A Sermon by the Right Reverend Michael B. Curry
The Annual Meeting of the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina
Friday, November 12, 2010, Holy Trinity Church, Greensboro, NC
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. Exodus 1:15-17
I
“We Need Some Lyin' Midwives.” I'm sure to many of you that might sound like a strange title for my sermon tonight. But please allow me to explain.
Do you remember Moses? We all know the story. It starts with the Hebrew people as slaves in Egypt. They had immigrated to Egypt, fleeing a famine in the Middle East. Biblical scholars tell us the immigration of the Hebrews into Egypt, reflected in the stories of Joseph and his brothers in the book of Genesis, was part of a massive migration of peoples from the Middle East to Egypt because of famine and economic hardship. Egypt was a prosperous empire, so at first the Hebrews and other immigrants were welcome to come and work. They increased the labor force and aided Egypt's prosperity.
But as time went on, the numbers of these immigrants began to grow. And as the numbers began to grow, the Egyptians began to view these immigrants with fear, hostility and suspicion. Various measures were instituted to control the growth of the immigrants. Close the borders. Restrict the mobility of the Hebrews and other immigrants. Eventually, take away the Hebrews' freedom. The Egyptians made the Hebrews slaves, both for economic purposes and as a measure of social control. But the Hebrews kept increasing in number. Finally, to control the Hebrew population and to reduce the danger of the Hebrews raising an army of their own, the Pharaoh issued an edict that every newborn Hebrew who was male was to be put to death.
The Egyptians made midwives the key agents in executing this policy. Midwives were ordered to summon soldiers as soon as a Hebrew boy was born. The idea was that soldiers would arrive on the scene, take the baby away and kill him. That's where our text comes into play. Two of these midwives were named Shiphrah and Puah. Now listen to the text: “But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.”
Think about how the story unfolds. Shiphrah and Puah are asked why they aren't reporting the births of male Hebrew babies, and they tell a big lie: The Hebrew women don't have babies like Egyptian women. Egyptian women are ladies. They deliver their babies at a reasonable and predictable time. But those Hebrews, they're vigorous and unpredictable. When we get word that labor has begun we rush to the house. But by the time we get there, they've already had the baby and hidden it. So there's nothing we can do!
Shiphrah and Puah were lying through their teeth, but that lie saved lives. The story as it unfolds in Exodus is almost absurdly comical. And I think that is part of what the writer of Exodus is trying to get us to see. God's way of love and compassion and justice will often appear absurd in light of the true absurdity of hatred and bigotry and injustice. Pharoah's way is the true absurdity. St. Paul was thinking along these lines when he wrote that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”
For their courage, the Bible says, for their efforts to protect and save Hebrew lives, God blessed the midwives. Their lie to Pharaoh reflected the truth that every child is God's child, every human being is created in the image of the Most High God and endowed with infinite value. God blessed the midwives for their lie because, by lying, they showed the courage to stand up for God's truth. They showed the courage to march to the beat of a different drummer. To dare to love when others would hate. To dare to stand up when others would sit down.
These women feared God more than they feared Pharaoh. As a result they became women of incredible moral courage and spiritual power. They did not do what Pharaoh ordered. They did what God decreed. They did as the prophet Micah would write centuries later: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God?” They did what Jesus taught us when he said, “You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.”
O, people, we need some lyin' midwives today. We need some women – as well as some men -- who fear God more than they fear the Pharaohs of this world. We need some women, men too, who are passionately committed to realizing God's dream for this world, to establishing God's kingdom, to following the love of Jesus for real – women and men who will not subscribe to the selfishness and deception of the world. We need some lyin' midwives.
II
I want to pause for a moment (I'll get back to the lyin' midwives soon) and thank you, the Episcopal Church Women of this diocese, for embracing The Episcopal Church's commitment to endeavor to make poverty history – especially through working to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The Millennium Development Goals provide practical ways the human community can work together to dramatically reduce poverty and preventable human suffering. You remember them:
The website of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation paraphrases the eight goals this way:
I invite you to notice something about these goals. Four of the eight goals specifically concern women and children. That's not an accident. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, and the other economists and sociologists who developed the Millennium Goals have shown that empowering women and educating and caring for children are the long-term keys to global economic and social development. Women and children are the key.
