August 27, 2017 Exodus 1: 8 – 2: 10 the Illusion of Control the Carol Burnett Show Comes to Mind This Week
August 27, 2017 Exodus 1: 8 – 2: 10 The Illusion of Control The Carol Burnett Show comes to mind this week. Do you have a favourite sketch? Or were they all just hilarious. It’s amazing what a look or a look away can convey. When we lack the physical or relational where-with-all to combat meanness or cruelty in our lives; mocking, sighing, and eye rolling can get the message across. When we are caught in unfair social conventions; Situational comedy often reverses roles, attitudes and expectation usually at the important person’s expense. When we lack the physical or military might to resist tyranny; satire and exaggeration or simply the ridiculous are wonderful tools for creative engagement. Political cartoonists have honed this to a fine art. Like when Aislin drew construction cones as the city of Montreal’s new logo, or was it a new flag. Not surprising, we find these tools at work in our Old Testament reading today. Just imagine Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence and Tim Conway playing this comedy sketch. The story of Moses in the bulrushes is a ridiculous tale of creative engagement. Four women and a little girl confound Pharaoh, the most powerful man on Earth. In the story, the most powerful man on Earth is reduced to a buffoon, which is precisely what the author wants his listeners to remember. Pharaoh is a joke in comparison to God. So, who are you going to serve? The Hebrew people flourish in Egypt during and after the time of Joseph. ‘And then comes one who knows not Joseph.’ Fearing the fertility of the Hebrew people, the new Pharaoh enslaves them. No matter how difficult he makes their lives, the Hebrews continue to flourish. And so, he orders the two midwives among them, Shiphrah and Puah to kill the newborn boys but spare the girls. This is early ethnic cleansing. The two midwives however are God-fearing more than Pharaoh fearing and refuse. When Pharaoh discovers their failure to fulfill his command, he summons them
1 to appear. The two midwives continue their charade with a lame story that the Hebrew women are different than Egyptian women. They give birth so fast and so easily that they are up and about, and on their way before the midwives can arrive to do Pharaoh’s bidding. Pharaoh is a little slow. He may be the most powerful man on Earth but he doesn’t seem to get the joke. If Shiphrah’s and Puah’s story is really the case then there would be no need for Hebrew midwives in the first place. It is a high stakes game that they are playing but they know what God requires. They recognize the preciousness of every human life. Finally, Pharaoh decrees to all his subjects to take every newborn Hebrew boy and throw him in the Nile River. During this time, Moses is born and his mother hides him for three months. But this plan is time limited, so in an act of creative brilliance, creative engagement ‘par excellence’ Moses’ mother, Jochebed, hatches a plan. Yes! She will throw her Hebrew son into the Nile River as Pharaoh has commanded, but in a waterproof basket that will float. Yes! She will throw her son into the Nile River, but just upstream from where one of Pharaoh’s daughters takes her regular bath. Yes! She will throw her son into the Nile River, but not without sending her eldest, her daughter Miriam to follow along the riverbank. And when Pharaoh’s daughter finds Moses and wants to keep him, five or six year old Miriam can suggest just the right wet-nurse to suckle Moses. Miriam plays her part perfectly as older sisters so often seem to do. What is even more outrageous, Pharaoh’s daughter who knows all too well her father’s decree is all too willing to ignore it and embrace baby Moses. What’s even more of a poke in the eye, Pharaoh’s daughter pays Jochebed, Moses’s mother to raise the boy and bring him to her after he is weaned.
2 This is beyond embarrassing, if Pharaoh only knew. Who is getting the better of whom? Can you see the knowing glances amongst these women? Can you see the knowing glances amongst the listeners of this story. And so Moses is spared because of Shiphrah, Puah, Jochebed, little Miriam, and Pharaoh’s daughter. Four women and a little girl creatively engage the tyranny of their time. Pharaoh, the most powerful man on Earth is befuddled and God’s way prevails. He is reduced to a buffoon, which is precisely what the author wants his listeners to recognize. Pharaoh is a joke in comparison to God. So, who are you going to serve? Spiritually speaking, creative engagement is something that even a child can do. What does this ancient story tell us today? It suggests that faithfulness to the core value of the preciousness of every human life finds a way through the crises we face. When every life matters it changes the rules of the game. Creative engagement plays fast and loose with the rules that fail to protect human life. Today we can expand this from protect to respect. Creative engagement plays fast and loose with the rules that fail to respect human life. But creative engagement doesn’t fight fire with fire. We are call to a higher standard a greater freedom of action. We fight fire with satire. So, remember, God is in our every moment nudging us toward faithfulness and freedom. And more times than we might think, God calls for a little satire or foolishness to redeem a situation. The Application for Today Try a little satire or foolishness, it might just redeem the day.
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