Sermon: Good Neighbors Make Good Trouble - Exodus 1:8-2:10
The following is the manuscript for a sermon I delivered to my congregation at Weston United Methodist Church in Weston, Missouri on Sunday, January 7, 2024. This sermon was informed in large part by the commentaries of womanist scholars, especially Rev. Dr. Wilda C. Gafney’s Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne and Dr. Nyasha Junior’s chapter on Exodus in the Women’s Bible Commentary. Their insights are invaluable, and I am so grateful to them for their dedication to examining the lives of women in Scripture with vigor.
This sermon series on the beginning of Exodus is dedicated to the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign of Weston, as a companion to their second annual MLK Celebration Event, “If These Walls Could Talk,” on January 14, 2024 at 2:00 PM CST.
BAPTISMAL VOWS
It is Baptism of the Lord Sunday; when we remember the Baptism of Jesus Christ; the beginning of his ministry of teaching and healing throughout Galilee, then to Judea and Jerusalem. Baptism is a sacrament of the church, a means of grace (in John Wesley’s words), a gift from God that initiates us into the body of Christ, a sign that we are always already forgiven and beloved by God. By our baptism, we are also lovingly called to take up these vows in the baptismal covenant:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,
reject the evil powers of this world,
and repent of your sin?
Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you
to resist evil, injustice, and oppression
in whatever forms they present themselves?
Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,
put your whole trust in his grace,
and promise to serve him as your Lord,
in union with the Church which Christ has opened
to people of all ages, nations, and races?
If you are a member of this church or any United Methodist Church, at some point you, you answered “yes” to these vows. Today, we are remembering our baptism and recommitting ourselves to these vows.
The way many churches tend to live out these vows, at the bare minimum, is to try to live peaceably and agreeably to the best of our ability. We try to be “good citizens.” To be a “good citizen” we usually understand this to mean: Don’t stir up trouble; mind your own business; do the best you can for yourself and your family. In times of peace, we should all be good citizens. For instance, we can be good citizens and patiently deal with the traffic that is going to be redirected from the highway through our downtown with grace and patience. However, we cannot stop there—at being good citizens, because our vows in baptism are not for the purpose of being good citizens. For the grand summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ, whom we confess as Lord and Savior, is not to be a good citizen: it is to be a good neighbor.
Jesus taught that the greatest commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving your neighbor as yourself is one of the most critical things we do as Christ followers. And sometimes, loving your neighbor means getting into what the late U.S. Representative John Lewis called, “Good Trouble.”
GOOD TROUBLE
We know what bad trouble is: bad trouble is unnecessary disruption and violence. But what is good trouble?
Good trouble is “necessary trouble through nonviolent resistance.”
Now, in times of absolute peace, when everyone is free and no one is oppressed, we can be good citizens and good neighbors and make no trouble. But does that sound like the world we live in?
Whenever there is great evil in the world, especially on our front door, we have to make a choice: be a good citizen, or a good neighbor?
And if you’re lost on what I mean by good citizen, let me clarify: the Nazis were “good citizens,” but terrible neighbors to their Jewish friends… the bystanders who captured “fugitive slaves” and returned them to their masters in the South were “good citizens,” but terrible neighbors to those who had been stripped of civil rights and human dignity.
Obviously as Christians, we should never seek to make bad trouble. That’s our first vow: renouncing evil and sin. But we don’t stop there. Good citizens make no trouble; good neighbors make good trouble. So today, we are just going to talk about some good neighbors getting into good trouble.
For today and the next 5 weeks, we are going to turn our attention to the book of Exodus; to a powerful story about how God delivered – birthed, and set free—the children of Israel from slavery and annihilation through one especially troubled guy named Moses. Maybe you’ve seen The Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt; maybe you’ve heard it in Sunday school, or preached here before. Don’t worry if you don’t know the story: I’ll catch you up. The story goes like this:
Long ago, the children of Israel came into the kingdom of Egypt seeking food during a terrible famine. They were saved because one of the brothers, Joseph, had, through the grace of God, become second-in-command to the king, and he was able to secure a safe place for his father Israel (Jacob) and his eleven brothers to stay. The king of Egypt at the time welcomed them, and gave them good land. These people, the Israelites (also called Hebrews) became “fruitful and multiplied,” enjoying abundance and peace along with their Egyptian neighbors.
We will now pick it up from Scripture, where the new king, who I will simply call Pharaoh, came to power. Pharaoh did not see the Israelites was fearful of the Israelites as neighbors, but as a threat to national security. So Pharaoh deliberately turns his citizens against the Israelites and makes them slaves to build up his empire.
