Sermon 8/23/2026
Exodus 1:8-20
Good Trouble
8 Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10 Come, 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.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13 The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude 14 and made their lives bitter with hard servitude in mortar and bricks and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.
15 The 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 son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?” 19 The 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.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong.
The book of Exodus quickly brings us to troubling words, just a few verses in to the very first chapter. “Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.” Someone doesn’t remember the nation’s history, and it immediately sets the stage for oppression and mistreatment. That’s an unfortunately familiar story, and it is one that is as ancient as the Bible. The “Joseph” this text speaks about is the “Joseph” of coat-of-many-colors fame, whose story we find in the last several chapters of the book of Genesis. He was a favorite child of his father, Jacob, and his jealous brothers had him sold into enslavement and faked his death. But Joseph was smart and clever, and he had a gift for interpreting dreams - well, the dreams of others. He wasn’t so good at understanding his own dreams. His gift led him to become a major asset to the Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, as Joseph helped Egypt, and his brothers and the emerging Hebrew people along with them, avoid starvation during a years-long famine. Joseph was a hero to the Egyptians and to the Hebrews.
And so when we hear that a new leader in Egypt doesn’t remember any of this history, we know that there will be consequences, and we see that very quickly in our reading for today. The new king observes that over the years, the Hebrews who moved to Egypt were growing in number. And he thinks ahead, calculating, and fearing the day when there will be more Hebrews than Egyptians. When this happens, worries the Pharaoh, surely the Hebrews will join with the Egyptians’ enemies to overthrow them and take the land for themselves. If this sounds to you like the Great Replacement Theory, an ideology of the ultra-far right that suggests that immigrants and minorities are intentionally trying to replace and eliminate white people in Europe and the US, you’re right. It is basically the same fear the Pharaoh expresses, millennia earlier, fueled by the same fear of the “other.”
So, even though we hear of no such colluding on the part of the Hebrews to work to overthrow the Egyptians, the king decides to enslave all of the Hebrews into forced labor, making the lives of the Hebrews bitter and hard. Yet, this does nothing to reduce the burgeoning population of Hebrews. So the Pharaoh goes a step further. He orders Shiphrah and Puah - two Egyptian women who act as midwives to Hebrew mothers - he orders them to kill any baby boys who are born.
Shiphrah and Puah, though, do not comply, do not follow orders. Exodus tells us that they “feared God,” a description for non-Jewish people who respect or connect with the God os Judaism - they are words that are an expression of a person’s faith. And they let the boys live. When Pharaoh confronts them, they lie. They tell him that the Hebrew women simply give birth too quickly, already giving birth before the midwives arrive. Their actions save lives. Indeed, after this passage we see that a baby boy, allowed to live, and eventually adopted by Pharaoh’s own daughter, is Moses - the very child who will become the leader who leads his people to freedom.
The Pharaoh says that he’s trying to be shrewd - showing cleverness, practical smarts. But he’s really just cruel. It’s Shiphrah and Puah who are shrewd. They know what the Pharaoh is doing is cruel and wrong. And maybe they don’t feel they have the power to speak up and risk a direct confrontation with him. But instead, they assess the power that they do have, and they use their situation to the best of their ability. They don’t see themselves as helpless. They’re aware of how they can wield their positions, and they do it. They take a risk. And maybe because they’re women, or they’re working with enslaved people, or other reasons - no one double checks what they’re doing. They’re discounted. And they change everything because of their daring.
It can be scary, trying to resist oppression and injustice. Unfortunately, those who seek to oppress and belittle often have incredible resources of money and position on their side. It can feel like pushing back, resisting, is nearly impossible. And yet, our history, too quickly forgotten, gives us stories like Shiphrah and Puah’s, and more recent stories too. When I was reading over the text this week, what came to mind was the phrase “good trouble.” You might know a little of this history: Civil rights leader and longtime congressman from Georgia, the late John Lewis was the chair of the student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, during the 1960s. Lewis is remembered for a life of activism, often putting himself directly in the way of danger. In 1965, for example, Lewis and others marched from Selma, Alabama and attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, protesting against the police brutality against civil rights protesters. As Lewis and others tried to cross the bridge, state troopers attacked the marchers, leaving several, like Lewis, bloodied and beaten, an event eventually known as Bloody Sunday.
Reflecting on his life’s work across various occasions, Lewis focused on the phrase, “Good Trouble.” At a commencement speech in 2014 at Emory University, he told graduates, ““You must find a way to get in the way. You must find a way to get in trouble. Good trouble. Necessary trouble. Use your education . . . use what you have, use your learning, use your tools, to help make our country and make our world a better place where no one will be left out or left behind. You can do it and you must do it. It is your time.” Just months before his death, at a commemoration of the Bloody Sunday events, he said, “I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s and find a way to get in the way. To find a way to get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble and redeem the soul of America.”
These words really resonate with me: “Use your education . . . use what you have, use your learning, use your tools, to help make our country and make our world a better place where no one will be left out or left behind. You can do it and you must do it. It is your time.” Maybe we’re not like Moses, who took on the Pharaoh directly and led a whole people to freedom - although Moses also didn’t think he was Moses - didn’t think he could do what he did! - but we can all make good trouble in the face of injustice, even if we operate like Shiphrah and Puah. They knew what they did have the power to do, they used what they had, rather than dwelling on what was out of their control. They took action. And they saved lives.
What can we do? Very recently, an issue came to my attention where I could see the opportunity for justice and reconciliation to take place, for reparations for past harm to come to fruition. I don’t mean to be vague, it’s only that the situation is still unfolding. What’s more important than the specifics today is how I responded, and how I wanted to respond. In this situation, where I saw what might be done to bring about justice, my impulse, my first action, was to tell my idea to some other people because I hoped they would do something about it. I wanted to hand it off, the concern I had, and let some others do the hard work. And they did give me advice, but they put the ball firmly back in my court. I’m trying hard not to make excuses for myself to not follow through, to convince myself I can’t make a difference before I’ve even begun to really try. I’m trying to remember the gifts and abilities and experience I have at my disposal to act for justice. I hope I can be brave and persistent, and make some good trouble.
What good trouble can you stir up? Friends, in a world that seems doomed to ever forget its own history, oppression and injustice bubble up in new and insidious ways. Part of Christian witness is calling each other into remembrance - when we read the scriptures, when we sing the songs of faith, when we remember God’s acts of grace as we share in sacraments together. Remembering our history is part of our witness. And then, inspired by the stories of the good troublemakers, the saints of God who have gone before us, using whatever gifts God had given them, we go forth to join the struggle. Will we take all that we have, all that God has given us, and use it for some good trouble? Let us say yes, with God’s help, we will.
Amen.
