SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, August 23, 2020

Dear Friends in Christ –

I have a dear friend from college days with whom I‘ve pretty much kept in contact over the years – from coast to coast through careers, marriages, children. Claire’s birthday is two days after my wife, Rebecca’s so from year to year it’s on the radar.

Claire had moved back to Texas to help her family as each parent passed. I reached out and she didn’t answer. I googled and was surprised to find she was living in Australia with her Australian husband and has founded an organization that provides people with information, practical steps to take if they have been given a terminal diagnosis. Claire is now a certified End of Life Doula and Patient Advocate. This came up as I prepared to engage our text this week, Exodus 1:8-2:10 – the story of the birth and youth of Moses. Such a familiar story with all the elements of a movie. It actually was a Disney animated film – The Prince of Egypt!

A paranoid tyrant turned on innocent people. Escalating oppression. Irrational, cruel decrees. Civil disobedience. A princess’ casual trip to the river to bathe leads to an encounter with a tiny ark whose cargo was destined to lead a nation to freedom. All because two doulas – midwives – refused to obey directives that ran counter to their faith.

I thought of Siphra and Puah, and Claire and the way God calls individuals to care for God’s people at moments of passage to and from this life, across millennia. In the midst of great darkness we may achieve great things as conduits of God’s love and light. But we must remember and remind each other and share God’s inexhaustible, serendipitous grace.

See you Sunday for Online Church –