PHARAOH: THE GOD OF “GOOD CITIZENS”
8 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. – Exodus 1:8-14 NRSVUE
In many ways, the slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt was like chattel slavery here in the United States: it was characterized by harsh, manual labor in order to build up power and wealth for white families and for the national economy. Slaves in the United States were brutalized, worked to death or treated like animals. Additionally, all slaves and their children were regarded as property that could be bought and sold. Families were torn apart from each other and lost, perhaps for generations. Unlike in the United States, the slavery was not racialized; the ethnic differences between Egyptians and Israelites were more subtle, making them more difficult to tell apart. In general, though, it is not a stretch to say that the American South was Egypt, and every slave master was a little pharaoh of his own little kingdom.
Now Pharaoh in our story was not just any powerful ruler. Pharaoh was the most powerful man in the most powerful empire in the world, and he was treated like a GOD. Unfortunately, he was an EVIL GOD; in fact, it is clear in Scripture that Pharaoh and God are opposites: Where God seeks for people to unite and flourish, Pharaoh divides and crushes; where God is wise, Pharaoh is foolish; where God brings life, Pharaoh decrees death. Both of them require obedience to carry out their will in the world. The question is: which one shall be obeyed? The god of “good citizens,” or the God of Good Neighbors?
GOOD NEIGHBORS
Before we continue in the story, I want to share a helpful definition of who a neighbor is. It comes from a Palestinian Quaker Christian woman named Jean Zaru, who lives in Ramallah, outside of Jerusalem. She is an activist for peace and nonviolence in the Middle East and served on the World Council of Churches. For context, Jean Zaru’s neighbors include Palestinians and Israelis; she regards everyone as her neighbor, even when they are turned against each other by great evil. Here is her definition of neighbor:
“My neighbor [an inhabitant nearby, a friend] … is a person who is entrusted to me, who is safe in my company…it means I am with them in their troubles [and] rescue them from their difficulties.” - Jean Zaru, Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks
To be good neighbors—to be safe company the people entrusted to us, to be with them in their troubles, and to rescue them from their difficulties-- we need to respond with compassion and resistance to make good trouble. Here, compassion is more than a feeling, and resistance is more than a stubborn attitude. They both require taking action, especially in the face of great evil. And the action that is taken must be nonviolent; the resistance that I talk about today is specifically nonviolent resistance. (We will talk more about that next week.)
Let us continue with the story, where we will meet Good Neighbors who make Good Trouble, beginning with two midwives.
SHIPRHAH AND PUAH: GOOD NEIGHBORS
Midwives help mothers to deliver their babies, but they are much more than that. Midwives are quietly influential and powerful women who bring new things into the world—biologically and politically. Let’s continue reading the story:
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.” (Nayasha Junior’s commentary says, “This appears to be a lie.” Lol!)
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. – Exodus 1:15-21 NRSVUE
In Gafney’s interpretation, Shiphrah and Puah were probably in charge of a guild of other midwives in Egypt (that would be a lot just for two women, right?), and they successfully convince the other midwives to resist Pharaoh as well. The translation we have says that they are “Hebrew midwives” – midwives who are Hebrew—but Gafney and Junior both point out it is also plausible that they are Egyptian women who have been appointed to serve the Hebrew population. Regardless of their ethnic identity, they are still responsible for these women; they have ethical guidelines to follow.
Here, when given orders to do great evil, they disobeyed Pharaoh and chose instead to obey the God of Israel. Shiphrah and Puah made good trouble by continuing to bring life into the world and they were rewarded with more life—with God’s blessing, they were even given families of their own (which is rare in the Bible; families are usually given to men!)
When given the choice between being good citizens or good neighbors, these midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, chose to be good neighbors who make good trouble—necessary trouble through nonviolent means; through resisting orders to do great evil.
JOCHEBED AND MIRIAM: TRUSTING NEIGHBORS
Pharaoh’s plan failed, so he changes tactics. He gives a new order—not just to the midwives (incompetent women in his eyes), but to all citizens. Pharaoh effectively turns neighbors against each other. Let us keep going, drawing our attention to two other women: a mother and her daughter; their names are later attributed as Jochebed and Miriam.
22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews[a] you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
2 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 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. – Exodus 1:22-2:4 NRSVUE
In Gafney’s interpretation, she points out that Jochebed, the mother, probably saw many people—including people she knew well--obey Pharaoh’s orders and carry out this terrible genocide, wiping out an entire generation of men.
In spite of these horrors and the risks, she resists. She trusts God, who is the God of Life. She gives birth to a son, who will be called Moses, and hides him as long as she can. When she can no longer hide him, she obeys Pharaoh’s orders, but she does not totally comply with them. Jochebed brings him to the Nile (as ordered), but she places him gently among the reeds near the riverbank, in a carefully prepared basket, where he can float safely for a little while. Meanwhile his sister, Miriam (who is probably about 10 years old) can watch him as he floats toward Pharaoh’s palace.
