08/23/2026
Proper 16a 2026; 23 Aug. Jack Hardaway
Ex. 1:8-2:10; Ps 124; Rom. 12:1-8; Matt 16:13-20
CRAZY SNEAKY FUNNY
The taste of freedom.
That breath of fresh air.
That moment when confinement ends.
You know what I mean.
Like getting out of a bad job.
Or a bad relationship.
Or toxic religion.
The cessation of pain, fear and abuse.
The taste and feel of that moment.
The feeling and taste of room, lots of room, relief, boundlessness.
Conversion is like that.
God is like that.
Meeting Jesus is like that.
Captivity and dreams of freedom. Much of scripture can be read in the light of those two experiences: captivity and dreams of freedom.
We begin the book of Exodus today. It is the great story that for millennia has inspired those who are in captivity.
Joseph has died. A new Pharaoh rises who “knew not Joseph”, as the King James says.
The children of Israel are enslaved and oppressed. They are too fruitful and become a threat to the demographics of the kingdom.
The story begins with God’s first two covert agents, two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who protect the newborns and outwit Pharaoh, for a time, right under his nose.
And then the newborn Moses infiltrates Pharaoh’s own household with the help of Pharaoh’s daughter and his big sister, Miriam.
There is that funny irony that Pharaoh ends up paying Moses’ mother to nurse and care for her own child. That’s a good one.
First Shiphrah and Puah and now this.
God is sneaky funny like that.
The dreams of empire, of fear, abuse and control, they begin to unravel, as always, from within. The great unraveling. The story of deliverance from captivity begins, and it begins with irony and comedy.
The dream of God in the world is subversive, undermining those who keep others under the thumb. It begins with midwives and newborns and big sisters.
The God of Exodus. How is the God of Exodus experienced?
The one who sets the captives free.
“I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
God says this is who God is.
Jesus once asked the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
To Peter he is the Messiah, the anointed one, the Son of the Living God.
Peter is given keys and the authority to bind and to loose, to set the captives free.
Who is Jesus to you?
What comes to mind? Not the words, but your heart. What does your heart say?
Is Jesus just another big thumb pinning people down?
Or is Jesus the one who sets the captives free?
Is Jesus that breath of freedom?
How do we experience Jesus? How do others experience Jesus through us?
As deliverance or captivity?
As binding or loosing?
As the key that opens or the key that locks?
As the rock that weighs down or the rock that holds us up?
Today we remember Shiphrah and Puah, Miriam and Moses, Peter and the Messiah, and all those who unbind the chains.
Be that breath of fresh air, that taste of freedom to those who are weighed down.
Bring room to those who are bound up.
Infiltrate Pharaoh’s household and dream of freedom.
God is crazy sneaky funny like that.
That means we get to be crazy sneaky funny too.
