Sunday Sermon - 6 September
Last week, after church, I was speaking with someone about how the Old Testament presentation of God is one of violence and vengeance and the New Testament presentation of God in Jesus is one of love, forgiveness and mercy. In today’s first and second lessons and the Gospel we have that same inherent tension - a God of violence and vengeance in the Passover story and a God of mercy and forgiving love in Romans and the Gospel. This contrasting tension is thick throughout the entirety of our Bible and it gives me what I call ‘spiritual whiplash’. It’s confusing. What is the true nature of God when we have these diametrically opposite stories?
The Exodus story is up there as one of the most disturbing stories in the Bible. God is about to deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh has refused again and again to let them go. Now comes the final plague: the death of the firstborn.
The Israelites are told to mark their doorposts with the blood of a sacrificed lamb so that when the angel of death passes through the land those houses will be passed over (hence the name ‘Passover’).
Then we turn to Romans: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”
Next up is Matthew: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”
Really?
From God killing the firstborn of Egypt to Jesus telling us to go and talk things out with someone who has hurt us? That is quite a leap and seems kind of theologically hypocritical. Hence the spiritual whiplash.
So how do we reconcile these seemingly opposite pictures of God? Is the God of Exodus a God of vengeance while the God revealed in Jesus is a God of love? Are we talking about two different Gods?
I think the first thing we need to do is acknowledge that the tension is real. We shouldn't explain away the violence of Exodus or pretend it isn't troubling, but we also need to remember what the story is about.
Israel has been enslaved. Pharaoh has refused to release them. The God of Exodus is the God who hears the cry of the oppressed and acts to liberate them. This is not simply a story about a God who kills. It is a story about a God who breaks the power of oppression and sets people free. Yet the violence remains difficult and that is why I think the other two readings are so important.
Romans tells us that the fulfillment of God's law is love. Matthew shows us what that love looks like when human relationships break down. Jesus says: “Go to them.”
There is an interesting little detail in the Gospel that we can easily miss, so I’d like to point it out. Jesus says, “If the member refuses to listen, tell it to the church” but there wasn't a Church in Jesus’ day. Why does that word show up in our translation? There were no church buildings, no dioceses, no synods, no wardens or treasurers, no church organization or structure at all, and yet, the word is there.
The actual Greek word Matthew uses is ekklesia — an assembly, a gathering of people. In context, Jesus isn't really talking about an institutional church as we know it at all. He's talking about what happens when people in a community, a gathering — ekklesia — hurt one another.
His first instruction is remarkably simple: “Go to them.” Don't gossip about them. Don't immediately recruit people to your side of a debate. Don't post about them on Facebook, or some clique ChatRoom. Don't build a case against them. Simply go to them, talk to them. If that doesn't work, bring someone else with you, he says. If that still doesn't work, bring the community.
You see, the goal isn't revenge. The goal is reconciliation.
Jesus knows that wherever human beings gather, there will be disagreements and conflict. Families have conflict. Friendships have conflict. Communities have conflict. Churches have conflict. Jesus isn't naïve enough to think that following him means we'll never disagree. Instead, he teaches us what to do when we do.
That brings us to that wonderful line that we often quote: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We often use that verse to reassure ourselves that even if only two or three people show up for church or prayer, God is still here, so it’s time well spent. That's certainly true but that's not actually the point Jesus is making. Let’s take a closer look at the context.
He’s not talking about a simple gathering of people. He's talking about conflict. He's talking about people who have hurt one another. He's talking about people trying to figure out how to live together. This is why Jesus says: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
Knowing the context changes these pastoral words and actually makes them more challenging. Jesus isn't saying God only shows up when there are two or three people in the room. Of course God is present when we are alone. God doesn't require a quorum.
Jesus is making a more specific promise: When we gather in his name—even in the middle of conflict—he is present. When we sit across from someone who has hurt us and try to listen, Christ is there. When we swallow our pride and say, “I think we need to talk,” Christ is there. When we admit, “You know what? Maybe I was wrong,” Christ is there. When we choose forgiveness instead of revenge, Christ is there.
Now I’d like to come back to that ‘whiplash’ question about God’s nature that pops from Exodus. How can we reconcile the God who brings judgment in Exodus with the God Jesus reveals as love?
I don't think the answer is to simply say that the God of the Old Testament was angry and vengeful, and then in the New Testament Jesus came along and made God nice. That's obviously a far too simple and narrow-minded explanation. The Bible does not give us one flat, unchanging picture of God, as though every passage were describing God by saying exactly the same thing in exactly the same way.
The Bible is story. In fact, it is many stories. The Bible is God’s story. The Bible is our story — beautiful, challenging, confusing, sometimes funny stories that move through time and space.
It begins with God forging a relationship with Abraham and his offspring. Then moves to His people crying out from slavery in Egypt, and God hears them and sets them free. It moves through the giving of the law, as God's people establish a homeland and begin to learn what it means to live in relationship with God and with one another. It moves through the prophets, who continually call God's people back to justice, mercy, faithfulness, and love.
Then the story takes a remarkable turn. God does not simply send another prophet to tell us what God is like. God comes among us – Our Emmanuel. In Jesus, the Word becomes flesh. From there, the story moves to the cross, where we see what happens when the power of God meets the violence of humanity—not with greater violence, but with self-giving, self-sacrificing love. Then comes the resurrection—God's triumph over death and the fulfillment of his promise of forgiveness.
