Theme: Peacemaking and Renewal
Rev Hugh Perry
Readings:
Exodus 12: 1-14
Maurice Andrew notes that this part of the narrative is in the form of regulations for performing the rite of Passover [1]
The Passover probably had its origin in seasonal migration with stock in search of grazing and the lamb was killed about the time of the spring equinox, as a means of warding off evil forces when shepherds and flocks set off on potentially dangerous journeys.[2]
Andrew further notes that an unleavened bread ritual marked the beginning of the barley harvest signifying everything beginning new and responding to God’s new gifts. The firstlings offering of the first fruit acknowledged that everything belonged to God and everything is part of creation. He quotes the Maori practice of returning the first fish caught as an offering to Tangaroa the god of the sea as a similar practice for a similar reason.
Matthew 18: 15-20
Carter notes that conflict is inevitable among humans and especially among a hard-pressed, minority and marginalised communities which Matthew’s community was. Therefore, it is logical that Matthew would offer a formula for conflict resolution.
Matthew’s formula recognises conflict and offence but seeks to restore the offender to reconciled relationship within the community. [3]
Matthew’s code fits well in the Jesus’ tradition of peace through reconciliation and, like so much of Jesus’ teaching, stands in sharp opposition to the shame honour codes that operate in many communities and lead to intergenerational vendettas. Bill Loader suggests that at an international level the most obvious application is: negotiate and don’t immediately rush to sabre rattling.
Much more can be achieved through negotiation than is usually assumed and this passage affords an opportunity to throw some gospel perspectives on the meaning of love and compassion in the handling of conflict in personal relations because each of us has a story to tell. We all share expertise in failure and success in whatever area we live and work.[4]
Sermon
Spring is a time of renewal and new beginnings but there is much about our world that is still cold and frightening.
Spring storms in our part of the world and autumn floods and wildfires in the northern hemisphere appear to be influenced by climate change and global warming. Effects to mitigate climate change seem to be inhibited by human greed.
In the midst of unnoticed wars that rage continually Russia has invaded Ukraine and western powers are self- righteously supplying weapons. Those same governments are frantic to stem the flow of refugees and boatloads of people are drowning in the Mediterranean and the English Channel.
Meanwhile we are in the midst of an election campaign. We are encouraged to believe that our children are not being properly educated, crime is at an all-time high, and inflation and the cost of living will have dire consequences.
However, on the day that the first daffodil burst into bloom on our front lawn The Press carried an opinion peace under the headline ‘Only a better life back home can stop the boats.[5]’
The article suggested that Western Democracies would be better to spend money on humanitarian aid for people in war torn, struggling and bankrupt economies than expensive and dehumanising refugee camps and detention centres. People make wilderness journeys to flee from slavery and war to earn money to send home. Like the people in our Exodus reading forty years in the wilderness is worthwhile if it gives a better life for their children’s future.
Perhaps our children might have a better chance in the future if they left their cell phones at home and spent an hour each day on reading, writing and arithmetic. But, at my first primary school cell phones didn’t exist and we got the strap if we got our spelling wrong. I got so frightened I still can’t spell and the teachers that told me I would be a failure frightened me from enrolling in university until I was in my early fifties.
As for the youth crime wave, we are experiencing I remember growing up in Levin when there were regular reports of boys escaping from the Hokio Beach borstal and pinching people’s cars. In my adult life we had our home in North Beach burgled and I had my car pinched from the New Brighton Car Park.
I will never forget when the fingerprint police officer came to St Stevens after our data projector was stolen and introduced himself by saying:
‘Hi Hugh, you have been doing well, I haven’t been here for ages.’
The saddest thing I witnessed in Hamilton was the time I was almost installed on a jury, and I witnessed a small boy standing between two huge security guards. The boy was being tried for murder. As usual I was objected to, but it looked very sad indeed.
At St Albans we just had thieves pinch the copper spouting but the point is that all those crimes happened a long time ago.
So it is easy to be pessimistic about our world and doubt the ongoing message of continued springtime resurrection the Gospel offers. And yet today’s reading from Matthew is one of the real daffodils of hope our faith so often brings into bloom.
Negotiate and don’t immediately rush to sabre rattling, boot camps or narrow school curriculum. It is the voice of Christ from Matthew’s Gospel that is most urgently needed in today’s world.
The risk for the world is frightening and Bill Loader’s plea to negotiate needs to be heard both in international relationships and domestic politics.
