Say Her Name

Scripture Lessons: Romans 12: 1-8 and Exodus 1: 8 – 2: 10 Sermon Title: Say Her Name Preached on August 23, 2020 This Second Scripture Lesson I’ve just read begins a series of sermons based on the book of Exodus. From this well-known account which begins in the first chapter we remember that from the time Joseph saved his brothers and their families from famine, Jacob and his descendants lived in Egypt. They prospered there, living and dying, probably without thinking too much about what would have been their homeland, the land promised by God to Abraham said to be flowing with milk and honey. In Egypt, Hebrew children were born with no memory of any other land besides the fields and riverbanks nourished by the Nile River. Grandchildren forgot the stories of Jacob and Esau to learn stories about Ra and Ramses the Great. Like the immigrants of any time or place, surely they felt the pressure to lose their accents and just fit in. You can imagine that Joseph’s young descendants didn’t want to invite their Egyptian school friends over for dinner, afraid that grandma would cook some strange food from a far-away place. Life as newcomers to a foreign land is like that. Among the Hebrew people who settled there in Goshen you can hear grandparents interrupt their grandchildren’s conversations concerning the fastest chariots or the best places to swim in the Nile with old stories about a homeland and a promise from God. Maybe the grandparents wanted them to remember and to prepare themselves to go back one day, but the grandchildren just wanted to fit in because that’s what grandchildren want to do. However, if a cat crawls into an oven to deliver her litter they’re still kittens, not muffins. In the same way just being born in Egypt doesn’t make one Egyptian any more than being born at Kennestone makes you one of the Old Marietta crowd. In fact, just as the Israelites lived in Egypt you can live somewhere for years and years never quite belonging, though we all want to belong. Whether in the place we were born or in the place we’ve adopted, we all want to fit in. So, while my father-in-law who moved from Columbia, South America to Knoxville was always planning on moving back home eventually, he did try to fit in as a college student at the University of Tennessee, but it was hard. He landed in Knoxville to study architecture while still learning the English language. Not yet grasping all the nuances, a couple nice church ladies asked him on the sidewalk if he’d been saved. He assumed they were asking him about his bank account. One of his first times through the cafeteria line at breakfast he asked for a biscuit with groovy instead of a biscuit with gravy. This was the 60’s so you can imagine how he’d make the mistake. Fortunately, the cafeteria lady on the other side of the serving line laughed and so did he because he’s the kind of guy who can laugh at himself. Even still, fitting in is a serious business. Nobody wants to feel like the new guy forever. No one wants to go in the Marietta Fruit Company without getting served. No one likes to be the person who never really fits in and always stands out. We all are trying to be a part of the group, because that’s just what human beings want to do. Sooner or later we all want to be one of them. For that reason and many others these midwives are worth remembering. Say their names with me: Shiphrah and Puah. I know you’re Presbyterians who aren’t used to talking during the sermon, so just whisper them with me, “Shiphrah and Puah.” It’s important that we know their names and that we remember them. After all, besides Moses there’s are the only names listed in this Second Scripture Lesson. Moses is named, but his father isn’t. His mother is mentioned but she isn’t named. His sister and Pharaoh’s daughter are both referred to but remain nameless. Notice that not even Pharaoh is named in our Second Scripture lesson. He’s just Pharaoh. Which one? To the Bible it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t matter, or not nearly as much as these two midwives matter, Shiphrah and Puah. Say their names. Remember their names, because they had this chance to please the king of Egypt, but they chose instead to honor their God. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been? Do you have some idea of what pleasing him could have meant? Surely, they were tempted. As the outsiders, surely, they imagined that pleasing the pharaoh could have been one small step towards acceptance into the mainstream. To these two midwives, being on his radar was momentous enough. Then they were summoned by him. That they had the chance to do something for him would have been viewed as an opportunity to capitalize on by any with thoughts of social advancement. Regardless of their aspirations, certainly they feared displeasing him. Already he had proved himself merciless by ordering the execution of babies. Either way, the pressure to do as he commanded must have been profound. Yet, to gain some sense of what they were surely feeling we need only think about the social pressure our foremothers must have felt. Last week the paper published some reflections on 100 years of women’s suffrage in Georgia. The paper published some of their names: Mary Latimer McClendon, Mary McCurdy, Helen Augusta Howard, Adella Hunt Logan, Lucy Craft Laney, and Janie Porter Barrett. Their names are unfamiliar because we haven’t been saying them enough. However, in 1974, former President Jimmy Carter, Georgia governor at the time, selected a portrait of one of them, Lucy Craft Laney, to be displayed in the Georgia State Capitol along with the Rev. Henry McNeal Turner and the Rev. Martin Luther King. They were the first African Americans to have their portraits hung in the building but remember especially her name. She founded Atlanta’s first school for Black children, as well as the first kindergarten and the first nursing training programs for Black women in Augusta. She was a leader within the National Association for Colored Women, and she helped get women everywhere the vote. What strikes me about her and all the others like her is what they risked advancing a cause they believed in. What inspires me is how they looked towards the future with hope and were willing to sacrifice to get there. What defies my ambivalence and pushes me past indifference is how, though surely some rendered them powerless they were powerful, and while surely their husbands, fathers, and brothers wanted them to keep quiet, they would not be silenced. Another suffragette, Helen Augusta Howard was sentenced to a year in prison. Her brothers claimed that she was mentally unsound. Why? Because some would call a woman willing to defy any Pharaoh completely insane. But do you know how Scripture renders such women? As faithful. As worthy of our admiration. Say their names. For just as a part of them must have been ready to do what he asked, there is a part of all of us ready to walk down the easy path towards acceptance of what is and away from who we are and who we were created to be. Just as a part of them must have wanted to just go with the flow, they could see beyond the world as it was and knew they must not settle in, for they were on their way to the Promised Land. Peer pressure in High School is so hard because while you’re in High School it feels like those four years are all that matters. Not being accepted feels like the end of the world. Only we all have to learn to deal with such pressure because it never really goes away. At work is the pressure to please the boss. Around the neighborhood pool is the pressure to look like everyone else. Then when talking politics, we’re never just talking about who we’re voting for. We’re talking about whether or not, based on who we’ve picked, we’ll be invited back again. Despite whatever Pharaoh threatened or promised, they chose to remain Shiphrah and Puah. Say their names. Remember their names and be like them, let the God who created you define who you are, not the world that surrounds you. They made the choice to save those Hebrew babies. They chose to listen to their heart rather than the voice of a sin sick world. And that same choice is ours today. The Apostle Paul’s said it this way: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Do not be conformed to this world for you don’t belong to this world any more than Moses belonged to the Pharaoh’s palace. Can’t you imagine him there? He knew what he had to do to maintain his place in those privileged halls, but how could he when Shiphrah and Puah had sacrificed their lives for him? How could any of us just sit back in indifference to the evil around us when so many mothers, daughters, and sisters sacrificed themselves to get us where we are today. Think for just a moment about them. Who loved you into existence? Who was she? What did she do? What did she sacrifice for you? Say her name. And live in such a way that you might deserve the sacrifice she made. Ours is a culture where it’s hard just to put on a mask unless everyone else is doing it. How would our mother’s feel if despite all her labor we risked our lives just because we didn’t want to be the only one with a mask on at a pool party? In our culture of conformity, do not be conformed to this world, but honor the God who created you, the one who gave his very life that you would be saved just as Moses was. Amen.