Proper 16 A

August 24, 2008 

Exodus 1:8-2:10

Psalm 124

Romans 12:1-8

Matthew 16:13-20

I can hardly read the story of the midwives in Exodus without remembering my own deliveries. Two of our three children were born with the help of a midwife -- Yvonne, from Australia. She had a beautiful accent when she spoke which wasn’t often. She was a calm, quiet, patient woman. I don’t know if we were ever able to tell her how very much we appreciated her, or if we ever could.

We lived in Baton Rouge at the time and once I decided that I wanted to deliver my baby without medication, I found a network of women who had done that or were planning to. Yvonne was part of that network. (It wasn’t for any heroic reason that I wanted an unmedicated delivery. I was just more afraid of the drugs than the pain – I’m wiser now!) We couldn’t choose to have a midwife instead of a doctor at any of the hospitals in Baton Rouge so we had to drive to Denham Springs in East Baton Rouge Parish where there was a birthing room. It was about 20 miles away. On the way there with the first baby we were stopped by the police for speeding not once, but twice – once was just bad luck, but the second time Kevin thought for sure he’d have to deliver the baby. That made him a nervous wreck. I was busy breathing.

You see the difference between a doctor and a midwife is that a doctor is trained to know all about the woman’s body and the birthing process so he or she take charge of the delivery and direct the mother how to deliver her baby safely with the least trauma to herself and her baby. A midwife is trained to know about the woman’s body, how to recognize when mother or baby is in danger and what to do about it, and how to stay out of the way so nature can take its course as they say.

Where we pick up the story in Exodus today Joseph and all his generation are dead. Along with the Pharaoh who knew them and made room in Egypt for Joseph and his family, all their flocks and herds and even Joseph’s god. There was a new king who did not know the story. He did not know anything about Joseph or his gift to interpret dreams given to him by the God of the Hebrews. All he knew was that the Hebrew people were multiplying faster than the Egyptian people. That troubled the king. It troubled him so much that he ordered their baby boys to be killed at birth. The midwives, courageous women that they were, refused to cooperate with that order. So Pharaoh sent his people to find the Hebrew baby boys and drown them in the Nile River. Well, there was another courageous woman, a Hebrew slave who gave birth to a son who was beautiful in her eyes. Rather than give him over to the king’s officials to be put to death in the Nile River, she made a waterproof basket, put her baby in it and set it at the river’s edge. Then it happened that Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the river to take a bath, found the baby boy, made the decision then and there to keep him as her own after he was weaned, despite her father’s orders. Another courageous woman.

Now fast forward to today’s Gospel. Peter has just declared that Jesus is God’s Messiah. Peter would have known the stories of Joseph and Egypt and the birth and adoption of Moses. He would have known how God was revealed in the Hebrew scriptures. But the full revelation of the Messiah was yet to be revealed in Jesus. In Jesus God merged with humanity long enough for his divinity to be revealed to a few people. For a while heaven and earth were bound together in Jesus. Then Jesus who was a man died and Jesus who was also God lived. By the time Matthew wrote his Gospel he knew how the story would turn out. He chose to set this conversation between Jesus and Peter in his Gospel before the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. That allows us to see how Peter’s relationship with the God of the Old Testament, the God of Joseph and Moses, greatly influenced the way he perceived Jesus, at least at the moment of this conversation.

What in the world do these lessons mean for you and me in this place on this day? I can’t tell you how much I labored over these scriptures and what to say to you about them. It finally dawned on me or rather the Holy Spirit finally made it clear to me, that the question Jesus asked Peter "Who do you say that I am?" is a question that every single Christian has to answer for themselves. I can tell you my answer to that question, I can tell you how God has been revealed in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I can tell you what theologians and scholars have said about God, but I can’t tell you who Jesus is for you. The best thing I can do is just be present with you while you labor with the question and stay out of the way like Yvonne did for me. You have to answer the question of who Jesus is for yourself. Because the most important part of revelation is what is revealed in our hearts through the work of the Holy Spirit. We have to look deep inside ourselves to find it. I can tell you it’s worth doing. I can tell you it’s a safe journey. I can tell you that you are loved with an everlasting love because I know I am. And if you start from there and allow the revelation to be born in you as it most certainly will, there you will find the answer to who Jesus the Christ is for you. When Christ is fully revealed in the hearts of the Christians, then Christ will be fully revealed in the Church and in the world.