The story of Moses is incomplete, like so much of history. I want to challenge you to ask some questions of this text. How was this one child saved? What resources were there for one mother to save the life of her baby in the midst of a slaughter? What does the story say about the truth of our lives and our faith, and our histories?

Sometimes I feel really cheated when I look at the stories in history. This is one of the stories that I've always known falls short kind of, of opening our experience to a whole truth. I think that most of us know very little about this text, mainly because it does not open itself immediately to the telling of the whole story. So let me try to answer some of the questions placed before you by retelling the story of Moses.

In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, there is a story told among the Hebrew women about a woman named Joch'ebed, who was married to a man named Amram. Together the two, Amram and Joch'ebed, raised a family. The children that we know from this story and from history are Aaron and Miriam, and of course, Moses. But when Moses was born, there was a scourge upon the land and the Pharaoh issued a command that every son born to the Hebrews was to be cast into the Nile. The daughters were allowed to live. Joch'ebed was not willing to part with her infant child. She hid him three months, and when the time came that she could no longer conceal the infant, she made a plan. With great risk to herself and her family, Joch'ebed, the mother of Moses with her daughter Miriam made a basket and set it in the bulrushes to send the child down the river to the more prosperous part of town. Knowing that even the Pharaoh's daughter could not resist such a beautiful child, Joch'ebed willed her son to live by giving him away. But that is not the end of her plan. For in the families of wealth, children were not cared for by their parents, and Joch'ebed and Miriam made sure that a willing and experienced nurse would be secured for the baby. That nurse was Joch'ebed, herself the mother of the captured baby.

This story survives in our corporate faith because the baby Moses survived in highly unlikely and adverse circumstances. Surely, there would be no tale to tell if a mother, like other mothers had, unlike other mothers, given up to the power of corporate evil. Joch'ebed created from the resources of her powerful love a plan that saved her child, and even us.

Now, this is not to say that the other mothers did not love their sons, or gave over to the evil of the Pharaoh. We really have in our text one story. Perhaps there were others who invented a way past death for their sons. The point that I want to make is that fear and power do not have the ability to overcome love and power, and when that love is named, there is no great barrier to survival. And that I believe is the whole truth.

This woman's name has changed my understanding of my history. There have been for so many of us, women and enslaved people, the passing over of the stories of the power of love over evil. This is what I cherish about the mother of Moses. Her name names evil as only an option. Her love shows that risking a plan that no one else can see or think or understand is the same thing as granting new life...rebirth. Friends, I challenge you to look back at the stories of our lives and our histories with new eyes, eyes that search for the whole story; memories that name persons that risk all to overcome the power of corporate evil with the power of love.

I challenge you to remember the named and the unnamed, the innocent, the women and the slaves, the persons of little power whose only contribution to the human race, as recorded in our history is their power to survive. I challenge you to go back to the questions and ask them of your own faith and your own family. Learn the whole truth.

Joch'ebed is not the only woman whose love has conquered fear. I have some stories to tell to you today. Do you know the name, Ruby Bridges? In 1960, Ruby was chosen with three other six-year-old black girls to integrate the New Orleans public school system. She was sent alone to the William Frantz elementary school. Following the orders of the court, the directions of her parents and the faithful companionship and leadership of her teacher, Mrs. Henry, Ruby spent one whole year in a classroom all by herself.

You may know her picture. It is famous. In the year 1964, Norman Rockwell did a painting of Ruby. It is the picture of a little girl taking long and confident strides beside the federal marshals who escorted her to school everyday. In the background are slurs and epithets and food splattered along the school wall. The painting is entitled, "The Problem We all Live With".

I was a young girl myself when the schools were integrated by other children like myself. Most of them did this courageous work with little notice and no respect. Most of their names we do not remember, they are not in our history books. Even though parents like Ruby's and teacher's like Mrs. Henry made a commitment to work and live past hate, even though they maintained a staid and faithful presence, even though they continue to live and work and provide for our children, we do not learn from them until we learn their names and their stories.

Ruby Bridges reminds me: to remain faithful and diligent when difficult tasks are assigned to me; she reminds me to stand tall, even like a small child and to be determined to move on a daily basis beyond the fearful and the anxious places if that is where I must go and where I must be in order to do my work in the world. Ruby lives for me as a spirit of faith keeping hope for children who, even though they are confronted with the evils of hate and aggression and evil, they can overcome these things with faith, commitment and courage.

Remember the name Ruby Bridges.

