The Midwives: Creative Resistance by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

Shiphrah and Puah are two of my sheroes of the Hebrew Bible. Often times we do not get the names of insignificant characters in the Bible, such as servants and slave women. Surely a couple of midwives among the Hebrew slaves would not ordinarily be deemed worthy of name recognition in the book of the Holy of Holies. But there they are in black and white: two brave women by the names of Shiphrah and Puah. I hope you will remember their names because they stood up to a tyrant.

Let me just give a little background material here. Last week we wrapped up the book of Genesis. Joseph and his brothers had settled in Egypt. As was promised by God, these grandsons of Abraham and Sarah had many children, as many as the stars in the sky. It did seem as if God’s promises were coming true. Except for one problem: they find themselves living as slaves in Egypt, under the oppression of an evil Pharaoh. Exodus, the second book in the Bible, is the story of God’s people delivered from slavery into freedom, to live in the Promised Land. Moses will be their leader.  You’ve probably all heard of Moses.

Our story for today starts with Pharaoh being all bent out of shape because the Hebrew people, Joseph, his brothers and all their children, are growing too numerous. Pharaoh is afraid that they will outnumber the Egyptians one day and if there is war they will join the enemy side.

As Gene Tucker writes, Pharaoh tries two tactics to get control of the Hebrews.  Both are predictable of a tyrant, and both of them backfire. (Source: Preaching Through the Christian Year A, by Fred B. Craddock et al, Trinity Press International, Philadelphia, 1992, p. 410). First, he makes them slaves and forces them to work on his construction projects. But the harder he makes them work, the stronger they become and the more babies they keep having. So then he takes steps to kill the boy babies. Now, this really does not make sense if he wants to have a steady stream of workers. But tyrants do not always think things through (ibid). Just look at China and their decision to limit families to one child. Some of the families chose to keep a son and they abandon daughters to orphanages. Now they have a disproportionate number of heterosexual men compared to heterosexual women to marry them.  But I digress.

Pharaoh is trying to slow down the population growth. So he gets this idea. He calls the midwives Shiphrah and Puah in to his court. He tells them:

“When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the sex of the baby. If it’s a boy, kill him; if it’s a girl, let her live.”

^17-18 But the midwives had far too much respect for God and didn’t do what the king of Egypt ordered; they let the boy babies live. The king of Egypt called in the midwives. “Why didn’t you obey my orders? You’ve let those babies live!”

¹⁹ The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women; they’re vigorous. Before the midwife can get there, they’ve already had the baby.”

^20-21 God was pleased with the midwives. The people continued to increase in number—a very strong people. And because the midwives honored God, God gave them families of their own.

You see, Shiphrah and Puah had their own way of dealing with a situation. We have all been in situations when we are backed into a corner. We feel powerless. We don’t have any control in a situation. Someone else has all the power: our boss, our parents, the government, the principal or our teachers; the institution; some system in which we find ourselves. We either toe the line or we get into big trouble. To “toe the line” comes from an old practice in schools where there would literally be a line on the floor and students would line up with their toes on the line for roll call. In modern usage it has been used in politics to describe someone who keeps in sync with their party and does not stray from the party’s position on certain issues. To “toe the line” means to be loyal. For the midwives, “toeing the line” could have been a matter of life and death. Following the orders of the Pharaoh could have been punishable by death. 

But scripture says that Shiphrah and Puah had too much respect for God, and therefore too much respect for human life. They were midwives!  They were also loyal to life; their job was to help mothers bring babies into the world. How could they possibly bring harm to those same babies? So they had to think of a creative way to resist Pharaoh’s instructions. Voila! It came to them. “Oh Pharaoh, we wanted to be obedient to you, but these Hebrew women are so strong, they had their babies without even calling us.”

But Pharaoh would not give up.

²² So Pharaoh issued a general order to all his people: “Every boy that is born, drown him in the Nile. But let the girls live.”

The twists and turns of this story continue. Because you see, the point of this story is to show how God worked to protect Moses. God brought Moses through miraculously so that he could be God’s servant to save these people.  God would do anything to save Moses.

And this is how it happened: 

·      Moses was born.

·      Shiphrah and Puah disobeyed Pharoah and did not kill Moses.

·      Moses’ mother hid him for 3 months. She knew there was something special about him.

·      Then she put him in a basket that would float. That was a huge step of faith.

·      She put him in the river where Pharaoh had told the people to throw all the boy babies.

