This sermon was originally preached at St. David’s by the Sea in Cocoa Beach, Florida on Sunday, September 17, 2023 (Proper 19A). The lessons were Exodus 14:19-31; Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21; Romans 14:1-2; and Matthew 18:21-35.
The Moshiach came to Madison Avenue this summer.
Such was the claim made by The New Yorker’s inestimable Adam Gopnik in a recent book review. My attention was grabbed instantly because I knew what he was talking about. I knew it because I had seen it with my own eyes:
At the intersection of 5th Ave and 56th Street, as the boys and I walked through Manhattan to grab a bagel breakfast this June, we happened upon a picture of Rabbi Mendel Schneerson. His face staring at us from the lamppost with the words, “Messiah is here!” at the bottom. He had died in 1994, but here he was, seemingly back in action. What was going on?
How we tell our story forms and informs us as a certain type of people.
According to Gopnik: A nation is its narration.
He explains: this is a “reminder of Judaism’s peculiar long-lived legacy” that “losers rule.” For the Hebrew writers of Scripture, however, Gopnik argues that the world’s most influential text comes from antiquity’s biggest losers.
Even with the brilliantly triumphant moment in our lessons this morning as Egypt is defeated, God is praised, and the Hebrews are saved, Gopnik writes that they “were the great sufferers of the ancient world–persecuted, exiled, catastrophically defeated.”
Gopnik then turns cursor to the church. He asks, “How much losing is there, really, in Christianity?” If opened this for discussion, most of us would argue that Christianity is about winning: victory of sin, suffering, evil, darkness, the devil, and death. And we wouldn’t be wrong…but we wouldn’t be completely right, either. Gopnik continues, “the force of the Christian example surely lies in the extremity of the deity’s abasement, tortured to death in the most humiliatingly imaginable way and left to be buried as a criminal.”
The paradox of Christianity, indeed the paradox of Judaism is this: victory through defeat, winning through losing, life through death. While the Israelites are victorious in Exodus and forgiveness is free-flowing in Matthew, humans are neither the initiators nor the primary actors. It is God and God alone who initiates, acts, and wins.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Let’s slow down and look at Exodus before turning to Matthew.
Our lectionary compilers cut out some of the best bits by throwing us into Exodus 14 halfway through the story! Let me briefly catch you up: Moses and the Hebrew children flee from Egypt after the Passover. Pharaoh told the Israelites to leave because he was so distraught over the deadly destruction devastating his people. In a moment of murderous clarity, however, he realized that he had just dismissed his free labor force…the only thing that could cripple Egypt further was a massive and permanent work strike.
At the same time, YHWH was instructing the Israelites to camp out by the Red Sea in an area that was essentially a cul-de-sac with no way out. The plan was for Pharaoh and all of Egypt to know that YHWH was the one and only true and living God.
So, all Pharaoh’s horses and all of Pharaoh’s men suited and saddled up to chase down their slaves, riding with vigor and vengeance to track down and bring back God’s oppressed people. As the Egyptian chariots and army approached, the Israelites cried out with a loud voice to Moses.
It had only been 3 days since Passover and the 10th plague, 3 days since the mighty hand and outstretched arm of the LORD had delivered them from Egypt and they had already started doubting and grumbling. Moses responds to the accusations of mass murder and mass graves with reassurance. He promises that they will be delivered. How is this going to happen? Look at verse 14, “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
YHWH then tells Moses what he is going to do. He shares the secret that he is going to part the Red Sea to deliver the Israelites and destroy the Egyptians. Back in Exodus 3, YHWH had promised to come down from heaven and deliver his people and we find out here that YHWH is true to his word. YHWH is who he says he is, and he will do all he has promised.
When our passage opens in verse 19 with the angel of the LORD and the pillar of fire, we must understand that God is the one who will be acting and saving, doing and fighting, protecting and providing. And his people only have to keep still.
Don’t sleep on verse 19. The writers tell us that the pillar of cloud moved to stand between Egypt and the Israelites. It stayed there as day became evening and into the darkness. The text says “it lit up the night.” In this moment, Israel doesn’t need guidance, she needs protection. Israel’s God, the only true and living God, is present, standing watch, sitting sentinel, keeping the enemy at bay.
I find this to be of the utmost comfort.
