Sermon of September 4, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson: Exodus 12:1-14

“Evolving Faith: Dealing With Enemies"

I was going to begin today a short series on how aspects of our faith have evolved over the years, and particularly today, how dealing with our enemies has evolved. As the week went on, I started thinking that there also were things to say about how our faith speaks to the events of the hurricane (Hurricane Katrina) and the aftermath of the hurricane. I felt that I needed to bring that in as well. So what I’m going to do is bring you my original message about dealing with enemies in about 30 seconds and then say a few other things.

What I want to say about evolving images of enemies is that in this passage we hear the enemies, the Egyptians, being killed while the Israelites are saved as the rescue of God’s people from Egypt begins. Both man and beast who were first-born are going to be smitten by the angel of the Lord as that night goes on, and again, later on, more Egyptians will die at sea, as the story is told, as the seas part and the Israelites go through and then the waters come crashing down on the Egyptians. In this story, the Egyptians, the enemies, are dealt with by killing them. Soon, in Sunday school, the children are going to be hearing Psalm 8, and I had that in mind as well. In that psalm, there’s a verse: “Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, O Lord, to silence the enemy and the avenger.” We’ve moved away from killing the enemy to silencing the enemy, evolving, only a few hundred years later.

When we get to Jesus, only a few hundred more years later, enemies are dealt with a different way. Well, not actually enemies, but it’s about how you deal with someone who is a member of the church and who sins against you: Go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. If it doesn’t work, Jesus says, take one or two others with you and let them moderate. If that doesn’t work, take it to the church. So we move now from murdering enemies to silencing enemies to confronting enemies and trying to work through the problem, so that resolution is made and reconciliation is accomplished. That’s my 30-second sermon. Our faith does evolve over the years. It’s not the same. Our faith evolves from annihilating our enemies to trying to come to terms with them and finding some place of reconciliation. It’s not always possible, but it should be a goal, and I think that’s an important thing that God teaches us through the years.

Now, regarding what has happened in the past week – I think the lesson we just heard still applies. When disaster happens, we kind of wonder where God is in the midst of this.

One of the thoughts that I had is that God is not behind the disaster; God is not wreaking havoc on God’s people at any point. You kind of get the idea, in Exodus12, that God is kind of behind the idea of destroying some people so that the Israelites can escape from slavery in Egypt . We’ve had trouble teaching this to children in the First Communion class, when talking to them about Passover, because it seems that what we’re told is that God wants for some people to die and some people to live. You can take it literally like that, but we learned in seminary that there are other ways of understanding stories. Perhaps when this story was formed, something did happen, maybe a plague or some natural disaster, where miraculously some people did die among the Egyptians and many Israelites were spared. Maybe, over the years, somehow the story gained legendary status and details were added to what we have today, and people started to believe that God did this – when in fact it was a series of events, not God directly, who contributed to the destruction of some people. That’s how I like to think of it, that something happened and people remembered it in a way where God is triumphant.

But there’s one part of the story that I think is very clear. Even if you believe that God was behind all this, God is careful not to destroy the innocent. I think that’s an important thing. In this case, slaves who needed to be set free were spared the harm in this story. I think it’s important to remember this when people try to come to terms with any kind of disaster. I remember on September 11^th that one of the people who I don’t like listening to on TV suggested that it happened because of God’s judgment of the sinful nature of New York and people’s lifestyle there. I’m hoping that someone is not going to say the same thing right now because there are casinos and other things in New Orleans; you can find just about anything in New Orleans. That simply is not true even in this story. God does not cause great destruction so that innocent people are the victims of judgment. There’s a clear message here that some are spared, even if you believe that God does do this. Innocents have died in New York City and innocents have died along the Gulf Coast . This is not the work of God. God is at work in the lifting up of people and in the saving of people’s lives, and in the bringing of compassion and love.

Which leads to the second part that I find in this message, which is that in the midst of all this, what God calls us to do is to serve and to serve together in a united way. When the message goes out through Moses, immediately the people gather together, and they get the lamb, and they share the lamb if they have too small a household, and they gather the herbs and the unleavened bread, and they do the things they need to do in preparation for being rescued. Later on, they’re told to put their sandals on and get their staff and be ready to go, and everyone joins together in a unified spirit to get the work done that needs to be done.

I think that’s a clear message for us today. I’m troubled by what I’ve been hearing about people criticizing and complaining about how something is being done or not being done, or the speed at which it’s being done. Because that gets us nowhere. I’ve never seen some of these people who go on TV doing anything other than what’s self-serving, going on TV and mouthing off, but not actually helping. When I was at General Synod many years ago in St. Louis , there were floods at that time too; the Mississippi River flooded there. The worship leader we had was Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa . A couple days before he lead the worship he was already there, when people were having rallies to bring sandbags to the riverbanks to block some of the flooding. He was right there to help. He was in his everyday clothes, with the volunteers, putting sandbags up to stop the water.

Later on, the Israelites complain on their way to the Promised Land, and it holds them up. Right now, in the Gulf Coast , it’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong and who’s fast enough and who’s not. It’s about the work of serving together, about rescuing the people in that area and taking them to a promised land, about being unified however you do it – if you can give money, if you can volunteer your time, if you can help out at the Red Cross or later on at a work camp or whatever it is. That’s what this story today – and it wasn’t supposed to be about the hurricane – teaches us. That God is not about destruction and certainly God is not about killing people, especially innocent people. God is not about complaining and bickering with people when other people need to be rescued. 

The good news today is that as the people of Israel did find their way back to the Promised Land, so will the people of New Orleans and Biloxi and Gulfport and other places. We don’t know when. The Israelites didn’t know when they would get to the Promised Land, but they did. And that is the hope God gives us. It happens when we don’t inflict God as the cause of the problem but raise up God as the solution to the problem, and follow God and work with God together to serve. Let us pray.

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