Cory Rice—Year A Proper 16

Anthony: Let’s transition to our final pericope of the month. It’s Exodus 1:8 –2:10. It’s a long one. It’s the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 16 in Ordinary Time, August 23. Cory, we’d be grateful if you read it.

Cory: Yeah. And I did notice that you gave me the long one. Here we go.

Anthony: It was on purpose.

Cory:

Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” ¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. ¹³ The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard servitude in mortar and bricks and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them. ¹⁵ The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” ¹⁷ But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?” ¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” ²⁰ So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong. ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. ²² Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.” ^2:1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. ² The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. ³ When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket …

Anthony: Yes, that’s an easy word, isn’t it?

Cory:

… for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. ⁵ The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. ⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. ¹⁰ When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses] “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Anthony: How about we just take a break and allow you to breathe? And I want to tell our listening audience Cory earned his money here today. We’re not paying him anything, but he earned it by that text. Oh my. I did not realize it had all of that in it, so thank you for enduring it.

But there’s a lot happening here, and one of the things I’m just struck by, Cory, first of all, is that God allows human beings, his children, to tell his story. And I don’t know that we always do it justice, but we get to tell the story.

And this narrative is marked by oppression and fear under Pharaoh. So, how does God’s grace operate through the courageous and often overlooked actions of individuals, in this case, the Hebrew midwives? And what does this suggest about the ways God advances liberation in and through us? As you said earlier, we’re not the source, we’re the resource.

Cory: Yeah.

Anthony: How does he resource his liberation through people like these women?

Cory: Man, If we’re looking at those three, the Hebrew midwives and Moses’ mother, Pharaoh’s daughter, those specific three, one of the most beautiful things to me about this story is that God’s liberating work often moves through ordinary people who choose courage over fear, specifically these women, even in a culture that didn’t honor them.

And so, the midwives resist empire. Moses’ mother protects life. Pharaoh’s daughter shows compassion across enemy lines. I think those three things are, like, the big takeaways that I have in this story, and liberation begins through those small acts of courage and compassion. And so, I think that matters because we often look for God only in dramatic moments, at least I often did.

When I was searching and that was … “Give me the dramatic moments,” the parting of the sea — all these — the raising of the dead, and all these things while overlooking quiet faithfulness, because the quiet faithfulness is super steady. It’s consistent. It’s not intense. It’s not super sexy.

And I think grace frequently moves loudest through hidden people making humanizing choices in dehumanizing systems. We see this all throughout Scripture. We also see this all throughout our current life right now. So, that’s what I would have to say on that.

Anthony: Yeah. We, in Grace Communion International that hosts this podcast, we follow the Christian calendar, and we’re in a season called Ordinary Time, which is the longest season on the calendar. And I sometimes wonder if this season feels like, “you guys should’ve given me a better name. Ordinary sounds boring and mundane.”

But it does mean that ordered time where we learn the rhythms, the light rhythms of God and Jesus, that we, as we join him, we see him in the most common things, like you were mentioning, the everyday things.

To me, it’s one of the beauties of sharing the Eucharist or communion together. Like bread, it’s just so commonplace. Wine, you find it everywhere. But it is in the common acts of courage that we see the goodness of God manifest. And I think this season has a lot to teach us in that way, that it’s not in the ministry highlight reel. And I used to be wired in such a way, Cory.

Cory: Right.

Anthony: That’s what I wanted people to see, the highlight reel.

Cory: Oh, yeah.

Anthony: I’m sure I’m the only one that has dealt with that. But that’s facetiousness. I know we all do on some level.

Cory: Yeah.

Anthony: We’re trying to project. And this is why theology’s so important, that once I realize there is nothing to prove and nothing to protect in Christ, I can lay all those things down, accomplishments, all the accolades, and just be like, “Here I am, Lord.  You know me.”

What else would this text have to teach us? If you were preaching this text to your congregation, what else would you say?

Cory: Man, okay. I would I would focus on, and probably to speak to a lot of our listeners who have what we talked about earlier about coming out of legalism and whatnot, is oppressive systems, especially in church cultures, are always going to be driven by fear. And the kingdom of God obviously moves differently because it’s within, and it’s always revealing. Romans 14:7 or 17:14 is, it’s righteousness, peace, and joy. And I think, if you are holding on to any type of view of God or lens of God and it’s baked in any type of fear, then you know that’s not from the Spirit, because perfect love casts out all fear.

And I would ultimately say that lastly this story points to Christ even before his physical appearance because Christ is the true deliverer, who enters humanity’s oppression not to condemn humanity, but to liberate humanity. And I think if we can take anything from that story, that should be the story of our lives as we walk into people’s oppression and help liberate them because we are a resource of the source of Christ within us.

Anthony: I’m going to take that line with me. He’s the source. We’re the resource. And thanks be to God that he allows us, and allows not even the right word, in the overflow of his love, he just desires to be with us. Isn’t this the story of the Old Testament with the people of Israel that just kept messing things up, murmuring, and frustrated, and complaining and he just continues to be with them because this is the God who just refuses to be God without us.

And so, we get to join him in what he’s doing. And in this season of Ordinary time, friends, I want to leave you with this quote from one of my favorite contemporary theologians. Her name is Julie Canlis, and she says, “All of life is spiritual: work, bearing children, hobbies, friendship, repairing gutters, commuting. This is our worship, the offering of our everyday stuff to God.” Amen and amen.

Cory, thanks for being with us. You are a joy. May God continue to bless you, your family, and your participation in his ministry. I want to thank our team behind the podcast that make it possible, and as is our tradition here in Gospel Reverb, we want to end with a word of prayer, and we’d be delighted if you’d pray for us.

Cory: Yeah. I would love to. Before, before I jump into that, since I’m going close on prayer, I want to highlight that first conversation we had around Matthew 14 and Jesus multiplying the bread. I think the disciples were so rattled by prayer. They’re Jewish and they know how to pray, and this is one of the questions they asked Jesus on how to pray, because in a moment where he breaks bread and feeds 5,000 men, the only thing he said in prayer were thanks. And I think that’s a perfect way to close, in just a state of thankfulness.

And so, Jesus, we’re just thankful. I’m grateful for who you are, and I’m grateful that you continue to reveal your union. May people look within to find Christ instead of externally, because that’s where you are. And we love you; we thank you, and may your love continue to rule and reign in the lives of people as we love people the way that you have loved us. In Jesus’ name.

Anthony: Amen.