Things always look and feel worse in the night, don’t they? For many, it’s not the boogey-man under the bed or a scary shadow on the wall, it’s those crushing and suffocating feelings of fear, anxiety, stress, worry, and anxiety that come out of nowhere. The pillar of cloud represents the abundant and active attendance of the Almighty, the powerful and protective presence of the Promise Maker-and-Keeper.
St. John of the Cross, a 16th-century mystic, introduced the church to the concept of the dark night of the soul. This term describes “a profound spiritual crisis marked by a sense of spiritual emptiness, isolation, a lack of the presence of God, and a feeling of being distant from God.” Maybe you have experienced this before. Mother Theresa experienced her own dark night for over 50 years. These dark nights come in various shapes and sizes from a variety of sources. Periods of doubt, difficult circumstances, external forces, or the agnosticism of inattention can all lead to dark nights.
When life feels like it is closing in, when the inertia of life’s circumstances (lack of health, lack of wealth, lack of prosperity) come crashing in…the Lord will fight for you. When your back is up against the wall, and you have no way out…you have only to keep still.
You have nothing to do.
Be still and know that he is God.
It doesn’t mean that everything will work out the way we want it to or how we believe it should, this is why God is God and we are not. The reality is that we worship the God who is able, and it is his ability, his able-ness, that provides hope amidst our circumstances.
Here is the true, good, and beautiful news, my friends: Even when you feel like God isn’t there, the pillar of cloud stands between you and the enemy. Exodus 14:20 reminds us that God is real, God is there, God is good, God is able, God is fully present. God is lighting up the dark night of our hearts and souls, even when we don’t see or feel him.
Israel is in the thick of it. Her back is against the wall, she is facing the relentless onslaught of Egypt, and she has no way out. Remember, though, she is sitting precisely where God told her to go. With God there is no such thing as no way out. The higher the stakes the greater his glory; this is the God who created all that is out of nothing, the God who calls into being things that do not exist. Of course, there is a way out!
And now it’s show time. Having comforted the dismayed and distraught, YHWH moves to deliver his people. While Moses is the one to stretch out his hand, it is not by the hand of Moses that the Red Sea is parted but rather by the mighty hand and outstretched arm of the Living God. Let me say it again: God is the one who does this. He isn’t actingbecause the people have merited such action and favor through right-living or right-believing. Rather, the miracle happens despite their lack of belief.
The Exodus story is not opposed to or antithetical with science or nature. The same God who caused these plagues and who provided signs, wonders, and miracle is the very same God who reigns over both science and nature. The point is not whether it was God who parted the Red Sea or a scientifically verified tidal wave from the eruption of a volcano on Santorini that caused the Israelites to pass through on dry ground. Rather, the point is that God is the one who did this. God has acted decisively on behalf of his people. This powerful display, whether it be natural or supernatural, is the work of God.
And Israel passes through on dry land. They are safe and secure within the covenant of God. Just as God walked between the animal carcasses to make his covenant, so too does Israel pass through the two walls of water.
We’ll leave the redeemed Israelites on the safe shore of the Red Sea for a few minutes. For now, turn in your bulletins/Bibles to Matthew 18. This passage shows us the very heart of the Gospel because it shows us the very heart of God.
Our time in Matthew 18, thus far, has been about the internal operations and dispensations of the family of God. This is not about authority or “church discipline” but rather brothers and sisters mutually caring for one another. Within that context, Peter approaches Jesus with a very loaded question: if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive?
The focus has just moved from the sins of a sibling, generally, to the sins against me, specifically. Peter supplies his own potential answer, “As many as seven times?” Jewish law stipulated that one forgive someone three times, but on the fourth time forgiveness is not required. Peter was being generous by more than doubling the forgiveness he is expected to dole out, but little does he know…
Whether Jesus said 7 times 70 as in 490 or imply 77, it doesn’t matter! The forgiveness which Jesus describes is far more intense and advanced than what either the law required or Peter presumed. Jesus “does away with all limits and calculations.”[1]
Jesus proceeds with a parable to describe this concept. The parable likens the Kingdom of heaven to a king who wants to settle accounts with his slaves. A servant with an outrageous debt is brought before him. This servant owes 10,000 talents. “The talent was the highest unit of currency, and ten thousand the highest Greek numeral.” The size of his debt was “unimaginable.” It would have been like saying a billion dollars.
This is an astronomical number, implausibly high and impossible to pay back. It’s six hundred thousand times greater than the daily worker’s wage!