Jochebed and Miriam had to trust that they had good neighbors who would save their little boy – the one who would ultimately save all their people.
In our last passage for today, we encounter pharaoh’s daughter: an Egyptian princess who has every reason to be a “good citizen.” Although she is unnamed, I want us to pay close attention to her, because she is a clear example of compassion and allyship.
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 [that is, Miriam] 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,[a] “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.” – Exodus 2:5-10 NRSVUE
PRINCESS: COMPASSION, ALLYSHIP, AND LIMITATIONS
Like I said earlier, Compassion is more than a feeling, and resistance is more than an attitude. Both of them require taking action.
The princess shows compassion first through feeling pity for the baby boy. But she does not just stand by and do nothing; she does not just feel pity, or guilt, or pretend not to see and hear the baby who has drifted into her own backyard. She took action. In the Bible, pity + action = compassion. Compassion is more than a feeling, and resistance is more than an attitude. They both require taking action.
Also, the princess says out loud that the baby must be Hebrew. The princess is socially aware; she knows what her father, Pharaoh, has decreed. She is not ignorant, like he is. She knows why there is a baby boy, all alone, floating in the water. The princess also probably suspects that Miriam is his sister, and the Hebrew woman she’s going to bring into the palace is the baby’s biological mother.
The princess knew what she was doing when she said “yes” to Miriam’s request. Miriam and Jochebed trusted her, and the princess chose to disobey her father, the god of good citizens, and instead to obey the God of Israel—the God of Good Neighbors. And so all of them were saved.
When the princess took action, she became an ally. Gafney defines an ally as: “a person who uses his or her privilege to work for justice on behalf of oppressed people.” Back during Civil War Times in Weston, there was a Presbyterian named Rev. Frederick Starr, who educated and freed slaves (although, curiously he would never call himself an abolitionist.) Rev. Starr used what he had in order to liberate slaves, including Dinah Robinson, our own Angela Hagenbach’s ancestor, whose name is in the courtyard next to the church.
Allies use whatever power, privilege, and influence they have in order to free others. Allies are another form of good neighbors who make good trouble.
Now, Gafney points out that there is a limit to allyship in terms of how the princess rescues Moses. Yes, she shelters baby Moses and his family, and later raises him as an Egyptian prince. However, she does not directly confront Pharaoh, nor is there evidence that she did this for any other Hebrew boy. Gafney says that while she “ bring[s] Moses into the world of her privilege,” she does not tear down the structures of great evil that got him there in the first place.
This kind of critique is for allies who want more credit than they have earned. This kind of “ally” wants to be both a good citizen and a good neighbor. This kind of “ally” wants to hold the door open for other people to ascend… but they also want to keep their hand on the knob, just in case they want to shut the door again. This kind of” ally” may be on board with making good trouble at first, but then later change their mind when “good trouble” threatens their lifestyle or requires them to make a real sacrifice. This kind of ally is just another kind of “good citizen,” uninterested in taking down the structures of great evil that gave them such power in the first place.
That could be the case for the princess; it is entirely possible she was trying to a good citizen and a good neighbor at the same time.
But it’s also possible that she is a good neighbor, but her power and influence is compromised by limitations beyond her control. Being pharaoh’s daughter, her hands are tied behind her back, precisely because she is pharaoh’s daughter. This is her first potential limitation: clearly, Pharaoh does not take women seriously. Why else would he only decree that all newborn Hebrew sons be drowned, but their daughters be allowed to live? While Pharaoh’s underestimation of women is a weakness that could be used against him, it also serves as a limitation for his daughter, if she were to try to influence him.
A second potential limitation is that she might not have any collaborators in the palace. Remember, Pharaoh is regarded as a god among men; he has also made Egypt very unsafe for all Hebrews and their accomplices. It might be the case that the princess is the only “good neighbor” in a palace of “good citizens.” If the princess explicitly states that she is a ally of the Israelites and confronts Pharaoh in any way, she can expect at least that she will be alienated from other nobles. Not to mention, she could be exiled or executed by her own father for disobedience. That would not make her a martyr, because then all of her good trouble would have been in vain. If she were gone… what would happen to Moses? What would happen to Miriam, to Jochebed?
There is a reason that the Underground Railroad was “underground.” If allies speak out or make their defiance obvious, it puts a target on their backs—and then no one escapes. No one is saved. It is extremely difficult to suffer, and it is also difficult to be an ally. God knows it But to be the only good neighbor, surrounded by good citizens, requires trust in God’s grace to make good trouble, and the humility to do so without seeking credit.
