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. 

The midwives Shiphrah and Puah in Exodus 1:15-21are an interesting story in themselves.  First it is unusual for women’s names to be included in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, especially when they are bit part players.  This indicates to me the significance of their part of the story.

Their resistance to the oppression of the Egyptian policy must have made a significant impact.  I wonder if the story was told to children (and their descendants) saved by these midwives, preserving their names for generations until the story was recorded in written form.  It is interesting that the Hebrew word that is translated “midwife” is derived from the rood yalad which contains the idea of showing lineage.  In a very real sense the children they birthed owed their lineage to the act of disobedience to Pharaoh.

There are three interesting ethical themes that this passage evokes.  First is the issue of infanticide.  Clearly the story characterizes Pharaoh’s edict to throw the male babies into the Nile as an escalation in the evil of his previous orders to the midwives.  It seems that the evil perpetrated in the order to the midwives to smother the male babies at birth is then multiplied in the order to throw the birthed babies into the river.  Clearly both forms of infanticide are rejected in the story’s approbation of the midwives, but also in the triumphant rescue story of Moses that begins in chapter 2.

The second ethical theme that is hinted at is disobedience to authority.  There are several places where the Bible speaks strongly about the necessity to obey civil authority.

The third is the midwives’ untruthfulness before Pharaoh.

The story of the Egyptian oppression of the Hebrews now takes a horrific turn.  When the efforts to control the Hebrews through forced labor resulted in no change in the growth of their population, Pharoah ordered the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah to smother all the male children born to Hebrew women.  Their refusal resulted in an escalation. Pharaoh commanded that all male children born of Hebrew women be thrown into the Nile.

Why the males? One would assume that  the male Hebrews were the backbone of Pharaoh’s  forced labor program.  We could also assume that as they reached maturity a reduced population of Hebrew males would not necessarily reduce the capacity of the women to have children.  Was it their potential as future freedom fighters that Pharaoh feared of the male children?

Yet dispite that horrific policy of Egypt, Exodus 1:20 says that “the people were even more numerous.”

My next entry will explore the themes in chapter 2.

The first sermon in the series “Exit to God” will be August 23.  I have titled the sermon “The Bread Basket Rescue”  The portion of Exodus that this sermon will be drawn from are the narritave portions of Exodus 1-2 which has three main parts.  The first major section is the discription of the Israelites Oppression as slaves in Egypt.  The second major portion is the birth of Moses.  The third major portion is Moses’ flight from Egypt into Midian.

Section 1–the Israelites Oppression

The theme of fruitfulness repeats several times in chapter 1 (verses 7, 9, 10, 12, 19, 21,)  but the theme of oppression is tied to the fruitfulness of the Israelites (verses 9, 10, 12.)  It’s almost as if the more Pharaoh oppressed the Israelites, the more productive and fruitful they became (verses 12-14.)

What is the relationship between oppression and “fruitfulness?”

It is clear that the “fruitfulness” that is spoken of in Exodus 1 is the population increase of the Israelites. Why would oppression as described in this chapter result in an increased birthrate?  Several things are implied:

• the Israelite womens’ health must have been good.  Fertility can be negatively affected by by physical maladies such as malnutrition and even by stress.
• the Israelites’s sexuality must not have been surpressed as a result of the oppression.
• It seems to be implied that the rate  of population growth among the Hebrews was greater than that of the Egyptians.  The oppression is “justified” (from the Egyptian perspective) on the grounds that “they are too numerous for us” (verses 9-10.)

In any case the results of Pharaoh’s oppression was the reverse of the intended result: “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.”

In the next post I’ll explore Pharoah’s program to destroy all male Israelites at birth.

The sermon has been the centerpiece of protestant worship since the reformation.  Up until a few years ago my idea of sermon preparation was essentially confined to the pastor in the study, surrounded by books.  Yes of course, it has always been the preacher’s job to find ways of presenting Bible truths in ways that would be relevant and could be applied in the life of the congregation.  The sermon must connect with an audience. 

Traditionally, the pastor knew the congregation and the broader community intimately through pastoral visitation.  That knowledge was the basis for how he/she developed sermons, week by week to meet the needs of the congregation.  I still believe pastoral visitation is probably the best way to build this knowledge.  No technology can replace face time with another person.  Yet I must acknowledge that the world is not the same as even a decade ago.  People are busier, more guarded and private than ever; pastors are burdened with larger loads of administration and church running than ever.  This combination makes necessary using different methods to achieve similar results.

A few years ago, I heard a suggestion from a colleague that opened up my thinking about sermon preparation.  He suggested a strategy that he uses in a very large congregation to make sermon preparation a participatory process rather than the work of a solitary wisened sage in the study.  He has a committe that meets regularly weeks, even months in advance of a sermon.  He provides them with the biblical content that will be presented and some resources as starting points to their conversation.  They then study, prepare questions, provide illustrative anecdotes or even jokes that might work with the themes that develop.  He then takes all of that as an adjunct resource to his own study as he writes the sermon, and a fine preacher he is too.

Since I heard his suggestion, I thought it would be fun to try.  There’s only one problem–his committee is about the size of my active congregation!  I tucked his strategy away for future reference.  A few months ago I was looking at download statistics for the audio files of sermons on our webpage.  Suddenly it hit me, there’s a world wide congregation that listens to sermons from Victoria that reaches to the thousands of downloads per month.  Might it be possible to form an online sermon circle that does what my friend’s committee does?  Blogging certainly provides the power to do just that, but also to complete the circle to debrief and discuss the sermon after it was delivered.

This blog is my attempt to see if it works.  Keep in mind, the objective here is not “sermon by committee!” I expect that there may be many posts that I can only use as touchpoints as I craft the sermon toward people who will hear it.  One further note in that regard, my primary congreagation will always be those who attend Victoria in person.  Tomorrow, I will open the discussion for my upcoming series, “Exit to God.”  This series will be based on the book of Exodus.