Loader related the gospel reading to disputes among nations which invokes a nightmare of nuclear war where many more than the just first born are struck down in their sleep and no one escapes to the wilderness.
Just as importantly this Matthew passage begins with a dispute between two people and offers the seemingly obvious advice that they should talk to each other.
A dispute between two people can become an infection that destroys a whole community as the issues are gossiped to others. Facts are exaggerated and factions are formed. One of the classic communication breakdowns occurs when a listener hears something completely different to what the speaker thought they said. Too often offence is taken when no offence is intended, and lifelong friendships are destroyed. Matthew also recognises that once a dispute between two people moves to the point where neither of them are prepared, or able, to listen then a couple of neutral listeners may well be able to reinterpret what is being said in a way that makes the difference go away.
Where Matthew’s suggestions are open to abuse is when he suggests that the church or community becomes a court.
If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18:17)
This statement from Matthew’s Jesus, along with the verse that follows, has been abused and used by the church throughout its history to both control members and exclude those who are different, or see things differently.
We know from the gospels that the Jews of Jesus’ day excluded Gentiles from their communities. We also know that they regarded tax collectors as cheats and traitors and treated them with distain.
Therefore, we could conclude that if someone will not submit to the rules of the church they must be excluded.
But what we learn over and over again is that it is the Bible in total that informs humanity’s spiritual ques. So, propping up a convenient assumption or prejudice with a proof text perverts the faith.
We know that Jesus was criticised for eating with tax collectors. We also read in Luke’s Gospel that Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich (Luke 19:2)
As we read on and discover that Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree and then:
When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ (Luke 19:5)
In that episode we see Jesus include rather than exclude, not just any tax collector, but a chief tax collector.
A few weeks back you may have read the story of the Canaanite Woman meeting with Jesus who responded with very exclusive remark. ‘He answered ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’. (Matthew 15:24) As a gentile or non-Jew she debates with Jesus and he concludes the episode by saying ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matthew 15:28)’
Not only is this an example of the human Jesus learning and growing towards his divine self but it suggests that it is faith rather than rules and ethnicity that brings people into the divine realm or for that matter the community of faith we call the church.
Furthermore, Paul’s writing and church history make it abundantly clear that the emerging community accepted non-Jews or gentiles and, like Zacchaeus, people gave up their old ways and were accepted.
So when Matthew’s Jesus says that someone who does not accept the view or admonishment of the church ‘be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector’. (Matthew 18:17) Jesus may well be saying that the community might just have to put up with them.
The church was never designed to be an exclusive ‘in group.’ The church is a community of people on a journey that are gathered to carry on Jesus’ mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God. The church is a community of people called to promote a way of living together as diverse humans.
The church is not an exclusive structure of power and influence. The church is not an organisation of wealth and authority that rules over and enslaves the multitude.
Moses led his people out of the slavery of Egypt and, Matthew pictures Jesus as the new Moses. The Gospel paints the Passover blood on every door post and calls the church to accept all people into a new way of living. God calls diverse people into the divine realm and our call is not to agree with everyone but to live with diversity and disagreement.
In today’s reading Matthew’s Jesus offers some suggestions for conflict resolution and Bill Loader points out how important the theme of negotiation is in international politics. That is frighteningly obvious in today’s world where sabres are put to one side in favour of threats of total destruction.
But if we are truly going to become citizens in a divine realm, we also need to learn how to resolve personal differences. We can’t be part of this new caring and inclusive way of being human if we are going to cut ourselves off from those we disagree with or people we believe have harmed us in some way.
Negotiation is not only important in preventing the powerful from annihilating all life on the planet. Negotiation is also an important method of learning from each other. Jesus learned from his negotiations with the Canaanite Woman and they both benefited. She made Jesus better aware of his journey to divinity and she received healing for her daughter. In reading that story we become more aware of our own potential and our calling to be part of our ongoing and evolving springtime faith.
In this gospel passage we learn that in openness to others and a willingness to resolve conflict, we become part of the divine realm in a springtime of new beginnings.
[1] Maurice Andrew The Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand (Wellington: DEFT 1999)p.97.
[2] W. Johnstone, Exodus, pp41-42 as quoted in Maurice Andrew The Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand (Wellington: DEFT 1999)p.97.
[3]Warren Carter Mathew and the Margins: A Socio-Political and Religious Reading, (London/New York: T&T Clark International 2004) p.366,367.
[4] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtPentecost13.htm
[5] Trevor Phillips, The Press (Christchurch August 15,2023) p.17.