Prayer: We thank you God that you have protected your people when they were surrounded by trouble. You have provided a way of escape when we felt trapped. Your love never fails. Come, Holy One, and transform us. Work within and among us to renew our minds and build community. Nurse us into the health you intend for all your children. You are our help and our hope. Amen.

First I want you to disregard the title of today’s sermon because the bulletin was printed before Bonnie went on vacation and in the meantime, the emphasis of the sermon changed. So the series on “Family Matters” concludes not with “A Family Called To Share”, but with how it is that we can tell our family faith story, how it must be told even in difficult circumstances. Every family has its stories. When we gather for family reunions, at weddings, funerals, and other occasions, stories are shared. Some of the stories evoke good memories, some memories are sad, but all of them remind us that we are part of a family and that every family has its little stories that are part of the big story of who we are.

These verses from Exodus tell a family faith story of a people who faced repression and met it with risk, rebellion, and rescue which eventually lead to redemption. It is a family faith story and it is part of who we are as God’s people. It has been an interesting passage of time. The last we heard, things were looking good for the family of promise. Remember the promise was given first to Abraham, then to his son Isaac, then to his son Jacob, and then to his twelve sons. The sons of Jacob came to Egypt where their brother Joseph had already come to prominence as the virtual ruler, second in importance only to Pharaoh himself.

Eventually Jacob, Joseph, and his brothers die, but their descendents prospered and multiplied, and grew in numbers and in strength. They are becoming the great nation God had promised they would be. We know the promise and we can see its fulfillment and celebrate with the people. We see their story unfold and we claim it as our own. But we also know that sometimes the promises that excite us are seen as bad news for people who don’t share them. In fact, the covenant being fulfilled in Egypt becomes not a reason to rejoice, but rather an occasion for repression and violence.

Once there had been a Pharaoh who knew Joseph and his family. Now a new Pharaoh has comes to power - we are not told his name, but we do know that under his leadership, things are about to change. This new king does not know Joseph.

The new Pharaoh whose name we never learn is actually referred to by the lesser title of king. He pays no attention to what has come before. He reminds me of Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” segment in which he asks people recent history or current event questions. Then he shows segments featuring the people who don’t know and don’t care that their ignorance is on display on national TV.

“New King, do you remember Joseph. Do you know who he is?” We know the answer to the question is that Joseph is a Hebrew sold into slavery by his angry jealous brothers, who interpreted dreams, and developed a plan to preserve food during a time of prosperity so that the people would not starve during the time of famine. He saved Egypt from starvation, he rescued his brothers from famine, and brought his family and other Hebrews from Canaan to Egypt. He is respected and admired by his people and ours. That is who Joseph is. The new king said, “I have no idea who you mean. Joseph who?”

He can forget Joseph because, “he is not committed to any policies of his predecessors. His forgetting Joseph means that official commitments are abandoned; the privileges previously granted to Jacob’s family are, in an instant forfeited (New Interpreters Bible, volume 1, 1991, 694). It is for the new king as if nothing came before him.

What is driving the new king? He is afraid. “There are too many of those people. Why do they have so many children? If we get into a war situation they will join in the fight against us. Our national security is threatened. ” His words sound like they could have been uttered this morning because his attitude is as fresh as a news report on CNN or FOX News. They echo our own feelings especially in these days when we seem so easily overwhelmed by people who are different than we are.

In our world today, dominant powers try their best to keep down minority populations by cruel oppression. Do we say, “If they get too big and numerous, they will get out of hand.” So in Northern Ireland Protestants and Catholics battle each other. In the Middle East, in what Christians, Muslims, and Jewish believers call the Holy Land the land is scarred and littered with the results of horrific violence. Even here, our current war mentality raises concerns for some about who should and should not be allowed to be in this country.

The family faith story reports that the king’s solution to the growing number of Hebrews in Egypt was to impose forced labor on them. He does not know Joseph so he does not know the story of this faith family. He does not know, but God knows. “Knowing means more than acquaintance or being informed; it speaks of a relationship of depth in which there is commitment to those who are known and genuine concern regarding their welfare. The king of Egypt does not know; God knows. This difference in knowing has a profound effect on doing” (Interpretation Series, Exodus by Terence Fretheim, John Knox Press, p.26).

Because he does not know, the king of Egypt decrees that the Hebrews will be slaves. We know that forced labor proved an ineffective tool for keeping the Hebrews from growing, and the king grew more and more desperate. Not content with slavery, he turns to genocide, and instructs the midwives to kill every Hebrew male child they deliver. Surely this is the end, isn’t it. What could be next?