·      Moses floated down to where the daughter of Pharaoh and her friends were bathing. (Moses’ sister was watching to see what would happen).

·      The princess knew this was a Hebrew baby but rather than have it killed she took the baby as her own.

·      Moses’ brave sister asked the princess if she wanted one of the Hebrew women to nurse her baby, and she said yes

·      So the sister went and got her own mother who then got to care for Moses as his “nurse” for a while longer. 

This is a story of brave women who used their creativity to outwit the tyrant. At so many turns in the story, they could have, and perhaps should have, thrown up their hands in defeat, but they did not. They put their trust in God and God showed them another way. And because they did, Moses’ life was spared. He grew up to be a great leader for God. We will learn more about Moses in the coming weeks. But you probably already know that he is the one who will go to Pharaoh on behalf of God and say: “Let my people go!” Eventually the people will find their freedom. 

But before Moses can lead, these brave and creative women work around Pharaoh and his tyranny. Shiphrah and Puah, Moses’ mother and sister, and even the Princess, Pharaoh’s own daughter, recognize evil when they see it. Like so many people before them, and so many people after them, they could feel backed into a corner by what seems to be the power that Pharaoh holds. But rather than being discouraged and defeated, they decide to look at the situation and say to themselves: “Is there another way? Can we find another creative way out of this situation?” And every time they find another way.

You see, this is what happens when we line ourselves up with God. We see things that we would not otherwise see. We find solutions that were not there. We find ways to topple tyrants. We defeat evil and we are set free. 

Because this is Gay Pride weekend I want to tell you another story about finding another way. Some of you may know it. The story is of two women who loved each other:  "Edie" Windsor and Thea Spyer who were residents of New York, married in Toronto, Ontario, in 2007. They had been together 40 years. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Windsor). Two years later, Thea died and left Edie her entire estate. “Windsor sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses. She was barred from doing so by Section 3 of DOMA (codified at 1 U.S.C. § 7), which provided that the term "spouse" only applied to marriages between a man and woman. The Internal Revenue Service found that the exemption did not apply to same-sex marriages, denied Windsor's claim, and compelled her to pay $363,053 in estate taxes” (ibid). 

Now, by this time, Edie was 80 years old. I don’t know about you, but if I were 80 years old, and had lived for 40 years with a partner in a country where I was told that my relationship was sinful, that being homosexual was deemed a psychiatric disorder by the medical profession for much of that time, and I had lived through decades of discrimination from my neighbors on every level, I would not be ready to take on the Federal government, especially the IRS. I would feel about as helpless and defeated as the Hebrew women living as slaves under Pharaoh in Egypt. I guess Edie Windsor has the same sort of spunk as Shiphrah and Puah because she was not willing to accept the tyranny of DOMA without a fight. 

She filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, Section 3 in particular, which restricts “U.S. federal interpretation of ‘marriage’ and ‘spouse’ to apply only to heterosexual unions” (ibid). After a lengthy court battle that made its way through the District Court in New York and the Second District Court of Appeals, the case was heard by the Supreme Court. “On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5–4 decision declaring Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional ‘as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment’” (ibid). 

“As a result of the Windsor decision, married same-sex couples—regardless of domicile—have tax benefits (which include the previously unavailable ability to file joint tax returns with the IRS), military benefits, federal employment benefits for employees of the U.S Government and immigration benefits” (ibid). 

We do not yet have marriage for all in all 50 states, but we are well on our way. “Windsor noted in a statement that when she and her partner met nearly 50 years earlier that they never dreamed their marriage would land before the Supreme Court ‘as an example of why gay married couples should be treated equally, and not like second-class citizens.’ Noting that her deceased wife would be proud, Windsor added, ‘The truth is, I never expected any less from my country’” (ibid).

You see, Edie Windsor believes in freedom. She believes that good can triumph over evil and that justice will triumph over inequality. When she was backed into a corner, she did not give up. She took on the laws of the most powerful nation in the world, and she won. Because of her, we all win. 

Edie is like Shiphrah and Puah and like Moses’ sister and mother. They are all people whom, when presented with a challenge, find a way. They do not give up. They do not back down. 

How about you? Are you ready to put your trust in God, and look for a creative solution when you are backed into a corner? When you feel discouraged and defeated, will you remember these brave women, and take another look at the situation? There is always another way – God’s way. Let Shiphrah and Puah be your sheroes. Be creative. Be bold. Look for good and don’t give in to tyranny. Never give up. Amen.