Sunday Sermon - 30 August

Between last week’s story of baby Moses being set into the reeds and this week’s reading about Moses and the burning bush, I had to go back and watch those scenes from the movie The Ten Commandments. Today’s is the one where Moses is standing and then falling before the burning bush as God reveals God's name to him:

"I AM WHO I AM."  (in the movie, God says “I AM THAT I AM.”  Same gist)  

Watching it again, it is now a little dated and I had to overlook the antiquated special effects. The movie was made in 1956, after all, which, for the record, was ten years before I was born, so that makes the movie 70 years old. This was cutting-edge Hollywood at the time. Huge sets, thousands of extras, Charlton Heston as Moses, standing before the burning bush, the voice of God booming out across the wilderness. “I AM THAT I AM.” 

There is still something about that scene that captures the sheer power and mystery of this encounter. Moses is standing before something that is completely beyond him. He is standing on holy ground.

"I AM WHO I AM."

It is a name that speaks of God's being, God's presence, God's faithfulness. This is not a God who is simply powerful. This is the God from whom all power comes. That matters because the rest of today's readings are really about power.

Who has it? What does it look like? Perhaps most importantly, what are we supposed to do with it?

We live in a world that has a pretty clear understanding of power. Power is the ability to get your way. Power is winning. Power is having more influence, more money, more followers, more weapons, more leverage. Power means being able to make somebody else do something they don't want to do. If you have enough power, the thinking goes, you don't have to worry too much about whether you're right. You just have to be strong enough to win.

That brings us to Peter. Last week we heard Jesus say to Peter:  "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." Peter is the rock. Peter is the one who gets it. Peter is the one who recognizes Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

Now, one week later, Jesus says to the very same Peter: "Get behind me, Satan!" What happened? How did Peter go from being the rock upon which Jesus would build his church to being called Satan?

Well, Peter hasn't stopped believing in Jesus. In fact, Peter believes in Jesus very strongly. The problem is that Peter has a very particular idea of what a Messiah and Messianic power should look like. Peter has just declared Jesus to be the Messiah, and Jesus begins to explain what that means: He must go to Jerusalem. He must suffer. He will be rejected. He will be killed. Peter says, essentially:  "No. Absolutely not, that's not how this works. That's not what a Messiah does."

Peter understands power the way the world understands power. A Messiah should be victorious, defeating the enemy. A Messiah should be strong. A Messiah is a winner. Jesus says: "Nope." Then comes that hard-to-hear line: "Get behind me, Satan!"

I think we sometimes hear those words as Jesus simply losing his temper with Peter and rebuking him, but there is something deeper going on.

Let’s go back a bit to when Jesus encountered Satan in the wilderness. Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the wilderness was a very similar proposition: You don't have to suffer. You don't have to take the hard road. You can have power without sacrifice. You can have glory without the cross. In fact, Martin Scorsese (my favourite movie director) made a movie about this alternative offering called “The Last Temptation of Christ.”  It is an intriguing fictional perspective (but I digress).

Peter is now offering Jesus essentially the same temptation, and Jesus recognizes it. "Get behind me."  In other words: Peter, you have forgotten what it means to follow. You have succumbed to the devil’s way. You are trying to get in front of me and tell me where I should go according to the world’s profane sense of power. Remember who you are and where you belong. Get behind me - follow me - because the way of Christ is not the way of worldly power.

This is where Paul comes in. Paul's words today are, I think, among the clearest descriptions in the New Testament of what Christian power actually looks like. "Do not repay anyone evil for evil." "If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." "Never avenge yourselves."

"If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink."

Finally:  "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

When you think about it, this is pretty radical and challenging for us human beings because our instinct is almost always the opposite.

Someone hurts us, we hurt them back. Someone insults us, we come up with a better insult. Someone treats us badly, we make sure they know exactly how badly we can treat them. Someone plays hardball, we play harder ball. Someone raises the stakes, we raise them again.

We see this everywhere, and perhaps never more than in these turbulent, chaotic and confusing days in which we are living. I've had quite a few people ask me recently: "As Christians, how are we supposed to respond to all of this?"

To anger, division, uncertainty. To the increasingly hostile rhetoric between countries. To the tariff wars between Canada and the United States.

I understand the question because these things affect real people. They affect businesses and workers and families. They affect our communities and they especially and most profoundly affect the most vulnerable in both of our countries. From a Canadian perspective, it can be particularly frustrating when decisions made by a much larger and more powerful neighbour have consequences for us. So what do we do? Do we simply roll over? Do we pretend that injustice doesn't matter? Do we stop standing up for ourselves? 

No.

That's not what Paul is saying. Paul isn't telling us to become passive. He is telling us not to become vengeful. There is a difference.

We can disagree. We can defend our neighbours. We can advocate for our communities. We can stand up for what we believe is right. We can challenge injustice. We can even be angry - Lord knows I am - I will tell you today, from this place, I am frustrated and angry at what is going on in our world.  

But there is a line we cannot cross as followers of Jesus. We cannot allow someone else's evil to determine the kind of people we become.

"Do not be overcome by evil." That is the danger. The danger isn't simply that somebody else will do something wrong. The danger is that their wrong will change us. That their anger will consume us and make us angrier. Their hatred will make us hateful. That their trolling (like this ridiculous stuff with Lake Ontario) will rage bait us. Their cruelty will make us cruel. Their desire to win at all costs will convince us that winning is all that matters.  

