Who We Are and Whose We Are

Exodus 1:8-2:10, Matthew 16:13-20

Today’s Old Testament story happens at the very beginning of the book of Exodus. This is the story of how the people of Israel were freed from, and freed to.  Freed from serving the King of Egypt as his slaves, and freed to worship God, to serve God as slaves of the Kingdom of Heaven. In the book of Exodus, the Lord told Pharaoh, through Moses, his servant, Let my people go, so that they may worship me. Serve me. Be slaves to me. We are not free – we are bound to God.

So Exodus begins by introducing us to this new King of Egypt, who did not know Joseph. Joseph’s death is recorded at the very end of Genesis, so here we are starting into a new era. Not knowing Joseph is code for not treating Israelites kindly, but placing them instead back into slavery and oppression. Controlling them through the use of force.

The King of Egypt used two primary tactics to control the Israelites – hard labor and population control. And so he ordered the midwives to kill all the Hebrew baby boys, and only let the girls live. Apparently he believed the females could not harm him as much as the males could. The midwives, however, Shiphrah and Puah, did not measure up to that assumption. They foil his plan, and they let the Hebrew boys as well as the girls live. Why do they do this? The reason given in our text, is not because they like babies, or because they decide it's more convenient; in fact they are risking their own lives to do what they do. The reason they do this is because they feared God. They feared God over this brutal King, over the laws of the Land. They knew who they were, and whose they were. They served the Lord of Heaven and Earth, and not just when it was easy or convenient. In all things, in all ways, even when it meant defying the laws of the land, even when it could cost them their own lives to do so.

So Shiphrah and Puah violate the law, and they make up a story to cover for their actions. "Hebrew women deliver so fast! We just can't get there in time to kill the boy babies at birth."

And because the midwives fear God, God is pleased with them, and  God gives them families of their own.

Pharaoh is not so pleased. He goes next to the Egyptian people, and orders them to throw every Hebrew boy into the Nile River to drown. And we must presume that this tactic is working, because not long after, a man and a woman from the house of Levi, definitely Hebrews, give birth to a son. And the mother clearly recognizes the risk to his life that her baby boy already faces. But she is not going to give in that easily. So she hides him for three months. Then she sends him down the Nile River, but not to his death. Rather, she makes a basket that is waterproof and strong, and she sends him away, in the hope that she is saving him by letting him go.

Down the river he goes, floating in a basket, while his sister hides and watches to see what happens. And who finds him? Pharaoh's own daughter. Now what was it that her father had commanded everyone to do again? Drown all the Hebrew boys you find. What does she do? She gets a Hebrew woman to nurse him so he will grow and be strong. Not so coincidentally, that woman happens to be the child's own  mother. 

And so the child grows, and his mother brings him back to Pharaoh's daughter who claims him as her son, and names him Moses, the Egyptian word that means "son". So nobody would think he was not her son.

And it is this Moses, of the house of Pharaoh, who becomes the one whom God calls to liberate the Israelites from oppression, and to free them for serving God. Moses "looses" them from the King of Egypt and "binds" them to the King of Heaven. And this mighty act defines Who They Are and Whose They Are.

Fast forward to Jesus and the disciples.

 In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus asks them one day, "tell me, who do the people say that I am?" And they say, well, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and some say you must be Jeremiah or some other prophet.

But then he looks at them directly, and asks, "but who do you say that I am?"

And Peter speaks up, as he is prone to do, and he says, "you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." With these words, he proclaims witness not only to who Jesus is, but Peter also proclaims through these words Whose He Is. He is a follower of this Messiah, this Lord standing in front of him.

And Jesus then identifies him right back:

"You, Simon, Son of Jonah, you proclaim the Word of God, words from the King of Heaven, not your own words. you are Petros, Peter, which means "rock". And this is the rock on which I will build my church.

Does Jesus mean he will build his church on Peter as the rock? Some think so, and that is the basis for the Catholic Church to name a pope as a successor to Saint Peter, who has been given the keys to the kingdom, and the authority to bind and to loose, to permit and to restrict.

But others interpret this rock as being Peter's testimony, his witness, his bold proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah. They read it as this testimony is the rock on which Jesus builds the church. And when binding and loosing is based on that bedrock claim that Jesus is Lord over all, then that binding and loosing that happens on earth lines up with what Heaven would have us do.

The midwives got that. They feared God. They knew who was their True King, and it was not Pharaoh. Fully recognizing Pharaoh's power over their lives, they went ahead and defied him in order to follow the King of Heaven. Bound to God, they restricted Pharaoh's laws from controlling their actions.

But what does Jesus mean when he says, "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven"?

Binding and loosing were judicial terms at that time, meaning forbid and permit.

But how is Peter to know? How are we to know what to forbid and what to permit?

The midwives knew. They knew the right thing to do was to save those children, even when the law of the land forbade them from doing so. 

Moses mother knew. She knew the right thing to do was to keep her son alive and safe, even though it meant violating Pharaoh's law.

How will we know? The answer to that is based on the answer to this question - Who are we and whose are we? Who do we serve? Who are we bound to, and who are we loosed from? Whose yoke is around our neck? For we are not free. We are servants, slaves to Christ, to the Living Word, to The Lord of Heaven and Earth. The sin we seek to be loosed from is not so much the sin of immorality, but rather it is the sin of not properly using the keys to the kingdom, the sin of turning away when we see others in need,the sin of turning away when children are sent across the border by their mothers to save their lives, the sin of turning away when the laws of this land result in the killing of innocents. We are bound to the King of Heaven, and we are called to love this King and to love one another, not only one another in this congregation, but one another everywhere, as much as we love ourselves. To keep our minds not on human things, but divine things.

And of course we are going to screw this up big time, at least as often as we pull it off. We know this. Even Peter turned right around after this awesome naming by Jesus and he screws it up. In the very next passage in Matthew, as Jesus begins preparing the disciples for his own suffering and death, Peter just cannot accept what he is hearing. Peter pulls Jesus aside and says, "no way can this happen to you!" Now who is Peter bound to when he says this? Jesus replies very sternly to Peter - get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me. you set your mind on human things, not divine. We are no better able to do this right then Peter was. Only with God's help can we bind on earth what is bound in heaven and loose on earth what is loosed in heaven. 

So the midwives know whose they are. They fear God over the King.. Peter knows whose he is. He serves the Messiah, the son of the living God.

The midwives know how to serve God. Their actions to save the children please God, not the king of Egypt. They focus on divine things, not human.

Peter does not quite know how to serve Jesus, at least some of the time. Some of his actions reflect a focus on human things, not divine.

We face the same kinds of dilemmas today. Laws are made in an attempt to keep the peace. But when they are contrary to God's Commandments to us, we are to remember who we are and whose we are; whom we serve above all powers and authorities. We are children of God, we are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has saved us from death. Whom then should we fear? Whom then should we serve? 

May it be our testimony that "Jesus Christ is Lord", that is our abiding rock, that gives us courage to stand up for what is right,  that serves as the foundation we hold onto throughout our lives, as we bind ourselves to Christ who makes all things new.