THE HOLY HEBREW FAMILY

MOSES, MIRIAM AND AARON

Good Morning Friends. I guess that may be a bit forward on my part, calling you my friends, when we hardly know one another. So, let’s do – shall we? Shall we get to know one another a bit this morning?

My name is Miriam. Ah, I see you’ve heard of me – or at least you know my song. Can I hear it again please? Ahhhhhhhh, such a lovely sound – just like me, don’t you think?

Anyway, as I was saying, my name is Miriam (o.k., enough with the music already). As I was saying, my name is Miriam (sternly looking at the children), and I am the older sister of Moses and Aaron. I am sure you have heard of Moses and Aaron haven’t you? Or at least Moses, right? But I’ll bet you didn’t know that Moses is my baby brother. Well, he is – seven years younger than me. I was half grown when he came along. By the time Moses was born, I could already read – well, I could read pretty well. O.K. I could kind of read – Hebrew isn’t very easy to learn you see – and my father only had a little time to teach me, as there were always so many chores to be done for those Egyptians. Why is it that we Hebrews were always being slaves to their wants and wishes? Why did we always have cart and carry, clean and wash for them? Don’t they have two legs, two arms, and two hands? Why were we always schlepping for them? I’ll tell you why – cause they’re lazy! That’s why! Egyptians are lazy. And to make matters worse, the Egyptians take credit for lots of things that we Hebrews actually did. (Not that I’m in the least bit upset about that or anything.) Maybe what I’m really upset about is how my baby brother Moses gets all the credit for saving us, for saving the Hebrew people from living as slaves to the Egyptians. Moses also gets most of the credit in the Torah for saving our people from dying in the wilderness and leading them to the Promised Land, when my other brother Aaron and I helped. God had called us, too, to help out. Let me tell you about my part in helping to save the Hebrew people.

It all began when Moses was just a baby. My mother, Yochaved, had just given birth. After two weeks in the Red Tent, she was allowed to come home with the baby. Aaron and I were so happy to have our mother home that we would have done anything she asked of us without complaining. One night after dinner, Aaron and I were outside our hut playing. We heard our mother and our father, Amram, arguing inside. What could they be arguing about? Mother hadn’t been home very long? So, Aaron and I crept around to the back door to see if we could hear. They were fighting about Moses – what to do with Moses. But why? Aaron and I looked at each other puzzled about this silly fight. We crept closer to see if we could hear more. And then we heard what was really going on. Father said that the Pharaoh had ordered that all Hebrew baby boys were to be drowned in the river. Why? Why would anyone do such an awful thing? Oh, no, that would mean that Moses would be killed too! That’s why they were arguing. They were arguing about what they would do to save Moses!

Aaron and I burst through the door, saying that we could help. “How?,” my parents asked. “Well, we could hide him. We could hide him from the Pharaoh’s people.” After all, Aaron and I were always good at playing hide and seek, and we knew all the best hiding places in the village. We could hide Moses and we could help take care of him. We would help save Moses.

So we did. Each day, we would take the baby Moses from our mother after she had fed him and put him in a new hiding place where he could sleep. Aaron and I would do our chores and periodically check on him, sneaking him back to our mother for feeding, and then bringing him back to the hiding place. It worked! Every time the Pharaoh’s people came to search the village, looking for newborn babies, Moses was tucked safely away. I’ll tell you, it was a miracle that he never cried whenever they came ‘round. Truly an angel of the Lord had to be watching over him.

This was how it went for three months, until one day Moses grew too big for our hiding places. We didn’t know what mother and father would do. Then my mother told me that we would have to let him go. I pleaded with her, “No, mama, you can’t. You can’t send Moses away – Pharaoh’s people will kill him.” But, my mother had a plan. She knew that every day Pharaoh’s daughter came to the river to bathe. Now Pharaoh’s daughter really wanted to have a baby of her own, but she couldn’t have a baby. So one day, just before dawn, my mother fed Moses, wrapped him up in a blanket and laid him in a waterproofed basket and took him down to the river. My mother hid him in the bulrushes, near where Pharaoh’s daughter bathed every day, and then Mother went back home. Later that morning, Pharaoh’s daughter did come to the river. Moses was hungry and started crying. Pharaoh’s daughter no sooner started cleaning herself up when she heard his cries. She couldn’t believe her ears – a baby’s cry! But where? So she followed his sound, and after searching through the bulrushes, she found him, all alone, in the basket. She looked at Moses and immediately was taken with him. She picked him up out of the basket, and as she looked at his sweet face, immediately she fell in love with this beautiful baby boy. “Ah,” she said to herself. “Someone has abandoned this babe; I’ll take him home and raise him as my own.”

