Grace and Prayer

Exodus 32:1-14, Philippians 4:1-9, Matthew 22:1-14

What do we do when there are delays and we don’t know what is going on? Do we remain calm, immersed in prayer and preparation? Or, do we panic?

In our Exodus reading, we pick up the journey of the Israelites at a point where Moses is on the mountain conversing with God. However, at this point he has been gone for forty days, the Israelites do not know what is going on or why he has not yet returned and they are, most certainly, panicking.

To them it has been a very very long time since Moses was last with them; but God’s time is not as our time and to Moses it seemed a relatively short time when compared to the out working of God’s plan for Israel. A delay ordained by God.

How we deal with, or handle, God’s ordained delays – times allocated for waiting and preparation – like Lent or Advent – is a good measure of our spiritual maturity. We should make good use of these times to deepen our perseverance in following God, to pray and study God’s Word, to ready ourselves for whatever will come next.

However, if we allow such delays to be used for drifting into sin, or lapsing into resignation to fate, then we are reacting poorly to those times – like the people of Israel did here. This episode of sin described in this passage started at the impulse of popular opinion. An example of where the will of the people is not always the will of God.

Not knowing what was happening with Moses, the people allowed their uncertainty to take over and turned to idolatry and sin instead of trusting God.

Aaron is just as guilty as the rest of the people. He asked them for their gold and they were generous in what they gave.

In general, people tend to be more generous in what they give to idols but we should be being more generous with what we give to God.

Aaron melted the gold, moulded it and fashioned it carefully with an engraving tool. This work was not led by the Holy Spirit but instead was inspired by sin and yet Aaron took the time to plan it out and carefully detail what he made.

Instead of refusing to go along with what he knew to be wrong, Aaron went along with the people and with popular opinion instead of standing firm for what is right.

Aaron and the people then put their energy, time, sleep, money in service to this idol. People usually find a way to rise early/give to things that are really important to them; but what should be really important to them (and us) is the Lord God.

God told Moses what the people were doing and was a tad upset. God offers to destroy all the people and still keep His promises by rebuilding the nation from Moses. He tells Moses to let Him alone so He could do this.

This implies that if Moses did nothing this plan would go ahead but Moses refused to do nothing. Just as when we see wrongs we should refuse to do nothing. Moses pleaded with the Lord in a short prayer. Prayer does not have to be long – it is the strength of the prayer that matters, not how long it is.

Moses was full of compassion for the people but also concerned with the honour of God. Just as what we do should bring honour to God.

Moses prayed: ‘Lord these people belong to you not me. We didn’t deserve to be freed from Egypt but you saved us by grace, continue to deal with us in your grace. If you kill the people the Egyptians will say you are a cruel God who only saved the Israelites to kill them – don’t let anybody say that about you. Lord you keep your promises and are always faithful, don’t break your promises.’

Now, the wording translation in our reading is “so the Lord changed His mind.”

This is a good place to pause and point out that Moses wrote in anthropomorphic or “man-centred” language. He described the actions of God as they appeared to him.

Moses’s prayer did not change God, but it did change the standing of the people in God’s sight – the people were now in a place of mercy, where previously they were in a place of judgement.

God did not destroy Israel and He knew He would not destroy Israel. He deliberately put Moses into this crucial place of intercession so that Moses’s heart could become like God’s heart for the people, a heart of love and compassion.

Moses prayed just as God wanted him to – as if heaven and earth, salvation and destruction depended upon his prayer.

This is how God wants us to pray.

He also wants us to live a life of prayer, which brings us to Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

The segment that forms our reading this morning starts with Paul addressing a disagreement between Euodia and Syntyche. Paul urges them to settle their differences or agree to differ and to remember their common ground in the Lord. He also advises the rest of the church to help them resolve this matter instead of taking sides and causing a rift.

Paul then moves on: “Rejoice in the Lord. Again, I will say rejoice!”

Joy in the Lord is a cure for all discord.

Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Have patience, forbearance, magnanimity, moderation to all men, not just to whom we please.

Live with the awareness that Jesus will return, that He will settle all wrongs and we can trust Him to make things right in our falling apart world.

Live a life of prayer.

Everything is the subject of prayer – there are no areas of our lives that are of no concern to God. Both prayer and supplication are required. Prayer means all our communications with God whereas supplication is directly asking God to do something.

Many of our prayers go unanswered because we do not ask God for anything. God invites us to make our requests known to Him. He wants us to ask with thanksgiving.

Pray about everything. Ask God our requests. Be thankful for anything we receive.

Paul goes on to say that the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds for us. God’s peace is a gift and is beyond our power of thinking. Peace with God is the relationship we enter into with God through the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Finally, Paul tells us to meditate on what is:

true
noble
just
pure
lovely
of good report
virtue
praiseworthy

This is a way to bring our thoughts and minds back to the obedience of Christ. Follow Jesus’s example and set that example.

Can we say of our lives “Follow me as I follow Jesus”?

If we do not follow Jesus we are rejecting Him. In the reading from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the Wedding Feast to explain to the religious leaders and listening crowds the dangers of rejecting Him.

Those who had been invited were not willing to come to the Royal Wedding. It seems strange that all those invited refused and this illustrates that there is no logical reason for God’s good gifts to be refused.

The king made the invitation as attractive as possible. He really wanted these people to come and he sent more messengers to them, yet they still refused. Not only did they refuse but they laughed and killed the messengers. The king proclaimed judgement, sending an army to destroy these murderers. A prophesy of what would happen to Jerusalem where the religious leaders strongly, and repeatedly. rejected Jesus.

The king sent his servants to go out and invite everyone they came across. Everyone was to be invited.

This is both like God’s grace and like His invitation to both the Jews and the Gentiles.

