Exodus 1-2 (1:15-2:10): Standing
Out
By Ben
Carpentier
We are starting
our series looking at the book of Exodus today, and likely focusing
at least to begin with on the life of Moses – main character you
may recall portrayed in the Disney movie “The Prince of Egypt”.
Today, we get a bit of a peek into the kind of situation that Moses
found himself born into – a member of God's people, living under an
oppressive rule in a foreign land, where they were treated as enemies
– and we can see how they acted in this hostile situation. Because
it is not unheard of for us as Christians to find ourselves in a
hostile situation.
Standing Out (Exodus
1:12 “The
Egyptians came to dread the Israelites”)
It's uncomfortable
to stand out as being different, and there is likely to be pressure
to either push you out, or to change you so that you fit in better. I
don't know about you, but I find that whenever I go somewhere, I try
to blend in as best I can. For example, when I'm in the city I don't
make eye contact, I dress how I like, I shake hands up close, and I
speak quickly and to the point. But when I'm in the country, I speak
more slowly, I take my time, I dress a little more conservatively,
shake hands from far away (plenty of room in the country), and I take
on more of a Aussie twang and drawl.
This
discomfort and unease can happen on a small scale, like at a party,
or it can happen on a large scale, like in a whole country. It was
only last year that Muammar Gaddafi turned his warplanes on his own
people in Libya, bombing civilian protesters in the capital city of
Tripoli because he feared that they were going to rise up in
rebellion against him.
Perhaps
we should not be surprised when three and a half thousand years ago a
political leader in Egypt, the Pharaoh, felt his nation was under
threat, and so decided to do something about it. We are told here in
the book of Exodus that he feared the Hebrew people. He feared they
would grow in strength, and might join his enemies. So before they
rebelled against him, he made sure to punish them. He oppressed them
and put them into slavery. He worked them ruthlessly, but they
continued to grow.
God's
people, the Hebrews, were living in enemy territory. They didn't do
anything offensive to make themselves enemies – they were simply
different. They worshipped a different God and did it differently to
the Egyptians, and the Egyptian Pharaoh felt they could not be relied
upon to be loyal. Just their presence made the Pharaoh, and likely a
good number of the Egyptians, uncomfortable. So Pharaoh gave orders
that their baby boys were to be killed. It was a flexing of
political power and dominance, a pre-emptive strike on the potential
rebel forces of tomorrow, and an attempt at racial assimilation –
as the boys were killed, a generation of girls would then be forced
to marry Egyptian men. In other words, it was an awful, bloody way
of seeking not to drive them away, but to change who they were, make
them Egyptian, or at the least make them weak.
While
there is not currently anyone calling for the slaughter of our
children here in Australia, there are people who find what Christians
believe to be unpalatable, or uncomfortable, and so seek to either
push Christian thinking out of intelligent conversation, or to try
and change what we think to make it more comfortable and acceptable.
On the one hand there are people like Richard Dawkins, who says
things like, “If people think God is interesting, the onus is on
them to show that there is anything there to talk about. Otherwise
they should just shut up about it.” He thinks teaching kids about
God is ignorance tantamount to child abuse, and is hence trying to
make sure Christians don't get a say in society's future. On the
other hand, you have people like Cardinal George Pell, who apparently
feels that the idea of unbelievers going to hell, while biblical, is
not a comfortable truth, and so when asked the question “Do
unbelievers go to hell?” on national television, his answer was,
“No, no, no.” One trying to shut Christianity out, the other
trying to change it to fit in.
This can happen on
a personal level – you might already know friends, workmates, even
family members that attempt to do this with you when you talk about
what you heard at church on Sunday. It can also happen with people
who we are not on equal footing with – your boss, a university
lecturer, our politicians and lawmakers – people who can tell us
what to do. The world is not always a nice place to live when you're
standing up for your faith. It is inevitable that you are going to
be expected to do things, to act in some ways, that are contrary to
what you believe. It might be pressure put on you by friends or
colleagues, or it might be a demand made by someone in authority over
you. But it happens to all of God's people, because we live
differently.
Standing Up (Exodus
1:17 “The midwives
feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt told them to do”)
It happened to the
midwives of the Hebrews in Egypt. The Pharaoh came to them and told
them to kill the newborn sons of their own people. It's a sneaky and
sinister plan. It's likely that there were many children who did not
survive the birth process, and so the midwives might even be able to
make it look like an accident, or a stillbirth. We're not told if
Pharaoh bribed the midwives, or threatened them, or just simply
expected they would obey his authority. But whatever he did, it
didn't work – the midwives simply did not do as they were told.
