In Women’s history month, it is right and good to tell, and retell, the stories of women in the bible. Not because the stories are historically accurate. But because they are important to the tradition. Because there are new ways to understand. And because it is good to remember that women and underrepresented people (and unnamed people) have always been part of the life-giving message – as well as the difficult parts – of our faith.

Today, in the origin story of the patriarch and prophet Moses, there are a number of women who may have been underappreciated at the time but who end up being part of the resistance, even the salvation and liberation of their people. And amazingly enough, we know their names. If we don’t hear their names in the text today, the tradition gives them names later on.

Unfortunately, this story of the Pharaoh grasping at power however he can, keeps replaying over and over again in human history – we are living through it even now. Fortunately, the midwives, Shiprah and Puah, Moses’ mother Jochebed and his sister Miriam, even the Pharaoh’s daughter, the women who save, also emerge over and over again in human history. When the women are needed, they show up.

The Pharaoh inherits his position and the power that comes with it. He has forgotten how Joseph saved Egypt from famine and so now the pharaoh fears those who are from a different cultural heritage and ethnicity. He fears those who claim a tribal identity as Hebrew people. Out of that fear, out of desperation to find his own sense of belonging, to hold onto his power, he makes the Hebrew people work harder and harder. He throws up more and more cruel barriers. This is systemic oppression.

But still the people find comfort in each other. They have more and more babies. The pharaoh is unable to take away the Hebrew people’s ethnicity and identity. Fear and inadequacy continue to encase his own heart. In desperation, the pharaoh comes up with a gruesome solution; he is sure he has the political power to make it work. All he has to do is speak a decree that someone else will carry out. What stereotype can he play on? What lowly female will do his dirty work?

It doesn’t take long for him to identify his key people, the midwives. He instructs them to carry out his plan of gender-based violence. The pharaoh says: “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is biologically male, kill him, but if it is biologically female, she shall live.” But the pharaoh misunderestimates the midwives who receive this command, this command that contradicts everything they stand for.

Joanna Harader, author of Prone to Wander, imagines the conversations of the midwives, Shiprah and Puah, as they strategize how to respond to the Pharaoh’s directive.

– We could just tell him that we absolutely refuse to kill anyone and tell him where he can shove his royal commands.

– We could feel out how serious he is about this whole “kill all the boys” and agree to do it if we absolutely have to.

– We could play dumb and act like we don’t remember getting the original memo.

– We could run away and hope he never finds us.

– Or we could come up with some explanation that involves the intimacies of women’s bodies and childbirth that would make him super uncomfortable and want to just get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. (p.61)

The pharaoh underappreciates and undervalues the midwives. And they know it. They decide to use the racial identity that he has created, the segregation that he has implemented, they will use his own bias to trick him. “There is no way that we can get to the Hebrew women in time to kill the babies assigned male at birth. These women are stronger than any we have seen.”

Who knows how many of this vulnerable population the midwives save. They save enough boys that the pharaoh notices and will not stand for it. He gets even more extreme in his gender-based violence and insists that the boys must be thrown in the Gulf of Mexico, I mean Gulf of Amer(ica), I mean the Nile River.

(If the way I am telling the story today sounds a bit stilted, even strange, there is a reason for that. Part of my own resistance practice this morning is to use as many of the words and phrases that the pharaoh is excising from government documents, as many as I reasonably can. You can check out my manuscript later to find the terms that have been deemed “woke,” they are printed in MAGA red.)

Then the story shifts, from the pharaoh’s fear to the fear that is experienced by a particular Hebrew family with an endangered son. The midwives resisted the pharaoh, helping a mother give birth. Now this Levite mother and her daughter have to take the next step of resistance. They will not follow the orders of Pharaoh to throw their baby in the river.

The daughter of the Levite begins reconnaissance missions, observing the daughter of the Pharaoh as she walks along the river. As the royal daughter prepares to bathe, she wonders at the pollution in the water. Has the environmental quality of the river become so poor? Oh! The trauma when she realizes this is no ordinary waste; these are babies floating downstream. This horror is the result of her father’s exclusion policies. Bathing is forgotten as she weeps for these poor boys. The Levite daughter, from her hiding place, sees the royal tears, and watches as pharaoh’s daughter unsuccessfully tries to rescue one of the babies.

