St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
Proper 16/Year A ▪ August 27, 2023
Gospel: Matthew 16:13-20
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer—Amen.
As a priest, one of the many joys of serving as a pastor is listening to the many stories woven throughout the congregation. These life journey accounts inevitably feature the natural twists and turns of life, with careful attention to include the joys that produced belly laughs and the sorrows that forced tears to flow. In the sharing of these winding, sacred stories, the gift of a spiritual narrative emerges which offers glimpses into when God felt present for the person and how the person experienced God clearly acting on their behalf. These revelatory moments of God’s presence and intervention, throughout one’s life, allow for rich deposits of faith points that connect to strengthen their faith foundation. A common theme of these spiritual narratives is, “I know that the Lord was with me.”
Woven throughout our Old Testament reading in Exodus, are instances in which God was with his people. This narrative tells of the Egyptian Pharoah who had just come to power and was taken aback by the fruitfulness of the Israelites. So many Israelites stoked his fears of rebellion, and he chose to prophylactically oppress them. But God was with God’s people, and he acted through the system of oppression in order to move His will forward for the liberation of the Israelites.
Pharoah intended to deal shrewdly with the slaves by increasing the forced labor, but his efforts to curb their population failed. The more he oppressed the Israelites, the more they multiplied. So, Pharoah turned his tactics toward two Hebrew midwives—Shiphrah and Puah—to make life and death decisions according to his will, ordering them to kill the newborn boys, and to let the girls live; this was his genocidal plan to prevent the possibility of violent uprisings.
We know that the midwives feared God and did not carry out Pharoah’s murderous plan. When Pharoah asked why they had defied him, the clever midwives positioned themselves, not as disobedient, but as latecomers to the vigorous birthing of Hebrew women, claiming that the babies arrived before they could get to them. Twice, Pharoah had set out to, in his words, “deal shrewdly” with the Hebrews, but he was the one being shrewdly dealt with by the midwives.
In our epistle in Romans, Paul said, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2). We see the midwives risking their lives, acting in opposition to the human will of Pharoah, and in obedience to God. And, because the midwives feared God, and did not conform to the ways of Pharoah’s world, God rewarded the Hebrew people with families, further increasing their population. Pharoah’s tactics could not stop God’s forward movement of God’s people.
It is ironic that Pharoah’s escalated, and final, order to drown the Hebrew boys in the Nile, would have systematically eliminated the necessary male workers needed for productivity in society. This irrational tactic of Pharoah was also used against him to move forward God’s will for the deliverance of God’s people.
Had it not been for the terror created by Pharoah’s murderous actions, the Levite mother would have had no need to hide her newborn son amongst the reeds in hopes of preserving his life. Once again, Pharoah was being shrewdly dealt with by God. Out of all of the Hebrew boys to be drowned, the one whom God would use to liberate His people not only survived, but would be raised as the son of Pharoah’s own daughter. She would name him Moses.
I am reminded of the image of the sluice gate—a tool of engineering used to control water flow in a river. As the sluice gate controls and retards water flow it forces the water into different directions, resulting in rich deposits of gold and gemstones. The redirected water flows into places that are outside of its anticipated path, but the water is not stopped. Metaphorically, the Israelites represent God’s flowing water, redirected, but not stopped, by the interventions of the human sluice gate, represented as the Egyptian king. The sluice gate is at once an instrument of redirection and an instrument of God’s grace, with deposits of God’s favor showing up as the river of human history continues to flow.
And when we look at our gospel passage in Matthew, Jesus asked his disciples two questions: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and “Who do you say that I am?” The answer to the first question ranged from Jesus was John the Baptist, or Elijah or one of the other prophets. Those people were correct that Jesus was a prophet, but they were unclear that he was more than a prophet.
Jesus then asked his inner circle, “Who do you say that I am?” And, Peter’s confession was clear, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Peter’s clarity about Jesus’ identity established the rock-like strength upon which Jesus’ church would be built. Because of the clarity of Peter’s confession, Jesus gave him the keys of the kingdom of Heaven with the authority to bind and loose in heaven and on earth.
The Hebrew midwives’ secret weapons were their fear of God, and their clarity that the God of Israel, was the one true God. Clarity about God’s identity translated into clarity about their own identity as God’s people. Like Peter, our clarity about Jesus’ identity as the Son of the living God, the head of the church and the author of our salvation, necessarily gives us clarity about our own identity as Christ’s body in the world.
Followers of Christ must be clear that Jesus is God incarnate—fully human and fully divine; be clear that Jesus is the only son of God; be clear that the sinless Jesus died for the sin of the world; be clear that after he died, God raised him from the dead on the third day; and be clear that in baptism we are not only joined with him in a death like his, but joined in his glorious resurrection. We are Easter people. Let us use that power of clarity to bring others to the one who saves all souls.
When we fear God, and are clear that the Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, we can live with clarity and with the hope of functioning, each with our different God-given gifts, as one, unified body, of which Jesus Christ is the head. Amen.
