One of the most
miraculous things about this story of the baby Moses is honestly the fact that
this story gets told with so many women players involved. The fact that the Jewish faith has
preserved this story of the beginning of life of their most revered Moses with
a great emphasis on the role that women played in making sure he survived and
grew into someone who could be a risk-taker himself and step outside of his own
comfort zone and lead his people.
Would he have been able to take that journey if he hadn’t had this
lineage of strong women jumping through all sorts of hoops to see to it that he
got a chance to live and prosper?
Are we risk-takers like
the midwives? Are we willing to put our own lives on the line to protect our
children? Are we sacrificial protectors like the mother, willing to give up our
own self- interests to seek a new way for the next generation? Are we like
Miriam, active watchers and listeners, jumping in from the sidelines when
necessary to offer help to all who need a boost? Are
we like the princess, safe and secure, enjoying the good things in life, and
yet willing to look into the eyes of a needy and desperate foreigner, a
stranger, an immigrant and see only love and humanity? Some of you are. Anne has done amazing missions in Peru.
Karen Pearson has been a vocal advocate and mover and shaker for social change.
Ginger went South and marched for civil rights. Many of you have walked the
walk. Thank you.
The bible is filled with
women and men they nourished who step outside of their comfort zones and let
God lead their lives in amazing ways. It’s the building blocks of our faith
journeys, we people of the Abrahamic traditions. The amazing part of all these stories is the vision the
people seem to have. The way they can go forward into the unknown and because
of their insight, save the world.
Hannah praying for God to
grant her a son, promising she will give him to God if her prayers are
answered. She is blessed with Samuel and she does allow the priests in the
temple to raise him.
When a poor, young
peasant girl named Mary was told in a visit from an angel that she would become
pregnant and have a son she was to call Emmanuel, God with us, she had to be
terrified. Was this all a dream? Is
she out of her mind? She can’t possibly imagine she will one day hold her son’s
lifeless body in her hands. But, Mary would have heard THESE stories. The story
of the midwives, and Miriam and her mother and the princess. She would know
that women have created saviors because they first offered salvation at great
risk to themselves.
And because she has heard
the stories of these women in the life of Moses, because she has their example
to look toward, she knows that being a faithful woman of God means making tough
choices and taking big risks and surviving harsh and unexpected circumstances,
and that stepping outside of yourself means saving the world. And so she says,
“Let it be.”
May we be a people who
take great risks to show the love of God in the world. May we be a people who
see the long-range vision of what Christ calls us to be and do. May we offer
salvation that happens here and now in our individual and collective actions
and yet also ripples into salvation and transformation of the world tomorrow.
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