Loading...Simon Peter replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living
God.” Peter is the first person to make this Christian confession of
faith. He names Jesus as the Messiah. Before this, the Gospels say
that only the demons and God knew who Jesus was. Now, people are
beginning to know.
Peter was know as Simon bar Jona, meaning Simon son of Jonah.
Now Jesus gives Simon a new name. He says, “And I tell you, you
are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” In Greek, Peter is
translated as Petros which means “rock”. Paul referred to Peter as
CEphas, which means “rock” in Hebrew. So literally Jesus named
Peter, “Rock”.
Peter, is truly a new name. There is no record of anyone using it as a
proper name before Jesus uses it.
Names and naming are very important in the Bible. Often God
commanded parents to give their child a specific name. God then
explained the meaning of the name or what characteristics it revealed
that the child would have. The name given by God is the name that
will lead to God’s promises. God changed Abram's name to Abraham
and Jacob's to Israel. Changing a person’s name altered that persons
identity, their relationships and their mission. It shaped their destiny.
Through the new names God gave new beginnings, and new hopes.
It still works that way: At our Baptism we are presented by name.
When we confessed Jesus is our Christ, at our Baptism, we were
changed, given a new identity and a new mission.
This new mission calls us to step up to the plate. Once we allow Jesus
more deeply into our hearts and claim him as our Messiah, we no
longer have the luxury of being spectators. We become co-creators
and as co-creators we need to act. This can be scary because this
action requires us to care and advocate for those experiencing
injustice in any form. It requires us to love one another as Christ loves
us, and to offer compassion, forgiveness, and healing to a hurting
world.
But Paul tells us in our reading today from Romans that we don’t have
to be afraid, we do not have to do this alone. We are now part of the
body of Christ and each member of his body has been given their own
gifts to use on our new mission. God will also provide us opportunities
to minister to others, and to use our gifts for their benefit.
In our reading from Exodus this morning we have several examples of
people stepping up to the plate and we see God’s persistence in
finding ways to meet God’s intentions and mission by creating
opportunities for people to use their God given gifts.
For the past several weeks we have been reading the story of Joseph
and his gifts of prophecy and leadership. All of the events in his story,
his brothers’ jealousy, the pharaoh’s wife, Joseph’s imprisonment and
his dreams, that all had to happen in order for Joseph to be in the
position to save his family, the Israelites, when they traveled to Egypt
to escape the famine. Joseph’s actions were necessary to further
God’s mission to make the Israelites a great nation.
In today’s part of the story of the Israelites we hear the first part of the
story of Moses. We have skipped ahead 300 or 400 hundred years
since Joseph’s time. There is a new pharaoh now who obviously
never knew Joseph and may not have known how he saved Egypt
during the famine. Over the years the Israelites have grown in
numbers so big and have become so powerful that this Pharaoh feels
his leadership is threatened. To protect his power he first enslaves
the Israelites, “making their lives bitter with hard service”.
This apparently didn’t relieve his fears so he turned to two midwives
who helped the Hebrew women during childbirth. He told them to kill
all new Hebrew male children. But these two women feared God
more than they feared the Pharaoh and disobey his orders, letting the
little boys live. They lied to the Pharaoh saying that the Hebrew
women were so good at child birth they had their babies on their own
before the midwives could get there. These midwives also played a
major role in helping the Israelites become the Great Nation that God
promised.
Now more desperate than ever, the Pharaoh commands that every
newborn Hebrew boy be drowned in the Nile River.
This is when Moses’ mother comes into the picture when she gives
birth to a beautiful little boy. This mother is not about to throw her
beloved son into the river and manages to hide him for awhile. But it is
hard to keep a baby concealed so she devises a plan. She gently
tucks her precious son into a basket and places it among the
bulrushes of the Jordan River.
An interesting tidbit that I discovered while researching for this sermon
is that the word used for basket in Hebrew is the same word used in
the Noah story for the word ark. So we have parallel stories both
involving saving humanity. Noah and his ark saved humanity from a
world that had become corrupt and Moses’ ark gave Moses the
opportunity later in his life to save the Israelites, God’s chosen people
and ultimately saving humanity again by revealing the one true God.
I thought that was interesting but I need to get back to Moses’ Mother
and her plan.
She placed the little ark, with her son in it, in the river because she
needed someone to find him but it had to be someone who had the
power to keep him alive. She must have known that the Pharaoh’s
palace was just down stream from where she released the little ark.
Was it a coincidence or God’s work that just at the time the ark floated
by the Pharaoh’s palace his daughter was there and saw it. She pulled
it out of the water finding the baby. She knew it was a Hebrew child.
She must have seen many bodies of babies in the river after her
Fathers’ edict. But this baby was alive and she found the courage to
defy her father and saved the baby Moses.
The story goes on to tell us how Miriam, Moses’ five year old sister,
was hiding in the bulrushes and watched the rescue. She helped the
Pharaoh’s daughter find a wet-nurse for the baby which just happened
to be the baby’s mother. Not only had his mother’s plan work but she
was now reunited with her son.
The girl, Miriam, and the four women, the two midwives, Moses’
Mother and the Pharaoh’s daughter all had an opportunity to step up
and to act. Because of their actions, using their God given gifts, when
Mose grew up he too saved the Israelites as Joseph once did and
lead them to become the Great Nation that God had promised.
As another aside, being the feminist and the pacifist that I am, I want
to point out that this story of the women is a new model of heroism.
Rather than the usual power grabbing and violent way of problem
solving that we see through out the Hebrew scriptures these women
did not seek to destroy the Pharaoh or to take his power for
themselves. These women set a great example by using their intellect
and their wit to solve the problem with nonviolence.
This story also reminds us the God stands with the oppressed rather
than the privileged. Our readings today tell us that when we name
Jesus as the Messiah, our Savior, we receive gifts and are given
opportunities to also stand with the oppressed rather than the
privileged.
Opportunities where we can use our privilege, like the Pharaoh’s
daughter did, using our money, education and position to help others.
Opportunities where we can act like the midwives did and refuse to
cooperate with the oppressors.
Opportunities where we can use love, courage and inventiveness like
Moses’ Mother did to save others.
The question we each need to ask is where and how is God calling us
to step up and stand with those on the margins of our society? It is in
answering that question that we will discover that we are doing justice,
loving kindness and walking humbly with our God, which is what
Micah told us that God requires of us.