God figured this out a long time ago. That's why God blessed Shiphrah and Puah. There is a deep wisdom here: women and children are the key. Go back to the story of Exodus, the story of the lyin' midwives who save babies. Shortly after the passage that I read, Moses is born. To protect him from the Pharaoh's edict, Moses' mother does what? She builds a water-tight basket for her baby. Then what does she do? She puts the baby in the basket and floats him down the Nile. What does the baby's older sister, Miriam, do? She follows the basket down the river, watching over him. Then who finds the basket? Pharaoh's daughter, a princess of Egypt, who is sunning herself at her beach-front palace. What does the princess do? She, retrieves the basket, takes the baby in and adopts him as her child. Like the Hebrew midwives, she ignores the Pharaoh's order about Hebrew baby boys. Moses is saved because of women like those lyin' midwives. And Moses goes on to become the liberator of God's people.
The story shows women saving children over and over and eventually paving the way for God to raise up a liberator and set the captives free. Do you see the pattern here? Women and children. Women and children. Women and children. That's not an accident. Women and children are the key to liberation, to freedom, to throwing off the yoke of the oppressor. God figured that out a long time ago. These days, we need some lyin' midwives, too. We need women and men who fear God more than they fear what other folk will think.
The Bible zeros in on the truth that the manner in which a community cares for its women and children – who traditionally hold the least power in a society -- demonstrates the community's moral and spiritual health. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:16-17) Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27) Scripture strongly suggests that women and children are key to bringing in God's kingdom. Like I said, these days, we need some lyin' midwives.
III
If I told you that Episcopalians in the Diocese of North Carolina could save the lives of 100,000 people, most of them children, what would you say? If you believed it possible, I suspect you'd say something like, “If we can do it, why don't we?” Well, it is possible, we can do it, and we are by God's grace going to do it. We are about to launch a NetsforLife® campaign throughout the Diocese of North Carolina, in partnership with Episcopal Relief and Development. Our goal is a bold and daring one. It is to purchase and deliver 40,000 mosquito nets - one net representing each confirmed communicant in the Diocese of North Carolina. One net can provide protection for three people, in most cases children, from mosquitoes and ultimately from malaria. One net costs only $12. It's possible. We can do it. And by God's grace, we will.
The theme for our upcoming Diocesan Convention in January is “Welcome: Reflecting the Radical Welcome of Jesus by Being a Church for Others.” I told the clergy last month at our Clergy Conference that I'm not interested in the diocese building more buildings, I'm interested in the diocese building a better world. I'm not interested in a diocesan capital campaign for ourselves, I'm interested in a campaign to serve others in the name of Jesus.
Theologian Albert Nolan taught us that Jesus didn't found an institution, he began a movement. The Church is not in its essence a religious institution. The Church is the community of the baptized, organized to be part of the Jesus movement, to do God's work, to carry out God's mission, to establish the kingdom of God, to realize God's dream.
These days, I've got a prayer. I pray that the Episcopal Church in North Carolina will be known as a Church that is not worried about its institutional life, what it will eat, what it will put on. I pray that the Episcopal Church in North Carolina will be known as a Church that, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, first seeks God's kingdom and God's righteousness. I pray that we will be known as a Church that is the community of the baptized disciples of Jesus, disciples who in their lives love like Jesus, give like Jesus, forgive like Jesus, and who do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God, like Jesus does. I pray that we will be known as a Church that genuinely and joyfully welcomes all in Jesus' name, a Church that reflects the face of all the peoples of North Carolina, a Church that, like Jesus who has been called “the man for others,” is truly a Church not for itself but for others. That's the Church I believe in when I recite the Creed. And it is for the advancement of that Church that I pray.
The Hebrew midwives saved the lives of countless babies long ago. We now have an opportunity to save 100,000 lives today. That was God's work back in Exodus. And I believe this is God's work now. The Episcopal Church Women of this diocese, like the midwives of old, have so often led the way. I'm asking you to lead the way again. As I said before, we need some lyin' midwives.
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