I shared a quote at our board meeting a few weeks ago that was written by one of my favorite poets, Audre Lorde. She said, “When I dare to be powerful to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” Pharaoh chose death, but we can claim this story as ours because two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, two other Hebrew women, who we will learn are Jochebed and Miriam, the mother and sister of Moses chose life. They are joined by an Egyptian princess; they are all known by God. God knows and they know that the family and the faith must survive, and they will risk their lives to make sure they do.

This is a family faith story about risk and rebellion, rescue and redemption. And in an act of risk and rebellion, and because their love and trust of God is greater than their fear of the king, Shiphrah and Puah will not take the lives of the children. The king wants to know why not.

They say, “well because unlike the delicate Egyptian women, Hebrew women are too strong and vigorous. They are just too healthy. They have their children before we can get to their homes. What can we do?” The people continue to prosper and the women are rewarded.

The king makes a new national policy. The Egyptians are told to take every baby born to a Hebrew family and throw him into the Nile River. But as this family faith story is told, we are reminded again that not everything that looks hopeless is hopeless. This family faith story will continue and be told because for all of his power, and plotting, and fear, everything Pharaoh did failed. He failed because the hand holding the people, giving courage to the midwives and the mother and sister of Moses, and to Pharaoh’s own daughter was God. God was there, moving the people, before they could even ask “from oppression toward freedom, and from despair toward hope” (Texts for Preaching-Year A, 1995, JKP, p. 454).

“Pharaoh’s chosen instrument of destruction (the Nile) is the means for saving Moses. The daughters are allowed to live, and it is they who now proceed to thwart Pharaoh’s orders - she does put him in the river. A member of Pharaoh’s own family undermines his policies, saving the very person who would lead Israel out of Egypt and destroy the Dynasty. Egyptian royalty heeds a Hebrew girl’s advice. The princess may have been gently conned into accepting the child’s own mother as a nurse, but her pity is clearly stated. The mother gets paid to do what she most wants to do, and from Pharaoh’s own budget. Moses is educated to be an Israelite leader, strategically placed within the very court of Pharaoh. The princess gives the boy a name that betrays much more than she knows. Moses is a common Egyptian name, but is also has a Hebrew meaning, “drawn out of the water” (Exodus, p. 36).

Five women’s acts of risk and rebellion, makes it possible for a family’s faith story to continue. It continues because two Hebrew midwives defied the most powerful person in Egypt. It continues because Moses’ mother was able to give him back into Pharaoh’s daughter’s hands, knowing that if he grew up among Hebrew’s his life would be in danger. She rescues him by giving him up. God intends for these people to survive. So a princess rebels against his Father’s decree and may have changed state policy. Thank God, the family faith story continues as plans for death are overcome by plans for life.

Because his life was saved, a little boy will grow to manhood and lead his people to freedom. Because he is among the redeemed, the people will be redeemed, Moses will lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt.

What about us? The sign in front of Redeemer Lutheran Church on James Road says, “keep the faith, but not to yourself.” We are called to be a faith family with a story to tell which goes like this. While we live in a world that tries to live as if God does not matter, we know better. Our faith story continues as we take some risks and rebel against all that would enslave and dishonor people.

When we can share our faith in God and tell the story of a congregation that says when the norm around us is repression, when it is to hold people back and to hold them down because of race, or gender, age, or education, or orientation, we say it will not be that way in this household of God. Instead we will risk being out front and rebel against that oppression to say to every person seeking a relationship with God and with God’s people through Jesus Christ, you are welcomed into this place.

Our story is that we want to be a place that rescues the hopeless, the lonely, and those who are lost to the best in themselves. Let’s be a place of recovery that declares that this congregation, this family of faith will be as it has been and as it is now. We can be a place whose people are transformed to be like the people of God before us who cared for widow and orphans when no one else would. We can be like the church people who have tended the sick, and who led in struggles for justice all over the world.

We stand against the notion that churches to be successful must be filled with people who look alike, and think alike, and respond to God in the same way, and declare that this church will be a house of prayer for all people.

After all, the point of our story is that we are above all else, a faith family gathered in the name of one who knows us, loves us, gave up his life for us, and gives it back to us redeemed. Our story is that we are redeemed by God, through Jesus Christ, and upheld by the Holy Spirit, and for the one who has called us and redeemed us, we say, thanks be to God, through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.