Text: Exodus 1:8-21

Speaker: Joel Miller

⁸ Now a new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, “The Israelite people are now larger in number and stronger than we are. ¹⁰ Come on, let’s be smart and deal with them. Otherwise, they will only grow in number. And if war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and then escape from the land.” ¹¹ As a result, the Egyptians put foremen of forced work gangs over the Israelites to harass them with hard work. They had to build storage cities named Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread, so much so that the Egyptians started to look at the Israelites with disgust and dread. ¹³ So the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. ¹⁴ They made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work.

¹⁵ The king of Egypt spoke to two Hebrew midwives named Shiphrah and Puah: ¹⁶ “When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it’s a boy, kill him. But if it’s a girl, you can let her live.” ¹⁷ Now the two midwives respected God so they didn’t obey the Egyptian king’s order. Instead, they let the baby boys live.

¹⁸ So the king of Egypt called the two midwives and said to them, “Why are you doing this? Why are you letting the baby boys live?”

¹⁹ The two midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women. They’re much stronger and give birth before any midwives can get to them.” ²⁰ So God treated the midwives well, and the people kept on multiplying and became very strong. ²¹ And because the midwives respected God, God gave them households of their own.

Sermon

The biblical book we call Exodus goes by a different name for Jews.  In Jewish tradition, the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, are named after the most significant Hebrew word from the opening phrase of the book.  Genesis is Bereshit, which translates as “In the beginning.”  Numbers is Bamidbar, “In the desert.”  Deuteronomy is Devarim, “Words.”  These fit well with the stories that follow.  Exodus, however, is a bit of a surprise, at least for us Gentiles.  It is known as Shemot which means “The names of…” or, more simply, “Names.” 

Giving a list of names is indeed how Exodus, Names, opens.  “These are the names,” it begins, “of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household.”  It’s a family roll call of the twelve sons, from the oldest, Reuben, all the way down to Joseph.  As a family, they migrated to Egypt.   

Egypt was the super power of its time.  When famine persisted elsewhere, Egypt had grain – lots of it – and people came from all around to stay alive.  The adult children of Jacob were one of those hungry foreign tribes.  They ended up settling in Egypt.  There, the descendants of Israel went from barely surviving to thriving – becoming, as the text says, “exceedingly strong.” 

Names are more than just identifiers of individuals.  Names can represent whole lineages, interconnected webs of relationships through generations.  After opening with the names of this father and his sons, the story promptly leaps forward in time, telling us this entire generation has now died.  Those names are then borne by the descendants who trace themselves back through family lines. 

The last time we worshiped here we explored why we are named Mennonite.  If you weren’t here, or as a reminder, we’re named after a 16^th century Dutch former Catholic priest named Menno Simons.  He converted to Anabaptism during a time when the loudest Anabaptists were justifying violence in the name of God.  Menno believed in a faith that refuses coercion to sustain itself.  Like voluntary adult baptism separated from state power.  Holding loosely to possessions, and economic sharing which helps one be a little less controlled by the tyranny of money.  The nonviolence of Jesus which appeals to the God-given humanity of the other rather resorting to the power of domination. Menno traveled around, always under threat of his life, teaching and pastoring small congregations in the Jesus-way of peace.  These congregations came to be called Menno-nites.  The name stuck, and the movement spread. 

Names tell us who we are and where we come from.  Sometimes biological tribe.  Sometimes chosen spiritual family.  But this can get tricky.  A lot happens in 500 years.  This past week we had our monthly regional Mennonite clergy gathering.  For the first time I can remember, a congregation that’s staying in our conference, not leaving, but staying, is dropping Mennonite from their name.  The pastor shared his thoughts on how the name Mennonite can have too much cultural baggage.  People see the name, think Amish-light, and wonder if it’s even OK to visit their church.  That congregation just completed a process, not uncontroversial, to change their name from Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship to City Peace Church, with the tagline, “A congregation of Mennonite Church USA.”

That conversation got me thinking about our name.  It helped me realize we are actually named after two people, and two distinct, contradictory lineages.  Columbus Mennonite Church.  We bear the names of Menno Simons and Christopher Columbus.  I guess if we wanted to be really explicit about it, we could change our name to Italian-Colonizer, Dutch-Pacifist Church, but I don’t think that would clear anything up for anyone.  

Names, even if we aren’t aware of it, place us in a story.  Sometimes it’s a beautiful story we choose to dedicate our life to.  Sometimes it’s a painful story that calls for repentance and repair.

The biblical book of Names, opens with the names of one family, all of them males, even though we know from Genesis there was at least one sister, named Dinah.  That generation is gone, but they pass on their names to the next.  The Israel-ites.  The house of Judah and the house Benjamin and house, or tribe, of Levi, and all the others.   

The book of Names then continues by describing this new era in Egypt.  There is a new set of characters to know.  Although, notably, for a little while, we aren’t given any new names.

