September 4, 2011

I’ve been thinking a lot these past few weeks about 9-11. With the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center coming up, there are stories and retrospectives all over the web about those events, and about how our world has changed over the last ten years. There’s another commemoration that comes before next Sunday, and that is our observance tomorrow of Labor Day. I’ve not noticed, except among progressives here in Madison, much reflection on that holiday in light of the protests here and elsewhere over the challenges to workers’ rights.

On the surface these two commemorations might seem to have little to do with one another, but in fact, it doesn’t take much pondering to see that in each, in Labor Day and in 9-11 and its aftermath, we see reflected images of what our nation and community ought to be. We see, too, some discussion, or controversy, over the roles religious communities should take in our nation and in our community.

Today’s reading from Exodus is one of the seminal texts in the Hebrew Bible, one of the most important texts for Judaism, and for the Christian tradition as well. It recounts the instructions for the Passover, that key ritual for our Jewish brothers and sisters. Passover celebrates the liberation of the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt. It celebrates God’s salvation of the chosen people.

We hear Yahweh’s instructions to Moses—what the people are to eat, how they are to prepare it, even what they are supposed to wear while eating. These instructions are interesting because they are given in the midst of a dramatic narrative. Last week, we heard the story of Moses’ call by Yahweh. Between that event and today’s readings unfold the familiar story of the plagues. The instructions for the Passover come in the midst of the tenth plague—Yahweh’s killing of the first-born of Egypt.

Passover is a celebration of Israel’s liberation by Yahweh; but it is set in the context of a larger story that tells of horrendous suffering.  One might expect that the mood of Passover is joyous, but in the verses that were read, there is a stress on Yahweh’s judgment as well as on liberation. The joy of liberation is tempered by the reality that liberation came at a horrific price. Liberation too is not self-evident. The command to eat while dressed for a journey and to eat hurriedly gives yet another note of urgency. The Hebrews may be free, but their enemies were pursuing them.

The raw emotion and violence of the Passover narrative might tempt us to try to smooth its rough edges, to re-interpret it so as to better fit our world view. That would be a mistake. The Passover is the central ritual event in Judaism; its message and its re-enactment have played the leading role in how Jews understand themselves. The instructions to eat hurriedly, dressed as for a journey, put contemporary Jews back into the story of the flight from Egypt. Today’s Jews become Hebrews fleeing Pharaoh as they eat their lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread.

Indeed, Passover is so important in the life of Judaism that early Christians had to reinterpret Passover as they developed their own rituals and theology. Thus, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is crucified as the Passover lamb; in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples was the Passover meal, and thus our own Eucharist and our Christology borrow heavily from Passover imagery.

But there is a deep problem here. One the one hand, we have the image of a God, Yahweh, who hears the suffering of God’s people, and intervenes on their behalf. God frees them from their slavery in Egypt and promises that they will possess a fertile land. On the other hand, in the course of gaining their freedom, God wreaks vengeance on the Egyptians. The story of the plagues, read carefully, raises profound questions about the nature of God and God’s willingness to destroy human and animal life. Indeed, it is not at all clear in the story that the Pharaoh or the Egyptians have any power to avoid the horrible fates that awaited them. They certainly were not given a choice to avoid the final plague. At one point, God told Moses that he was bringing this last plague, the killing of the first-born on Egypt so that “my wonders may be multiplied.” Shock and awe—to use a phrase that became commonplace in the last decade.

It is an image of God with which we should be uncomfortable—hearing this lesson with its promise of the destruction of all the first-born of Egypt, not just humans mind you, but even cattle, that language should make us squirm in our pews. We might be tempted, many of us have been, to put that language and imagery down to the Angry God of the Old Testament, and contrast it with the loving God of the new. That, folks, is one of the oldest heresies on the books, and it’s flat out misinterpreting both the Old Testament and the New. There’s plenty of wrath and judgment in the New Testament’s depiction of God, and plenty of love and mercy in the Old Testament’s.

In fact, in today’s lesson from Paul, continuing in our summer-long reading from the letter to the Romans, we hear some of Paul’s ethical instructions to the community in Rome. And where does he look for that instruction? The Hebrew Bible, the Ten Commandments. Actually, Paul gives us a little insight into the way the 10 commandments were being interpreted in his time. Whether or not he knew Jesus’ advice to the young man, recorded in all of the synoptic gospels, that the two central commandments of Torah, were the love of God and of neighbor, Paul says much the same thing. He lists what is often called the second table of the Decalogue, somewhat out of order, and summarizes them with the statement: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Then he goes on eloquently saying, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Loving one’s neighbor is hard enough, but what do you do when your neighbor has offended or hurt you? In today’s gospel, Matthew puts in Jesus’ mouth sayings that were probably meant to help his little community deal with conflict. He lays out a plan for how to reconcile a sinner. The goal seems to be full inclusion in the community, but if there is no reconciliation, Jesus says, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” He continues by granting the community all of the authority that he had given Peter two chapters earlier: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

It is awesome power and responsibility, and few Christian communities in the contemporary world seek to embody it. We deal with conflict in other ways. We ignore it, hoping it will go away, or we let it simmer until suddenly it boils over. Many of us find this language meaningless in the modern world, or even offensive but of course Matthew is writing in a very different context, and one must approach what he says with great care.

Still, in both Paul and in the Gospel, the importance of forgiveness and love comes through. But how do we reconcile that imagery with the violent language of Exodus? I don’t think we can, but I would remind you that there is a hint of a response even in Matthew’s gospel. When Jesus says that the community should treat an unrepentant sinner as a Gentile or a tax collector, he is suggesting, or Matthew is suggesting that such a person should be avoided, excluded from the community, ostracized and abandoned. Yet, who did Jesus hang out with? Tax collectors and Gentiles. Indeed, tradition has it that Matthew himself was a tax collector.

We are tempted to treat our enemies with hate and disdain—whether those enemies are political opponents here in Madison, enemies on the field of battle half a world away, or even those with whom we disagree about matters in our parish. We wish we could heap coals of fire upon them, or that God would punish them. The temptation is real and too often we succumb to it. But then, even when Matthew has Jesus advise his followers to shun and avoid unrepentant sinners, we are reminded of Jesus’ own example, of his ministry to and among the hated and despised, the enemy. To follow him, to embody the community Jesus calls into existence, that body, made up of us, all of us, frail sinners, is to be a force for love and reconciliation, both with each other, and with the world that lies beyond these doors.