“When the Story Isn’t Over Yet” [Following God in Real Life Summer Series #12] - Fr. Pete's Sermon for August 23rd, 2026, the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Exodus 1:8—2:10

Senior moments. Ever have any? Some of you are way too young! But I do. I’m constantly grabbing my phone to do something, get distracted by various notifications, and forget what I grabbed my phone for. All the time! Does that happen to you?

Every once in a while, I’ll walk into a room with a very clear purpose, and then immediately forget why I’m there. I choose to believe that this is one of the spiritual gifts that comes with maturity. I’ll stand there for a moment, looking around for clues. “Was I looking for my reading glasses? Did I come in here to get a pen? Or a snack? Why am I standing in front of this closet?”

Sometimes I retrace my steps, hoping that if I go back to where I started, the memory will return. And sometimes it does. Other times I just decide that whatever it was must not have been that important and move on with my life. Am I the only one who does this?

Forgetting can be funny when it’s something simple like reading glasses. But forgetting can also be dangerous.

Families can forget where they came from. Churches can forget why they exist. Nations can forget the values they claim to cherish. People can forget the stories that formed them, the mercy that sustained them, the grace that brought them this far. And when we forget the story, fear often rushes in to fill the empty space.

And that’s where we are this morning as our Summer Sermon Road Trip turns from Genesis into Exodus. Officially, the appointed reading has moved on. But before we leave Joseph behind, we need to remember how his story ended. As we saw last week, many years after his brothers threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery, after years of suffering and exile, Joseph was able to look back and say to them, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.”

That sentence does not erase the pit. It does not excuse the betrayal. It does not pretend that their evil was actually good.

But it does testify to something deeper: God was able to bring grace out of what once was only pain and bitter feelings. That was Joseph’s great act of faith. He could see, at the end of the road, that God had not abandoned the story. Or him.

But then Genesis ends. Joseph dies. Generations pass. And Exodus begins with one of the saddest and most important lines in Scripture: “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”

He did not know Joseph. That means more than he had never met him. Of course he’d never met him. Joseph lived generations earlier. It means the memory of what Joseph had accomplished had been lost. The story had faded. Pharaoh no longer remembered how Joseph had saved Egypt during famine. He no longer remembered the blessing that had come through these Hebrew people. He saw no history, no gratitude, no kinship, no gift. He saw only a problem. A threat.

The Israelite refugees had become so numerous, that Pharaoh became afraid of them. Fear turned to suspicion, which turned to oppression. And oppression turned to violence. Before long, Pharaoh was ordering the death of Hebrew babies.

That’s what can happen when people forget the larger story. Human beings become problems to be managed instead of neighbors to be loved. Certain communities become threats. Power protects itself. Fear begins writing the future. And yet, even there, God’s story is not over.
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That’s the good news in Exodus. Even when Pharaoh forgets Joseph, God does not forget God’s people. The road continues long after we lose sight of the last milestone. And notice where holy resistance begins. Not in a palace. Not with an army. Not with someone who appears powerful by the world’s standards. It begins with women.

Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives, quietly refuse to obey Pharaoh’s illegal orders. They don’t make a speech. They don’t command crowds. They just won’t cooperate with evil. Pharaoh orders them to kill Hebrew boys at birth. But they fear God more than Pharaoh. When he questions them, they tell Pharaoh that the Hebrew women are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive, so they can’t kill those babies!

There’s a little holy mischief in that answer. And I confess, I love it. Pharaoh thinks he controls everything. But these women know something he does not know. The God of life is already at work beyond Pharaoh’s reach. Then another woman enters the story: Moses’ mother. She hides her child as long as she can. When she can’t hide him any longer, she places him in a basket among the reeds by the river. It’s an act of desperation. It’s also an act of hope.

Then Moses’ sister stands at a distance, watching to see what will happen. Pharaoh’s own daughter comes down to bathe, sees the basket, hears the baby crying and has compassion. Compassion rises in the very household of the one who had commanded murder. That is how surprising God’s story can be.

The child marked for death is drawn out of the water and raised in Pharaoh’s own house. The baby Pharaoh tried to destroy will become the one through whom God leads the people toward freedom. The story isn’t over yet.

That is the truth we may need to carry with us today. Because we live in anxious times. Many people feel as if the world is coming apart at the seams. We see division, cruelty, violence, distrust, and fear. We see people treated as threats rather than neighbors. We see old wisdom forgotten, history ignored, and compassion treated as weakness.

And sometimes we look at the world, or the church, or our own lives and wonder, “Is this where the story ends?”

Exodus says no. The story is not over when Joseph dies. The story is not over when Pharaoh forgets him, or when fear takes control. The story is not over when cruelty seems to have the upper hand.

God is still at work. Sometimes through courageous midwives. Sometimes through a mother’s desperate hope. Sometimes through a sister keeping watch. Sometimes through compassion in an unexpected place. Sometimes through a child floating in a basket, unseen by the powerful, but held in the mercy of God.

That doesn’t mean the road is easy. The Exodus will not be an easy journey. There will be plagues and wilderness, fear and complaining, hunger and thirst, long detours and many moments when the people wonder whether God has brought them this far only to abandon them.
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But God does not forget. We may forget, yes, we may have our senior moments. But God never does. God never forgets us. That is the promise. Even when we forget who we are, God remembers. Even when the world forgets mercy, God remembers. Even when the powerful forget history, God remembers. Even when we lose sight of the last milestone, God keeps leading the story forward.

And maybe that’s why we gather week after week as a church. We come here to remember. We remember the stories of Scripture, as we have been all summer through Genesis. We remember God’s faithfulness. We remember that we are not Pharaoh’s people, ruled by fear and scarcity. No, we are God’s people, called to mercy, courage, hospitality, and hope.

We remember that the child in the basket points us toward another child, born under another fearful ruler, another child whose life was threatened by power, and through whom God would bring deliverance to all.

The road keeps going. Grace keeps moving. God keeps remembering.

So when the world feels frightening, when the future feels uncertain, when the story seems stuck in a place of fear or grief or confusion or need, Exodus invites you to take heart.

Your story is not over yet. Don’t ever forget that! Amen.