A Chain of Caring Hands      a Sermon based on Exodus 2. 1-10 and 2 Timothy 1.3-7, preached on Mother’s Day, May 14, 2023 at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Scranton, PA

            Standing shoulder to shoulder, volunteers pass sandbags hand to hand, linking the point where a pile of sand is shoveled into the bags, to the make-shift dike protecting property from a river on the rise.

            Lined up from the designated storage area to tables arrayed in a church hall, bags and boxes and precious treasures are passed person to person in preparation for the annual flea market or rummage sale.

            On the 4H fairgrounds at a horse show, a baby boy born in January is sung to by this one, rocked to sleep by that one, fed and changed by the other one, so his mother’s hands and heart are free to prepare their children to enter the show ring.

            Each story involves a chain of caring hands, each set attached to a heart that cares and a head filled with the knowledge that we do much better together than we do alone. Many hands do make the work light. And each one’s touch adds something to the process: the suggestion that improves efficiency, the humor that diffuses tension, the fresh infusion of patience when every-one else has had enough.

            On a sticky May night a couple of decades ago, two dozen of us crowded into the vacant Methodist parsonage in Pittston.  It was almost a week after the Postal Workers Food Drive, and the donations delivered for Meals on Wheels which operated out of the church kitchen next door filled the first floor.  We were knee-deep in plastic bags of food.  There was little room to move about. People were getting frustrated and frazzled by the chaos.  Then one spoke up to suggest a way to impose some order. A system was outlined. Before long we were transformed into specialists with manageable tasks: un-packers and passers, stackers and packers, box-builders, barrel haulers, and bag folders.

It didn’t take long for the place to be filled with the sound of rustling bags and stacking cans amid the constant chatter and laughter of people having a good time doing a good thing together.  And through it all, there was to my recollection, no mention of God.

            Yet all the while the work of God was being done. Most notably the work enabled the staff and volunteers of Meals on Wheels to provide the kind of caring Jesus spoke about in Matthew 25 when he talked of people caring for him when he was hungry or lonely.  Beyond that, in the side conversations taking place, there were hearts unburdened, there was helpful information shared, there were expres-sions of support and solidarity exchanged. And since there were children and adolescents among us, an example was set which demonstrated that faith involves more than giving thanks for being forgiven and saying what we believe. We are, as a friend reminds us, “saved for service.” And the enjoyment experienced as the jokes and jibes fly across the room make it clear that serving is not a joyless grind.

            If you read the Book of Exodus, you are seventeen verses into the first chapter before God is mentioned. You’ll have to wait until the last word of the twenty-third verse of the second chapter before God is mentioned again.  But that doesn’t mean God is absent from the stories contained in between. It turns out that God was at work the way God often works: in quiet ways through people going about the business of living their lives.  Even in the middle of difficult times and horrendous circumstances, God is discovered in the lives of faithful people doing what they can where they are to live up to the purpose for which they were created.

            Though Exodus begins without a mention of God, we are only seven verses in when it becomes clear that the promises made to Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel and Leah, have come true. Years have passed, Joseph and his eleven brothers have all long since passed from the scene, but the fulfilled promise is declared in one verse: “But the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.” (1:7) Unlike the politicians of every age, God does not require plaques on every building or bridge to trumpet accomplishment. God relies instead on the stories of faithful people.

            Speaking of politicians, a new administration had taken over in Egypt where the Hebrews continued to live in the land of Goshen. The new Pharaoh did not appreciate that the prosperity he inherited had its roots in the wise management of resources instituted by a former Hebrew slave named Joseph. His dream-inspired plan to prepare for and survive a multi-year famine imposed order on what could have been a chaotic experience for Egypt.

            Unfortunately, the new Pharaoh and his advisors viewed these numerous foreigners among them as a threat. To eliminate the menace, it was decided to enslave the Hebrews and work them to the point of exhaustion. With harsh taskmasters in charge, the children of Abraham were put to work as the new Pharaoh built a new capital with lots of impressive structures on which to place plaques to proclaim, “See how great I am.”

            Hard labor did not curb the growth of the Hebrews as a people. So, the king summoned the Hebrew women who served as midwives and instructed them to kill any boy born to their neighbors.  Those women, whose names were Shiprah and Puah answered to a higher power.  Their reverence for God and respect for life empowered them to engage in the first act of civil disobedience recorded in the Bible. They quietly ignored the Pharaoh’s edict. No sit-ins, no marches, no bull-horn shouted slogans in front of the palace. All they did was risk their lives by doing what they knew was right. In so doing, they became the first in the chain of caring hands that made it possible for God to act to remove from the Hebrews the yoke of Egyptian slavery.

            When the king discovered that the number of male Hebrews continued to increase, he instituted more drastic measures. A decree was issued. All Egyptians were to comply. Pharaoh commanded: “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.” (1.22) But a chain of caring hands, some of them from his own household, once again thwarted the Pharaoh’s plan. Which brings where our reading began this morning.

            A Hebrew woman, a descendant of Jacob’s son, Levi, married and gave birth to a son. In words that echo the creation story in Genesis, we’re told she looked on the child God had created and saw that he was good. “A fine baby” is how our translation put it.  And like the Hebrew midwives before her, she ignored the Pharaoh’s command.  In another quiet act of civil disobedience, she hid the baby.

