Exodus 2:1-10 (Common English Bible)

Now a man from Levi’s household married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

She saw that the baby was healthy and beautiful, so she hid him for three months. When she couldn’t hide him any longer, she took a reed basket and sealed it up with black tar. She put the child in the basket and set the basket among the reeds at the riverbank.

The baby’s older sister stood watch nearby to see what would happen to him.

Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, while her women servants walked along beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds, and she sent one of her servants to bring it to her. When she opened it, she saw the child.

The boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. She said, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children.”

Then the baby’s sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Would you like me to go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”

Pharaoh’s daughter agreed, “Yes, do that.”

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’ll pay you for your work.”

So the woman took the child and nursed it. After the child had grown up, she brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her son.

She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I pulled him out of the water.”

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The book Common Prayer reminds us:

“We walk in the company of the women who have gone before,

mothers of the faith both named and unnamed,

testifying with ferocity and faith to the Spirit of wisdom and healing.

They are the judges, the prophets, the martyrs, the warriors, poets, lovers, and saints

who are near to us in the shadow of awareness, in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams.”

Women like:

Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Coretta Scott King

Susan B. Anthony

Rosa Parks

Dorothy Day

Sojourner Truth

Sacagawea

Mary Meachum

Ann Judson

Julian of Norwich

Clare of Assisi

Mary

Elizabeth

Esther

Ruth

Deborah

Miriam

Your moms

Judi’s mom

My mom

May I add to this list immigrants, who, hoping for a better, safer life for their children, who, because life at home can be so dangerous, so perilous, so unsettled, pack up their families and travel hundreds, thousands of miles, into uncertainty, often in frightfully dangerous conditions hoping to find a place of refuge for their children! And I add to this list the moms (and dads) who, when faced with the impossible decision of returning with their children to intolerable situations or letting their children go forward without them, hoping that their children, will find compassion, empathy and assistance on the other side, they let them go. These incredible women do this knowing that they may never see their children again, but believing that what they are doing is the only way to protect their kids. That’s what moms do- anything to protect their children.

-and by moms I mean biological mothers and grandmothers, as well as the gutsy women who stand for what is right, what is just, what is equitable.

Let me add to that list of incredible women, Jochebed.

Jochebed was born a slave. Jochebed’s mom was a slave. Her grandmother was a slave, as was her great grandma.

The story of Jochebed is the story of a family who came to place as refugees, settled in that place, prospered in that place, and then saw the governmental authorities force them into bondage and slavery.

Jochebed had been raised hearing the stories of her amazing ancestors. She heard stories about Levi, and Joseph, Rachel, Rebekah and Sarah, of wealth and prosperity, of a home back there, of milk and honey.

Jochebed had also been raised a slave. She worked as a slave. She ate slave rations, and often went hungry as a slave. She slept on a pallet in a shack that was meant for slaves. She lived in extreme distress. There was faint hope that tomorrow would be any better.

When Jochebed was old enough, she married another slave.

Jochebed had two children, a son and a daughter. They were born as slaves as well.

The government feared a slave uprising because of the sheer number of slaves in the land. In an effort to halt the growth in number of slaves, the government declared by edict that baby boys born to slave women were to be killed, immediately, thrown into the River and drowned.

At about this same time as this edict began to be enforced, Jochebed became pregnant with her third child.

The family kept the pregnancy as hush-hush as possible and when a baby boy was born, the family tried to hide both Jochebed and the baby from the authorities.

They were able to do this for about three months. But as patrols of baby police increased, Jochebed spent day after day, night after night in fear for her baby boy.

She then did a thing that seemed so crazy, but she was desperate to protect her son.

Jochebed took a woven reed basket, and sealed it in pitch, black tar, so that it would float. Then, she delicately placed her baby in the basket, and carried the baby in the basket to the river and placed the baby in the basket in the river along the shore line in the cattails and reeds.

Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been for Jocheded? How desperate she must have felt to try such a thing? How afraid she must have been for her son?