Christians believe that Jesus is not simply another messenger telling us something about God. Jesus is the fullest revelation of who God is.
When we encounter those difficult and troubling accounts of God in Scripture, we do not simply ignore them. We wrestle with them. As Christians, ultimately, we look at them through the lens of Jesus because if we want to know what God is like, Christians believe we look to Christ. We model our lives after Christ. As Paul says: “We put on Jesus.”
Love is the bridge connecting all of these stories. For us today, Paul’s letter to the Romans is our bridge between Exodus and Matthew. Paul says: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” And then: “Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love isn't simply one commandment among many. Paul says love is what the whole thing is ultimately about. He tells us: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, don't just believe things about Jesus. Put Jesus on. Let his way of living become our way of living.
Coming back then to the first reading in Exodus, the Passover story: a lamb is sacrificed. Its blood marks the doors of the Israelites. Death passes over them. Christians come to see Jesus through that Passover imagery but notice what happens to the imagery through the Bible’s stories. In Exodus, the blood of the lamb marks those who will be spared from death. In Jesus, God doesn't simply spare us from death. God enters into death with us. God takes the violence of humanity upon God's own self—he becomes the lamb—sacrificed, crucified. Rather than returning violence for violence, God answers violence with love.
That is what the cross reveals. It isn’t that God suddenly became loving but that we finally see, in Jesus, what God's love has been pointing towards all along. The stories aren’t isolated in contrast, in fact, the stories are connected, threaded through time with intentional movement.
This is God’s plan and purpose for our understanding of sacred Scripture.
We can spend a lot of time wondering about the violence of Exodus and the nature of God. We can actually get lost in this - In fact, I kind of did in writing this sermon (perhaps you can tell by my meandering) - but perhaps the more important and practical question for us is:
What do we do with the conflicts in our own lives?
We all have them. I’m sure we’ve all experienced being hurt by someone else—emotionally if not physically. Maybe you're angry. Maybe you've been carrying a grudge. Maybe you've decided that person is simply beyond redemption. If we're honest with ourselves, conflict has a funny way of working in our minds.
We tend to have a self-preserving bias. I used to see this all the time in my role as Assistant Head at Lakefield College School. I was the person in charge of student discipline and most of my days were spent dealing with teenagers in conflict. It’s also my experience that adults, though perhaps more refined in their approach, aren’t much different than teens when it comes to conflict.
Let me explain. We are almost always the hero—or ‘good guy’—of our own version of the story: “I was the patient one.” “I was being reasonable.” “I was only trying to help.” “They misunderstood me.” “That wasn’t my intention.”
The other person, of course, is the problem: “They are being difficult.” “They always do this.” “I can’t help that they misunderstood my intentions.” Before long, we aren't trying to solve the conflict anymore. We're building a defense—a case to argue that I was right and they were wrong.
Jesus interjects into all of that and changes the terms of engagement. Instead of building a defense, he simply says: “Go to them.” Not because what happened doesn't matter, it does, but because the other person is still a child of God. Just like you.
You see, Jesus refuses to let our conflicts turn other human beings into our enemies. That's what love does. It doesn't ignore wrongdoing. It doesn't pretend everything is fine. It asks a different question.
Not: “How do I get even?” Or: “How can I position the best defense?”
But: “What would love require of me?”
Maybe that's the answer to our spiritual whiplash.
You see, the God of Exodus is the one true God who hears the cry of the oppressed and liberates them. The plagues are not simply a series of punishments. Here’s a little known fact: the plagues are actually theological challenges to the pantheon of the gods of Egypt.
Again and again, the one God of Israel demonstrates that the powers of the Egyptian gods—the gods of the Nile, the sun, the animals, the fertility of the land—are not ultimately in control. Pharaoh may claim divine authority, but Pharaoh is not God.
The message of this Exodus account is that there is one God and that God hears the cries of the oppressed and acts to set them free from the false gods of Egypt and from the self-proclaimed deity, Pharaoh.
Then the story continues. God in Romans calls us to love one another. God in Matthew, revealed in Jesus, teaches us what that love looks like when relationships break down. It looks like going to the person. It looks like listening. It looks like telling the truth. It looks like forgiveness. It looks like reconciliation. Ultimately, it looks like a cross because in Jesus, we see the fullest revelation of the God who was already at work in the story of Exodus.
The God who confronts the powers that enslave us. The God who refuses to let violence and oppression win. The God who enters into our humanity, our suffering, and rather than destroying those who oppose him, absorbs our violence and answers it with love. That is the beautiful movement of Scripture:
From liberation, to law, to the prophets, to incarnation, to the cross, to resurrection.
The resurrection tells us how the story ends. Death isn’t the final chapter. The resurrection is the end of our story—the ultimate act of God’s forgiving power. Forgiveness is powerful. Love wins, always.
So perhaps the question these readings leave us with today isn't simply: “How do we reconcile the God of Exodus with the God of Jesus?”
Perhaps the real question is: What kind of people does our God call us to become?
If God liberates the oppressed, then we are called to stand against whatever enslaves and diminishes human beings. If love is the fulfillment of the law, then we are called to put on Christ and make his love visible. If Jesus tells us to go to the person who has hurt us, then we are called to choose forgiveness and reconciliation over revenge (whenever reconciliation is possible).
The deepest power of God is not the power to destroy those who oppose us. It is the power to love what is broken back into wholeness.
Whenever we gather—even two or three of us—and choose that way of love, Jesus is tangibly present, for he promises: “Where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among them.”
Amen.