Perhaps you've heard the name of Marian Wright Edelman. She is the head of an organization called the Children's Defense Fund. She thinks that a lot of our children, the children in this culture and in this country, the United States of America, are paralyzed and need to be saved. Marian sees them unable to move and grow because they do not all have adequate housing and health care. Some of the children in the United States of America are struggling to learn because on a day-to-day basis, they do not have adequate nutrition...simply not enough to eat. Marian reminds us of the plagues of violence in our culture, teen pregnancy, inadequate parenting and lack of formal family support systems. She invites all of us to join her in making a way out of no way, finding new ways to access possibilities for health, nutrition and basic community support for our children. Marian invites all of us to stand with the children at risk to find ways to save and secure their health and life and future.

Marian Wright Edelman suggests that we: feel entitled to nothing and remember to design safe, secure and nurturing care for our children, all of our children, this means that there will be some struggle and that there must be some creative and resourceful thinking on the part of all of us. Marian tells us to be confident, that even if some of us have leaner resources, we must never forget that work and determination will make a difference. Remember, she says, that before you there were forebearers on whose shoulders we stand. As we determine our new passageways, we must remember our history and the heritage that is legacy for all of us.

Some days Marian Wright Edelman is all by herself, it seems, the only mom facing the legislature, and the housing commission and the school boards restructuring the barriers to health and wholeness and healing for all of our children. But everyday that I live and breathe, I can hear her voice speaking to me, encouraging me to make a way out of no way, to save our children and to find and use all of the resources at hand to keep them safe and alive and thriving.

Remember the name, Marian Wright Edelman.

Joch'ebed is the mother of Moses. Moses is the leader of the Hebrew People. It is the strength, forbearance, commitment, creativity, innovation, courage, inspiration and hope of all of our forebearers named and unnamed that brings us to the place we are today. I invite you to name out loud the women and children and men who have saved and guarded your life, your soul and made a way out of no way.

Please hear these words of hope and inspiration:

"0 Lord, thou hast searched me and known me! For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mothers womb... (from Psalm 139)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us...  (from Hebrews 12)

So put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander. Like newborn babes, long for pure spiritual milk...you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people...declare the wonderful deeds, of the Lord, who called you out of darkness into the marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God's people... (from I Peter 2)"

Let us pray:

God of all life, give us the power to pray for our lives, our history and our hope. Give us your continued strength. Bless us for your work and will in the world.

God, give us the will to name our faithful guides, and mentors, teachers and providers. Today I pray for Richard, Dolores, Cora, Doc, Margrave and all those faithful in my family. I pray for Charles, Marguerite, Father Martin and Father Mack and all those faithful in the family of faith. And I pray for Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Chisholm, Mrs. Cockrell, Mrs. Rollins, Miss Harsh and all those faithful in the life and the faith of our children.

Creator God, give us the will to make a way out of no way.

Amen.

Lydia Talbot: Claudia, your compelling message is one of survival. It talks about the triumph of love and power over evil and power. I suspect you learned something about that growing up at St. Edmunds Episcopal Church School in Chicago.

Claudia Highbaugh: Yes, I did.

Talbot: What happened?

Highbaugh: Well, it was a very wonderful and heart-warming and nurturing community for children. It is what motivates my work and helps me to understand that people who care for children in the way that I was cared for provide a sound foundation for another generation.

Talbot: You carry photographs of your childhood student days at St. Edmunds with you every day. That's how meaningful it is.

Highbaugh: I think that what I want to remember is that the world should be made safe for children and I remember my own childhood here in urban, inner-city Chicago.

Talbot: And the power of naming names. Your mother, both of your grandmothers, were strong women.

Highbaugh: Strong church women.

Talbot: And the grandmother in Indianapolis. Say something about her.

Highbaugh: Well, my grandmother in Indianapolis was a great volunteer in the Second Christian Church in Indianapolis. She was a volunteer in the hospitals, a Gray Lady. She worked at the Settlement House, the Flenner House, and she was helping to pull together one of the senior citizen homes.

Talbot: But she sat on the steps of the grade school that refused admission to your father because he was black.

Highbaugh: Her whole life she worked for what she believed in and that's where part of my justice commitments come from.

Talbot: And back to the theme that you conveyed, corporate evil and in the context of racism. How can we combat that?

Highbaugh: Well I think that part of what I want to convey is that we need to tell the whole story, the whole truth of the story. To see the people that we know, like Ruby Bridges, and to call their names. To understand that behind every good Moses there's a good strong mother.

Talbot: You grew up with the Chicago Sunday Evening Club, too. How did that experience shape your religious faith?

Highbaugh: Well, my parents really surrounded us with a lot of different cultural opportunities and experiences. And what I was just remembering was watching the Sunday Evening Club as a child and really loving the music. It was just very warm.

Talbot: And thank goodness it brought you back to us. Thanks so much, Claudia, for being with us.