Biography
Dr. Roberta Hestenes is President of Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. She earned her Doctor of Ministry degree at Fuller Theological Seminary and is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Dr. Hestenes' articles have appeared in Christianity Today, Eternity, and Sojourners magazines. She is the author of four books and maintains a very active speaking schedule around the world. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"God and the Hebrew Midwives"
Maybe some of you were shaped the way I was in terms of where you first learned of the Exodus story. I didn't learn it in Sunday School, because I didn't go to Sunday School growing up. I got my total mental furniture from Cecil B. DeMille movies. It's impossible that Moses looks like anything except Charleton Heston—but he really doesn't.

The story begins in a very different place than with the story of Moses, where most of us think it begins. I want to suggest that it begins in a place that has lessons for all of us. Hear the word of God as we find it in Exodus 1, beginning with verse 11:

[The Egyptians] put slave masters over [the Israelites] to oppress them with forced labor...but the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.

Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?" The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive." So God was kind to the midwives, and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

The reality of oppression is where the story begins. Why are we surprised when people oppress other people? When cruel oppression shapes the day-to-day life of people and then the oppression itself is heightened as the oppressor comes to fear the very ones who are being oppressed? This is a pattern built into human experience.

You could go all around the world today, and I could exegete this passage in terms of the story of oppression in South Africa, in the Sudan or in many, many other places that you could name, where the oppressor with cruel bondage comes to fear the ones who are being oppressed. Then they tighten the screws and the stakes are raised, and the oppressor moves in a pattern from ruthless injustice—hard labor—to attempted genocide, the killing of a whole people. As is common with patterns of oppression, the genocide is to be carried out by persons from the oppressed community. In this case the order for genocide is to be carried out by two very ordinary women, Shiphrah and Puah.

Scholars tell us that midwives in Israel were barren women. In a culture where having children and a family was the ordinary way to build a life—to gain respect, to know the blessing of God—these barren, somewhat marginal women, found their place in the community as helping other women to bring forth new life. Their daily work, their daily routine, what they got up in the morning to do, was to help—to bring forth life.

And then came the order. The culture, power and might of Egypt was dominant in this period, and the Pharaoh was the most important person in all of the known world and he gave the order and the order was: "Kill the boys." The girls could be kept as house servants, slaves, but "kill the boys, and do it in such a way that it doesn't look like we did it."

Then these two ordinary women said, "No. We won't do it. We will not pervert our calling. We will not become agents of death."

That took courage. Where did it come from? The scripture tells us that the midwives feared God and did not do what the King of Egypt told them to do. They feared God. They had a fundamental conviction that while there was a Pharaoh, mighty and proud, there was a God over Pharaoh, and while they must give account to human authorities and powers, they must give ultimate account to One over all human authorities and powers.

They feared God and said no.

Then Pharaoh summoned them. Can you imagine what it must have been like to have the soldiers march into your little hovel in the slave quarters and push their way into the place, and say, "You! Come!" And then to stand before Pharaoh and have him say, "Why did you do that?"

It's interesting: the scholars down through the centuries, from the early church fathers right through the Reformers to contemporary authors, have spent most of their commentary space wrestling over the issue of whether or not the midwives lied. They miss the whole point of the narrative, which is that the midwives disobeyed.

What was God's response to their disobedience, their refusal to become agents of death instead of instruments of life and joy. The scripture tells us that "God was kind to the midwives and the people increased....And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own."

This story has been told and retold and written down and saved for more than three thousand years. It is fascinating to note that the name of the Pharaoh disappears from the story, but the names of the two women, Shiphrah and Puah, are preserved. They are in there because they feared God.

In our increasingly secular culture and in our increasingly secular selves—because we are part of this culture, it is in us even as we seek to be open to the transforming power of God—we are tempted to believe and act sometimes as if there were no God to be feared. And here I want to say something about a common statement in sermons that I hear that talk about the fear of God. Sometimes they suggest, "Friends, you really don't have to be afraid of God. God is our friend. He's loving. He's nice."