Faced with foreclosure, bankruptcy, repossession, and servitude, the servant asks for time.
He begs. He grovels. He debases himself before the King…
And shockingly, the King listens. In fact, the king is moved to pity which in the Greek is another word for compassion. The King’s tenderness is set ablaze, the pleas of his servant reach his gracious and merciful heart, so he forgives the debt.
A 2023 parable would go like this: a man was preparing his tax return on April 15. Upon discovering that he owed an outrageous amount, he requested an extension with the IRS to pay-and-file on October 15. Not known for their benevolence (or efficiency) the IRS responded not by accepting the request, but by canceling the entire debt. The King doesn’t grant more time to pay him back, he radically reverses the servant’s reality by whipping out the servant’s unpayable debt.
We could stop the story here and be fully satisfied, but the text won’t allow us to do that. We cannot revel in forgiveness until we accept the ugliness of our sinful hearts.
The servant may have been forgiven, but he is not a changed man. As he leaves the King’s presence, he encounters a servant who has the audacity to owe him money. The debt owed is one hundred denarii, approximately 3 months of wages.
He takes the servant by the throat and demands that he pay up.
Word gets back to the benevolent and forgiving King. He calls the first servant in and this time his compassionate and tender heart has been moved to righteous anger. You should have forgiven him as you had been forgiven!
“If that is the measure of the forgiveness the disciple has received, any limitation on the forgiveness he shows to his brother is unthinkable. The fact that the second servant’s debt is one six-hundred-thousandth of the first emphasizes the ludicrous impropriety of the forgiven sinner’s standing on his own ‘rights’.”[2]
Friends, in this story we are the debtors. We are the enslaved ones.
While the word “sin” is no longer in vogue with large swaths of the Christian and non-Christian world, we know it’s presence and havoc to be true. We have racked up a debt so vast, a sum so unfathomably high, that we could never hope to repay it. Because of sin, we have been backed up against the wall, into the cul-de-sac that is the Red Sea with the charging, violent army of the enemy in front of us, to a place where there is no way.
But we worship the God who forgives. And not just “small” debts, but debts that are insurmountable. Our great God was moved to compassion, coming down from heaven in the form of a human, emptying himself of every heavenly right and privilege, and he who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteous of God. Just as with Israel in Exodus, we are the redeemed people of God. Bought with a great price. The Lord’s Prayer makes it plainly obvious: our forgiveness is linked to our willingness and ability to forgive.
People of God, if a nation is indeed its narration, what is our narrative?
Perhaps Gopnik was right: losers do rule. We have we lost because of sin? Our pride, our lives, our ability to save ourselves. What have we gained? Through Christ, we are more than conquerors, we are beloved children and heirs of his eternal kingdom. Losers rule because Christ rules.
A local distillery in Levira, Portugal had two vats of wine burst this week which resulted in 2.2 million liters of quality red wine being dumped into the streets. The streets were transformed into a river of wine flowing freely. That is how the forgiveness of God works. It is not a droplet or a trickle, on the cross the dam was burst. Forgiveness poured forth from the heart of God like a rushing river, flooding our sinsick souls with a tidal wave of grace and mercy.
Swim in that for a second. Jesus took our sin and shame to the cross and he said, “It is finished.” You are forgiven. You are redeemed. There is no fine print or blackout date. It is finished. God has parted the red sea of your sin and brought you to a land flowing freely with the red wine of forgiveness.
What does one do with that news? Simple: worship with reckless abandon. Led by Miriam and Moses, Israel worshiped her Deliverer in song and dance. They proclaimed the greatness of the LORD for his is lofty and uplifted! In Romans we see that worship means every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Christ is Lord. The news of our redemption, the news that you are forgiven, the news that God has provided a way out of your sins when there was no way…this good news enables us to worship and to forgive as we have been forgiven.
We live in a world constantly vying for both our attention and affection through visions and narratives of “the good life.” Money, sex, sports, drugs, alcohol, friendships. Health, wealth, and prosperity as we used to call it. They are dangerously seductive. But the story of Scripture, the story of the cross beckons us to come and rest in a different narrative: we are a community of the forgiven, a people called to forgive as we have been forgiven.
The Gospel is good news to the losers and lonely, the downtrodden and depressed, the ragamuffins and rejects, the sinners and sufferers like you and me.
[1] R. T. France, Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 1, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 280.
[2] Ibid, 280-21.
Porter C. Taylor 