Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time/Twelfth after Pentecost (A)—Exodus 1:8—2:10; Matthew 16:13–20

Exodus 1:8—2:10

Shiphrah, Puah, Jocheved, Miriam, Pharaoh's Daughter, and the infant Moses. 

Painting in Dura-Europas synagogue, in present-day Syria, discovered in 1932, the last phase of construction dated by an Aramaic inscription to 244 CE. Photo courtesy of Art in the Christian Tradition, Vanderbilt Divinity Library.

 

Five Women's Disobedience

 

The civil disobedience

Of women isn't new,

Nor did it stop with just one case

Where midwives helped push through

The life that Yahweh had in mind;

Oh, no! This kind of birth,

Meant not for just a few back then

Is all about the worth

Of all—despite some despot's claim

That he could cleanse a race

Right off the map! His daughter even

Risks her own disgrace,

While Shiphrah and Puah, and Moses'

Mother and sister, too,

By their outwitting, show this LORD

Will never be subdued.

 

Scott L. Barton

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “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.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” 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.” So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 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. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

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. 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. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 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. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

+ + +

Matthew 16:13–20

 

"Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah."

 

Perhaps he thought a movement, underground,

Would be more fitting for his church

Than something popular, and much renowned;

Who knows? The Lord, I guess. But search

The scriptures and you'll see it's hard to find

Cathedrals, or a meetinghouse,

Or power, or wealth; for what this Peter binds,

Is us to Christ, despite our doubts,

Faced every day, that he alone can save;

We're free to follow him—we’re loosed!—

In church or out; but in, are people brave,

Because from love they're ne'er seduced.

 

Scott L. Barton

(It may well be that the terms "bind" and "loose" are rabbinic for forbidding and permitting. But here I see the former as forbidding our separation from God, and the latter as permitting us to follow in the footsteps of the Lord of all.)

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.