In the Ooze, Exodus 1:8-2:10, 8/27/23
In the Ooze
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins
August 27, 2023
Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 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.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude 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.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “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.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?” 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.” So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
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What was your favorite TV show growing up? (Be careful! This might date you!)
For me it was, hands down, Gilligan’s Island. It was already a syndicated show by the time I was in elementary school; I couldn’t wait to get home from school every day to watch my favorite show, “With Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the professor and Mary Ann here on Gilligan’s Isle.”
And yes, I realize I’ve just dated myself.
One of the problems Gilligan was always encountering was falling into quicksand. I heard a comedian say, “I always thought that quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be.” He said that in cartoons and kids’ shows, “Quicksand is like the third biggest thing you have to worry about in adult life behind real sticks of dynamite and giant anvils falling on you from the sky. I used to sit around and think about what to do about quicksand. I never thought about how to handle real problems in adult life, I was never like ‘Oh, what's it gonna be like when relatives ask to borrow money?’”[1]
How many of you have ever gotten stuck in quicksand? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Maybe you’ve never gotten stuck in quicksand, but I’ve bet you’ve found yourself “in the ooze” a time or two throughout life.
In this gripping story from the book of Exodus, we find the baby Moses, only three-months-old, tucked in a basket covered with pitch, and placed at the edge of the River Nile. Our translation says that he was placed “among the reeds on the bank of the river.” Other translations say he was:
· “In the weeds,”
· “In the flags,”
· “In the tall grass,”
· “In the sedges,”
· “Among the papyrus plants,”
One translation was inspired by Lady Gaga:
· “In the sha-ha, sha-ha-llow, in the sha-ha-sha-la-la-la-llow.”
But my favorite translation tells us that baby Moses was placed,
· “In the ooze.”
I don’t know about you, but “in the ooze” does not sound like a pleasant place to be.
Ooze is:
· That stuff that comes out when you pop a pimple. Yuck!
· The slime surrounding uncooked chicken. Yuck!
· The stuff at the bottom of your refrigerator when you forget to throw out your four-month-old broccoli. Yuck!
Ooze is gross. Ooze is disgusting. Ooze in not anything you want to be hanging out in.
And yet . . .
That’s where we find the baby Moses in this story. He’s . . . in the ooze.
How did he get there?
Let’s start by saying he did nothing to get there. He didn’t make a mistake. He didn’t commit a crime. He wasn’t lazy. He didn’t fail to pull himself up by his bootstraps. I’m not sure if boots even existed when Moses was a baby!
Moses didn’t do anything to earn the “ooze” he found himself in. At three-months-old, the most trouble he could get into was maybe to roll from his belly to his back. There’s a reason there aren’t a lot of three-month-olds on the list of “America’s Most Wanted.”
So since it wasn’t Moses’s fault, who can we blame? Let’s blame the mother! (It’s always the mother’s fault, right?) I mean, she’s the one who placed the baby Moses in the river. It must be her fault!
Not so fast.
The scriptures tell us that after she gave birth to this healthy, beautiful baby boy, she kept the baby illegally for three months. Think about it. She put herself in peril to protect the baby, much like the midwives, Shiprah and Puah, earlier in the story. You see, Pharoah had commanded that all Hebrew baby boys be killed—because this infanticide was Pharoah’s edict, this was the law of the land. And being a slave woman herself (Hebrews had become slaves in Egypt), Moses’ mother had little recourse. She couldn’t take the matter before Judge Judy. She had no way to seek justice. Pharoah commanded her to kill her baby boy.
Sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves: just because it’s the law doesn’t mean it’s just.
Three months she kept the baby, and when she couldn’t keep him hidden any longer, she didn’t throw him into the Nile as was the command. Rather, she took a basket, covered it in pitch, and placed her baby boy “in the ooze.”
Was it Moses’ mother’s fault that he is “in the ooze” in this story?
I would argue, “no.” She was a victim just as much as Moses was a victim in this story.
They were both victims of a tyrannical ruler and his unjust system.
Sometimes we find ourselves “in the ooze” not because of mistakes we’ve made or because of consequences to bad decisions. Sometimes we find ourselves “in the ooze” because of unjust systems that still exist today.
