Liberation, Beginning Again -- Exodus 1 (4th Sunday After Pentecost)

Photo: Juneteenth celebration, Richmond, VA, c.1905 (public domain)

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The Bible’s big story of liberation begins with two midwives: Shiphrah and Puah.^[1] Before there is Moses, before there is Aaron, there are Shiphrah and Puah. The powers enslave the people, subject them to crushing labor, and when the powers order up a genocide, Shiphrah and Puah step into the path of the violence, and say “No.”

This is remarkable because in their patriarchal world the first heroes of this liberation story are women. This is remarkable because with all the power that Pharaoh wields, Shiphrah and Puah – who are on the margins of the margins of power – stop Pharaoh with nothing but courage and determination.^[2]

The Bible’s big story of liberation begins with two midwives: Shiphrah and Puah. They are, as a rabbi friend of mine says, “the women who started the revolution.”

Exodus begins by remembering where the story left off in Genesis. Remember: After all that Joseph and his brothers – his family – had been through, Genesis ends with them re-settled in Egypt, prospering. God has delivered them from famine. Joseph is Pharaoh’s right-hand man. There is reconciliation, and peace. Joseph and his brothers live side by side in peace. The Egyptians and the Hebrews live side by side in peace. Genesis begins and ends with thriving and life. At the end, it begins again with life.

But, as Exodus begins, a new king has come to power. And the new king does what kings do. The new king fears a thriving people, imagines all the ways that they could be a threat to his power. And so the new king lashes out with his power-over. He enslaves the people – puts masters over them, and oppresses them with hard labor. The new king uses the people as a means of production – makes them build monuments to his power and ego – whole cities where he can hoard his wealth.

But the more the people are oppressed, the more resilient they become. They are fruitful and multiply – embodying God’s command at creation. And the new king perceives that as even more of a threat. It’s not so much that he fears they will overthrow him; he fears that they will join Egypt’s enemies, and leave him. The king fears that he will lose the slave labor that they provide.^[3] He will be less rich. And so he oppresses them even more ruthlessly with hard labor in brick and mortar and in the fields.

But even that is not enough for this mad and fearful king. He orders their extermination. The king calls in the midwives – the midwives who help the Hebrew mothers in birth, and he orders that, in the midst of birth, the midwives kill all the baby boys.

And the midwives go. They go when they are called to help in a birth, and the Hebrew mothers birth their children, and when the midwives see that the child is a boy, they remember the words of Pharaoh: “Kill the boy babies...” and Shiphrah and Puah say: “No.” They refuse. They refuse to be a part of this mad king’s evil plan. And the baby boys live.

And, Pharaoh has a melt down. He calls the midwives in. “Why, Why did you not do what I have commanded? I am the king.” To which, Shiphrah and Puah reply, “Oh, Pharaoh. You don’t know these Hebrew women. They are so strong and full of life, that when the time comes, they pretty much birth these babies on their own, before we can even get there.” And the king sulks away.

This king does what kings do, and the midwives do what midwives do. They help birth new life, with a sacred and a holy, “No.” They refuse to be complicit in the destructive, death-dealing oppression of a demented despot.

Now I’m not going to be coy about this. You know that there’s a lesson in there for us today – a mad leader flailing away, wreaking destruction and chaos wherever he goes – and a world just waiting for someone or someones to say No. But he’s not the point of the story today.

Shiphrah and Puah are – the women who stand up to the powers – the women who save lives – the women who start a revolution.

I’ve preached this scripture before – and I looked back – and saw that I had said that these women start a revolution, and stop a genocide.

But here’s what brought me up cold this time around when I read the story. They don’t, actually. They don’t actually stop the mad king’s genocide. To be sure, they resist Pharaoh. To be sure, they save lives. To be sure, they bring an end to this part of the king’s plan. And, with God, we celebrate that in verse 21.

And then in verse 22. Pharaoh begins again: “If I can’t do this through the midwives, I will find someone else.” And Pharaoh turns to all the Egyptian people and says, “You find those baby Hebrew boys, and you throw them into the river.” Kill. Them. And the people are right back there in harm’s way, still enslaved, with Pharaoh bearing down on them.

And this question rises up in me: “Why... in our justice work... does it always feel like we are beginning again?” And just as soon as that question rises up, so too does its answer: “Why... in our justice work... does it always feel like we are beginning again? Why? Because the powers never relent.”

I want us to think of that this morning, in relation to Juneteenth. This Juneteenth weekend, we celebrate Black freedom. We celebrate the day that enslaved people in Texas finally found out that they had been set free.

We know the story. A full two months after Robert E Lee surrendered, word finally made it to the enslaved people in Texas. Union troops rode into town, and Union General Gordon Granger read General Order # 3: “The people of Texas are hereby informed that all [persons who have been enslaved] are now free.” Now, it’s not that no one in Texas knew this. The whites in power knew, but they had suppressed this information. Juneteenth made it public and real, and those who were now free... celebrated.

And on Juneteenth—now a federal holiday – we continue that celebration of Black freedom and Black resiliency. We celebrate one of the most pivotal days in American history – we celebrate the end of the slavery that had plagued this nation from its inception. It’s hard to think of a more significant turning point in this nation’s history.

But take a look at the photo on the cover of the bulletin. That’s not a Juneteenth photo. It’s a photo from about 100 years later – 100 years after freedom was decisively proclaimed. It’s a photo of protestors – Black folks and others – still fighting for freedom 100 years later. So what happened?

At the end of the Civil War, as enslaved people were emancipated, we did all the things to make that freedom permanent – we wrote it into the Constitution.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution ended slavery: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... shall exist within the United States,” with an exception only for punishment upon the conviction of a crime.

