July 21, 2024

Exodus 2:1-10

Rev. Kristen J. Kleiman

“Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves it’s own mark. To have been loved so deeply, … will give us some protection forever.” (Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Page 216)

Throughout the Harry Potter book series, the theme of love comes up over and over again. As you heard in this quote from Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Harry’s school, Hogwarts, Dumbledore believes that the most powerful magic there is in the world is love. It is a deep magic that Lord Voldemort, the villain in the story, underestimates because he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t value it.

In today’s story from Exodus, we too heard about the power of love, the power of love to save, to protect, to liberate an entire people from oppression.

Once again, as in the story of Ruth, God is working through unexpected people and this time, through an unexpected alliance of people. God’s ways are not unexpected though because God’s way is always love.

Before this story of Moses’ rescue by the princess of Egypt, terrible things were taking place in that land. A new king, a new Pharaoh, had come into power. A Pharaoh who did not know the story of how the Israelites’ ancestor Joseph had saved the Egyptians from famine and helped create the powerful kingdom this pharaoh had now inherited.

The king of Egypt did not know, or did not remember any of that. All he knew was that the Israelites were numerous, more numerous than the Egyptians, and fear crept into his head, fear that if there was war, the Israelites would join the Egyptians’ enemies and fight against the Egyptians. Fight against the Egyptians and escape from their territory – thus depriving the Egyptians of all of that wonderful slave labor.

So in his fear to maintain his dynasty, in his fear to maintain his power, Pharaoh ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites, working them harder and harder and harder. And yet, the Israelites continued to increase. As did Pharaoh’s fear and frustration.

In his desperation, Pharaoh commanded the midwives to kill every boy born to one of the Hebrew women, but to let the girls live. After all, girls (and women) were no threat to the king of Egypt. Or so he thought. He was wrong though because it was through two midwives that God took the first steps to liberate God’s people from Pharaoh’s oppression.

When Pharaoh found himself thwarted again, because the midwives loved God more than they feared the king, Pharaoh double downed on his atrocities and commanded all his people to turn the Nile, the source of their water and life, into a means of death and destruction.

And it was into this world, into this terrible situation of oppression, that a baby from a priestly and holy family was born. As it is with every child, this Levite woman looked into her newborn’s face and saw great things. She saw his potential. She knew that someday, someday, he would grow up to be God’s instrument in the world, making the lives of others better.

This mother knew that someday, someday, if he only had the chance to grow up, this newborn baby would do amazing things – and she was right. Moses’ journey zigs and zags; however he becomes the leader God’s people need.

So when Moses’ mother could hide her newborn son no longer, she carefully placed him in a “tevat”. We translate that word as basket and thus miss the deeper meaning because “tevat” is the same word used to describe Noah’s ark. Just as the inhabitants of the ark were safely carried upon the waters, protected by God, so too will this newborn baby be protected as he is placed on the waters of the Nile.

His mother carefully puts his basket among the reeds by the bank of the river. His sister protectively watches from a distance. And Pharaoh’s daughter, Pharaoh’s own daughter, claims the baby as her own.

Pharaoh’s daughter knows who this baby is. She knows what her father would want her to do, and she does not do it. She will not do it. This princess of Egypt chooses love. And knowingly or unknowingly, that means she chooses God. She chooses to be an instrument of God, an instrument love, the most powerful thing there is in the world.

Although this story is from the Hebrew scriptures, this story of how God works through five women to save, to protect, to liberate God’s people from oppression is also the story of our Christian faith. Over and over again, God uses unexpected and underestimated people to turn the world upside down; to turn the world upside down with love.

God protects Moses; God nurtures Moses; God loves Moses through each of these five women, the midwives, his mother, his sister, and his adoptive mother. With their courageous love, each of these women is God’s love at work in the world.

Like Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter stories, Pharaoh cannot even fathom the awesome power of love. He believes in armies; he believes in force; he believes in might. And he totally underestimates the power of love. It never even crosses his mind that five women of different religions and nationalities, five women of different stations in life, might become allies, allies in love, allies with God, all to save a child.

Love is often underestimated. Love is often seen as soft and mushy, as the stuff of fairy tales. Love is powerful though. It may be written off as nothing by those who want to rule and control. They are wrong to dismiss love though because God is love. God, the Creator of the world, is love. And God’s way is love, and that makes love the most powerful thing in the world.

Sometimes in my life, I have looked around at others in our world and felt like my ministry was too small. Unlike the daughter of a family friend, I have never created a low cost, high in nutrients bar that can easily be shipped around the world to feed the hungry. Unlike a friend of my husband’s, I will never work for UNICEF, caring for the world’s children. I’ve never even taken a church group outside of the country on a mission trip. Sometimes, as I look at my life and my ministry, I wonder if I should be trying to be more like Moses, parting the Red Sea, leading the people through the wilderness.

And yet, remember, Moses might never have become that leader who stood up to Pharaoh and liberated God’s people, if it had not been for the quiet yet bold, loving acts of five women.

If the midwives had not loved God more than they feared Pharaoh… If his mother had not bravely and lovingly hid Moses before placing him in God’s care upon the River Nile…. If his sister Miriam had not stood watch…. If Pharaoh’s daughter had not listened to her heart and defied her father …. Moses would never have been born; Moses would never have grown up; Moses would never have had the life experiences God wanted him to have, that God needed him to have, so that Moses could free God’s people, free them and lead them back to God and the place God intended for them to live.

Love is powerful. Love changes us. Love leaves a mark on us and a mark on the world. Because God is love. God’s way is love. And that makes love the most powerful thing in the world, the only thing that truly can change the world for the better.