She left her daughter on the river bank, hidden in the trees, to watch over the baby and to see what might happen next.

Apparently, the next day, the Κing’s daughter came down to the river to take a bath. While there, one of her attendants spotted the basket and the baby.

Now, how is it that the King’s daughter would be taking a bath in the same place a slave would have placed the baby in a basket? It does not make sense that the King’s daughter would take her bath in an area occupied by, or close to where the slaves lived, but rather, would bathe near her palatial estate.

So, I think Jochebed had a plan for her baby beyond floating him in the river. She intentionally carried the baby in the basket to where the King’s daughter regularly bathed. One can infer that she walked several miles in the middle of the night to take her child to the one place where he might, just might, find safety.

And sure enough, the plan worked.

The king’s daughter discovered the baby, assumed he was one the condemned Hebrew boys and immediately was drawn to him. And on the spot, decided to raise the baby as her own.

At which point, Jochebed’s daughter came out of her hiding place and offered to secure a wet nurse if the king’s daughter wanted her to.

The king’s daughter agreed, perhaps assuming a Hebrew woman nursing a Hebrew child would be the best thing to do.

Jochebed’s daughter hurried back home, told her mom that the plan had worked, and then told her that she could be the wet nurse to her own son. Whether this was a part of Jochebed’s plan or just a fortuitous outcome, I’m not sure.

Jochebed and her daughter walked back to where the king’s daughter was and there agreed to take care of the child until he no longer needed mother’s milk.

Jochebed was able to take the baby home with her, feed him, hold him, love him. And she no longer needed to be afraid of the patrols as the King’s daughter insured the baby’s safety.

In Islamic literature, the king is furious at this decision to raise the Hebrew boy and plans to have him killed but his daughter (wife in the Islamic telling) intervenes and refuses to allow any harm to come to the boy.

We can assume that in those months, (Babylonian writings report that children nursed for two or three years) while the baby stayed with Jochebed, the king’s daughter was a regular visitor to Jochebed’s home. It must have broken Jochebed’s heart to have to pretend not to be the baby’s mother, but she was prepared to do whatever was necessary to protect him.

In her visits, the king’s daughter undoubtedly heard Jochebed talking to the baby about how he was pulled, rescued, saved (in Hebrew “Masha”) from the River.

The day finally came for Jochebed to hand over her son to the King’s daughter. She knew that to do anything else would eliminate the promise of the boy’s safety, and a refusal to let him go would most surely mean death for him, and perhaps foe her other children as well.

The king’s daughter received the boy from Jochebed and named him Moses, an Egyptian word for “son” but also the Hebrew word for “rescue” that she had heard from Jochebed on her many visits. Perhaps it is the name that Jochebed had called her boy since the beginning- Masha, Moses.

I can’t imagine the pain in Jochebed’s heart as she handed over the boy to the King’s daughter, but there was certainly some sense of comfort as she knew, in a climate where her son would certainly be killed, that he would be “safe as houses” as he grew up in the household of the King.

Jochebed’s other children, Aaron and Miriam would grow up to be co-leaders with Moses in the movement to free the Hebrews from Egyptian captivity.

We don’t know anything else about the life story of Jochebed after Moses moves to the palatial home of the King, but we know this. Jochebed did what she had to do to save her son.

And that’s what moms do. Anything that is necessary to protect their children.

Thank you, moms!

Amen.

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Pastoral Prayer

O God, Creator of the heavens and of earth,

Thank you for the women in our lives,

for the mentors, the teachers, the caregivers, the encouragers, the supporters, the challengers,

For mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, friends

Help us to remember what they have taught us.

Help us to see one another through eyes enlightened by understanding and compassion.

Help us to listen to the voices of the women in our lives and to all of our sisters throughout the world with respect and attention.

Open our ears to the cries of women who have been denied their rights and their dignity and yet continue to hold their societies together.

Empower us to be instruments of justice for all, for in the wholeness of Christ, all mothers are our own mothers, and we are one.

Amen.