, but when that was still not enough to stem the growth of the Hebrews the king ordered the midwives to kill all the male babies as soon as they were born. Exodus 1:17 says, “But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.”
The midwives who are mentioned are named Shiphrah and Puah which mean in Hebrew “Beauty” and “Splendor.” They fear God more than they fear the king so they’re more concerned with obeying God than with obeying Pharaoh. The midwives fear of the Lord proves to be a real factor in what happened next and in history. Through the efforts of all the midwives the Hebrews multiplied and became strong and God blessed and protected the midwives.
It’s interesting to me on Mother’s Day that all the people who participate in saving the life of the infant Moses are women. The father of Moses, plays no role in the rescue story at all, he isn’t even mentioned. Joanna Dewey makes an insightful observation about the story of the midwives and the women’s rescue of the baby Moses. “The actions of the women are actions of disobedience to the authority of Pharaoh…And in both stories the disobedience results in deliverance: The disobedience of the midwives saves the Hebrew people,
The disobedience of the mother, sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter saves Moses…
And if God was later acting through Moses to deliver the people, then God first of all acted through these women to deliver the people. Women as well as men are God’s agents of salvation and, in the story of the exodus, God’s first agents.”
Moses was born to insignificant people whose names are not even given until later in Exodus 6:20, “Amram married Jochebed his father’s sister and she bore him Aaron and Moses.” Obviously it is hard to hide a baby (they can be noisy) and the baby Moses can only be successfully hidden for a short time. It seems better to his mother to expose her healthy baby son to an uncertain fate rather than to keep him for a certain death. So the mother makes a papyrus basket, wraps her son snugly in a blanket and places him gently and tearfully in the basket and places it among the reeds on the bank of the river. Overwhelmed with emotion she moves away from the river, leaving her daughter Miriam to see what would happen.
The daughter of Pharaoh comes down to the river with her maidens to bathe and in contrast to her brutal father, she takes pity on the boy even though she knows he is a Hebrew. Even a foreign woman of a different religion is presented in a positive light in this story. Miriam steps out of the reeds and boldly asks if the princess would like her to get a nurse for the infant. Can you imagine being paid to raise your own child? That’s a good deal. That is what happens for Moses’ mother. Pharaoh’s daughter pays her to nurse and care for her own son.
In later years if she had lived long enough to see her children used by God as the leaders of the deliverance of God’s people, I’m sure Moses’ mother would have been as proud of Miriam’s courage and prophetic skill as she was of Moses and Aaron.
Mother’s Day is a day of mixed blessings because everyone’s relationship with his or her mother is different. In a congregation like ours there is a full spectrum of emotions that surface when we think of our mothers – from regret, heartache and grief to love, appreciation and gratitude. Unfortunately not every mother or father is able to fulfill the parental role as well as we might hope or as a child needs and deserves.
More positively, the history of Christianity and the world has been shaped by women who sought to obey God and to teach their children to do the same. None other than John Wesley said, “I have learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians of England.” So did I. John Wesley spent his life obeying the God his mother had taught him to love and serve. At the same time in England, William Wilberforce had pushed for years in Britain’s parliament for the abolition of slavery. Discouraged he was about to give up. His elderly friend, John Wesley, heard of it and from his deathbed called for pen and paper. With trembling hand Wesley wrote: “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them stronger than God? Oh be not weary of well-doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American slavery shall vanish away before it.”
John Wesley died just six days later. Inspired William Wilberforce fought for 45 more years and in 1833, three days before his own death, he saw slavery abolished in Britain. John Wesley’s mother Susanna inspired her son John who had an incredible impact for the Lord and God’s people right up to the last week of his life in which he encouraged Wilberforce to persevere until the earthly powers that stood for slavery were defeated. That is a great example of the power we have to encourage others even until the end of our life. Susanna Wesley wrote, “There are two things to do about the gospel – believe it and behave it.”
Obeying God by believing and behaving the gospel may sometimes put us in conflict with others in our community or country. Lewes Smedes shares the following story in his book A Pretty Good Person. The white people of New Orleans were scared. So were the black people. A federal judge had ordered the city to open its public schools to black children, and the white parents decided that if they had to let black children in, they would keep their children out. They let it be known that any black children who came to school would be in for trouble. So the black children stayed home too.
Except for Ruby Bridges. Her parents sent her to school all by herself, six-years-old: the first, and for a little while, the only black child to learn a lesson in a white New Orleans school.
Every morning she walked alone through a heckling crowd to an empty school. White people lined up on both sides of the way and shook their fists at her; they threatened to do terrible things to her if she kept coming to school. But every morning at ten minutes to eight Ruby walked, head up, eyes straight ahead, straight through the mob; two U.S. Marshalls walked ahead of her and two walked behind her. Then she spent the day alone with her teachers inside that big silent building.
Harvard Professor Robert Coles was curious about what went into the making of courageous children like Ruby Bridges, and he went down there to find out. He talked to Ruby’s mother and, in his book, The Moral Life of Children, passed on what she said: “There’s a lot of people who talk about doing good, and a lot of people who argue about what’s good and not good,” but there are other folks who “just put their lives on the line for what’s right.”
When we believe and behave the gospel in obedience to God, we put our lives on the line for what’s right and deliverance, salvation, and new life come to the people of God. The midwives Shiphrah and Puah, Moses’ mother Jochebed, his sister Miriam, and Pharaoh’s daughter all served as part of God’s plan. All of us are dependent on the contributions of others to help us achieve any success we may have.
Alex Haley, the author of Roots, used to keep a picture in his office of a turtle sitting atop a fence. He kept it there to remind him of a lesson he had learned years before: “If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know he had some help.” Haley remarked, “Anytime I start thinking, ‘Wow, isn’t this marvelous what I’ve done!’ I look at the picture and remember how this turtle – me – got up on that post.”
Let us be thankful for the people in our lives who have helped us on and off of fence posts and let us strive to be people who believe and behave the gospel.
Proverbs 6:20-23, My child, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.