There’s a new Pharaoh, which isn’t a name but a title, like King or President.  Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann was fond of saying that Pharaoh is never named in the Bible because if you’ve met one Pharaoh, you’ve met them all.  This new king looks out on this new generation of Israelites and sees not migrant neighbors enriching the cultural diversity of his kingdom, but enemies-in-the-making, foreigners who are becoming too numerous and too powerful.  Pharaoh says, “Come let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us.” 

We next meet the Egyptian taskmasters – again, nameless.  Pharaoh appoints them to oversee his demographic adjustment program by inflicting forced labor on the Israelites.  The text calls the taskmasters ruthless and oppressive. 

But it doesn’t work. 

The Israelites just keep growing, and getting stronger. 

But Pharaoh has another idea.  The names, the names, the names.  All these newborn males who are carrying on the names of their fathers, the names of their clans and tribe.  Destroy the males as soon as they’re born, before they are even named, and you destroy the people.

This is Pharaoh’s plan.  And being the powerful visionary executive leader that he is, he delegates the dirty work to others.  He calls the midwives.  “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women,” Pharaoh says, “and see them on the birth stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl – let her live.”

Pharaoh has diagnosed the root of the problem – the males who carry the family name, the future soldiers who might turn against him in armed rebellion.  He has disregarded those who pose no foreseeable threat to his power – “if it is a girl, let her live.”  In keeping with the tradition of playful Hebrew subversive storytelling, it ends up being women who completely undermine the power of Pharaoh.

And these women are given names:  Shiphrah and Puah. 

The Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah have names, and they have agency.  They hold the power of life and death.  They were commanded, by the most powerful person on earth, to use their power to bring about death.  But they choose life.  They disobeyed orders.  The midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, “feared God,” which is the biblical phrase for honoring the highest good above all else.  And much to Pharaoh’s consternation and confusion, the Hebrew boys, and girls, lived.    

This is considered the oldest recorded instance of civil disobedience.  In the Book of Names, the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah open up a new storyline in how to use one’s power in the service of life.   

And I don’t think Pharaoh saw it coming.  I don’t think he saw it coming, because I don’t think he could see or believed they had real power.  Like, not real power.  They had the power the kill those baby boys.  That’s power Pharaoh understands.  Pharaoh understands the power of violence.  The power of threat.  The power of fear and ruthless oppression.  But I don’t think Pharaoh had a clue about the other forms of power available to the midwives.  Because it’s noncoercive.  Midwives accompany.  They guide, they sooth, they touch and massage.  They evoke the deepest resources of power from the one who might not otherwise even believe she can push life out into the world.  Midwives know the powers of plants and ointments for relieving pain, for healing.  If the mother doesn’t have the resources the support the child, midwives in many cultures go out into the community and gather those resources from others.  They collect, they organize, they teach, they sing.  They pray.  They can act suddenly, or quietly, or aggresively, or gently.  They multiply life, they amplify the power of others.    

That’s not real power though, is it?      

 The text is unclear on whether these Hebrew midwives are midwives who were Hebrew.  Or midwives for the Hebrews, and thus Egyptian.  I like that it could be either.  And I like that there’s two of them.  Rather than a lone superhero, it’s a little community of resistance.

There’s an addendum to the story.  It says that because the midwives feared God in this way, God gave them households.  Households, like a lineage.  Like the house of Israel, like the house of Pharaoh.   Or, if you’re into Harry Potter, the House of Gryffindor, and I think there may be a few others. 

The House of Shiphrah, and the House of Puah.  The story gives them a name.  God gave them a house.  Which means, they have a lineage.

Our Anabaptism at 500 observance puts a lot of focus on the 16^th century, and rightly so.  That’s when the movement began.  But the House of Menno is part of a much older, much broader line.  Shiphrah and Puah are the mothers of all those who follow the light of their conscience, who use their power to multiply and amplify life, to honor God and others.  And we are their children.

Shiphrah-and-Puahites doesn’t exactly role off the tongue.  But it’s a good name to bear.  It’s a global spiritual family that supersedes religious and ethnic affiliation.

And come to think of it, maybe it’s a good thing we’re named Columbus Mennonite Church.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we are both colonizers and conscientious objectors.  We live in the super power of our time.  We straddle the worlds of the house of Pharaoh and the house of Shiphrah and Puah. 

Names, even if we aren’t aware of it, place us in a story.  Sometimes it’s a beautiful story we choose to dedicate our life to.  Sometimes it’s a painful story that calls for repentance and repair.  Sometimes its both.

In just a bit we will join others around the world today on the World Communion Sunday and accept the name given to us by Jesus – the body of Christ.  Those who gather around a table where everyone is welcome, but no one is demanded to join.  It’s an open invitation to risk a faith sustained by the light of conscience and the Divine power of noncoercive love.