Sermon
Exodus 1: 15-22
The
Hebrew title for the second book of the Pentateuch is “Weelleh Shemoth” meaning
“”Now these are the names of…” the initial words of the document. This is
commonly abbreviated as ‘Shemoth’ which means ‘Names.’ Exodus is a naturalised
English word resting on the Septuagint title. Exodus cannot be seen as the
history of Israel in a strict sense. It is rather an exposition of the meaning
of that history for Israel. It is an interpretation of Israel’s faith. Exodus
deals seriously with the fact that Israel’s faith rests on a historic
revelation.
One
of the major themes that orders the book of Exodus and that provides focal
point for interpretation is Liberation. The book of Exodus starts with the
picturization of a slave community and this community is named ‘Hebrews.’
Hebrews was not the name of the Israelites; it was a general name that was used
to call a collection of marginalised people who had no communal identity of
their own and were powerless to change their social circumstances. Also, the
author connects the marginalised community to the genesis story, indicating
that the promise made to the ancestor is still operative and decisive for this
community of slaves. Here the author presents two opposite forces,
one the continuing power of an enduring promise and the other an expose of
current social helplessness. The juxtaposition creates a tension between the past
promise and the present struggle. The selected text presents before us a ruler
who is afraid of the growing strength of the Israelites and wants to annihilate
them and, the midwives who in spite of being under the rule of Pharaoh affirm
the life of the Israelites. Here the act of Pharaoh clearly negates life
whereas at the same time the act of midwives affirms life. From this text we
can clearly see two characters who being in their own positions, explain and
see life in two distinct ways. Therefore the theme derived for our meditation
is:
“Reverence for Life”, a response in situations of
life negation.
The
two characters present in the text take different views towards the issues they
face in life. The contemporary world view teaches that in midst of a problem,
finding a solution is important, not the means by which the issue is resolved.
Pharaoh can be seen as a patron of this worldview; he saw the people of Israel
as a threat and wanted to tackle them by any means. Whereas, when the midwives
face the problem related to their own profession they try to find solution to
it in a more life affirming way. In spite of being in a situation of life
negation they come up with ways to affirm life. Pharaoh can be seen as the one
who represents the empire and the power that is bestowed upon it, and the midwives
are the ones who are submissive under this above power but the way in which
they both view life is entirely different. This leads us to our first sub
point:
Pharaoh as a symbol of life annihilation
In
verses 15-22 we can see two characters that are dominant in the text, the
Pharaoh and the midwives. The most interesting thing is that the character that
is the most dominant is not named but only designated, whereas the ones who are
submissive are given specific identity. When the pharaoh came to power, he was
afraid of the great multitude of Israelites and thus tried to have control over
them. The text does not present before us any conflict between the Egyptians
and the people of Israel. It is written that a pharaoh came who did not know
Joseph and thus all the problems started. The problem here is that the Pharaoh
who came was not aware of the roots of his own tradition and therefore saw
Israelites as a threat. This Pharaoh was not the successor of the Pharaoh of
Joseph’s time, and therefore it is clear that the Pharaohs before did not have
any problem with the Israelites. They knew how Joseph had played a vital role
in saving the country from great famine and also the role he played in the
development of the nation. Therefore the Pharaohs had a feeling of reverence
towards the people of Israel. But this Pharaoh was not aware of these facts or
we can say that he was not bothered to look into it and hence saw the people of
Israel as a threat, and wanted to suppress them. In the beginning, he tried to
torment the Israelites by imposing on them extra labour and dealing shrewdly
with them. But the more they were oppressed the more they multiplied and
spread. Thus the pharaoh planned of killing the male children as it would
automatically annihilate their whole race. Here the king or the pharaoh who
should have been the protector of his subject became their annihilator. The
problem lies in the way the pharaoh understands life. If we look into the later
narrations about the life of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus we can see that the
Pharaoh saw life with close reference to the power bestowed upon him through
the empire. His confrontation with Moses with regard to leaving of the
Israelites to worship shows how, for momentary relief from the plagues, he
accepted the demand of Moses but as the plagues are removed he became stubborn.