Sensing there may be an allyship here, the Levite daughter runs home to tell her mother that now they can follow the directions of the pharaoh. They can put their dear one in the river. They make a basket/boat and the next day when they are almost certain the royal daughter will walk by, they offer the baby up to the river. Sure enough, the pharaoh’s daughter pulls the baby from the water, (thus his name is Moses) and just then the sister appears. The royal daughter knows she herself is not a breastfeeding person. She wonders if maybe this young girl would happen to know a woman who could nurse the baby. And so it is, that the older sister returns her baby brother to his mother for a few years until he is old enough to join his “adoptive family” in the palace.

These Hebrew women, Shiprah and Puah, sister Miriam, Moses’ mother Jochebed, are not remembered as victims, they are remembered as resisters. It is their actions that make it possible for the story of the Hebrew people to continue. These four women who experience oppression, take the risk to work with a woman who has privilege, who comes from within the palace. Pharaoh’s daughter, who tradition says married a Hebrew man, is given the name Bithiah, “daughter of God.” Together these five women make a way when there is no way.

This past Friday, I stood with more than a hundred people in front of the Department of Education, protesting the recent unjust firing of more than 1300 employees, two of them our own. While there were men present, it was clear that women, BIPOC, people with disabilities, those who have too often been marginalized, are the ones leading the way. These are the advocates who have been walking along the river, scooping out babies as they are carelessly (or maybe even systemically) tossed into polluted waters.

At the rally and press conference it was clear that now these advocates feel the injustice of the system in a new way. The pharaoh has thrown them into the river as well. The rescuers are now at risk themselves. It feels as if the river is full of people who are undervalued. How can we respond? Are there enough mothers, daughters, midwives, teachers, fathers, brothers, non-binary and trans people to take action? We will all need to be rescuers (even as we find ourselves among the endangered).

This Lenten season we are focusing on biblical women who find themselves in the wilderness, whether literal or metaphorical. Today five strong women act with courage and compassion, across age and economic disparity to save. one. baby. Yet the river keeps flowing with its terrifying detritus. It is not a “healing river” that flows in this wilderness.

In this season of our own wilderness, as difficult as it is, we have to keep seeing and naming the carnage. It will be traumatic – and it is a way to preserve our own souls and dignity, to preserve the humanity and dignity of those who are being tossed aside. After all we are followers of the God who sees, as Hagar named God. By seeing the tragedy unfold, we remind ourselves that the pharaoh is not God. We are not followers of the pharaoh who believes himself to be God. We are part of a different kingdom. Our God brings life for all and fullness of life for those who will receive it.

Even as we make this claim, the river continues to toss and buffet us. How do we take something from this river, from this destruction and claim God is present? In the biblical story, as people come through an impossible time or even as they prepare for the next hard thing, they build an Ebenezer. (I Samuel 7:12)

(Place a rock)

The Ebenezer is a reminder that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. (Psalm 46:1) Building an Ebenezer together helps us remember. (Joshua 4) It is a pile of stones that reminds us to pass the story of God’s presence with us on to the next generations. (And since the children are in children’s church today, we will get to practice this explanation in real time.)

In this time, when there is a whole lot of trouble, God is ever present, and we are present for each other, present with each other. Perhaps building an Ebenezer will help us find our own courage even as we experience anger, even as we see the chaos and the devastation flowing before us. The hope is that a tangible sign of God’s presence will empower us to keep walking in the wilderness, knowing we are not alone. We are with each other and God is among us; the God who sees and the God of life.

It is not always a river but the Back Swamp has provided ample rocks for us to build an Ebenezer. And this pile of rocks will remain here, with us for this season, reminding us that we are not alone, that God is with us, we are with each other, and we can be present to God.

As we sing the next hymn, if you would like to help build this Ebenezer, you are invited to come forward and take a rock from the bucket as we build this together. Those who are federal workers, or feel personally targeted are invited to come forward first and then the rest can come as you wish.

As we prepare to build this Ebenezer, receive this blessing from “the women who save Moses” (Prone to Wander, p. 79)

We serve our God of life

in this world hell-bent on death –

using our power to baffle, disrupt, deter and thwart

the forces of violence and oppression

that tend to underestimate us

over and over again.

On you, whose heart also longs for life,

we lay our hands.

Over you, who have more power than you know,

we speak this blessing:

When you face the forces of death,

may you meet their caution with courage,

their shortsightedness with broad perspective,

their ignorance with wisdom,

their fear with generosity,

their solemnity with celebration,

their insistence on scarcity

with faith in God’s miraculous abundance.

May God’s song be in your heart

and on your lips (and fingertips)

as you lead and scheme and strive toward true life.

Amen.