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And Jesus says: “Welcome!”
God of loving kindness and inspiring courage, we see your vision for just relations between people
and nations. Bless our hospitality to strangers. Inspire our resistance against oppression. Enable
our advocacy. Sustain our struggle. Amen.
Gather
Gathering with “all the saints”
Call to Worship [screen]
Hymn WOV14 Now thank we all our God
BLESSING FOR CHILDREN
Story based on Matthew 16:13-20
Prayer
E pupuhi e te hau rangimārie, kia whai painga ngā mea katoa
Kia tatū ai ō mātou whakaaro hei arahi i a mātou i tēnei rā
Blow peaceful winds providing benefit for all things
and settling our thoughts to lead us this day.
Ven Dr Hone Kaa
“Behold the Christ” by Joy Cowley
It was easy to see You
in holy faces, holy places,
God made flesh in a mother’s voice
or in gentle hands of a nurse,
or the smile of a grandfather
or the laughter of small children.
Every presence of love and beauty
proclaimed your advent.
I needed eyes sharpened by suffering
before I was able to see You
in the pain of human poverty.
The man who stared at a prison ceiling,
the alcoholic mother, the hungry children,
the old woman who died alone in her flat,
the young victims who grew up
to become abusers themselves,
the people who were in despair
at their inability to make changes,
when I could look at them
through the experience of my own crucifixions,
I realised they all looked back at me
with your eyes.
It took much longer to see You
in places of affluence and power,
in parliament or at the stock exchange,
at the helm of a luxury yacht
or residing in a summer palace
surrounded by material wealth.
But now I discover that in these places
You have the same eyes as the poor,
the disabled, the imprisoned,
the same eyes as the grandfather,
the children, the hospital nurse,
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the same eyes that I see
each morning in the mirror.
And I begin to understand a little,
just a little, of the truth of who You are.
From Psalms for the Road
Symbol of God’s Presence
Hymn [KK] Majesty [Tigger’s choice]
[KAEO] WOV629 Faafetai i le Atua [Pat’s choice]
Engage
Conversation with the Word
Today we begin Israel’s identity story – how they came to be a People.
The location is Egypt. It’s likely that, ethnically, all the inhabitants are much the same. But from now
on, one group will be different. They are the group that are rescued by their God, whom we’ll get to
know more next week – as much as the bush will let on. Rescued by their God from the clutches of the
region’s economic and military super-power – the Pharaoh.
For despite their ancestry in Joseph this group are now being oppressed, used by Pharaoh’s powers that
be to their own benefit. They are slaves to production and growth in state wealth.
This group is more and more of a threat to Pharaoh, the more he oppresses them. Egypt is placed so
strategically in the region – the link between Africa and Asia – that a disgruntled under-group would be
an easy target for any invading army to link up and increase their chances of success. In contemporary
terms, they could be quickly turned into “insurgents”.
So Pharaoh afflicts them even more.
Listen for how some very ordinary individuals respond in crisis. They happen all to be women, but that
just underlines their relative powerlessness and irrelevance in relation to those who call the shots.
Exodus 1:8-2:10
This well known passage from the book of Romans made some very helpful connections for me
regarding the clear purpose of each of these women and their ability to make choices against the grain.
Romans 12:1-8
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may
discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.
As we take that approach to things we face – not conformed but transformed – we’ll find ourselves using
the gifts we have to contribute to life.

The midwives certainly didn’t conform: civil disobedience is the best short description of their
action, or lack of action according to instructions. The grace given to them was clearly a sharp
mind, and coolness under pressure.

Moses’ mother did not play safe – the usual line for conformity – and then, when she could hide her
baby no longer, she realised that the best chance for her baby to live was with someone else. The
grace given to her was a big heart that knows that there are others in the world with big hearts too,
and one of them might find Moses. She makes full use also of the opportunity to be a wet nurse for
her son, now the Pharaoh’s daughter’s adopted son, and raise him on the songs and stories of his own
people.

