Exodus 12:1-14

Blood sacrifices are usually tidied up a bit, either in the scripture itself or by the preacher. For this one, it is hard to dance around. You are to kill a lamb and wipe the blood on your house. It's not explained, and scholars don't know, why God needed that to identify the Jews so he wouldn't kill their children. Other sermon helpers will give you some guidance on explaining this to children; to just talk about “passing over” and say something about God loving us. I would recommend not teaching these stories to them at all until they are old enough to think for themselves.

This is the culmination of the 10 plagues upon Egypt, and it's the one that works. The people of Egypt demand the Pharaoh get the Jews out of there and so, they are free. The chapter ends with an explanation of how they should celebrate this mass murder every year, or as the Bible puts it, remembering that the Lord brought you out of Egypt. And many preachers will not fail to mention that non-Jews can join in, if they get circumcised, so it's fair because everyone abides by the same rule, I guess. There is also a message of inclusiveness and fairness in the first few verses, about joining with your neighbors and having enough, but not too much. These really miss the heart of the story though.

At least there are a few preachers out there who will face the moral problem here head on. Here are a few points I've seen: 1) God does the killing. This is not a model for human killing or something to be emulated, 2) It's poetic justice since Pharaoh did the same killing back in chapter 1 (although I would call that revenge), 3) Everything belongs to God so he can take life anytime he wants, since he gave it. That last one obviously has problems, and I've seen people use that argument to defend genocide elsewhere in the Bible. None of these explain why God played out this story with so much killing of innocents. In 4:21 he hardened the heart of Pharaoh, making him obstinate. That assumes he could have have softened it.

Underlying much of this is a message of persecution. No doubt Jews have celebrated this ritual in haste and in fear, just as this story tells it. Knowing that is the ritual, oppressive governments have taken advantage of it and harassed and attacked Jews on this holiday. Those things really happened. But if you are no longer under such oppression, if in fact you are the government or you own the land, if that is all you are remembering, then you are missing the point of the ritual. There was something terribly wrong with Egyptian rule. It is not painted accurately in these stories, but it was still wrong.

This is a story of making an adjustment. Pharaoh could have done that without having his kid killed. We now have many more avenues for tending to the needs of people who are being treated unfairly. We have laws to try to prevent that happening in the first place. They need constant adjustment and vigilance. If this ritual only serves to remind you that you don't have everything you want, then it's failed in its purpose.

Ezekiel 33:7-11

This was written around the time the Babylonians were wining a war with Israel and taking them captive. So all the talk of swords and death is fairly literal. But every defeat is a chance to consider renewal, a time to assess and figure out what you did wrong. Terms like “sin” express this question without addressing what exactly “sin” is. The answer is usually turning back to the Lord, again without explaining exactly what that means. If it just means doing rituals, like Passover, without considering just why you should do them, as I said in my conclusion above, then it doesn't mean much.

Romans 13:8-14

This week we hit a crescendo of the Book of Romans, that love fulfills the law. I often talk of how words like “sin” and “righteousness” are left undefined and admittedly, “love” is also thrown out with not much discussion. Simply saying I like this verse, and not all of those others doesn't say much. Even if I tried to do a thesis on what love is, I know I would never capture it. There is still a difference. These are not “just” words.

Love is discussed in poetry and symbolized in myths throughout the ages. Everyone has something to say about it if you asked them. We all feel something that we know is impossible to describe. If we see someone who appears not to have that feeling, we try to help them. There is no ultimate test for love, but there is evidence for when it is present or absent.

“Sin” was introduced by a variety of cultures with a variety of names. It comes with a definition, often with specific actions that are required or forbidden. It is defined as if it is specific, but then left with enough ambiguity so each arbiter of it can pass judgment on who is sinful. It rarely comes with a foundational philosophy, other than a circular claim that its rules are necessary. When it does come with a reason, such as mutual respect, do no harm, and keeping the peace, it becomes secular law.

There are lots of words here. “Neighbor” is oft-disputed. Does it mean people within the tribes of Israel? Many scholars say so. Should we continue to let it mean that? Personally, I don't. The words in the last couple verses have had changing definitions throughout history. Those changes have caused much of the fighting within Christianity and have defined how they relate to the other major religions.

Matthew 18:15-20

This is the more thorough version of “The Rule of Christ”. If you google that, you'll get a lot of hits about Christ ruling over the world. Not everyone uses the term "Rule of Christ" this sermon breaks it down. As always, it's a mixed message and easily cherry picked for use by overzealous enforcers of purity laws. Specifically, that you need two witnesses for a crime. This gets abused in cases of sex crimes, which almost never have a witness. I don't think the author had this in mind for this passage.

The preceding verses are even worse. There's not much that can be done with them except to say they are hyperbole, that we obviously should not be plucking our eyes out or drowning people, but we are left with few practical alternatives in the rest of scripture. One might also hope that some study of Greek might give us a better translation than “everlasting fire”.

It should be noted that there is a parable between those instructions for torture and the passage in the Lection. It talks of the joy of saving one lost sheep as compared to the feeling of a peaceful flock of 99 that are staying where they belong. The Matthew author would not have had access to brain scans, but ironically, we have learned recently that people do express joy over a short term celebration of, say, their kids winning a football game or appearing in a play, but actually, those are pretty tedious tasks. When asked to reflect on the years of raising that family and watching them become little humans, the pleasure centers all across the brain light up like nothing else. But I digress.

The 6 verses presented today clearly are a comparison to that sort of joy, of working out a conflict in community, not the earlier problems of a sinful heart. Granted, in the end, if the trespassing brother doesn't get back in good with God, he's out of the club. Luke is easier on the Gentiles, and sometimes Paul is too, but Matthew, not so much. Christianity eventually came to be more heavily adopted by non-Jews and probably would not have survived if the Matthew message had come to dominate.

Matthew also gives us a hint about how to get to heaven, although that always lacks clarity. He mentioned fire earlier, but didn't use the word “hell”, so we can't be sure what he meant there. In verse 18 it seems like you get to go to heaven regardless, but you take those problems with you. And, simple agreement between two people will get you what you want, which is just silly.

We end today with a commonly used verse, that where any two are gathered, I (Jesus/God) am there among them. Plucked from this chapter, it's a beautiful humanist statement of how we are a social creature. That we can accomplish so much more in community than we can by ourselves. But the chapter doesn't end there. It's followed by a parable about sending people to debtor's prison. It starts with compassion and ends up showing the worst vindictiveness of human nature. It leaves us not with a hope for resolution of our differences, but a statement about hope not residing where we think it does. This will be examined in more depth next week.