I was down at the river, supposedly fetching water for my mother, but really I was looking after my baby brother. I heard what the Pharaoh’s daughter said. I was happy! I knew that if she adopted Moses and raised him, he would be safe. But, I wondered, who would feed him? I didn’t realize I had wondered that out loud. The Pharaoh’s daughter heard me and said, “You’re right, if I take this baby home and raise him as my own, who will feed him?” Right then, I knew that I could help save my baby brother. I said to her, “Why don’t you hire someone to nurse him?” And I knew just the person who could help her! I suggested my mother, Yochaved, to her. “Really, how could your mother help?” “Well,” I said, “my mother just lost a baby, so she’d love to have another baby to hold and feed.” I stretched the truth just a bit, hoping God wouldn’t mind as I was trying to save Moses. The Pharaoh’s daughter thought that was a brilliant idea! I wondered how this whole idea might play out when she told the Pharaoh about it.

When I went home and shared the news with mother, she was soooooooo happy!!! Mama and I started dancing in our little hut. Papa came home late that night, and Mama and I told him all that had happened. He was thrilled, and again we all started dancing. That’s how I helped save my baby brother, not once, but many times. I, Miriam, helped save Moses so that he could grow up and save all of the Hebrew people.

(Narrator) – And so baby Moses grew nestled in the arms of his own Hebrew mother and the arms of the Pharaoh’s daughter, who loved him as her own. As he learned to walk and to talk, he learned the languages of both the Hebrew people and the Egyptians. Moses grew and grew and grew. When he was with his Hebrew parents, Moses, Miriam, and Aaron would play together. Whenever Moses was at their house, the whole family taught him the ways of the Hebrew people, shared with him their faith stories, their customs, traditions, and even taught him Hebrew. Moses loved all of them, but the Pharaoh’s daughter made it clear to him that he was an Egyptian and was to live as Egyptians lived. The Hebrews were only slaves.

As Moses got older, he saw first-hand how differently the Egyptians and the Hebrews lived. He became more and more disturbed by what he saw. The Egyptians had lots of good food to eat. They ate meats, all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and yummy deserts. They lived in houses with big rooms and lots of places to play. They didn’t have to haul their own water, tote their own wood, and do lots of other back-braking chores. The Hebrew people were working from sun-up to sundown, doing anything and everything for the Egyptians. There was little food for the Hebrews to eat and what little they had was shared among everyone – no one was ever full. Everyone was always tired, sore and cranky. Moses saw these two worlds and got very angry.

The older he got, the more he saw. The more he saw, the angrier Moses became. One day, when he was walking home, his anger boiled over and got the best of him. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. Moses was so upset that he started fighting with the Egyptian, and in a rage, killed him. Pharaoh found out and ordered Moses killed. The Pharaoh’s daughter, who dearly loved Moses and didn’t want to see him dead, searched the rest of the day to find him and warn him. When she finally found Moses, she warned him to get out of town, better yet, get out of the country. Moses did just that and fled to Midian.

Moses was gone a long time. His parents, Miriam and Aaron missed him. While he was away, he met and married Zipporah, the daughter of one of the priests. Together they had a son, Gershom. Moses spent many, many years in Midian, happy with his new family. He even enjoyed looking after his father-in-law’s sheep, caring for each one with kindness and compassion. Life was simple there, and he enjoyed it. But he never forgot his family and friends back in Egypt. He worried too about the Hebrew people and especially what had happened to Aaron and Miriam.

One day when Moses was looking after the sheep, leading them down to the river to drink, he noticed that one of the lambs was not there. Moses went back, found the little lamb, picked it up and carried it to the river so it could drink. God looked on Moses and saw how he cared about each individual lamb, not just the whole flock. If Moses cared that much about his father-in-law’s sheep, think how he would care for the Hebrew people. God knew how the Hebrew people continued to suffer back in Egypt and Moses worried about it. God decided Moses should be the one to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians, so God appeared to Moses in the field and said,

(SONG) Go down Moses, way down in Egypt land,

Tell old Pharaoh, to let my people go.”

(Narrator) But Moses was afraid; afraid that he didn’t have the kind of voice to stand up to the leaders of the Hebrew people and make them believe that God had sent him to lead them to freedom.

(Moses) “Who am I to lead the Hebrew people to freedom?”