Now, thankfully, we don’t have a tyrannical Pharoah demanding newborn babies be thrown in the Gulf of Mexico. But there are lots of injustices, systemic and otherwise, that can leave us “in the ooze.”
It’s no fun to be “in the ooze.”
When Baby Moses was “in the ooze,” he had zero control over his fate. The same can be true for us as well.
Now, when life is going well and everything is “hunky dory,” it’s easy to imagine that we’re the captain of our fate and that we’re in control of our destiny.
But let’s face it . . . control is an illusion. (Don’t tell your ego!) Our human psyches—our egos—grasp at control in this unpredictable and complex world. While we construct elaborate plans and routines to help us think that we have control, but the fact of the matter is that circumstances, chance, and the actions of others continually challenge this perception. The illusion of control is a comforting façade that allows us to navigate the chaos with some sense of purpose. But the more we grasp after power, the more we realize our control is tenuous at best.
Take, for instance, quicksand (since we all have so much real-life experience with this). The next time you fall into quicksand, they say not to fight it, but to relax. If you fight it, the situation may become worse. Your struggle can create a vacuum situation that can cause the sand particles to become more tightly packed making it harder to move and escape. The recommended approach to free yourself from quicksand? Slowly and gently move so that you’re floating on your back. Then you can make your way to solid ground from that relaxed position. (And I probably just saved your life.)
Or let’s consider something more common here on Clearwater Beach: riptides. What are you NOT supposed to do? (Don’t fight it by swimming against the current.) What ARE you supposed to do if caught in a rip current? Float or tread water to conserve energy, or take a “sideways” approach and swim parallel to the shore.
Moses’ mother took a “sideways” approach, didn’t she? She didn’t fight the powerful “riptide” called Pharoah. Nor did she obey his command outright and “throw” baby Moses into the Nile. She took a sideways approach. She placed him, safely, “in the ooze.”
Since each of us find ourselves “in the ooze” from time to time—when life brings us those hard, hard challenges that shatter any illusion of control we may have had—what do we do?
1. Recognize. Recognize that the “ooze” you find yourself in is simply one of those inevitable moments life will throw at you that shatters your illusion of control. Acknowledge your weakness in the moment. This might be a good time to pray the “Serenity Prayer.”
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
2. Rest. Like when you find yourself in quicksand or in a riptide, resist the urge to fight. Maybe your best approach is to take the supine position, and float. You may need your strength later, and resistance is futile. So rest.
3. Request. While you’re resting, it’s a good time to ask for help. Anne Lamott says there are only three kinds of prayer: help, thanks, and wow! Now is a good time to pray, “Help!” It’s also a good time to ask your friends and loved ones for help too. None of us can do this life alone. We all need others from time to time. So request some help.
4. Receive. Now, this may seem like a no-brainer, but be open to the help that comes your way. It might not look like you expect it to look. We can’t always expect God’s help to show up in miraculous ways. Rather, God’s help often arrives through ordinary means.
Don’t be like the pastor who fell into quicksand (which happens a lot, right?) After about ten minutes the firefighters arrived. The pastor told the firefighters: “Thanks for coming, fellows, but I don’t need your help. God will save me.” So the firefighters left. Then after about an hour they came back. The pastor said, “Hey look, I already told you, I don”t need your help. God will get me out of here and save me!” So the firefighters left again and came back after two hours. The pastor was getting a little irritated with them. “This is the last time I’m going to tell you: I. DO. NOT. NEED. YOUR. HELP. God will save me!” And so the pastor died. When he got to heaven, he asked God: “God, why didn’t you save me?” God replied: “Dude, I called the firefighters three times!”
Recognize the situation as life’s inevitable “ooze” times.
Rest, because you’re going to need your strength later on.
Request help from God and help from others.
Receive the help that’s offered, even if it comes in unexpected ways.
For Moses and his Hebrew mom, help came in the unexpected way of Pharoah’s daughter finding the baby floating in the ooze. Pharoah’s daughter decided to save the baby and to raise him in Pharoah’s house. But she needed a nursemaid. She hired a Hebrew woman for this job—Moses’ own mother! Moses’ birth mom was paid by Pharoah’s daughter to nurse her own child! Poetic justice!
So the next time you find yourself “in the ooze,” relax. God is faithful. All will be well.
[1] John Mulaney: New in Town.