Out of the Water
Exodus 1:8-2:10; Matthew 16:13-20

August 25, 2002

When you get down to discussing the big issues of life, such as God, death, meaning, salvation, resurrection, the first thing, the most important thing is to know who you are. If all you talk about is God in the abstract, and neglect to mention any names, because after all names are messy, then I am not sure you are talking about God at all.

The point of Christianity is that not only does God have a name to which God answers, but it is a human name. To use the name Christ without reference to Jesus is anemic, that is, lacking adequate blood. Knowing someone’s name is the human being’s first step in loving that person.

“Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” He did not know his name, he did not know who he was, he did not love Joseph. It’s always easier to hate and be fearful of nameless, anonymous people, and Pharaoh made sure he knew no names. Slaves have no important names, and he oppressed the Israelites so that they would not grow more powerful than the native Egyptians.

A funny thing happened along the way to oppression and the final solution: the more the Israelites were brutalized and marginalized, the more they grew and flourished. It has worked that way throughout history. If you want to get rid of the presence and influence of a certain group of people, the only way to do it is to ignore them. If you try to punish and inhibit them, they will only toughen up and become stronger and smarter.

The problem with oppressed peoples is that they continue to have babies. The Pharaoh did something nonsensical. He went to the Hebrew midwives and tried to force them to kill any boys as they were being born. Did he really think these Hebrew midwives, who had real names, Shiphrah and Puah, would kill their own flesh and blood? The fact that they had names promises us that they wouldn’t, and they didn’t. The anger of Pharaoh did not faze or intimidate them. Shiphrah and Puah acted this way because they knew their God by name and knew this was not right.

The Pharaoh was still tinkering: drown them in the boys in the River Nile was his ingenuous solution. We don’t know how well that worked for only one unsuccessful attempt is recorded.

Unfortunately, the narrative fails us in not mentioning the parents’ names. They were of the family of Levi, however, and the mother wanted her fine baby to live, so she hid him for three months until hiding was no longer possible. A different solution was required, so a papyrus boat was put together to send the child down the river to be rescued by compassion. The sister, who we will know as Miriam, kept an eye on the boat and cargo.

It had to be a calculated move, for the Pharaoh’s daughter and her retinue came down to bathe at the river. She saw the boat, and when she saw the baby crying, she knew he was Hebrew, but she also had compassion. This too history has continually demonstrated: there are no stereotypes when you encounter another vulnerable human being face to face in the flesh.

Miriam was right there on the spot, and this has to be the Biblical version of the Paul Newman and Robert Redford movie, The Sting. “Do you want a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby?” Miriam asked, trying to be helpful. Oh yes, the Pharaoh’s daughter replied. Miriam got her mother to come and nurse her own child, and she got paid for it as well. Talk about parental subsidies.

The bargain was to deliver him over when he grew up to Pharaoh’s daughter so that he might be adopted as her son. Not really much difference than being sent off to English boarding school.

Moses would be his name, which the narrator thinks is a play on words for the Hebrew, “I drew him out of the water.” But actually it is a common Egyptian name, “to beget a child,” a name usually with a god’s name attached. Moses was multi-cultural from the start.

Early Christians were fond of reading this story as a kind of baptism experience. When you are lowered into the water, it is as if you are being lowered into the grave, being drowned. Moses was lowered into the Nile and risked being drowned, but then like the baptizee was drawn up out of the water to new life, just as Christ was resurrected out of the grave.

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Jesus wanted to know. What names do they really call me? These weren’t just the straight lines to set up the conclusion; Jesus’ humanity wanted to know what people thought of him. He did not want to be ignored and unknown.

“Who do you say that I am?” If you call someone else a name it usually tells as much about you as that other person. Jesus was really asking, who are you? Peter would answer correctly that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. However, once Peter said that, he committed himself to living in a particular way. To say that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, is not a neutral academic statement of fact. It is believed that the earliest proclamation of the Christian Church, long before the Gospels were written, was “Jesus is Lord!” In the midst of Jewish society that was an outrageous thing to say; in the midst of the Roman Empire it was a dangerous thing to say. Jesus was an oppressed Galilean of whom the occupying Romans did not want to know his name.

Our first Christmas Eve together was spent at a Christmas Eve service at St. John’s United Church, San Francisco. We returned to the minister’s house on Twin Peaks for a party and finally at 2:00 a.m. made our way back to the bus station to head home.

Molly and I made it just in time for the 2:13 last bus and it was crowded. The last passenger getting on was the prototypical hippie of 1971, long dirty hair and a little demented. He paid his fare and then confronted the passenger seated in the first row, “Christ is born!” He did that as a matter of fact to every single passenger on the bus. It was, after all, Christmas Day, so maybe he had the right spirit, I’m sure many were thinking.

The fellow sitting on the very back seat was waiting. “Christ is born!” was answered by “Who the hell is Christ?” That created a tangible tension on the bus. Our evangelist exploded back, “Who the hell are you?”

The rest of the passengers burst into relieved laughter and 2:13 arrived and off we went home, with our two fellows debating the faith all the way across the Bay Bridge. They departed friends.

That is the right question: Who are you if you do not know Jesus? Or better, you do not really know who you are if you do not know who Jesus is.

There are many ways to know Jesus, there are many names we call him. The Jesus Seminar tells us there are 34 gospels, 34 versions of the life and ministry of Jesus. That is nothing new at all. There have been many more kinds of Jesus throughout history. The name by which you and I call Jesus - prophet, teacher, liberator, non-conformist, priest, Messiah or ethical exemplar - tells us more about ourselves than it does about Jesus.

One of the names of Jesus was the New Moses. Jesus too was drawn up out of the water to a new life by John the Baptist. No one is anonymous in God’s vocabulary.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan