“SHREWD?”
Scripture Lesson: Exodus 1: 8 - 2: 10
Dr. Matthew Brown
“Come, let us deal shrewdly
with them.” How many dubious ventures
have begun with those words? The
American Heritage College Dictionary defines the word “shrewd” this way: “Marked by keen awareness, sharp intelligence,
and often practicality; or - Disposed to artful and cunning practices.” So often, though, our cunning schemes only
call into question our capacity for wisdom.
Do you remember the Susan B.
Anthony dollar, the ill-fated effort to acknowledge this courageous
individual’s significant contribution to the cause of Women’s suffrage? Silver coin, about the same shade as a
quarter. About the size of... well... a
quarter. Hmm. How did they not see the problem with
that? Wouldn’t you have loved to sit in
on that planning meeting?
“Okay, the motion to add the
face of Groucho Marx to
Was it close to lunch
time? Or were they in danger of being
late for the Beltway bowling league? Did
they just not have time to think this thing through? I don’t know if it is more amazing that some
“shrewd” soul actually proposed the wise idea of a coin I can’t distinguish
from a quarter, or that it sailed all the way through the approval process
without someone raising a hand and asking?
“How’s a soda machine gonna know this isn’t a quarter? I mean I’d hate for someone to mistakenly pay
$4 for a Coke, well, outside of a movie theater or an airport.”
Human wisdom. If not an oxymoron, then this little
highed-priced quarter and countless other signs of our collective incompetence
provide the basis for the Lord’s observation of us in Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than
your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Our journey in Exodus begins
in a meeting. And wouldn’t you just know
that as a Presbyterian pastor I’d notice
that, because sometimes it seems we Presbyterians are all about meetings. Some churches choose to place a nice stone
Celtic cross out near the entrance. It
might seem more fitting if we would erect a granite palm pilot out there in the
circle. We Presbyterians like to be
organized, working through things decently and in order.
Anyway, Pharaoh has called a
meeting of his wisest counselors, his consiglieres, his cabinet to deal with
what he sees as a growing national problem.
“Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than
we. 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.”
So, let’s be shrewd, Pharaoh
proposes, with no clue that the programs and policies set in motion in that
meeting will ironically result in the fruition of his greatest fears. The Israelites will, in the end, escape from
the land, not through human wisdom but by divine intention.
Then, as now, human wisdom
concludes that those who are different from us are somehow less than us. Human wisdom, then as now, concludes that it
is better to fear them than it is to know them.
And human wisdom, then as now, permits the pronouns “they” and “them” to
become venom filled invective, and we allow ourselves to hate those whom God
has made and declared good. We do it all
the time: Black - them; Asian - them;
Hispanic - them; Undocumented immigrant - them; Liberal - them; Conservative -
them; Gay - them; redneck - them; Muslim
- them.
When we take a whole group of
people and reduce that collection of God’s children to that one isolating,
stereotyping, over generalizing pronoun, “them”, we are probably ignoring the
creative and wondrous work of the One who rules over everything. Them - be careful in choosing that word, for
it can be most dangerous and you could be found opposing God.
“Come, let us deal shrewdly
with them,” Pharaoh suggests.
But thankfully, gratefully,
our wisdom is not God’s wisdom, and as with
Pharaoh’s grand solution, an
evil strategy mirrored in so many times and places through history - Herod’s
decree, the Crusades, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Rwanda, Darfur, the
Charleston Slave market, the Trail of Tears.
Enslave. Eliminate. Exterminate.
Pharaoh decrees that at
birth, all males are to be immediately killed.
But two courageous Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, in a courageous
act of civil disobedience, believing the will of Pharaoh is trumped by the will
of God, offer life where Pharaoh has ordered death.
And thus, is one born in a
common fashion in an uncommon time, whom God will choose to lead his people
from slavery to freedom. Escaping death
at birth, watched over by a sister, rescued by a king’s daughter who will not
abide her father’s scheme, Moses, like so many children, has no clue of the valorous
lengths to which others would go to protect him. It is a story rich in human drama, but though
hardly mentioned in the text, the chief actor here is God.
Just as Moses could not know
all that was done on his behalf, so too, his protectors would not, could not
fully comprehend the significance of what God was doing through them to enact
his plan of salvation. Like Mary and
Elizabeth many generations later, they have little understanding of the great
import of their small, but faithful acts.
Eugene Peterson writes that,
“Salvation is definitely not a last ditch effort to salvage a few planks and
timbers from a wrecked ship. ‘Save’ and
‘salvation’ come to us not as isolated words or phrase fragments but embedded
in a large story that has plot and characters centuries in the development and
telling. The energies of salvation send
out tentacles into every nook and cranny of history.” He says, “Salvation is the game that brings
everything that happens, including everything that happens to each one of us,
on the playing field of history and into the play of Christ. This is a game in which there are no
spectators - we are all in it; the meaning and outcome of our lives is at
stake. The results are eternal.”
Do you hear what this is
saying? It is saying that your life
matters. It is saying that what you do
matters. Shiphrah and Puah were
insignificant minions in the world of Pharaoh, but the consequences of what God
did through them were cosmic. Maybe you
notice, that the great Pharaoh doesn’t even earn a name from the biblical
writers, but the impact of what Shiphrah and Puah did will last long after the
pyramids have been reduced to dust.
Your life matters and there
is no telling what God will achieve through your faithfulness. The simple acts of justice, of kindness, of
mercy that God inspires in you may be far more significant than the newest
grand idea of the latest head of state.
(Two women, from the lowest social and economic strata of society, defy
the order of the Egyptian king and by that act of defiance set in motion the
chain of historical events that eventually, set alongside the story of Jesus,
will become the paradigm of salvation for all history - Peterson)
You just never know who will
be the bearer of God’s grace. H. Shelton
Smith, late of
But, there was one
distinguished layman who was moved by the scene. He arose from his pew. He stepped forward to the altar, and knelt
beside the former slave, his brother in Christ.
Soon, the congregation joined the layman and the former slave at
Christ’s table. We don’t know the name
of the man whose simple act of faithfulness and courage sparked what Christ
intends for all his children, but you’ve probably heard of the layman who was
first moved by it. His name was Robert
E. Lee.
You just never know who will
be the bearer of God’s grace. You just
never know who God will use to touch the lives of others. Could it be you?
Amen.
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