Month: September 2023

Seventeenth Sunday of Pentecost, Proper 20: Exodus 16:2-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

You cannot entirely blame the people of Israel for complaining: they are in the desert, and while the Egyptians have been destroyed, they have no obvious food to eat. They have left the fleshpots of Egypt and are afraid. The Lord hears their complaints, and acts. He tells Moses and Aaron that the Israelites will have meat in the evening and bread in the morning. Sure enough, that evening quails come over their camp, providing meat for dinner; the next morning, a “fine flaky substance” is on the ground, providing bread. There is enough.

The Lord acted here with generosity. Today’s psalm retells the significant parts of the story:

In today’s parable, the landowner acts with generosity. Some workers were hired early in the morning, but additional workers are hired throughout the day. Yet they are all paid the same wage, the daily wage promised the first workers. Modern readers might agree with those hired first that this was not fair: they had worked more, and deserved more. They don’t understand such abundant generosity.

In our lives, we like to keep score: because I did this, I deserve that. This person did this bad thing, so does not deserve the same things I do. Just as the Lord provides for the complaining Israelis, so the Lord provides for all. The Lord is not keeping score as we do: those who worked only an hour still worked, and are welcome. Cradle Christians are no more virtuous than converts, old time members of congregations than newcomers.

The Lord’s generosity ensures that all are cared for. It is a different way of being in the world, hard for us to accept. But we are all at times grateful for a generosity that does not keep score. That is the Kingdom of God.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19, September 17, 2023: Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114 or Exodus 15:1b-11,20-21; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

Today’s lessons in Paul’s letter to the Romans and Matthew’s gospel focus on scale: who we are in relation to God. It is somewhat humbling, but also a source of relief.

“So then, each of us will be accountable to God”. Thus ends our reading from Paul, when he is trying to get the members of the congregation in Rome to focus not on their different interpretations of rules about food and eating, but on the big picture. It’s not up to us, Paul says, to tell people what they should be doing as they live their lives, as long as they are living it “in honor of the Lord”.

Clearly, the church in Rome was no different from modern churches. We may not worry about what people eat, but there are certainly issues that some think are vital and others do not. For some today it is abortion, for others it is the rights of migrants. At different times of history, different issues have surfaced as deal breakers for some in the church. Paul’s reminder that others are not accountable to us for what they do, but to God, is one we might all try to keep in mind!

Jesus too is reminding us that it is God who is our judge. When Peter wants to know how often he should forgive, Jesus tells him, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” In the parable that follows he contrasts the mercy given to the slave who owed 10,000 talents to the harshness that same slave showed to one who owed merely 100 pennies. God, he suggests, is extraordinarily generous, and we should be too. We need to forgive. We are accountable to God, as are those who have harmed us.

Because we so often hear that we should “forgive and forget”, it is worth observing that Jesus says nothing about forgetting: forgiveness is separate from memory. When I forgive, I do not always forget the harm that was done me, and there are limits to my trust going forward! The King did not forget the debt he had forgiven, after all.

The reminder of scale in this weeks readings is comforting. We don’t have to take care of everything, because we, and those we know, are accountable to God. We need to be ready to forgive, and to let go of our obsessions, to be part of a community. God will take care of the rest.

Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost, Proper 18; 10 September 2023: Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 149; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

We need neighbors. We need each other. Our history is marked by cooperation and conflict, and many efforts to help us live together. All our readings today circle around our lives with others.

The Hebrew scriptures today set up the Passover: Moses and Aaron give the people of Israel instructions on what they are to eat, and how they are to eat. Here it is clear that they are addressed as a group: the instructions are for “the whole congregation of Israel”. And they need to know others: if their household was too small to eat a whole lamb, they were to “join its closest neighbor”. The sign of the lamb’s blood on the door posts and lintel would tell the Lord that this was a house of Israelites, and they would be spared the death that would come. Furthermore, they were to remember this day: “throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance”. Which, some three thousand years later, they do. The Passover Seder still includes lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread.

Paul focuses on attitude: “love one another”. He repeats this, reminding his readers that the commandments can be summed up as “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Just as you would not harm yourself, you should not harm your neighbor. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.” This is easier said than done, leaving aside the fact that people sometimes do harm themselves. Paul doesn’t say it, but to fulfill this, we need to learn to love ourselves. We need to “live honorably as in the Day”. Loving ourselves and others changes the way we live. There is a reason that versions of this golden rule appear all over the world.

Finally, Matthew reports Jesus providing his disciples with extremely clear guidance on how to resolve conflict, advice that works not only in the church but in the world. Start with a conversation with the other person. If they don’t listen, bring in two people as witnesses, and try to find a way forward. Only then do you bring in the church. If they won’t listen to the church, they should be shunned, “as a Gentile or a tax collector.”

All of us have to deal with other people. Following the guidance in these readings would not hurt as we do so. Approach others with love, trying not to do harm. Try to resolve conflict quietly: it may not work, but it’s worth a try. And finally, remember what needs to be remembered. The Lord orders the Israelites to remember the Passover. We remember days that matter to our nation, like Independence Day; but we also celebrate birthdays, we remember anniversaries, and we also note the anniversaries of deaths. Many of us will remember 9/11 tomorrow. Such remembering anchors us in time, and they anchor us to others.

“Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” It is hard, but a good way to live.

14th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 17), 3 September 2023: Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

Last week our readings began the story of Moses; between then an now Moses has grown up and become sensitive to the abuse of his people. He killed an Egyptian who was abusing the Israelites, and fled. He has now married the daughter of a priest of Midian and has a son. The verses just before the section we read today says,

After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cry for help rose up to God from their slavery.  God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them. (Exodus 2: 23-25)

We are following the actions of two actors: Moses and God. The account we have today is the story of how Moses comes to act for God. It is not a forgone conclusion that Moses will do what he did.

There is a bush burning, but not being burned up. Moses stops. He pays attention. It is only when he stops to examine this mystery that God calls to him. And Moses is by no means certain about this assignment: while the promise of the “land of milk and honey” is nice, Moses’ question, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” is not unreasonable. I’m pretty sure Moses knew Pharaoh would not say, “Oh, yes, of course, I know your people are treated unjustly, feel free to go”. That’s not how it works. All God says is that “I will be with you”. And we sense that soon Moses will be acting on behalf of the Lord.

Moses’ second question is more interesting: who should I say sent me? Who are you? Not just “the God of your ancestors”, but “What is your name?” God’s answer has been one of the great translation challenges: “I AM WHO I AM”. Or maybe, “I AM WHAT I AM” or “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE”. Tell them, God says, “I AM has sent me to you”.

But God continues: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations. I AM is here and will be here. I AM will be with Moses as he does the hard work of bringing the Israelites out of Egypt.

Answering the call is not always easy: in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus promises his disciples that following him will be hard. His followers will need to “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”. There was no easy way to the Son of Man in his Kingdom.

The story of salvation that Jesus promises is abstract, but Exodus is deeply practical. It is not an accident that the story of the Exodus gave comfort to enslaved people in the United States: the journey out of Egypt turned out to be hard, but the Israelites did come to the land of milk and honey. In our faith lives, we think both about creating the Kingdom of God on earth-working for justice, helping those in need-and eternal salvation. They are two sides of a coin.