The Fourteenth Amendment established birthright citizenship – that’s where that comes from – “All persons born... in the United States... are citizens of the United States,” and “no State shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” Everyone – people previously enslaved and everyone else born in the United State are citizens. Period.

The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection of the laws, and due process.

The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote.

These Civil War Amendments are the heart of the Constitution. They are the big constitutional correction. As many have said, slavery was this country’s original sin. With these constitutional amendments, we repented. We rejected slavery, and we  articulated some core values of this republic – citizenship to everyone born in this land, equal protection of the laws, the right to due process, and the right to vote – the right to participate in democracy, to live free, and to thrive.

Now I want to put these up here so that we can see them all in one place.

What do you notice?

Every single one of these is under attack.

Slavery was ended, except for punishment for conviction. Now, we have mass incarceration – as Ava DuVernay points out in her documentary on the Thirteenth Amendment, and as Michelle Alexander details in The New Jim Crow.^[4]

Birthright citizenship. For 150 years no one has questioned that bedrock principle of our constitutional life – not until the latest regime has come to power. And now, the Supreme Court is taking seriously their attack on that constitutional right. Make no mistake – the Administration’s attack on birthright citizenship is a white supremacist attempt to keep black and brown people from the rights of the citizenship into which they have been born. It is the same story: the powers fear a thriving people.

Equal protection of the laws. We know that the Civil War Amendments were followed by a long era of racial segregation in Southern states, and discriminatory laws and practices like redlining across the country. Even with the civil rights laws of the 1960s, the powers have not relented. The current administration has backed away from civil rights enforcement, eliminated challenges to the “disparate racial impact” of laws, dismantled programs seeking equity and equality, and gone after and threatened institutions that work towards those goals.

Due process. Well, we just need to look at the government’s disregard of due process in its immigration enforcement.

And the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to vote was followed by more than a century of voter suppression – poll taxes, literacy tests, voter intimidation, gerrymandering – anything the powers could do to keep black and other marginalized people from voting. It took a voting Rights Act, and even then, even now, we’ve watched as the Supreme Court has gutted that Voting Rights Act.

When we talk about what power does. This is what power does.

Why... in our justice work... does it always feel like we are beginning again? Why?

Because the powers never relent.

But here’s the good news. Neither does God.

From the beginning, God has never relented from working for the freedom and thriving of all people. It is one of God’s core commitments. That is what this big story in the Bible is all about.

Shiphrah and Puah say no to Pharaoh and they save life, they start a revolution.

and the mad king doubles down,

and Moses’ mother and sister hide the baby Moses in a basket in the bulrushes to save his life,

and Pharaoh’s daughter risks her place and privilege to help them out.

Pharaoh will continue to oppress the people with hard labor,

and God will call Moses from a burning bush.

         It will take some convincing,

and then Moses and Aaron will confront the king:

“God says let my people go.”

Pharaoh will say, “Who is this God? And Who are you?”

and God will do wonders through Moses and Aaron,

Pharaoh will scoff,

and God will send plagues,

and Pharaoh, only when he himself has suffered enough, will say, OK, OK, take your people and go.

and on Passover, God will lead the people out of Egypt.

Pharaoh will change his mind, and his armies will give chase,

and God will part the waters,

and the people will walk to freedom on dry ground,

and the powers will perish.

This is the story the people will tell – again and again – down through the generations: Remember, God is at work always bringing people to freedom and life. They will tell this story at Passover. They will tell it down through the years, through calamity, and exile; as empires come and as empires go. We will continue with our story of God’s liberating love come to life in Jesus Christ – good news for the poor, release for the captive, freedom for all who are oppressed.

All this beginning again,

for us it is beginning again,

for God, it is never ceasing, never stopping, never relenting,

always pressing forward to the freedom and thriving of all people.

In this morning’s Scripture, Shiphrah and Puah are aligning themselves with God’s ongoing action in the world, and not Pharaoh’s. They are aligning themselves with birth, and not death; with freedom, and not oppression; with power-with, and power-for, not power over.

God is always acting in the world for freedom, and as part of God’s miraculous grace, God has decided to include us in that worthy work – to honor our agency – and to invite us to lives of courage and thriving.

What the midwives do here is midwife. With God, they midwife freedom into the world, with one birth, and with the next;  new life, upon new life, upon new life.

Lots of folks gathered yesterday for the Juneteenth celebration that Chaplain Chitoka Webb imagined and brought to life up in Terra Linda. We celebrated not only Black freedom, but Black excellence, Black achievement down through the generations, and in current leaders of Marin.

Bishop Yvette Flunder –founder and pastor of the City of Refuge – offered the keynote. She said what we already know – that we are “living in an atmosphere where the powers are again seeking to diminish freedom... determined to destroy people who they see as other.” And then Bishop Flunder invited us to imagine what the world could be if we become “authentically concerned for each other’s equality and well-being.” She reminded us of what it cost those who made possible he freedom we see today, and she invited us to put ourselves into the fray, saying “That was their time. This is our time.”

As Dr. King said, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” God never relents in working for the freedom, thriving, and well-being of all people and all creation. Generation after generation after generation, we begin again – yes, the same story –but with each beginning again -- new life, for each new day.

© 2026 Scott Clark

^[1] For general background on Exodus and the story of Shiphrah and Puah, see Walter Bureggemann, “The Book of Exodus” in New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. i (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994); Judy Fentress-Williams, “Exodus” in The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010); Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017),  pp.142-45.

^[2] See Fentress-Williams, p.82.

^[3] See Brueggemann, p.694.

^[4] See Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press: New York, 2011).