Paul says: Don't let that happen. "Overcome evil with good."

That is not weakness. It is actually one of the most powerful things a human being can do. Anybody can strike back. Anybody can retaliate. Anybody can say, "You hurt me, so I'm going to hurt you." 

As I’ve said from this pulpit before, I am not a fan of that “elbows up” slogan or attitude. That kind of “elbows up” mindset isn’t about strength, it’s about retaliation (remember - elbowing is actually a penalty, it’s a cheap shot in hockey). “Elbows up” isn’t a show of strength - it’s meanness responding to meanness.  

What takes real strength? It takes real strength to say: I will not become what I oppose.

That, I think, is one of the central messages of the Gospel. Jesus doesn't defeat the powers of this world by becoming more powerful according totheirdefinition of power. He defeats them by refusing to play by their rules. The cross may look like weakness but Christians proclaim that the cross is where the power of God's love is revealed most completely.

Jesus doesn't conquer through domination. He conquers through self-giving love. Paul says: Now go and live that way: "Bless those who persecute you."  "Live peaceably with all." "Feed your enemy."  "Give the thirsty something to drink." "Overcome evil with good."

Isn't this what the entire Gospel is about? Isn't this what Jesus has been trying to teach us all along? That the Kingdom of God operates according to a completely different understanding of power?

The world says power is about how much you can take. Jesus says power is about how much you can give. The world says power means making your enemy afraid of you. Jesus says power means refusing to become your enemy. The world says if someone hits you, hit back harder. Jesus says love your enemies.

Paul says: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

This isn’t divine aspiration. This is humanly possible. I think of some of the most powerful people in human history, for example Martin Luther King and my hero, Mahatma Gandhi. As I was writing this sermon I was reminded of the words of Ghandi, who wrote in a letter to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur on August 29, 1947.  “You must not lose faith in humanity. If a few drops are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” What a powerful message of hope from this small but mighty Hindi lawyer.

I suspect most of us would prefer a slightly easier Gospel, perhaps something more practical. A nice story about being kind to our neighbours. This is much more demanding. Christianity is much more demanding.

Paul is not talking about being nice. He is talking about how Christians are to respond when we have been genuinely wronged. That is much harder. I don’t know about you, but for me, as a Sicilian with a pretty short fuse and passionate temper, it is really hard. Forget elbows, I wanna come out swinging.

Perhaps this is why Paul adds these words: "So far as it depends on you." Paul knows that peace is not always possible. We cannot control what other people do. We cannot control what governments do. We cannot control what other countries do. We cannot control what somebody says about us.  But we can control how we respond.

So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

That may be one of the most practical pieces of Christian wisdom we have. We don't get to control the whole world but we do get to decide what kind of person wewill be in the world.

Paul then takes this sage advice even further. He says: "Never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God."  (what I hear is: put your feisty arms down little Sicilian boy! God’s got this!)

In all seriousness and to put it another way: You don't have to be God.You don't have to be the final judge. In fact, you aren’t a judge at all. You don't have to settle every score. You don't have to make sure everybody gets exactly what youthink they deserve. Leave room for God because only God sees the whole picture. Only God knows the heart. Only God can judge perfectly. Our job is not to sit in God's judgment seat. Our job is to follow Christ. Our job is to be bearers of God's love in the world, in the orbit that we live in and actually do have some control over - ourselves. 

This is where Exodus comes back into the picture.

Moses asks God: "Who am I that I should go?" and God doesn't give him a pep talk. God doesn't patronize him, trying to uplift his sense of self worth saying, "0h, Moses, you're really talented. You've got what it takes. You can do this!"

Instead, God says: "I will be with you."

God reveals to Moses His divine name:  "I AM WHO I AM." The God who sees all.  The God who hears all. The God who knows all. The God who is omnipresent. The God who calls usto live differently in the world. Not because we are powerful enough to fix everything, but because God is with us.

We don't have to win every argument. We don't have to defeat every opponent. We don't have to have the last word. We don't have to repay every insult.  We don't have to answer every act of anger with more anger. Our identity does not depend on winning. Our identity is found in Christ and that gives us the freedom to respond differently.

I also feel a need to point out that Paul isn't telling us that goodness is some clever technique for getting people to like us. He’s not just saying “it’s nice to be nice.” He is telling us something much more profound. He is saying that goodness is how we defeat the evil in this world.

When we live that way—even imperfectly—we are doing the extraordinary work God calls us to do: We bring a little piece of God's Kingdom into the world.

Every time we refuse revenge, choose forgiveness, and answer anger with patience. Every time we refuse to demonize the person with whom we disagree.  Every time we choose peace when retaliation would be easier. We are giving the world a foretaste of the Kingdom of God and we are saying: There is another way. There is another kind of power, the power of love.

My friends, I contend that this is what our world needs from us right now — not people who simply shout louder, are better at winning arguments, or who respond to every provocation with another provocation, but people who can stand in the middle of all the turbulence and say: "I will not be overcome by evil."

I will not become what I oppose. I will not repay evil with evil. I will do what I can to live lovingly, peaceably. I will leave judgment to God. As far as it depends on me,  I will overcome evil with good.

That is the way of Christ. That is the way of the cross. That is the kind of power that can actually change the world.

Amen.