2026 09 06 - Pentecost 15 proper 18a
Exodus
12.1-14 Psalm 149 Romans 13.1-10 Matthew 18.10-20
Love does no harm to a neighbour. Where are we with this? Do you think we have ever caused harm,
personally – or as a church? We know
that harm has been caused in the past.
And we are still paying dearly – the ripple effect has been intense and
far reaching. But what about us? Have we
caused harm?
The Roman Christians were told to love their
neighbours as themselves because love is the fulfilment of the law of God. It is a letter that Paul could well have
written to any church today as I believe it is VERY relevant. The
Jewish Christians had been exiled from Rome under the previous governor, but
now they had come back, and the rules had changed. Saint Paul urged them to be subject to the
authorities and do good. It is a
reminder to pray for our leaders, but all the aspects of life were closing in
on the church and they had various opinions.
They had concerns for how to live a Godly life. They and we need to constantly be reminded to
be an encouraging and loving community, because God’s great love for ourselves
and each other, is the most important thing.
We can easily diminish the importance of being loving,
but do we realize that it is the lack of truly being loving that causes
harm? Of course it isn’t as easy as it
sounds. We can’t just continuously agree
with the loudest voice. That voice could be leading us astray – and we follow,
simply because we think it is loving to agree.
Paul didn’t keep quiet when he disagreed with Peter, and it turned out
that his argument was vital for safe-guarding the message of the Gospel.
How interesting that this topic should come up, as our
society is constantly battling this very conundrum. The freedom of speech- the right to
disagree. And the need to stand up for
what we believe to be vital- but not to be disrespectful, or hateful. And there is another whole can of worms as
there are some who interpretate disagreeing as being hateful.
It stands to reason then, that we need to have
positive ways to deal with conflict and differences. Our street Chaplaincy leaders are encouraged
to deal with someone who does the “wrong” thing immediately. Glitches become issues when they are not dealt
with immediately and they become a complaint with which the committee needs to
deal. Then what happens has the
potential to be a mountain out of a molehill.
Does this ever happen in the church?
NO ONE is perfect.
Our Gospel scripture tells us to speak directly and
privately to the person who is sinning.
Now, “sinning”, means they have missed the mark. That can be a tiny thing or something major. Often, our Street Chaplaincy difficulties are
the minor kind- In the beginning at least.
This could be that a Chaplain has given their phone number to someone on
the street. It isn’t a big deal
necessarily. It could be that they have
engaged in crude talk with the security guards. These are the real things that we do need to
talk to Chaplains about. When it
happens, we don’t embarrass the person by addressing them in front of others, if
possible, depending on the seriousness of the circumstance. We teach our members that it should be dealt
with immediately, as soon as it is possible to have a private
conversation. If that person doesn’t
take any notice and continues in the error, then the matter is taken further.
I’m hoping that you can see how this fits with our
scripture directions. Sadly, what is
more common everywhere, is that the one-on-one correction never happens. In fact, the two or three witness level rarely
happens either, and instead, the first the person knows that they’ve erred, is
when a higher authority or larger group become involved. In these cases, people are left bewildered
and hurt. They leave the ministry they
were involved in and they leave the church.
They may even feel rejected by God.
THIS is a serious problem!!!
The scripture just prior to our reading says that it “If
anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it
would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and
to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
THIS is serious! Today’s reading
begins with, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I
tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”
So many stories I could tell you, of Christians who
don’t attend church because they have been hurt by church authorities. If these people are no longer attending
church because of how we have badly handled a situation, we are those who have
caused people to stumble. They are
stumbling in their commitment to belong to the body of Christ and that was our
doing. So much hurt… so much sin… can be
avoided if we follow God’s way of dealing with issues.
In the middle of the Gospel reading, we have a story
about leaving the 99 sheep to go and rescue one. To some extent it makes no sense. Surely, you’d do better to care for the
99???? Until we put it into a context we
can relate to; Imagine you are teaching
a class of prep children. One of them
runs off. I guarantee, all your
attention is focused on that one! There
is NO peace until you know that that little one is safe and the idea of leaving
the 99 to go and find the one, is not that you would leave the others
vulnerable. The shepherds of that time
were not likely to be on their own and so the 99 were kept safe, but the value
of that one is such that there is much rejoicing when it is found. As a teacher looking after preps, we might better
understand the value of that rejoicing over the one, but do we comprehend that
this is God’s care over that one person who left the church because of hurt?
Many years ago, in the land of Egypt, the Israelites
were slaves. They were hard pressed by
the Egyptians and forced into labour.
The Egyptians had gods that they worshiped and all this impacted the
people… it hurt them.
More than that, Pharaoh decided to diminish the
numbers of the Israelites by killing every male baby born. Moses should have been destroyed, except by
the divine providence of God and circumstances that led to him floating on a
basket to the Egyptian princess. As a
grown man, he tried to rescue his people, but his efforts being misunderstood
meant that he was exiled for many years in the desert. He was supposed to be killed at birth, and
then as an adult he lived in exile. But
God cares for the exiled. God cares for
the outcast. God cares for those
whose lives are headed for destruction unless there is some kind of rescue.
Last week we read about Moses and how God called him
to set the people free. This week we
jump ahead to the final plague and we glimpse what God is doing. Scripture quotes God as saying, “I will
pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every
firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, on all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.”
Pharaoh had taken the lives of a whole generation of men, killing them
at birth, but God gave Pharaoh every opportunity to repent.
A few things are happening here that we may not have
realized. The people of Israel had been
hurt. Physically they were
oppressed. Emotionally and psychologically,
they saw themselves as slaves and second-class citizens. Spiritually they had been led into the false
and harmful religion of the Egyptians. Each
of the plagues that God sent showed God’s sovereignty over those so-called
Gods. Finally, after God proving himself
over and over, Pharaoh still defied God.
Why would he do that after all the proof? Perhaps because of an inflated sense of his
own importance. Pharaoh was considered a
living deity. He was believed to be the
son of the sun god, Ra, the source of life, and the goddess Issis, protector of
children.
In that final plague God showed Israelite and
Egyptians alike, that there is no God other than himself who is the source of
life. He, the LORD – Yahweh – The God who is who He is- It is He who is the
be all, the end all, the source of all.
And the way to life and protection from this plague was through the
blood of the lamb - the lamb of God- God
himself is the lamb of God. LIFE is in
HIM. In this he also prefigured the
sacrifice of Christ.
Moses had gone to Pharoah with his request. Then he went again, and again, and again….
Etc. 10 times. In a previous plague of
hail, scripture tells us that those who reverenced the Lord took their cattle
in. The hail didn’t fall in the area
where the Israelites lived, so this refers to the Egyptians who had come to
believe in Yahweh. Pharaoh considered
himself to be greater than God, therefore no one could possibly harm him. Pharaoh was warned but he chose deliberate
defiance.
Pharaoh was the ruler of the land. While the letter to the Romans tells us to be
subject to the governing authorities, and we certainly should – as well as pray
for those leaders, there may be times that we need to petition. We know that one of our marks of mission is
to seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of
every kind, and to pursue peace and reconciliation.
Transformation begins when we realize that the person
who has gone astray & needs correction is actually all of us! We are all the “black sheep” in this family
of God – but the lamb of God – the one perfect one, died in our place. When we can see ourselves in each other and truly
understand the love God has for us, we can respond to each other with that
love.
Today’s readings are all about rescue. Rescue of the oppressed Israelite nation,
rescue of the one sheep gone astray and the rescue we are called to take part
in. The rescue of each little one who has
been or is being hurt. I challenge each
one of us to come up with just one way we can step into that rescue today.
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