Reading Ahead -- Pentecost 15

Let's hear it for uppity women. This week's
reading from the Hebrew Scriptures is full of them.

It starts with Shiphrah and Puah, the midwives, who instead of killing the Hebrew boy babies, as Pharaoh commanded, tell the authorities instead that the Hebrew women are just too quick to give birth and they just can't make it there in time to kill the boy babies. Then we have the mother and sister of Moses, who put the baby in the basket in the reeds so Pharaoh's daughter can find him. With sister Miriam close by, so she can enlist Moses' own mother as his wet nurse.

Then we even have Pharaoh's daughter, who knows her father has issued this decree to have the Hebrew boys killed, but who carries one right into the palace, raises him as her son, gives him an Egyptian name (Moses is not a Hebrew name, but an Egyptian one), and preserves him right in the face of the man who would have had him killed.

How many secret, shrewd and crafty acts have kept God's story going and God's purposes alive in the world? And how many of those secret, shrewd and crafty acts have relied on women?

How are you secretly, shrewdly, and craftily keeping God's kingdom dreams alive in your world today?

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