The reason for such a behaviour is that pharaoh feared that if the Israelites
left Egypt he would lose the labour force which was the backbone of the empire. The pharaoh needed the slaves to support
the existence of his own empire. To every ruler his power was directly related
to the empire he built and every powerful empire had a community of slaves who
would be exploited. It is said about the great Roman Empire that they had about
1 million slaves working in the Empire. Another incident that supports the
above argument is Pharaoh’s decision of killing the male child. This affirms
that he saw life as a matter of consumption. He wanted the male child to be
killed and the females to be preserved. The question that should be asked here
is that why the females were to be preserved? If the Israelites were a threat to
Egyptians then the entire race should be annihilated. But the Pharaoh asked the
midwives to save the females. God had created man and woman in His own image
and a community is always complete with a right proportion between both male
and female. By killing the males, Pharaoh wants to disturb this rhythm and make
the community weak. A weaker community would always be easy to exploit. By preserving
the girl child he made sure that he did not lose his labour force and also
found way to control the people. In the present text the Pharaoh speaks
only two times and both the times they are the words of life annihilation. He
is not concerned about the life of the children and only saw his selfish motive
of preserving his own throne and fulfilled his desires. He saw the people of
Israel as a threat to his throne. Pharaoh
forgot that the people working in his country had great potential and that they
were the people of God. The words of Albert Schweitzer are very relevant here “The most immediate fact of
man’s consciousness is the assertion ‘I am life that wills to live in the midst
of life that wills to live’.” Today man has forgotten to understand the life
situations of his fellow being. God created man and placed him in Eden so that
he can have a communitarian life. But today man wants to alienate himself from
everyone and live selfishly relying on his own ability and power which are
perishable. We have to learn to care and understand other lives and affirm them
through our decisions and life. This leads us to our second sub-point:
Midwives a symbol of reverence for life
The
other character that we see in the text is that of the midwives. It is not
necessary that they were Israelites, since if they were, the king would not have
called them for making such a plot against the Israelites. These women I
believe faced the greatest challenge in their life, as the mission of the king
enthroned upon them questioned the basic ethics of their profession. They were
the persons who helped in preserving life but they were asked to destroy it.
Their attitude of reverence for life is very clearly seen in the text. They
decided not to listen to the command of the king and preserved the lives of the
people as was their duty. The midwives set before us the example of how to
respond to the structures of society. Another aspect that we can see in the
life of the midwives is the power of the religion. I believe it is the strong
religious ideology they upheld that would have helped the midwives to make
strong decision. V17 says the midwives ‘feared God.’ This fear was not the
paralysing fear but was the result of their experience of God and the awe and
wonder that the experience had created. We know that the relationship between a
devotee and deity is always related to the awe and wonder of the devotee
towards the deity. Here we can see that the midwives had not lost their awe and
wonder towards God and therefore feared Him more than the Pharaoh. That is the
thing we see missing in the life of Pharaoh, he was so immersed in his power
that he denied to believe that there was someone who was more powerful than him.
But the midwives acknowledged the power of the God. The power of Pharaoh was
well known to them and they were well aware of the consequences of pharaoh’s
wrath and decided to heed the voice of God. Whereas we can see that pharaoh was
so mesmerised in his own power and splendour that he did not experience the awe
and wonder of God in his life. God wants us to be like the midwives who in situations
of life negations affirm life through their action. Also we can see that the
Hebrew midwives were rewarded for their act of deliverance. Were the midwives
rewarded because they acted in favour of Israelites? I believe their reward was
recognition of their ability to heed the will of God while taking decisions
during the time of Crisis. The pharaoh tried to make the midwives participate in
his own sinful plot, but the midwives were able to discern his evil will and
saved themselves from becoming a part of his vicious plot. Another thing which
can be noted in the work of midwives is that they did not disturb their social
order for carrying out their plan. They did not organise any rebellious revolution
to carry out their own way but used their presence of mind and convinced the
Pharaoh that Hebrew women gave birth to children before the midwives reached
them. By this act they not only saved their lives but also saved the life of
the community which they represented. The structures in the society are
sometimes so powerful that it is not in our hands to question their authority.
During such instance we should have to find ways to affirm life without
endangering our life and of those around us. ‘Thira’, a Malayalam movie shows
the life of Dr. Rohini Pranab who fights against a large lobby of human
traffickers. The interesting thing in the movie is that it does not show the
doctor winning the fight against this lobby but she being able to retrieve some
of her students who are kidnapped by them and places the example of a small
resistance against a mighty system. The midwives in the same way discerned that
they could resist in small ways the powerful structure of pharaoh’s life
negating system and thus found ways to affirm life within their own limitations.
Therefore we can say that discerning is a very important factor in Christian
life and we in our life should discern the life negating situations and offer
the needed resistance against it. Through the lives of the midwives we could
understand their life affirming attitude. They gave importance to the faith
that they had in their God. They did not allow the subjecting power of the
pharaoh to suppress them. They viewed reverence for life as a response in their
crisis situation.
We
had been meditating on the theme Reverence for Life: A response in situations
of life negation. We meditated on two sub points:
Pharaoh a symbol of life annihilation
Midwives a symbol of reverence for life
The
lives of Pharaoh and midwives clearly speak to us about how we should opt for life
affirming decisions when faced with situations of life negation. The perfect
example can be seen in the life of Jesus, when a sinful woman was brought to
him to be punished and stoned to death. The structures of society wanted to see
the women being stoned to death but Jesus has compassion on her and affirms her
life and forgives her, thus showing Reverence for Life in situation of life
negation. May the God almighty enable us to have reverence for life in life negating
situation.