Faith And Liberation Lessons: Consider Shiphrah and Puah

Pharaoh and the Midwives, James Tissot c. 1900 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiphrah_and_Puah#/media/File:Tissot_Pharaoh_and_the_Midwives.jpg

By Wendell Griffen 

Exodus 1:8-21 

⁸Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. ⁹He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. ¹⁰Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”  

¹¹Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. ¹²But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.  

¹³The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, ¹⁴and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them. 

¹⁵The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶“When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.”  

¹⁷But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. ¹⁸So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” ¹⁹The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”  

²⁰So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. ²¹And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.

One of the often-quoted passages from the writings of St. Paul is his perspective on the usefulness of Scripture – sacred writings. According to that apostle, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” [2 Timothy 3:16, (NRSV).

With that in mind, today I invite us to ponder the liberation narrative set out in the first chapter of Exodus, the second book in the Hebrew Testament. Some people – including more than a few preachers – view that passage as the back story to the life of Moses. However, the passage we ponder today is not about Moses. It is about the role of faithful midwives, led by two women named Shiprah and Puah, in civil disobedience to ruthless oppression of an immigrant population by an ancient empire. That is why today’s sermon is titled Faith and Liberation Lessons.

According to Exodus, an imperial ruler became afraid that a population of immigrants would eventually outnumber his society or side with enemies of his society and take over. The ruler tried to work the immigrant population into submission, apparently believing that the workers would be too exhausted to procreate. But the empire could not work the immigrants long enough and hard enough to prevent them from having children. According to the narrative, the harder and longer the immigrants were subjected to oppressive labor practices, the more they reproduced.

So, the fearful ruler decided to control the immigrant population by ordering immigrant midwives to murder newborn male babies. On top of oppressive labor practices, the ruler resorted to state-sanctioned murder of newborn baby boys. The ruler wanted immigrant midwives to murder the baby boys born as immigrant mothers were exhausted from labor and delivery and when immigrant fathers would be unable to protect the mothers and the babies. The ruler wanted to turn midwives into assassins.

But the immigrant midwives refused to cooperate. Led by Shiprah and Puah, they became what might be termed the first Underground Railroad ministry in Scripture. Led by Shiprah and Puah, immigrant midwives carried out a liberation movement against an empire and its ruthless leader. Without military protection, voting rights, or financial backers, immigrant midwives challenged an empire for one reason: because they revered God.

Because they revered God, Shiprah and Puah led immigrant midwives to disobey governmental orders and become revolutionaries.

Because they revered God, Shiprah and Puah led immigrant midwives to become subversive agents of a radical revolution.

Because they revered God, Shiprah and Puah led immigrant midwives to protect helpless families from an imperial scheme of terrorism and immigrant depopulation.

Because they revered God, Shiprah and Puah led immigrant midwives to lead immigrant families to protect newborn baby boys.

Shiprah, Puah, and the other immigrant midwives were women who led a peaceful revolution against imperial oppression and tyranny. They were women who lied to male authority figures. They were women who defied male mandates. They were women who refused to have male notions of dominance dictate their morality and pervert their ethics.

My dear brother and our friend Dr. Allan Boesak of South Africa is right. Women, and specifically midwives led by Shiprah and Puah, led the first civil rights movement in the Bible. Women, not men, and certainly not male preachers, priests, or prophets, were inspired to help other women protect helpless baby boys from murderous male schemes for domination and extermination.

Let me make it plain. This passage teaches that God does inspire, equip, and send women to lead movements. Despite what some preachers think, despite what some religious bodies believe, and despite what many people – men and women – say and believe, God inspires, equips, and sends women to lead liberation movements.

• The women in this passage were the best politicians
• The women in this passage were the prophets.
• The women in this passage were the organizers.
• The women in this passage were the liberators.

And the women did those things because they revered God. They loved God more than imperial favor. They loved vulnerable people more than whatever imperial perks they might have been offered or enjoyed. They loved vulnerable people more than even their own lives. They protected pregnant women in the throes of childbirth and their newborn baby boys even when they could have been punished for doing so.

Today is the first Sunday following the 2024 U.S. presidential election. By a clear majority of the popular vote and the Electoral College, voters in the United States decided to re-hire Donald Trump as president and hired J.D. Vance as vice president for the next four years. As pastor of this congregation and as a citizen of the United States, I accept their election.

