Most of us are Cowards!

Most of us are cowards and would do anything to avoid conflict. Sometimes we can be terribly clever and mask our innate desire to “not make waves” behind Jesus’ teachings about being ‘peacemakers’, etc.

But when all is said and done if there is the smell of conflict in the air we try and make ourselves scarce.

However, sometimes something so unjust turns up that we are tempted to make a scene. And I don’t mean the self-centred issues of injustice like being cut off in the traffic, or overlooked by staff at the bakery.

I mean when something happens to someone else and you get upset on their behalf. And you find something stirs in your breast and you find yourself aroused to take action; even if it means talking to some government official or confronting our boss at work.

Such was the situation for two midwives in ancient Egypt. They had endured the change in society form Jewish people being included to ‘Jewish people being feared’.

“Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. Exodus 1:8-11

They didn’t want to make a stir against such big social changes carried out by powers that could swat them like flies. After all, who were they to mix in such big affairs?

But one day, the authorities came to them and gave them this instruction:

15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”

This was one injustice too far and too horrible and it shook them out of their paralysis of fear. They could no longer be “little people who never take sides”. They took the side of God’s justice. (Notice in the story how the name of the King of Egypt is never mentioned but the courageous midwives are honoured by the remembrance of their names down through history. God honours courageous obedience over social status every time!)

Do you tend to keep your head down and not want to get involved in issues of great injustice? Do you feel how small and ineffectual you are against the ‘powers that be’ and find it hard to believe you can make a difference?

Then you are not alone. But God calls you to stand up. May his love for the oppressed and disadvantaged burn in your breast despite any feelings of weakness you have.

Jesus has gone on ahead of us and is working among the oppressed against injustice. Will you join him?
He does not call everyone to work on every injustice. Instead, we are his Body, the church, and some are called to work on one are and some are called to work on another, so that the burden doesn’t overwhelm us. The question is “What issue of injustice causes are stir in your breast and calls you to stir from inactivity?”

May your name be remembered for your courage like Shiphrah and Puah as people who stood up even though others were silent.

Graeme