Even if the princess really were more of a good citizen than a good neighbor, she is deserving of compassion just as much as Jochebed, Miriam, and Moses. Compassion in an every day sense is pity+ action, but it is also more than that in the Christian tradition. The Upper Room Dictionary of Spiritual Formation says this about compassion: “Compassion…gives Christians the ability to embrace their own and others’ limitations and takes into account the fallibility and vulnerability of the human condition or situation when responding to a social situation or social evil.” (64, emphasis mine)
To be compassionate, we have to acknowledge our limitations, but without allowing them to become excuses. We all have limitations, including allies. And when we are being allies, we need to be honest with ourselves about when we are acting as good citizens rather than good neighbors; and when we use our limitations as excuses.
But allies are also an important for any kind of strategy for social change. Let me put it this way:
Some allies may not be willing or able to tear down a structure of great evil… but they may be able and willing to put a crack in it…so that someone else can get through.
It is not usually one big crack that brings a structure down, but thousands of little ones. Each one of us can do our part, as allies, to put just one little crack in the structures of great evil so that others can get in, and begin putting it to right so that everyone can not only survive, but flourish.
For those of you who are hesitant to be allies, to make any kind of trouble, even good trouble, you live in these structures, too. You cannot live apart from them as they stand. You probably did not build them, you might not even know that they are there. But know this: they exist, and they are crushing people. And if you do not do anything, they will probably crush your neighbor—and you, too. Consider justice for people with disabilities: everyone thinks that they will always be strong, and never become infirm. But as long as we live, it is possible for us to become disabled, and then marginalized. You are not more free, just because you are less oppressed.
In summary, the beginning of Exodus is the story about compassion and nonviolent resistance in the face of great evil—about good neighbors making good trouble. Through trusting and obeying God, all of these women—the midwife, mother, sister, princess— renounce being “good citizens” for an evil king, and instead accept the freedom and power God gives them to resist with compassion.
It is no mistake that those who rescued Moses were the ones who were the ones most underestimated by Pharaoh. Like I said, Pharaoh is evil, and he is ignorant. Do not be like Pharaoh: do not underestimate women. The women fade into the background after this point in the text, but without them behind the scenes, there would be no Moses to take center stage.
At the end of the day, these women did good work where they could, and ultimately had to trust God to do the rest. We shall do the same.
WHY DO WE RESIST?
To resist evil, like these women, we must be good neighbors—it is one of the greatest commandments, to love your neighbor as yourself. When we are divided against our neighbors because of great evil, we are called upon to resist with compassion. Remember: compassion is more than a feeling, and resistance is more than an attitude. They both require taking action. Our neighbors are counting on us to make good trouble when there is great evil around us.
Of course, we pray that our most powerful leaders would do the right thing, that we wouldn’t have to choose between being good citizens and good neighbors. In times of peace, they mean almost the same thing. But in recent years, we have endured difficult yet eye-opening events in our country. We have seen polarizing and demonizing presidential elections; the COVID-19 global pandemic; the death of George Floyd in the hands of a police officer and the protest movement that followed; and of course, social media platforms, fanning the flames of outrage and profiting from our impotence to do anything besides scroll, whether to be engaged or to be distracted.
In recent years, we were easily divided through fear, hatred, and injustice; and then we turned against each other because of the fear, hatred, and injustice. In seeking to be good citizens—especially us Christian white folks—we forsook what it means to be a good neighbor. In other words, we rejected the gospel that Jesus Christ delivered to us.
When we confess that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, it means that we take seriously his teaching that you cannot love God without loving your neighbor as yourself. To be Christians, we must be good neighbors who are willing to make good trouble when there is great evil in our midst. We must take seriously God’s liberation and compassion for all people. To do this, we must reverse our ordinary concerns for ourselves (and our families).
In his final speech, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, a leader for good neighbors everywhere, issued one final challenge, which I will paraphrase for you:
The question before you… is NOT, “If I resist, what will happen to me (and my family)?”
The question before you is, “If I do NOT resist, what will happen to my neighbor?”
That is the question before us when we undertake and recommit to our vows, as Methodists and as Christians. So on behalf of the whole church, I ask you once again:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,
reject the evil powers of this world,
and repent of your sin?
And if you do, say “I do!”
I do!
Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you
to resist evil, injustice, and oppression
in whatever forms they present themselves?
And if you do, say “I do!”
I do!
Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,
put your whole trust in his grace,
and promise to serve him as your Lord,
in union with the Church which Christ has opened
to people of all ages, nations, and races?
And if you do, say “I do!”
I do!
Amen, and amen.
