The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

 21^st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24A

October 22, 2023

 

        Enemies abound and loyalties shift.  In the gospel reading, we see two long-time enemies-the Herodians and the Pharisees- teaming up against their common enemy—Jesus of Nazareth.  Eventually, these two enemies will join together with another common enemy—the Romans, the occupying oppressors of their people, the foreign invaders—to entrap and kill Jesus.  But before that happens, Jesus remains unflappable in his purpose, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come near and all are invited to participate, and he tries to remind them of what it means to be made in the image of God, as God proclaims at creation for each of us.  He offers them the chance to remember what it means to be made in the image of God and the invitation to order their lives accordingly.

        Enemies about and loyalties shift within the story of the Children of Israel, Moses, and God.  Moses has left them alone, gathered together at the foot of Mount Sinai where he has gone to the top to meet with God face to face and to receive the 10 Commandments.  The people grow anxious in Moses’ absence, restless, and they create a statue of a golden calf to reassure themselves and to worship, fracturing their relationship with God through their choice of raising up a false idol, proving themselves to be enemies of God instead of those who belong to God. God reveals to Moses that the people have become God’s enemy by committing what is, essentially, a capital crime, and God makes plans to destroy God’s people and to found a new nation for God and Moses.  Moses argues with God, trying to convince God to spare the people, and then Moses goes down the mountain and invites those who still belong to God to join him as they put to death by sword 3,000 men who had turned from following God. Moses then goes back up the mountain to try to convince God to take them back and to go with them as they leave Sinai and head into the promised land.  And we see that at least one image of God is to relent from punishing, to lean into mercy, to be willing to be changed and shaped by relationships.

        And then there’s Jesus.  As enemies abound and loyalties shift around him just days before his crucifixion, he doesn’t fight back, not really.  He models the image of God in his persistent peace, in his unwillingness to go to war, in his willingness to give himself over into the hands of his enemies where he will be humiliated, tortured, and executed.  And then he forgives them.  All of them. Every single one.

        Enemies abound and loyalties shift in our world.  War has broken out in the Middle East.  Terror seems to triumph.  It is oh, so very tempting to make this about us and them, demonizing enemies and heroizing friends.  It is oh so tempting to build our own golden calf to safety, to security, to right versus wrong and good versus evil as innocents are harmed over and over again by the powerful.  When we are really honest, we recognize just how alarming it is to realize how close we stand to the line between those who act as God’s beloved and those who act as God’s enemies.

        What does it mean, in this moment, for each of us to embrace that we are made in the image of God?  What does it mean for us to embrace that truth, even for our enemies?  How have we strayed in our actions, stepped over the line and become the enemies of God instead of the beloved?  What are ways that we can walk the way of peace in this present moment?  To look for peace around us, to draw it into ourselves and embody it, and to try to send God’s peace out into the world?

Let us pray.  (BCP p 833-A prayer attributed the St. Francis):  “Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.”