Word to the Wise
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - Fifteenth Tuesday in Ordinary Time
[Exodus 2:1-15A and Matthew 11:20-24]A certain man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, who conceived and bore a son. Seeing that he was a goodly child, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took a papyrus basket, daubed it with bitumen and pitch, and putting the child in it, placed it among the reeds on the river bank. His sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would happen to him.......
The rest, as we say, is history. Moses steps onto the stage in the bible. His mother hides him from Pharoah's edict to kill all the male Hebrew children but to let the female children live! A crying baby is tough to hide, so she waterproofs a basket and sets the stage for Pharoah's daughter to "discover" him. The she applies for the job of wetnurse. One clever mama, she was! It is Pharoah's daughter who gives him his name, Moses! Moses manages to get in trouble by killing an Egyptian who was attacking a Hebrew, and has to flee into the desert of Midian. Stay tuned for the burning bush! Once again we are treated to masterful story-telling in the bible that enables us to see God working through real human persons in real time. Moses stands like a giant in the history of the Chosen People and in our own Christian theology! There is subtle irony. Pharoah raises Moses and educates him only to have him as an adversary later on! And what an adversary! Read the whole story in today's first scripture. Human machinations lose out to God's every time. AMN