Baby Moses (Sunday, September 20th)

This Sunday, K-4th graders will be learning about the story of Moses' birth (5th grade is skipping ahead to the burning bush!). It's the beginning of several weeks on Moses, and perhaps a good way to start is to try and think together about the various things we know about Moses. If you brainstormed and made a list with the class, I wonder if anyone would say anything about his birth.

We tend to forget about Moses' birth story because the other events in his life (burning bush, confronting Pharaoh, crossing the Red Sea, the 10 commandments, manna in the wilderness, the Golden Calf, all seem so much more important. But all of these these stories, and indeed the liberation of all the Hebrew slaves from their oppression, almost didn't happen because Moses almost didn't survive his birth.

Pharaoh's fear of the people he was oppressing caused him to become violent and demand the death of all male Hebrew children -- an attempt to maintain political control with limited resources. It was the faith of the women around him, his mother, the mid-wife, and their companions, that gave them the courage to disobey an unfair law to save Moses' life. It's not just a coincidence that these women in choosing to struggle against oppression to save the life of the baby Moses allowed the greatest story of liberation ever recorded -- the Hebrew slaves escaping Egypt -- to happen. With God, our small acts of risk-taking for the sake of justice and reconciliation, can become magnified, leading to "thy kingdom come" (the kingdom of justice, liberation, peace, and reconciliation).

For older children, this can lead to a conversation about knowing when to follow the rules and when there is a higher purpose served by breaking them is an important conversation to have. I bet there is a wide range of opinions over what rules are ok to break and under what circumstances! What makes it ok to break a rule? Does it matter if we're breaking a rule to help someone in need versus to get something for ourselves? Does it matter what we imagine God would think of our actions?

Another lesson in this story, especially for younger children, is that when we are most vulnerable and scared, God provides for our protection. When I was a young child, say 8 or 9, I felt most vulnerable at large events (like baseball games or going to the movies) when my mother or father would get up and go to the bathroom or to get a soda, and leave me alone to wait for their return. This story is a comforting reminder that even when we are at our most vulnerable, God's hope is that other people will care for us -- recognizing our vulnerability not as our own fault, or as some kind of failure, but as a shared feature of what it means to be human. How else could an Egyptian princess feel moved to take a Hebrew slave as her own child? We often think of princesses as being concerned with jewels and dresses, and we want our own lives to be like theirs. But how can our kids be more like THIS kind of princess, caring, compassionate, taking care of those in need? (In class, you could even make a crown and take turns wearing it as you think of ideas for how you could care for someone in need the way this princess did!).

Whichever activities you select, as you begin and end your class with prayer together, be sure to pray for all children who don't have parents, and to give thanks for the parents of our kids, who care for them more than anyone else, except God!

Have a great class,
Chris