Sept. 11, 2011, 13th Sunday after Pentecost
Exodus 14:19-31
Matthew 18:21-35
Where were you on this date 10 years ago?
Sept. 11, 2001 is one of those “I was…” dates for many of us in Canada and around the world. A day when the impossible happened. The defenses of Fortress North America were defeated from within. It wasn’t a nuclear attack or chemical warfare. Missiles didn’t rain down from the stratosphere. It was as simple as object A striking object B with enough force to destroy both. To kill many. To consign many more to life – without and slow death.
Did we still think deep down inside that God was on our side? The 9 – 11 terrorists were convinced God was on their side. A graffiti artist in Manhattan wrote, soon after that day, “Dear God, save us from the people who believe in you.”
As people of faith, we’re conditioned to believe there are everlasting arms beneath us. When disaster strikes we can’t help feeling God has let us slip. We soon talk ourselves out of such ideas. But we never lose the sense that our relationship with God has changed. We thought we were safe from the terrors so many others in our world live through. We also thought the powers the Pentagon and World Trade Centre stood for would stand forever and for good. Did we confuse those powers for God’s power?
Our first reading today tells a tale of God destroying one nation, or at least its power, for the good of another nation. God strikes terror on the Egyptian army before drowning them. We learned this story in Sunday school, and we were told it was good news. As adults it makes us uncomfortable enough to want to push it to the margins of our canon.
The men who hijacked the airplanes this day 10 years ago believed they were striking one nation for the good of another, and that God called them to do it. Handle the old story with great care today, or you’ll be standing with those who still rejoice over the destruction and carnage of 10 years ago. You’ll find yourself among those on our side who authorized a war of vengeance 10 years ago. And those who danced when bin Laden’s death and the barbaric, blasphemous treatment of his body were announced.
You won’t be far from Israel on the safe side of the sea, rejoicing over the deaths of so many. Or the servant who conveniently forgot his dependence on grace and showed no grace to another.
Resist the temptation to wriggle out from under the gospel, saying the command to forgive without limit only applies to internal relations in the church. Jesus didn’t submit to attack and accept death to protect one nation from another. Or to show whose side God was on.
Our ancestors in faith formed their understanding of themselves and their purpose through a narrative of divine violence. Our formative narrative hinges on the death of an innocent One. The only One, we say, who was ever wholly innocent. Maybe it’s true that there’s no liberation from captivity in this world without someone suffering. Without some act of human violence, whether it’s against Pharaoh’s army or a sacrificial victim.
This does not tell us God is violent by nature. It does not authorize our violence or our vengeful reaction to the violent dreams and terrible actions of others.
Doesn’t Jesus’ death release us all from the downward, deathward spiral of violence? Doesn’t his resurrection show us that it is God’s way to give life and to make things new?
The heroic saga of the Exodus includes Moses’ lover’s quarrel with Israel, who soon forgot the cost of salvation and the source of providence. Our heroic saga through the last 10 years has unfolded in blunt – edged vengeance, rough justice, and grim determination to rebuild fallen idols and restore lost confidence. Maybe we’ve confused the powers for God’s power after all.