(Narrator) he whined at God.

(Moses) “They won’t believe me,”

(Narrator) he whined even further.

(Narrator) But God said,

(God) “Tell them I AM WHO I AM. I AM has sent me to you.”

(SONG) Go down Moses, way down in Egypt land,

Tell old Pharaoh, to let my people go.

(Moses) “But what if they don’t believe me still,”

(Narrator) Moses whined further.

(God) “Then I will give them a sign. And if they don’t believe the first sign, I will give them another, and another, and another.”

(Narrator) (Cause we all know that human beings have to see to believe.)

(Moses) “That’s all well and good for the Hebrew people. They have faith in you, God, and will believe the signs you put before them. But what about the Pharaoh, he’s not going to just roll over and say, ‘Here you can have all my slaves. Go ahead take them away.’ ”

(God) “If the Pharaoh does not listen to you, my son, then I will send plagues and pestilence on his people and his crops, until he does listen.”

(Moses) “But what if…”

(God) “Enough of the whining, Moses!”

(SONG) Go down Moses way down in Egypt Land,

Tell Old Pharaoh to let me people go!

(Narrator) After much whining and arguing, Moses finally did what God called him to do. He went back to Egypt. He couldn’t wait to see Miriam, Aaron, Yochabed and Asman. But there was little time for a family reunion. He was on a mission – a mission from God. He went first to the Hebrew elders and said,

“Hey, are you guys sick and tired of being bossed around by these lazy Egyptians? Have you had enough of this slavery business? Are you ready to blow this popsicle stand?”

(Well, he didn’t put it exactly like that, THAT wouldn’t have gotten their attention.) But, he did tell them I AM sent him to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt. Just as Moses thought, it wasn’t enough to convince them. SO, Moses delivered sign after sign after sign, until after three days of prayers and signs, they finally got it. (Why are human beings so thick-headed?)

Aaron decided, though, that he wasn’t going to let Moses face the Pharaoh alone. There’s strength in numbers. (Well, maybe not much strength in two elderly Hebrew men against the Pharaoh’s hundreds, but there’s comfort in not carrying out this task alone.) Moses and Aaron then went to the Pharaoh and tried to convince him that God had said he was to let the Hebrew people go. But the Pharaoh didn’t believe him and had harsh words for Moses. They told the Pharaoh that God would bring storms, plagues and pestilence upon his people, his fields and his livestock. Thunder, rain and hail fell upon the land, but the Pharaoh would not listen. Grasshoppers and locusts destroyed the Egyptian crops, but the Pharaoh still would not listen. Flies and frogs infested their lands, but the Pharaoh still would not listen. Disease killed their animals, and boils infected the Egyptian people, but the Pharaoh still would not listen. The rivers, lakes and streams all dried up, but the Pharaoh still would not listen. All the while the Hebrew people prayed, fasted and made sacrifices to God. Their cries did not go unheard. The Egyptians began to die, first the children, then the adults. As death spread throughout the land, then the Pharaoh listened and finally “Let the People Go.”

You would think after all of that hardship and suffering the Pharaoh would have learned his lesson, but NO! No sooner were the Hebrew people gone than the Pharaoh hardened his heart once again, “What have I done letting all of our slaves go free.” He sent his armies to track down the Hebrews and bring them back to be Pharaoh’s slaves once again. The Hebrew people journeyed through the wilderness toward the Red Sea guided by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night so they could travel without stopping. They camped by the Red Sea, resting for the first time in days. When they awoke they discovered to their utter dismay they were in deep doo-doo. Pharaoh’s armies were in hot pursuit of them. “Where do we turn now? We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place – the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army.” The Egyptian armies were coming upon them, chariots and horses almost overtaking them. The Hebrew people grew scared. Hearing their cries, Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and the see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today.” (In other words, God will save you.) Indeed God would save them. Moses stretched out his staff and the Red Sea divided into two parts allowing the Hebrew people to cross safely over to the other side.

Pharaoh’s army charged furiously after them, but their chariots were too heavy and trapped them in the mud beds of the Red Sea. The once receded waters began to rush back in, drowning the Egyptians. Moses, Aaron, Miriam and all the Hebrew people couldn’t believe their eyes. God had rescued them, saving them from the hands of slavery and the Egyptian army. They were free and rejoiced in the Lord. Miriam began to sing and dance and led all the women through the camp rejoicing in the spirit of the Living God.

Sermon preached by Reverend Jane B. Anderson at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton, Wisconsin on October 28, 2007.