Messes

12^th Sunday after Pentecost

August 27, 2017

Exodus 1:1-14

            One of my favorite lines from Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat is when the fish says, “That is good, he has gone away. Yes. But your mother will come. She will find this big mess! And this mess is so big and so deep and so tall, we cannot pick it up. There is no way at all!” Part of what I have a tendency to do when finding myself in a mess that “is so big and so deep and so tall,” is to figure out how I got in that mess. What caused it? How did I contribute to it? What were other contributing factors? In The Cat in the Hat, you can go back through the pages and see how the mess got “so big and so deep and so tall,” but we don’t usually have written books about how we got where we are. And so we look back over the events and decisions leading up, try to determine what were causes and what wasn’t. My husband was a biology major in college and has spent a lot of time working in labs. One of his favorite phrases when I start to do this is “correlation does not equal causation.” In other words, just because some things are happening at the same time, does not mean they were a direct cause.

            In bible history, one of the causes that I think we often overlook is what caused the Israelites to go into slavery. How do we get from Genesis, where they’re not enslaved, and the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Exodus, or specifically, the exodus, where Moses leads God’s people out of slavery? How’d they get from being free people in Egypt, welcomed and invited in by the Pharaoh and Joseph, to being enslaved people? Usually, we skip right to Exodus 2 and the birth of Moses. But why was there a need for Moses? Why did God need to send Moses to lead God’s people out of slavery? It’s there in Exodus 1, “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” This verse was first pointed out to me by the senior pastor I served with when I was an associate. I had gone to my local Kroger, a mile and a half from my house in Raleigh, my usual grocery store where we did most of our shopping, and ran into a person who served high up at the Conference level. I knew who she was, of course, but I had no idea she knew who I was. And she greeted me by name! I shared this with my senior pastor, that I had run into this person at the grocery store and she knew who I was! And the senior pastor advised me to enjoy it, because “a new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph.” In other words, apparently, I’m known now, but who knows what will happen when leadership changes? And it’s always a when leadership changes, not an if.

            “A new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us.  Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” The new Pharaoh had to have known at least some of the story of Joseph and how Joseph saved not only his people but also all of Egypt but storing up grain during the seven good years so that there would still be food to eat during the seven years of famine. Because of that, the old Pharaoh welcomed Joseph’s extended family into Egypt and the Israelites prospered in their new land. Yet rather than see that prosperity as good for Egypt, the new Pharaoh chose to assume the worst, that if it came to war, the Israelites would fight against Egypt, instead of with their host country. The new Pharaoh did not try to get to know the Israelites or talk with them. The only thing he knew was that they were numerous and strong, and so he saw them as a threat instead of trying to work with them. Think of how many lives – children's lives, both Hebrew and Egyptian, could have been spared had the new Pharaoh chosen to set aside his fear of people who are not Egyptian, not like him, and gotten to know them instead. A new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph, who chose not to get to know the Hebrews better. His response was to oppress the Israelites with forced labor and enslave them. That’s how God’s people became enslaved in Egypt. We’ll read next week about how that oppression extended into male genocide, as God’s people still flourished in slavery and so Pharaoh commanded that all the baby boys be thrown in the river. That’s what leads to the story of Moses. As I said, next week. This week we’re going to sit with this early story of Pharaoh and God’s people. A new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph.

            It reminds me of another Dr. Seuss story, one found in the book The Sneetches and Other Stories, called “What was I Scared of?” 

It’s the story of the narrator, who has never been afraid of anything, encountering a pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them. They meet first in the woods, and he runs away. Then they come across each other again in the town of Grin-itch. And then again as he’s fishing for Doubt-trout on Roover River, and again in a field. And each time, the narrator is scared out of his wits, screams, terrified of these spooky pale green pants with nobody inside them. Then, as he backs around a bush in the field, they come across each other, face to face. And he’s scared to death, and the pants begin to cry. He realizes that those pants were just as scared as he was. “I was just as strange to them as they were strange to me! I put my arm around their waist and sat right down beside them. I calmed them down.” And now, when they meet each other around town, they smile and say, “Hi!” The pants and the narrator didn’t know each other. Were scared of each other. Until they got to know each other. Imagine, if Pharaoh had just made a different choice, a choice to not feel threatened by a people who his predecessor had welcomed and invited into his land. God’s people wouldn’t have become enslaved. They wouldn’t have gotten into a mess from which they needed divine intervention and salvation. Pharaoh wouldn’t have gotten into a mess which cost him the life of the first born son, in the tenth plague.

And it’s all a question of, when you perceive a threat, what do you do? Do you run away? Do you call the police? Do you oppress the perceived threat before it can harm you first? Before you learn more about it? When the kids tell me there’s a monster, my first question is to ask if it’s a friendly monster. Or if they asked her name. Or what color she is. In other words, rather than assume it’s a bad monster or a scary monster, what if it’s more like Sully or Mike Wazowski from the movie Monsters, Inc.? A new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph. And so he decided to oppress them with forced labor and worked them ruthlessly and made their lives bitter with harsh labor. It’s all a question of what you choose to do. The new Pharaoh chose oppression. That’s how God’s people ended up enslaved. Pharaoh was afraid of them. Saw them as a threat. Perception plays a strong role in today’s culture. Sometimes perception is reality; sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it’s you acting from a place of fear. Pharaohs always had to be on guard against external threats in order to stay ruler of Egypt and for Egypt to stay Egypt. What’s a new Pharaoh to do? These are the facts presented him. The Israelites are numerous and strong. They live in Egypt and have for many generations. Rather than building a relationship with them so that they’d be part of his army during a war, he chose to see them as a threat to be squashed. A new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph. Who didn’t want to know Joseph, or Joseph’s descendants. Who chose not to know Joseph. We’re going to be reading over the next few weeks the rest of this story, how God saved God’s people in Egypt. This is where the story starts. How God’s people became enslaved. Pharaoh saw them as a threat, and responded accordingly. Before we get to the salvation, let’s sit this week with the oppression.