Friends, we do have to be afraid of God with a holy and awesome respect. God is the Holy One. God is the Just One. God is the Judge. We know Him as lover and friend, but He is no less judge and holy for being lover. In God great compassion and a great hunger for holiness are joined together and these ordinary women feared God. What happens if in our lives there is no fear of God? Our horizons shrink and our measurements of right and wrong become utilitarian. What is in it for me? What will I gain? Can I get ahead? Will this make a difference that will help me? We might even be tempted to ask: What can I get away with? Who will know? What difference does it make anyway?

More and more I find that these kind of equations shape our behavior as a society and even as a church. We become vulnerable to the pressures to conform to the wrong values, to give in to power even when that power is used for destructive or evil purposes, to live a lie, and to deny our calling. When we're called to be helpers, we turn into hurters because power told us to and we were afraid to say no.

I think of the managers at Morton Thiokol; the construction worker who cuts a corner in a building because "Who will know?" and the bottom line will grow. The pastor who watches pornographic movies in the hotel a long way from home because "Who will know?" The skipper of the Valdez. Who will know?

When the fear of God is gone, the decisions of daily life, of our ordinary existence, of the work that we are called to do in the midst of life, those decisions are threatened.

What did these women have? These were ordinary women. They got up in the morning and did the work that was before them to do. They had courage. Where did that courage come from? It came from a deep conviction that there was a God to whom we give an account, a God that honors us when we love and obey Him, a God who means good for people and will work His way into the world.

And so they in courage acted rightly.

I have one other suspicion. It's not directly in the text. We are told that there were two of them, Shiphrah and Puah, and I think it's possible that part of their courage came from the fact that when they sought to do their work, when they had to meet the challenge of evil, they had a companion, a friend, a colleague who stood alongside. Shiphrah and Puah. Puah and Shiphrah. And when they were threatened, they could say, "Well, at least when we go before Pharaoh, we go together."

The church that has long thought of itself as gathered and scattered needs to understand that in our scatterdness, in our life in the world and in our neighborhoods and places of work, we need companions—companions of conviction and faith and courage, who can help us do what God calls us to do in faithful obedience.

God honored them. In fact, the names of these ordinary women have been preserved for all these thousands of years. God uses ordinary women to say no when no needs to be said and to say yes when yes needs to be said, when we have faith and courage to be obedient in our own lives. Amen.

Interview with Roberta Hestenes
Interviewed by David Hardin

David Hardin: Roberta, you took a trip to Russia this summer for World Vision and took some people with you. Is there anything that happened on that trip that you would like to tell us about?

Roberta Hestenes: It was an extraordinary time. We were doing a symposium on relief and development in the Soviet Union. I could not believe the spiritual openness and hunger that I saw all over the country. In fact, the head of the Komsomol, the Communist Youth Organization, asked us to come back and lecture. When we asked, "What about?" He said, "We have no hope. We have no philosophy. Would you come and lecture to the Communist youth about Jesus?" A wonderful time of openness, newness, challenge and struggle. It was a great to be a part of that.

Hardin: Did you sense a lot of cordiality and enthusiasm for Americans?

Hestenes: They're very interested in coming to America and learning more about American culture and business. Our college is doing exchange programs with Soviet universities, as are many other schools as well. They are interested in the Christian foundations that are part of the society.

Hardin: Tell me, why did you go to Eastern as President? Why did you leave your established situation on the West Coast at Fuller?

Hestenes: They asked me. That is the first reason. We have a special program at Eastern in economic development. It takes the best of business, the needs of the Third World and the inner-cities of this country and brings them together to help people in entrepreneurship to start small businesses, break the cycle of poverty and find new dignity as they have job creation. That is one of the things that attracted me to our college.

Hardin: This is in the Third World.

Hestenes: And in the cities of this country.

Hardin: The Soviets could use it, too.

Hestenes: They were very interested in this. In fact, they have asked us if we would start an economic development program with them.

Hardin: That's great. I hope you do. Thanks very much for having been with us.