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A Sermon Delivered at First Christian
Church Stockton Exodus 12:1-14, Matthew 18:15-20, Romans 13:8-14 The
reading from Exodus is a story of liberation from slavery as well as a
story of the salvation of the Hebrew people as God’s greatest gift of
grace. To this day the Jewish
people, our ancestors, celebrate Passover as the day in which the Hebrew
slaves were liberated from their captors.
Our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the author of
liberty! This story helps us
to know who we are and the quality of freedom our lives are meant to have.
It is the central story of deliverance for the Jews, and it
foreshadows the deliverance of all people, both Jew and Gentile, in the
New Testament through the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, Jesus Christ.
Let us
not forget, however, that this moment of liberation for the Hebrews was a
night of unbelievable bloodshed and heartache for the Egyptians.
Was God the culprit in the slayings of all the Egyptian firstborns?
Is God to be held responsible for the murdering and infanticide of
innocent Egyptian children? Shouldn’t
God be held at least to the same standard of morality as we are?
Can we justify killing others in the name of God and one’s
religion? You might
think that our advanced societies might have learned by now of the
problems of murdering one’s enemies in the name of God.
One of the tragedies of 9/11 is that religion led the Islamic
Terrorists to do what they did. For them, the killing was an act of
devotion, blessed by God. This passage looks different in light of 9/11.
What about the families in Egypt whose children were slain? Must God kill
others so our faith can be affirmed?
Must Palestinians be killed so that Israel might lay claim to their
land? Should America choose
sides based on our own self interests?
These are important questions that are not being asked.
It is too easy to skip over these questions and claim for ourselves
moral authority and to say as a nation that God is on our side.
There are
many voices within Judaism and a variety of beliefs about the acts of God
in the history of the Hebrew people.
Some are more war-like, like the writer of this mornings story of
the Angel of Death and blood upon the doorposts.
There were some within Israel who saw themselves as God’s chosen
people who were to rule the land. But
there were also other voices among the Jews who saw their role not as
God’s warriors, but as God’s priests and ambassadors who were to share
the love of God with all nations. Listen
to one of these other voices and see if you can hear the difference: Isaiah
2:2-4 In days to come the
mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the
mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall
stream to it. 3 Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up
to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may
teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion
shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 He
shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more. Even the
religious use of animal sacrifices was debated amongst the Jewish people.
The writer from this morning’s text lauds it, as do other Old
Testament writers. But the
author of Isaih says “What to me
is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of
burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the
blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
And my favorite OT text from Micah says "With
what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of
rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit
of my body for the sin of my soul?" 8 He has told you, O mortal, what
is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to
love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? I cannot
attribute the killings of the Egyptian firstborns to God, even if it means
the liberating of the Hebrew people.
For me, I can only hold God to the same standard of morality as we
are held by God. So what can
we do to make some use of this story that is consistent with our
understanding of God and God’s love for all people?
Can we celebrate the liberation of a people held in bondage for 400
years and at the same time condemn the slaughter of the innocents
attributed to God? I believe
we can. Jeff
Smith, the once popular TV chef known as the Frugal Gourmet, was also once
an ordained clergyperson until it came to light that he had molested some
young men in his parish many years ago. Before
the allegations came to light, Smith talked about the blood of the lamb
and it’s significance. Smith
said "The image of adoption was
connected with the image of blood. .In
the old shepherding communities, all would have understood this image
because all knew the problem of the shepherd. The shepherd would check his
flock in the morning and find a new lamb, .but the mother had died during
the night. In another portion of his flock he would find a mother, sitting
silently beside her lamb stillborn during the night. The mother would die
of a broken heart and the orphan would die from lack of sustenance. All
logic would tell you to put the orphan under the care of the childless
mother...but the two would know they were foreign, and they would not
accept each other. Only one thing could be done to unite the mother and
the lamb: If you slit the throat of the stillborn lamb and wash the
orphaned lamb in its blood, the mother would adopt the newborn and suckle
it. Could it
be, my friends, that because of our wars and violence to humanity, that
maybe we have alienated ourselves from God, the source of all life, the
only one who could nurture and sustain our lives?
Could it be that we have broken God’s heart through our warring
against nations, by enslaving people on the basis of race, demonizing
people on the basis of sexual orientation, and mistreating and condemning
others based upon religious preferences?
We have become alienated from one another and do not recognize that
all of us, Jew, Christian Muslim, Atheist, we all come from the same God,
the same mother and father of all humanity.
Can nothing be done to save us?
Martin
Luther King was the voice in the sixties for both liberty and peace.
Some wished that he were more militant, but his Christian
upbringing would have nothing to do with the shedding of innocent blood.
Upon accepting the Nobel Peace prize, King said “I
still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and
be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive
goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land”. We will
only overcome our bondage to war when we are willing to trust in the
teachings of Christ. God is
beckoning us to cross over the river of hate, where the blood of our
ancestors flows, into a new world where God reigns in love, liberation,
and peace. For we are all
God’s adopted children through the power of the cross.
Amen Michael Malone
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