The Bread Basket Rescue
Exodus 2:1-10 Matthew 16:13-17
Introduction
Webster’s Dictionary defines empathy as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience” of someone else. With that definition in mind, psychologist Douglas LaBier, director and founder of the Center for Adult Development in Washington, DC, feels many of us are being “catastrophically unempathetic.” We suffer from what he calls Empathy Deficit Disorder (EDD). While discussing his theories with writer Amanda Robb, LaBier said “we unlearn whatever empathy skills we’ve picked up while coming of age in a culture that focuses on acquisition and status more than cooperation.” In short, we value “‘moving on’ over thoughtful reflection.” Another psychologist, Dr. Frank M. Lachmann, adds that our typical responses to people’s pain—lines ranging from “It could be worse” to “Let’s talk about something else”—”appear to be kind and aimed at soothing,” but are really nothing more than code for “Don’t confront me with things that are unpleasant,” or “Don’t bother me with your pain.”
LaBier and Lachmann agree that our narcissistic tendencies are destructive, resulting in familial destruction, like divorce, or even global destruction, like war. So, the question is an important one: are you suffering from empathy deficit disorder?[i]
Exodus chapters 1-2 develops a theme of compassion. As we see the compassion of various actors in the story three aspects of Compassion begin to emerge.
1. Empathy that acts— Our word “compassion” comes from the Latin construction compati ; the prefix com means together and the suffix pati means together. We have a word for that idea of suffering together with someone: empathy is sharing the suffering of another. It is recognizing that the evil that someone suffers affects me too. Empathy is the first step toward compassion but if it fails to compel action it is not compassion but merely commiserating.
Illustration: In 1975 Raymond Dunn, Jr. was born in New York State. At his birth, a skull fracture and oxygen deprivation caused severe retardation. As Raymond grew, the family discovered further impairments. His twisted body suffered up to twenty seizures per day. He was blind, mute, immobile. He had severe allergies that limited him to only one food: a meat-based formula made by Gerber Foods.
In 1985, Gerber stopped making the formula that Raymond lived on. Carol Dunn scoured the country to buy what stores had in stock, accumulating cases and cases, but in 1990 her supply ran out. In desperation, she appealed to Gerber for help. Without this particular food, Raymond would starve to death.
The employees of the company listened. They knew what they would want done if it was their kid. Volunteers donated hundreds of hours to bring out old equipment, set up production lines, obtain special approval from the USDA, and they continued to produce the formula, in a very limited run– for one special boy. In January 1995, Raymond, who had become known as the Gerber Boy, died.[ii] The employee’s compassion had preserved his life for five years.
When we see another person suffering, God’s way of escape for that suffering is to call his people to act out of empathy. There are several examples of that active empathy in our story today:
· In Exodus 1, just before the passage that we read earlier, Pharaoh commanded the Hebrew Midwives to only allow the girls born to Hebrew women to live. They identified with the suffering that obeying his command would cause and chose to disobey his order.
· Moses’ mother identified with the cries of her son as she continued to hide him and knew he needed a better situation and hatched the idea of converting a bread basket to a cradle boat. She acted in obedience to Pharaoh’s command to deliver baby boys to the Nile, but she disobeyed his intent.
· Miriam, Moses’ sister identified with her mother’s anxiety about Moses and stood guard at the river, taking quick action when the princess discovered the little boat. Her action called out an active empathy in the princess. It was Miriam’s action that made possible Moses’ training in Pharaoh’s court while maintaining an ongoing relationship with his mother and his Hebrew roots.
· Perhaps the most interesting example of active empathy is that of the princess. She had no compelling reason to act on this child’s behalf. In fact I suspect that it was a risky act of courage. She shared nothing in common with this Hebrew child of the river. It would have been far easier for her sympathize with his plight and follow through with Pharaoh’s rule.