Yet, as pastor of this congregation, I have a moral duty before God and to this congregation to address the moral and ethical realities and foreseeable implications of the 2024 presidential election. I did so three days ago in a post on my personal blog titled Truth, Consequences and A Response to the 2024 Election which has been republished by the Arkansas Times, Good Faith Media, and Today’s Communique (the online information platform published by Kenya Eddings of Little Rock).

This sermon is inspired by that election outcome. In the name of God, I contend that we need Shiprah and Puah reverent faithfulness and prophetic courage in the wake of the 2024 election.

Shiprah and Puah could not overthrow the Egyptian ruler who ordered immigrant midwives to terrorize immigrant families and murder immigrant baby boys. But they could, and did, prevent the ruler from killing those babies. They could, and did, refuse to follow evil orders. They could do it, and did it, because they revered God enough, loved God’s people enough, and were committed to righteousness/justice that much.

Do we revere God that much? Do we love God’s people that much? Are we committed to righteousness/justice that much?

Or will we be 21^st century versions of the empire that was led by a ruler who was such a vicious sociopath that he wanted to separate newborn baby boys from their families and people by killing them? Will we be 21^st Century versions of an empire that was led by a ruler who drafted midwives to assassinate newborn babies because they were born to immigrant parents?

As a follower of Jesus and your pastor, I owe it to God to challenge us to ponder the 2024 election results from this perspective. As pastor of this congregation, I owe it to God to encourage each of us – and especially women and girls – to follow the prophetic example and leadership shown by Shiprah, Puah, and the other immigrant midwives we read about in Exodus 1. God does inspire, equip, and dispatch women as religious, social, political, and cultural leaders.

I owe it to God to challenge each of us – and especially men and boys – to reject the myth of male superiority and domination over women exposed in Exodus 1. This passage shows that men and boys are not ordained by God to exercise control over the reproductive choices of women and girls. That idea is not divinely inspired. It is diabolical.

God challenges us to analyze the U.S. society and the coming Trump-Vance administration in the light of this passage and the rest of Scripture. Across its history, the United States has been determined to be an empire. It began as a slave-holding, woman-dominating, and land stealing, nation that deliberately committed genocide against Indigenous people. From its beginning until now, this society has oppressed workers and mistreated immigrants of color.

And across its history, religious people in the United States have refused to follow the examples of Shiprah, Puah, and the other immigrant midwives. Instead, religious people have praised, courted, and counseled rulers who engaged in the same kind of murderous and misogynous treatment illustrated in Exodus 1, and are poised to continue doing so, boldly, for the Trump-Vance administration.

I owe it to God to say, as your pastor, that we should not follow 21^st Century versions of the kind of religious people who praised, courted, and counseled the imperial ruler in Exodus 1. And we owe it to God, to protect our vulnerable neighbors who will be oppressed by vicious, unjust, and hateful political policies and practices of the Trump-Vance administration.

Let me make it plain. The newborn baby boys in Exodus 1 were “undocumented immigrants.” Shiprah, Puah, and the other midwives were drafted by the political leader of Egypt to be agents of a mass deportation program. They refused to go along with it. They schemed to undermine it and frustrate it.

Shiprah, Puah, and the other midwives lied, plotted, and concealed what they were doing from the vicious, unjust, and hateful political ruler who was determined to terrorize immigrant families by controlling the reproductive choices of immigrant women and families. Do we revere God and love our neighbors that much? Are we in step with the Spirit of God to realize that this is our moral and ethical duty?

Beyond that, are the preachers of our time smart enough and brave enough to warn the rulers of our time that it is foolish, and ultimately futile, to outlaw God’s love and justice? The ruler in Exodus 1 controlled the entire government. He controlled the military, financial system, and political system. Shiprah, Puah, the other midwives, and the immigrant population they served knew they were no match for the Egyptian ruler and his cronies. But they believed that the Egyptian ruler and his cronies were no match for God!

You and I have the moral and ethical duty inspired by this Scripture, and by the life and teachings of Jesus, to confront the rulers of our time and place. Do we have the courage to say to the rulers of our time and place that they are no match for the God of love and justice?

We are in a crucial moment for countless vulnerable people in this society and across the world. Let us join Shiprah, Puah, the other midwives, women, men, and children of faith across the ages as followers of Jesus who scheme, plot, and act to frustrate imperial oppression, terror, and other wickedness.

This is our duty before God. This is our time to do this work because we revere God. This is our “willing sacrifice” in obedience to the Spirit of God. This is how we will be agents of liberation to the glory of God. Amen.

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