A Mother - Daughter Team Collaborates With Royalty For Life

Gathering:
L: Grace to you and peace from God
P: who was, who is and who is to come
L: and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness
P: to whom be glory and power forever and ever!

Song:
"Wade in the Water"

Scripture:
• Exodus 1:22 - "Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, 'Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.'"
• Exodus 6:20 - "Amram married Jochabed, his father's sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses..."
• Hebrews 11:23 - "By faith Moses was hidden by his parents for three months after his birth, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the king's edict."

Monologue:
"Now Let Us Tell of Jochabed" by Muriel Thiessen Stackley (see below)

Silent or Shared Reflections

Prayers:
Response (sung): "Our God Hears the Cry of the Poor. Blessed be our God"

Proclamation:
"Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be that of water or tears, say firmly: ‘We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.' From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says ‘Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.' Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God. In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
- Julia Ward Howe
Original Mother's Day Proclamation
Boston; September, 1870

Song:
"Spring Up Oh Well"

Credit: Joyce Hollyday, Clothed with the Sun, p. 140.

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Now Let Us Tell of Jochabed
by Muriel Thiessen Stackley

Suggestions: Reader reads scriptures while a woman dressed in a Palestinian fellaheen peasant dress recites the monologue.

Reader: Exodus 2:1-2 - 1 "Now Amram from the house of Levi went and married Jochabed, a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months.

Woman: By faith, dear woman, you hid your baby, and rallied your husband, son, and daughter in the monumental task of shushing an illegal infant, pretending he wasn't there. For ninety long days you broke a vicious law, tenaciously protecting a tiny human life.

Reader: Exodus 2:3 - 3 "When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river."

Woman: By faith you made a basket waterproof with bitumen and pitch. You did know about boat-building. I learned from G. Ernest Wright that reeds coated with bitumen are a good way to make a boat.) Did you do your boat building at night, praying that the baby wouldn't cry to be nursed while your hands were sticky with pitch? What did you use to clean your hands? What did Amram say about the project? Did he help?
When the little boat was dry, you made it soft inside, petting the place where your three-month-old would lie. What did you think when you laid the baby inside? The basket-boat could just as easily have been a coffin. Was the baby rolling over yet? Were you afraid he would rock the boat and fall into the water? Did you fasten the lid shut? I know there was a lid -- later the record states that the basket "was opened."
By faith, dear woman, you placed the basket-boat on the water -- just put it to float -- and walked away. Where did you get such a hair-brained idea? Surely you shared your plan with Amram. What did he say?
You just walked away from the baby you had so vigilantly guarded for ninety days -- day and night -- so that no Pharaoh's patrol would suspect a thing. How did you manage to walk away? Trusting God -- and who else was there? Hoping against hope that by some unknown circumstance -- Almighty protection -- your baby might live. Giving up everything, having done everything that you knew to do (precious stupid though it appeared), you walked away. You gave up control. You went where you couldn't see the baby. Couldn't even hear the baby. Did you carefully time the placing of the basket on the water so he wouldn't have any unburped burps, so he wouldn't immediately have a bowel movement and cry uncontrollably and toss the little floating boat?

Reader: Exodus 2:4-10 - 4 "His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. 5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. 'This must be one of the Hebrews' children,' she said. 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, 'Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?' 8 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, 'Yes.' So the girl went and called the child's mother. 9 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, 'Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.' So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10 When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, 'because,' she said, 'I drew him out of the water.'"

Woman: Did you give Miriam any instructions? Did she have any reason to expect the princess? What a daughter you raised, who was not a bit intimidated by the royal entourage! She asked just the right question and got just the right answer.
And you! Jochabed, Jochabed! You got your baby back! A gift from the princess. Now he could live. Now he could cry. He could laugh. He was now legal. He was now royal! He was alive!
How did you manage to be subservient and poker-faced when that innocent princess-instrument-of-God gave you back your very own baby? What kept Miriam from jumping for joy? Did she comprehend the moment? Surely she did after her dazzling demonstration of restrained wisdom.
Jochabed, you are my teacher. You teach me to take seriously the guidance which the world considers strange if not absurd. (Who would have recommended putting a baby in a floating basket for his safety?) You teach me to walk away from situations I cannot control, and rather walk with God into situations where I don't have the foggiest notion of the outcome. (What mother in her right mind would leave her baby floating on a river and go home?)
You teach me that God is able to save that which I treasure most only when I give it up, when I allow myself to be terrifyingly vulnerable. (Who would have predicted that the baby was safer on a river than in his bed at home? Yet, home in bed, he would have inevitably been given a death sentence rather than becoming legal, let alone regal!)
Jochabed, you teach me to walk by faith and thus, mystically, participate in God's participation in the world. I will tell of you as long as I am able! God used you to preserve a nation, to redeem the people of God, and to teach me a thing or two.