One of the best motivations that God has so that we’ll hear his call to act to relieve the suffering of another is the way that we connect the suffering of someone else to our own vulnerabilities and pain. So the process is something like this. First we see someone’s pain. Next we recognize it in the context of our own suffering. Finally we take action.
2. That action brings us close to the second aspect of compassion. Usually the action we take is a simple act. Jesus told his disciples that simple acts of compassion for the “least of these” will have great significance. Simple things like giving water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, visiting those imprisoned. These simple acts form the subversive basis of God’s revolution against evil. It is these little, simple things that push back against the evil that is behind all suffering and oppression.
While the basic action may be simple, it is not always easy. These actions of compassion always involve risk.
· The Hebrew midwives risked certainly their livelihood—perhaps their necks in disobeying Pharaoh’s command.
· Moses’ mother risked losing her baby
o at some point all parents must take this risk for their children. We’ll talk more about this special risk in a minute.
· Miriam risked approaching royalty uninvited. Protocol has always made this taboo. Remember Queen Esther braved death to go uninvited into the King’s presence? I don’t know exactly what the penalty was that Miriam risked, but I don’t think for a moment that it was insignificant.
· Pharaoh’s daughter risked banishment, perhaps even death to defy her father in saving a Hebrew boy
It might be a small thing to give water to the thirsty, food to the hungry. It may seem small to shelter someone from abuse or injustice, but the risk is often large.
Illustration: I remember reading Anne Frank’s Diary years ago and my amazement at the courage of Miep Gies and the other helpers. As they provided food and other necessities to the two Jewish families hiding from the Nazis in the secret annex, they did so knowing that if they were caught they could face the death penalty. They risked all for the sake of compassion.
3. The third aspect of compassion is regard for the potential in the person who is in need. While they might seem pathetic, helpless or incompetent to any casual observer, the person who acts out of compassion has a vision of what’s possible. Compassion makes it possible to see beyond the present realities to what might be. True compassion has an unwavering faith in the value and potential that exists in that person, a tenacious belief that they will do great things.
Naturally we see this in the Exodus story in Moses’ mother. We see it as she hides him in the house. We see it as she builds the boat. I can imagine that with every reed she wove she thought about her dreams for that little boy. Yet to see her dreams come to reality she had to float the boat—she had to let go entirely, not just of her dreams but of her son.
If it’s a great risk to let go, It is an even greater risk to hold on to our children too tightly so that they can never grow into the people that God created them to be.
Illustration: Kahlil Gibran expressed the conundrum of parenting well:
“Your children are not your children…
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.[iii]
Parents walk the fine line of guiding their children on the one side without controlling and releasing on the other side without abandoning. Doing all that while blessing what the child is becoming as a unique creation of God is perhaps the most challenging endeavor that a person can enjoin.
Little did Moses’ mother know that as she pushed that little converted bread basket out into the reedy marsh of the Nile, as she let go of some of her dreams, just hoping for his survival that God was already at work to make Moses one of the all time greats in God’s revolution against evil. Moses’ mother exhibits a profound
Conclusion
The compassion that is called for as we read the first two chapters in Exodus is a tall order. I have to admit in my own life I struggle with this profound compassion. I might notice a person in need, I may on my best days act on that recognition of need. I might occasionally give a homeless guy some change at the freeway off ramp, but to take real risks, to get to the next phase of developing a passionate, positive vision of the potential that resides within a needy person, empowering and releasing them to become what God is calling them to, that’s hard work. It is a dedication to compassion. That’s the kind of compassion that God is calling us to.
No better example of that kind of compassion exists than in the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus ministry was focused on compassion for the hurt the sick the ostracized and abandoned. He proclaimed good news to the poor. He became friends with those who everyone loved to hate. He lifted the fallen, healed the broken down, sat with sinners and talked with strangers. He took big risks for these needy souls, but for the self-satisfied, those full of themselves, drunk on their popularity, proud, pompous and pious, his rebukes were stern and unrelenting, always calling us to find compassion as the first weapon in God’s arsenal against evil.
[iii] Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
