I’ve been thinking about Pharoah’s daughter. In the beginning of the Exodus narrative, the Pharaoh orders all Hebrew baby boys be killed. The Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, refuse to do it, and lie to Pharaoh and his men to try to keep the babies safe. When Pharaoh is not satisfied, a Hebrew mother of a young son makes a terrifying choice and places her baby, Moses, in a basket, and sends it down the Nile river, in the hopes that he may live. Moses’s sister, Miriam, follows the basket from the reeds beside the river, and witnesses Pharaoh’s daughter find the basket, and her baby brother inside. She asks Pharaoh’s daughter if she can get a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby and brings him back to his own mother, now safe as a member of the Pharoah’s household.¹ 

And recently, the character who has captured my imagination is the Pharaoh’s daughter. I’ve been wondering who she was before she picked up the basket. How did she make sense of her action in the larger story of her father’s genocide? We don’t know her outside of this moment, maybe she has fought her father on his policies, she maybe hasn’t. I imagine her at a dinner table, listening to her father and her advisors spitting slurs and epithets about the Hebrew Problem. I wonder if she even has a clear enough voice in her head to disagree, or just a silent discomfort. Maybe she even nods along, thinking these men sound reasonable. It’s all she’s ever known.

And then, she sees a baby in a basket. 

Maybe he’s crying and hungry and drenched. Maybe the waves have rocked him to sleep, and she hardly even noticed him. But, in a moment that couldn’t have been anything but impulsive (you don’t have time to weigh the pros and cons of grabbing someone from a moving river), she grabs the basket out of the water. Whether it emerges from years of advocacy for Hebrew people, or just a moment of mercy that was as much a surprise to her as it was for the baby, the baby is suddenly in her arms. 

In her action, there is a clear and obvious no. Not this time. Not in front of my eyes. 

Miriam, watching from the reeds, jumps in and seizes her moment expertly. I admire her resourcefulness, the faith of Moses’s mother, and the nerve of the midwives. I imagine Shiphrah and Puah smirking, shrugging their shoulders, with a backbone that I can only dream of. 

I admire every woman in this story, but as a leader, I admit that the one I see myself in, that I find myself thinking about, is Pharaoh’s daughter. I was raised with a lot of privilege, as are many of us who are in this work. Many of us who grew up that way, who have only ever heard power’s side of the story, find themselves at some point feeling ill at ease at their own dining tables, in their session rooms, in their board meetings. Many of us who came into our own in communities and institutions with a lot of power, but who take faith seriously, spend some time wondering if these places (homes, communities, churches, schools) we love, these people we love, have gotten… off track. 

And then the baby goes by in the basket. 

If you are reading this, if you are engaged in innovation work, in the long and difficult work of trying to get our ancient beloved institution, the Church, to behave differently, then you, at some level, know that the way it is currently behaving needs to change. Maybe you still sit in the same rooms you always have, just wondering about a different way. Maybe you speak up and aren’t heard, maybe you are making real and significant changes in your community. 

Maybe Pharoah’s daughter was in any of those places. Maybe she was just at the beginning of wondering about a different way, and maybe she was well-acquainted with how hard systemic change is, and had spent her life trying to fight from the inside. And when a basket comes down the river, she grabs it either way. No plan, no strategic theory of change, simple mercy, humanity, instinct, to save the child right in front of you, because you can. 

When you imagine this story, as a leader, where do you see yourself? 

• The midwives, willing to risk their lives and lie through their teeth in order to slow down evil?
• Moses’s mother, throwing a hail mary of hope without knowing if anyone would even try to catch it?
• Miriam, waiting in the reeds for an opportunity to grab a silver lining, flexible, adaptive, and willing to dance with power to save her brother, and bring good news to her mother? 
• Or Pharaoh’s daughter, compelled by some force of love, mercy, and justice, to act against her own family’s interests, and pull a baby from the river? 

These women aren’t perfectly virtuous, and on their own, each of these women might think what they did didn’t make enough of a difference to be worth the risk. And yet, in the unbroken chain between them, God’s story is told. Hope is passed like a note in class, slipped from girl to girl when the teacher’s back is turned. It is each of these women, simply not complying with an evil status quo, that allows for one of the greatest stories of our faith. 

This week I am thinking about Pharoah’s daughter, about the baby-in-a-basket moments that I have experienced as a leader and as a person of faith, and about what it might look like to better understand our own responsibility even in systems we cannot change. We likely can’t change everything we want to in our lives, we won’t live perfectly virtuous lives, and yet, when the opportunity presents itself to take a step towards radical grace, mercy, hope, and love, when the baby comes by in the basket, we better take it. 

1. If the phrase “chance that he may live” sounds familiar, its because my understanding of this story is inexorably tied up with this scene from 1998 cinematic masterpiece Prince of Egypt. ↩︎