Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Rev. Dr Linda Stargel, Academic Dean, for writing this devotional.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Caring for the “Other” in our Midst
Exodus 1:8-2:10 (excerpt below)
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.
Devotional
“Us” and “them.”
“Egyptian” and “Israelite.”
Pharoah distinguishes and divides.
“They are more numerous and more powerful than us.”
“They might join our enemies and fight against us.”
“Let us deal shrewdly with them.”
We find such categorization language in human interaction in all times and places. Groups use it to define themselves or their tribe in contrast to another, and to create a sense of positive self-esteem.
In addition to “us” and “them” labels, groups often selectively emphasize the positive qualities of their group and minimize their own faults. They then do the reverse with respect to “others,” devaluing them by emphasizing their faults and minimizing their good qualities.
In some cases, as in Exodus 1—2, the categorizing and distinguishing leads to resentment, fear, hatred, oppression, or other negative outcomes.
Into the particular narrative space of Exodus 1—2 step three women—two midwives and the daughter of Pharoah. The midwives—whose ethnicity as Egyptian or Israelite is ambiguous in the Hebrew text—work for Pharoah. Yet they cleverly disobey his command to destroy life, while emphasizing a positive quality of Israel’s mothers: “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them” (1:19). Pharaoh is undeterred by the midwives’ lack of cooperation. He expands his command to all his people—to drown Israel’s male babies (1:22). Pharaoh’s daughter—whose ethnicity is not ambiguous—finds the baby Moses. She makes a distinction—“This must be one of the Hebrews’ children” (2:6)—but, like the midwives, she refrains from victimizing the perceived “other.”
Shiphrah, Puah, and the daughter of Pharaoh quietly but actively care for the “other.” They are seemingly “minor character stories” in the larger story of God’s deliverance of Israel through the man Moses. Yet their actions have enormous significance for the survival of this liberator. They inspire us also to take care of the “other” among us. Who knows what plans God may have for them!
Prayer
God, may we not be conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Roman 12:2) so that we may care for the “others” you have place in our midst. AMEN.
Linda M. Stargel
(Academic Dean, Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Biblical Language)