When
they were asked why by Pharaoh, they made up an excuse about Hebrew
women being vigorous childbearers. I call it an excuse, even if
Hebrew women really were vigorous (we don't know), because we're told
that the reason the midwives did not follow Pharaoh's order is, in
verse 17, “They feared God.” Those midwives disobeyed the
orders of a ruler who is prepared to kill babies - and so probably
had no qualms about killing midwives - because their first allegiance
was to God, and they knew what they were expected to do was not
acceptable to God.
It's an old word,
but the best way to describe what these midwives did is 'righteous' –
that is, they did the right thing by God. Our society's morals are
still fairly loosely based on a Christian ethic, so most of the time
when we do the right thing, it is also seen as a good thing by those
people around us. But there have been in the past, and are still
today, cultures that do not value human life, or the life of a child,
as highly as we do. Some people and places would say that these
midwives did a bad thing – they disobeyed an authority figure put
over them, they covered up the truth. They did not appease the
god-king Pharaoh, they put Egypt's future prosperity and security at
risk.
What
was God's reaction to the midwives in verse 20? “God was kind to
the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of
their own.” God blesses them for their righteous actions – he
gives them his stamp of approval.
Am I saying that
their covering up the truth, or their disobedience to authority, is a
pattern for us to follow? Perhaps I will surprise you when I say,
“Yes.” What I'm saying is that God recognises when people make a
decision to do what is right because they want to serve him, rather
than because they want to fit in, or because they think it's a good
thing to do.
So ask yourself
the question: what are you expected to do in your life that makes you
conform with how society wants you to live, instead of how God wants
you to live? Are you inclined to have a few too many drinks because
everyone else around you is too? Do you focus on financial success
and comfort because that's what our society focuses on? You may not
be asked to kill children, but there are plenty of people out there
willing to tell you how to live your life apart from God.
Outstanding (Exodus
1:21 “because
the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own”)
Some
will even try and force you to do things that you think are ungodly.
In a recent survey on marriage equality held by Australian Parliament
House, 13% of respondents said they believe ministers of religion,
like Bruce, should be forced to marry same sex couples. If
legislation was passed to force Bruce to marry people he did not
believe should be allowed to be married in a church under God, should
he follow the law, or follow God? I've asked him this question, and
his response was as you would expect.
Some
people might argue that it doesn't matter what we do, or refuse to
do, because someone else will just do it instead. Look at Pharaoh –
he had been foiled by the midwives, but that didn't stop him. He
simply ordered that all male children of the Hebrew race were to be
thrown into the Nile river. Young boys really were being killed, who
knows how many. It happened for at least three months – it could
have been much longer.
Yes, other people
will do these terrible things. But that does not make them acceptable
or appropriate for God's people to participate in. We don't do the
right thing simply because it is good to do, or popular, or accepted.
We do it because God wants it done that way.
It is into this
culture, this situation, that Moses, the main human figure of the
book of Exodus, is born: an enemy of the state simply because of his
gender, but more importantly, his heritage as a Hebrew. His mother
had to do the same thing as the midwives to save her child – she
had to keep him hidden, disobey the authorities, and even still
eventually has to float him down the river. Then his sister also used
a little creative omission to not only encourage Pharaoh's daughter
to adopt the baby, but to accept his own mother as the nurse. These
sneaky Hebrew women! But again, God blesses their attempts, and
Moses is adopted by royalty, raised by the daughter of the Pharaoh.
The whole message
of Exodus is about God saving his people from this oppression and
slavery, and revealing himself to them as his covenant people,
separate from the world. He gives them the Law – not just to guide
them in how to live righteous lives for him, but also to separate
them from the pagan nations that would surround them.
That message is
still the same for us. Our devotion to God should be in such stark
contrast to those around us, they can't help but seeing how different
our lives are through the decisions we make. This is what should
separate us from our neighbours – that we live so holy, so
differently from those around us, so untouched by sin and
selfishness, that they can't help but acknowledge that we are
different. Even if they accuse us of stifling freedom, or being
intolerant, or perpetuating old beliefs, or being irrelevant, let's
make sure they cannot accuse us of being hypocritical, or
half-hearted, and ensure that we are always letting God's will guide
our actions, rather than what people think we should do.