            Only this little Levite wouldn’t remain quiet. After three months the child was no longer easy to hide, but its mother had a plan. Creatively she set about doing exactly as the Pharaoh ordered. She constructed a basket, gave it a waterproof coating, placed the child in it, and cast her baby upon the waters. The boy born to the Hebrews was thrown into the Nile, though not with the results Pharaoh intended.  Don’t you love it? The child’s mother undermines Pharaoh’s order by obeying it with a minor modification.

            Now one of the peculiarities of translating Hebrew into English is that we miss the fact that the word for the basket is the same word used for Noah’s Ark. Once again the future of God’s promises floats protected on the waters. The instrument of Pharaoh’s version of the final solution becomes the incubator for God’s plan for liberation!  And, can you imagine the hope of the world resting on a baby placed in an unconventional cradle?  Hmmm!

            The child’s mother, whose name we learn later in the book is Jochebed, enlists another set of caring hands to help watch over the child moored in the marsh.  Her daughter, Miriam, stands guard from a safe distance. The family influences exerted upon us are not limited to our parents and grand-parents. Siblings play a part too.  When I lived across the street from an elementary school, I once spotted an older sister walking a little brother to the door. Being a little brother with a an older sister myself, I knew what was behind his contented smile as they walked hand in hand into the building.

            With Miriam peering through the bulrushes, Pharaoh’s daughter came down with her entourage for a bath and a stroll along the riverbank.  She sends one of her attendants to retrieve the basket she sees among the reeds. Discovering the little ark’s cargo crying,” she took pity on him. Pharoah’s daughter decides to ignore her father’s instructions. Miriam steps forward and offers to find a wet-nurse to care for the child. Next thing you know the child’s own mother is on Pharaoh’s payroll getting paid to feed her own child.

            The chain of caring hands linked to watch over this particular baby boy now extends from the midwives to his mother to his sister to the daughter of Pharaoh and her attendants.  Without an organizational meeting or a handbook to follow, each one becomes a part of the conspiracy to subvert the unjust policy of the Pharaoh. 

            What a wondrous thing it is to behold. The king of Egypt ends up footing the bill to feed and educate the child who will become the man who will one day deprive him of his slave labor. That’s the final irony. Without being mentioned by name, God sets things up so the king contributes to his own undoing. From his biological mother and sister, the child learns the history and traditions of the children of Abraham, who came to Egypt few in number but grew and prospered according to God’s promise. From his royal, Egyptian, adoptive mother and her aides, he learns the protocol and procedures of life in the courts of the king.

            To lead the Hebrew people after Pharaoh lets them go, all Moses lacks are the skills for survival in the desert. God fills in those blanks after Moses murders an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew slave.  Moses goes on the lamb and lands on his feet by marrying the daughter of a desert shepherd. More caring hands in the chain teach him all he would need to know to fulfill the purpose for which he had been born.

            Faith and practice don’t just fall into our laps. We learn them from others.  It begins in the home and is supplemented by influences beyond.  Our scriptures both Old and New today celebrate the chain of caring hands involved in the process.  This being the day that it is, the passages have been chosen because the highlight the contributions of a variety of women. Though the culture focuses on Mother’s Day, some churches call it “The Festival of the Christian Home, in recognition that there are lots of people who contribute to who we become.

            Timothy’s mother and grandmother, and Moses’ mother and sister represent the biological connections. Pharaoh’s daughter stands in for the adoptive mom’s and step-mothers.  The midwives and the attendants of the Egyptian princess call to mind the teachers and coaches, Den mothers and the camp counselors who’ve had an impact on us.

            When a child is baptized in our tradition, we as a congregation promise to do all in our power to provide the environment and the teaching that will help each child grow up to declare him or herself a disciple of Jesus Christ. It doesn’t end with merely providing classrooms and curriculum and recruiting teachers.  And it doesn’t end with only those who have been baptized into our fellowship. In our homes, in our neighborhoods, and from the soccer field sidelines, we all have opportunities to model what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Every once in a while, we might even get the chance to explain why we do what we do.

            You may not be able to influence what your children or the neighbors kids learn in school, but you have some choice about what books you read them at night and what historical sites you visit on vacation.  You may not be able to control what goes on when they’re at the neighbor’s house, but you have a say in what games are installed on the screens, large and small, they play upon. You might not be able to choose what movies they see in someone else’s com-pany, but you have a choice about what you stream for your family movie night.

            Common courtesy, respect, time management, kind-ness and compassion are attributes and skills that need to be passed from generation to generation.  The rhythms of work and play, service and Sabbath, study, reflection and prayer are all learned behaviors. If no one models them for us, we are the poorer for it.

            Years ago, I received a message on the answering machine from a concerned parent. One of the Sunday School teachers had given her students some books with prayers for use in differ-ing circumstances at various times of the day.  The child handed the books to the parent.  The parent placed the books on top of a coat rack before Worship. A day of two later, the child went searching for the books and couldn’t find them.  She called the parent a work, asking, “Where are my books from Sunday School?”

            Thus the message on the machine: “Are my books still there…and if not, can you tell me the titles so I can get another set?”  Turns out the books were right where they had been left. In short order they made it into the mother’s hands and into the hands of the child. Another chain of caring hands. And a grateful parent expressed gratitude for others involved in teaching her child to pray.

            Take a moment or more today. Reflect on the human links in the chains of caring that have made a difference in your life.  Thank God for each one of them. Then take a few moments more and consider how active your hands are in the caring chains within your reach.  Then, resolve, with God’s help, to keep your hands busy!