Exodus 1:8-2:10; Matthew 16: 13-20 Escaping
There is this show on Netflix I sometimes watch. It is called “Inside the world’s toughest prisons”. The host was sent to prison for 12 years and was then proven innocent of the crime he was sent to jail for. He now has a passion for investigating and visiting prisons all over the world. He usually spends a week as an inmate in prisons from Africa to Europe, from South America to Asia. As I watch these shows, I regularly become grateful for the freedom I have. I sometimes can imagine nothing more horrible than to imprisoned in one of these prisons.
A relatively small percentage of the population spends time in an actual prison. But being entrapped is a much more common experience. It is not only state prisons that entrap people. It is many other things. We have these bad habits we become addicted to and sooner or later they put us in a rut that is not easy to escape. I thought about what entrap most people I can think of and I came up with 3 common causes for entrapment.
The first is the stress of trying to control outcomes. We get hung up on a certain desired outcome and work hard to bring it into being. I think God does give us an ability to control outcomes to some extent but often we have less control over an outcome than we think we have. And sometimes another outcome than the one we wishes for is not the end of the world…it could even be better than the desired one. To be overly obsessed with controlling an outcome makes stress a constant companion. That stress sucks life and creativity out of you. It keeps you from loved ones. It entraps you.
The second thing that entraps people, are the loneliness of trying to look strong when we are not. We think showing weakness and asking for help will make us lose friends and admiration. It will but the wrong kind of admiration and friends. It takes a lot of energy portraying an image of a superhuman when in fact you are not. Again, it sucks energy that limits and entraps you
The third thing is relationships. Unhealthy ones. Ones where people are overly dependent on us or relationships where we are overly and one-sidedly depended on another. We try and build this network of support around us and sometimes end up suffocated in our attempts to maintain them.
Exodus means “exit” or escape. The story of Israel in the book of Exodus as well as the story of Moses, even from birth is a narrative about escape. Even Peter’s story in the gospel can be seen as one in which Jesus helps him to escape his impulsiveness, disloyalty and zestless making-a-living kind of life to a responsible, loyal and meaningful existence. Both has much to teach us when we ponder what could help us escape these common traps we all tend to fall in so easily.
Let go and let God
I am fascinated by some details we are told in the first chapters of Exodus that we easily skip over. We should remind ourselves that most stories in Hebrew work sparingly with details, so every detail recorded contains important information. Chapter 2 verse 2 states that Moses’s mother saw that he was a fine child and therefore hid him. It makes sense. Almost every mother thinks her child to be a fine child and even the ones that don’t will still hide them if there are government officials who seeks to kill them. It is kind of a primordial instinct every mother has. But then it says that she could hide him no longer. Why? Maybe, he became to loud at four months old. I get that it was more and more difficult to hide a baby but it is a huge leap from not being able to hide a baby that well, to putting that baby in a basket and sending it down the river!
What made her do this? The very subtle answer seems to be faith. God had a plan for Moses. Moses was indeed fine, but it was a fineness that was not to be hidden but shared. This mother and to go against her maternal instincts. The only way she could put a baby in the river, was to put the baby in God’s hands first. She let go because she first “let God”.
What we cherish, we want to protect and keep all to ourselves. But when we keep on doing that, that which we cherish becomes an idol that we essentially worship. It will then destroy us and be kept from others that can enjoy and help it. To de-idolize what we cherish, we sometimes need to loosen our grip and control. It is some of the hardest things you could do! It is often something you can only manage if you trust God and crown Him as the first love of your life once more. And yes, this even appies to our children. Our role is not to shelter and protect our children from the world indefinitely. It is to prepare them for it well. And to do that, we need to expose them to situations where they are vulnerable. This is not to be done impulsively or naively. Moses’s mom took care to seal the basket and thus ensure that in this vulnerable position, this kid will be as safe as possible.
In Africa, Baboons are sometimes caught by simply filling a can with beans and attaching a rope to it. The can is put out. The baboon comes shakes the can and hears that there is something inside. He then reaches into the can and grabs the beans in a fist. A simple letting go of the useless beans will send him off into freedom, but that Baboon usually refuses to let go and are brought in with the rope like one would reel in a fish. Silly isn’t it? We often do much the same!
So, I think this all can speak to us in a variety of ways. We could ask ourselves what we are very afraid to lose. We could ask ourselves what we try to protect and hide at all costs. We could ask ourselves if we shelter our children and grandchildren more than we prepare them for the world. We could even ask ourselves, from what have we been sheltered too long. Down what river do we need to take the plunge and trust God?
