Exodus 14:19-31
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35
As I reflected on today’s
lectionary scriptures, they all seem to me to be calling us to take risks, to
reach out in trust and faith for that better thing, that wholeness, that new
way of being that God calls us to. Not
easy. Never easy. But it is what I hear, in different ways, in
all three of today’s scriptures.
The Israelites were called to risk
everything in order to no longer be slaves in Egypt. More, they were called to risk everything so
that their children would no longer
be slaves in Egypt. For as we know, they
were in the wilderness for 40 years, a generation and more passed before they
came to their own place, their own home.
They risked everything so that their children might no longer be an
enslaved people. How scary for
them! How terrifying to leave everything
they knew, everything they trusted, everything they experienced and understood
and lived, for the risk of a better life for their kids. Of course it was hard, horrible, and at times
they expressed great anger at Moses, at Aaron, at GOD for leading them out, for
encouraging such a rick. There were
many, many times when they felt, and said, and yelled that it would have been
better to just stay slaves than to go through the painful, difficult
transitions of risk, of change, not knowing for sure that they would have
something better, but instead only hoping, trusting, having faith that they
would.
Then we come to the passage in
Romans. And at first it does not seem to
be talking about risk. But it, too,
is. The new Christian community in Rome
was called to take the risk of letting go of some of their principle ways and
principle beliefs about what could be eaten, when and how. Those who grew up as Jews had strong opinions,
based on their Torah, our first five books of the Bible, about what was legal
and okay to eat, when, and how. But
those who joined them from the Gentile community did not share those beliefs or
practices. This was very hard on many of
the people who came from the Jewish tradition.
They felt that the writings of what we now consider the Old Testament
were as important in this new community as they had been before. The laws written in scripture about what
could and couldn’t be eaten, they felt, must be upheld. They were willing to fight for these laws,
insisting that those who did not follow them were not true Christians, were not
people who should be part of the church.
But Paul challenged that, saying that Christ was about Love and only
about Love and that these laws about eating (and other things) that people held
on to so strongly had to be released.
These new Jewish Christians were
called to let go of some of their ways, or at least let go of the judgments of
others that accompanied these hard and fast beliefs. They could continue to practice their eating
laws and other laws, but they could no longer judge, attack, or exclude those
who would come to the faith who did not practice these same laws and
rules. But what Paul was asking of these
Jewish Christians was hard. He was
asking them to take a huge risk of letting go of judgment. That might feel so small to us. But for them it was huge. HUGE.
It meant letting go of who they WERE at their core, letting go of being
JEWISH in their veins, or at least of being part of a community in which
everyone followed the same rules. And
again, many of them simply could not do it.
They heard and knew and understood that they were called to LOVE and not
to judge. But some couldn't do it. It was simply too hard to take that risk.
And then finally, lastly, we come
to the gospel story for today. And we
are told to forgive and forgive and forgive.
And we are told, what’s more, that in the same way that we fail to
forgive, so God will fail to forgive us.
This is calling us to a radical forgiveness. And that, too, is an invitation to risk
everything that we hold on to, to risk the anger and the judgments and the fear
that we hold on to, to risk letting all of it go in the reach for a different
way of being in the world.
Can we do this? We are not being asked to leave our country
of origin. We don’t have the same
judgments about food. But we still have
beliefs and judgments and practices that God may be calling us to risk
changing. When Jesus calls us to love and
to forgive, even our enemies, even people we fear, can we let go of judgment
and risk loving? Can we let God be in
charge of holding people accountable?
We hear the passage from Exodus and
we can only imagine how absolutely terrifying it must have been for the
Israelites to pack up their stuff and to leave their homes in search of
something better. We know that people
throughout history have done the same, packed up everything, without a job
waiting for them or a home already picked out, without a clear image of where
they were going or if there would be a place for them, or a welcome, or food to
find along the way. And we know it must
have terrifying. Many of our ancestors
came to this country in a similar way, escaping persecution and risking everything
to start a new life. If you are like me
you think of those people as people of great courage and faith, being willing
to leave behind a country that was their own in search of something better. But my guess is that it is even harder to
risk giving up our most deeply held beliefs, rituals, and practices, in search
for something better – community, a new way of relating to God.
I think
about people who spend years in counseling, in therapy, and how hard it is to
look at the old stuff, to work it through so that a new way of relating to the
world might be found. I think about the
stories plastering the news this last week about Domestic Violence, and how
hard it is for these beaten and abused people, mostly women, to leave their
partners, their spouses, even when they are being beaten up regularly. I volunteered for a time on a domestic
violence hotline and it was the very, VERY rare victim who would find the
courage to leave. I think about people
choosing to make friends and cross cultural, religious, ethnic, etc. boundaries
with people who are different from them, people whom they normally judge. All of this is hard, hard stuff to do.
Paul
Tillich said the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. Usually I hear this quote as meaning that faith
in God requires believing in something that can’t be proved either way. But this week I heard this very
differently. I heard it being about
everything else that we hold dear. When
we have faith, we are called to risk our certainty about how we see things, who
we judge, how we do things, how we live, and we are called to instead rely on
the faith that when God calls us forward into a new way of being, that God
really does want and intend the best for us.
That no matter how hard it can be to take those risks, that is what
faith calls us to do.
As I
thought about this risk that we take, the movie the Spitfire Grill came to
mind. The movie is about a very young
woman who has just come out of prison for manslaughter and is looking to start
a new life. She finds a small town where
she is hired to work at the Spitfire Grill.
And while at first there is a lot of fear and judgment towards Percy, as
people get to know her they come to see her and love her for who she is. There is one exception in the movie,
however. Nahum is extremely protective
of his aunt, for whom Percy works, his family and his town. He sees Percy as a stranger, and as a
threat. He doesn’t want to know her
story, or really anything about her. He
cannot take the risk of getting to know Percy or, as he fears, getting
hoodwinked by her charm. In the end, his
failure to risk seeing her ends up in a terrible tragedy for the town. I won’t give away what that is for those who
haven’t seen the movie, but I will say that it is only after this irreversible
tragedy that he can see his own failure to risk forgiveness, to risk love, to
risk seeing this other person as a human being.
That failure to risk a new vision leads to the tragedy, a deep loss for
everyone in the town.
Most of
what we fail to miss by not having the faith to trust in love, in forgiveness,
in God’s call to us to be open to both, most of the results of that are only
personal. We miss risking and living for
something bigger and better, but it mostly only impacts ourselves. Still, God calls us to something better. But sometimes those risks are not just
personal but communal as well. I think
about this in terms of Church. As
denominations and as the Christian Church on the whole, are we willing to take
risks to be more what God calls us to be?
Are we willing to take stands to say, “we are God’s people and we will
stand up for the oppressed, the mistreated, the outcast!” Are we willing to risk praying, and listening
and following God’s call even when it seems scary and threatening and
open-ended; even when we cannot see where we are going or what God is leading
us to? Are we willing to take the risk,
knowing that God wants the best for us, for our children, and for our
communities?
I want
to end this by simply inviting us into a period of silent listening. I invite you to simply open yourself to
hearing what God is calling you to do, calling US to do.
I pray
we will have the hearts to risk it all for something better. That something better is God’s kingdom. Every week we pray that God’s Kingdom will
come here as it is in heaven. We help
bring that about by being willing to risk listening to God’s call and God’s
will, by being willing to forgive, no matter how hard that is, by being willing
to LOVE.
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