Moses’ sister has spunk. She has the under-class ability to stay out of sight but know exactly what
is going on, and she can step out bold as day and offer to help the Pharaoh’s daughter, brazenly
expecting her not to harm the baby, but to want to rescue him. Pharaoh’s daughter could have been
as ruthless as her father.
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
But Pharaoh’s daughter does not conform to her father’s example.
compassion. Or put simply, she’s into life, not death. She has enough
assume she’ll find a way to deal with this without the baby having to die.
she proves to be willing to take suggestions from unexpected directions.
life-giving, as opposed to the death-dealing, are very good at collaborating.
Her grace, her gift, is
power in her own life to
She’ll work it out – and
People who work on the
None of these people will be conformed to the ruling of the human masquerading as God called Pharaoh.
They have too much reverence for life to cooperate with the ruling system.
In the book of Exodus, the empire of Egypt is condemned. It is greedy, fearful, production-driven,
bigoted, sexist, exploitative, violent, and murderous. This description of Pharaonic Egypt is strikingly
similar to modern global capitalism where many First World Christians sit near the top of a pyramid
whose base is 27 million slaves worldwide. Theologian Robert McAfee Brown put it quite simply:
"Where we fit in the Exodus story is among the functionaries in Pharaoh's court rather than among the
workers in the slave labor camps." ...
HOW CAN FIRST World Christians reclaim the stories of these defiant daughters as we live out our
own stories of resistance to empire? Pharaoh's daughter is the clearest example of an Egyptian who
acts in solidarity with the Hebrews (or at least one Hebrew). Is she a princess or a class traitor? Exodus
2:2-10 tells the story of Moses' endangered infancy. At the crisis point in the story—when the child is
given up to the water—Pharaoh's daughter acts decisively to save the infant who will save his people.
Her story of deliberate choices is a progression of powerful verbs. She descends to bathe, sees the
basket, sends her maid, opens the basket, sees the child, and has compassion.
The story of Pharaoh's daughter is a spare five verses. Much is communicated but much is left out.
Was her mother the queen or a slave? Was she Pharaoh's only daughter or was she one of Ramses
II's 49 daughters? How did she explain Moses' presence in Pharaoh's court? Did she take part in the
exodus escape? Lonely, mistrusted, and accustomed to luxury—what would her exodus have been? ...
How is her story helpful to modern [First World] Christians who seek to resist empire? The story does
not give us instructions for opening ourselves to compassion, but the wording does leave us a few
clues. Pharaoh's daughter is a decisive actor. She works together with other women despite differences
in class, nation, and age: She forms alliances. Action, compassion, and relationship are critical factors
in this short story of salvation. The greatest gift of this passage is found in the interaction between two
women that we know only through their relationship to men: Pharaoh's daughter and Moses' sister...
What happens here is subtle and yet incredibly profound. In a crisis situation, a woman of rank,
privilege, and power listens to perhaps the least powerful person she is likely to encounter: the female
child of a slave. And she allows the child to offer the plan, to tell her what to do. For First World
Christians to listen and be directed by the least of these—by poor people, people of color, gay and
lesbian people, people from the global South, people with disabilities—may be the beginning of our
journey out of empire.
THEOLOGIAN NANCY LEE says Pharaoh's daughter is a model for action in times of crisis. Writing
from her experiences with women in Bosnia and Croatia, Lee calls Pharaoh's daughter's
compassionate action across dangerous social and ethnic boundaries "the appropriate human
response to genocide." ...
Immediately preceding the story of Pharaoh's daughter is what David Daube calls "the oldest record of
civil disobedience in world literature." The midwives' refusal is followed immediately by the civil
disobedience of Moses' mother hiding her baby. It is the first of many biblical examples. In scripture the
frequency with which salvation is contingent on acts of noncooperation with authority represents
something of an imperative. Moses' sister then boldly confronts Pharaoh's daughter and conspires with
her. Each act of resistance inspires the next. Is it any wonder that Moses becomes a resistance leader
with such women in his early life? This women's civil disobedience movement is the prototype that
spawns mass resistance—the exodus itself. It is the beginning of the end of Pharaoh's tyranny.
For those who live lives of privilege, like Pharaoh's daughter, we face two paths. We can congratulate
ourselves and be praised for acts of charity, or we can open ourselves to the life-changing
consequences of compassion. If Pharaoh's daughter stays in the palace, the consequence to her is not
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death. Like modern First World readers, she is faced with the choice between a comfortable existence
that stifles and a new life with God's people—a life that is hard and unfamiliar, but deeply joyful.
Excerpts from Defiant Daughters. by Laurel A. Dykstra. Sojourners Magazine, September-October 2003
With minds transformed we can discern the God-way for us to go wherever we find ourselves. We can
risk not conforming to the world-ways that we know do not fit the kingdom values we really and truly
want to live by. We can have the courage to be different, because we have got this alternative reality
constantly and clearly in view. It’s what Jesus called the kingdom – the kingdom of God or the
kingdom of heaven, depending which gospel you are reading. God’s alternative to Pharaoh’s kingdom,
or Caesar’s kingdom, or today’s multi-national economic and political kingdom.
The basic principle of God’s kingdom is what gives life and its key driver is compassion – we know that
works because compassion breeds more compassion and life keeps leading to more life. It is a kin-dom
– all are kin and all count.
Hold onto God’s alternative. That seems to be the key thing for the midwives as the story tells it. But
the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them. They had such awe
for God that they couldn’t do anything against what God stands for.
INVITE CHILDREN TO REJOIN
Respond
Offering Hymn Will you come and follow me
Sharing our Learning
Song [KAEO] Moses in Egypt
[KK] Mr Pukeko
Prayers
Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
... prayer book prayers...
Te Atua ora tonu, kua hoatu koe i tau tama te mana i te rangi i te whenua; meinga kia kore rawa e
ngaro i a mātou ki a i roto o te tumanako me te hari.
Eternal God, you have given your Son authority in heaven and earth; grant that we may never lose the
vision of his kingdom but serve him with hope and joy.
Sung Lord’s Prayer
Serve God
Blessing
God of Three Faces
Grant me your strength,
Grant me your will,
Grant me your peace.
The strength of the Creator,
Who hovered over chaos and tamed it.
The will of the Son,
Who walked upon the angry waves.
The peace of the Spirit,
Who wells up like springs in our dry souls.
Celtic Isles by Joyce Denham
… [singing] WOV679 Ma te marie a te Atua
Robyn McPhail
24.08.2008