In Matthew 16, upon Peter’s confession of who Jesus is, Jesus says that he will build his church and the “gates of hell” will not prevail against it. Why would Jesus, when he speaks about his church, the body of believers we understand are on their way to heaven, immediately bring in the “gates of hell”? Because He does not only shelter his disciples. He prepares them. He wants them to know that facing real hard animosity, difficult circumstances and opposition is part and parcel of this life they are called for. Leonard Sweet concludes from this passage that the church shout never be beyond shouting and seeing distance from the gates of hell.
C.T Studd wrote:
“Some want to live within the sound
Of church or chapel bell;
I want to run a rescue shop,
Within a yard of hell.”
It is one of the reasons I love our church so much…we do have a chapel bell, but it rings a yard from people at the gates of hell through trauma, drug addiction and loneliness. The basket and the river are where God wanted Moses. Not to far from “gates of hell” is where Jesus wants you. Let us stay right here! Jesus is with us.
Vulnerability makes for intimacy
When you are a woman naked and bathing in a river, you are kind of vulnerable. Especially in the Nile where there are crocodiles and enemies everywhere. There is nothing more vulnerable than a three-month-old baby floating down a river…so what happens when a Egyptian woman in a fairly vulnerable position meets up with a Levite baby in a very vulnerable position? She kills him, right? That is what one would expect but the story goes that she takes him under her care and that she essentially become a second mother and a passage to privilege to him. Enemies become friends and carers when they meet each other in vulnerability.
See, we always think being vulnerable and two people being in vulnerable positions from opposing sides will lead to something tragic when the very opposite is true. I used to think that being up front about my beliefs will make for good relationships with people. What I have found is that being upfront about my weaknesses has this way of opening people up to me as well as to the God I believe in. Vulnerability is not only not a deterrent for intimacy, it is a prerequisite. Vulnerability is a condition for intimacy.
As if the baby Moses took notes, you will see that Moses’s ability to be open, honest, and vulnerable with God and his people was a distinguishing trait of his leadership. He told God and his people when he was upset. He was sometimes thankful and sometimes furious and disheartened but always real. That is what vulnerability is about. People connect with real people. People open more easily when people are being real. Be real.
Triads makes for the best partnerships
I want to point your attention to another unsung hero in this story and that is Moses’s sister. Later, you will notice that she played quite the leadership role but even here it is evident that she is a leader. She used her small frame to track her baby brother. When she saw he landed at the Pharaoh’s daughter, she could have run up and introduced herself and try to negotiate a special position or visiting rights for herself. She opted for something way cleverer and better. She identified a need-that the daughter wanted someone who could nurse the child and then she suggested someone who might help and, in that way, to put her mother into direct contact with Moses and his future carer.
Business guru’s today will call what she did here “triading”. A triad relationship structure is usually the strongest kind. We tend to make ourselves the hub and built connections from us to other people like the spokes in a wheel with ourselves as the hub. It works initially but eventually it becomes impossible to maintain those ties and the ties then weaken. But if we introduce one person we know to another person we met that might be able to attend to a need or have something in common with that person, we build a triad relationship structure that does not only depend on our own abilities. We see a similar thing going with the midwives in chapter 1. They supported each other but also collaborated with the Jewish women in protecting the lives of the males. Come to think of it as Father, Son and Holy Spirit God Himself is afraid relationship structure. No wonder it works so well!
In stead of asking what a certain person can do for me, we should ask what can two people I know, mean to each other and how can I introduce them to one another. Whenever we succeed in bringing people together through the mutual bond or knowledge we have with and of both, the consequences are far reaching and usually very good for everybody. Moses’s mother must have been the first and probably the last woman in the world that were paid to nurse her own child!
What a wonderful opportunity to reconnect people will there be post Covid! People have lost and miss some of their connections. People anew realize the importance of meaningful connections with people in your community. Let us grab that opportunity.
Close
I want to send you off today with some real practical steps you can embody this message with. Questions are powerful. To ask ourselves questions sometimes leads to new ways of thinking, new ideas and new actions. So maybe taking three life questions from today’s message could be very helpful:
- What do I need to let go off? As in what do I need to put back in God’s hands and trust him for? This can free us from the stress of always wanting to control
- With whom can I be closer by risking be more vulnerable? Make a date and go for it!This can free you from this nagging loneliness and also the tiredness of maintaining an image of what you are not.
- What two people I know can I connect with each other in a way that would benefit them both. Because doing that might change the whole trajectory of a person’s life for the better. This makes you a cog in God’s network rather than an overburdened hub.
See Jesus came and said: “Follow me!”, in other words “Trust me!” Put your life in my hands. Don’t try to hang on to it because you will lose it. Giving it to me, is the way to secure and find it. He Himself surrendered to the will and plan of the Father.
Jesus put Himself in the ultimate vulnerable position on the cross and through that action made the most intimate relationship and connection with Him possible.
And Jesus introduced you not only to the Father in heaven but to fellow brothers and sisters from all over the world.
If we need to escape, Jesus can help us. He has the key to freedom.
Amen