Those invited and those who came to the wedding feast were undeserving of the invitation, much less the wedding feast itself.

We are undeserving of God’s grace, yet He freely and indiscriminately gives it to us.

The king came to see the guests just as we will all come before God in judgement. And there was a man there without a wedding garment. He was noticeably different from the other guests.

This man came only because he was invited but came only in appearance. The wedding banquet was to honour the king’s son but this man did not intend honour or respect. He came to eat the good things on offer but in his heart there was no love for the king (God) or his well-beloved son (Jesus).

This man has made too free with holy things and actively insulted the king. The result: this man suffered a terrible fate.

Those indifferent to the gospel and those antagonistic against the gospel and those unchanged by the gospel suffer the same fate – none of these will enjoy the king’s feast.

For many are called but few are chosen.

In this context , this statement of Jesus touches on the great working together of the choices of man and the choosing of God.

Why did they not come to the wedding feast? Because they refused the invitation. Why did they not come to the wedding feast? Because they were called but not chosen.

Do you accept the invitation? Will you be one of the chosen? Do you accept or reject Jesus? Will you come and follow Him if He but calls your name?

Grace and Prayer (Photo by Garrison Gao on Pexels.com)

Forgiveness

Exodus 14:19ff, Psalm 114, Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:21-35

In our readings we have the Israelites crossing the Red Sea safely whilst the Egyptians perish leading to the Israelites respecting and being in awe of God. All, like in our Psalm, in the presence of God. Paul in Romans highlights that we are the Lord’s and should do all things in honour of the Lord; giving Him thanks. And Matthew with the key word that binds all this together – forgiveness.

Exodus is a book about migration. It means a mass departure of a large group of people (in this case the Israelites) from a place (Egypt) all at the same time. At this point in the Exodus of Israel the Israelites were camped at the edge of the Red Sea. The Angel of God and the Cloud Pillar, sent by God to lead them, moved behind the Israelites whilst they were waiting to cross the Red Sea becoming a barrier between them and the Egyptian Army. God was with and protecting His people.

Just like He was with and protected His people then, God is with and protects His people now. Even when we feel overwhelmed in a struggle of some kind God is with and protecting us.

There was a time delay before the parting of the Red Sea. During this time when the Angel and Cloud were between the Egyptians and the Israelites both were protected. The Cloud was a source of light to the Israelites symbolising God’s glory and salvation; but a source of darkness to the Egyptians symbolising God’s judgement.

Like He so often does for us, God was giving the Egyptians another chance. During this time before their sentence was carried out the Egyptians were being given time. Time to repent form the heart, time to turn around, time to let the Israelites go, time to go home. Had they done this their sentence would have been lifted, they would have been forgiven, they would have been spared.

The waters of the Red Sea parted and the Israelites walked across the dry land in the middle to the other side. The Egyptians tried to follow the Israelites across the sea bed and God fought on the side of the Israelites until they were all safely across. The Egyptians started to flee back the way they had come but God commanded Moses to hold his staff over the sea and the waters returned.

God doesn’t need people in order to perform miracles but He often gets them to take part. God used this opportunity to vindicate Moses, who had been accused by the Israelites, before our reading starts, of having the lowest of motivations and an evil heart. God is showing the Israelites that Moses is their chosen leader.

Seeing the Egyptians dead on the seashore proved to the Israelites that God keeps His promises, that their deliverance from Egypt was real and that their oppressors were dead.

God delivered Israel in a miraculous way, demonstrating His faithfulness to Israel and to all His people.

The deliverance of Passover and the miracle of the Red Sea go hand in hand. Without the victory at the Red Sea the redemption at Passover would have been lost; and they would never have made to the Red Sea without the redemption at Passover. Likewise, the redemption of the cross would be lost without the miracle of the resurrection. Israel walked through potential death to new life in the presence of God. When we accept God’s unconditional forgiveness and when we forgive others we also have new life, a fresh start, in the presence of God.

Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans teaches us that we should accept all in faith, the new to faith, the mature in faith, and all those in-between, without condition i.e. we should not make spiritual maturity a condition or requirement for fellowship.

Paul reminds us it is not our place to pass judgement on any fellow Christian. They should stand or fall before their own Master – God.

There is a lot of useless, harmful division amongst some Christians over silly, unimportant and bigoted things. Paul does not say we must erase our differences but to rise above them as Christian brothers and sisters.

Or as Bishop Rose says: Instead of being a melting pot and all melding into one unidentifiable gloop we should be a fruit salad. Each a different bit of fruit all rubbing together in the fruit salad making it more interesting and flavoursome.

From beginning to end our lives are connected to others. No one is an island. From beginning to end our lives are to be dedicated to God and so whatever we do we must honour the Lord. We will stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ; which is concerned with a Christian’s rewards and position in the Kingdom. Don’t judge your brother or sister in Christ for we will all be judged by Christ.

Every knee shall bow! All will have to appear before God in humility and give an account of ourselves before Him. We should forgive our brothers and sisters and let God deal with them as He will surely deal with us all.

Again, our instruction is to forgive, which brings us to our excerpt from Matthew.

Peter asked how many times we are to forgive, suggesting seven times. To us that doesn’t seem very many but the accepted limit taught by many rabbis of the time was three; and so Peter probably felt seven was more than generous.

Jesus’s answer alludes to and is in contrast with Lamech’s in Genesis 4:24, in which Lamech says “If someone who kills Cain is punished seven times, then the one who kills me will be punished seventy-seven times.” Lamech is talking unlimited vindictiveness.

In giving the answer of seventy-seven, Jesus is saying we are to forgive the repentant an unlimited number of times. But even more than that we should also forgive the unrepentant unlimitlessly.

Jesus follows His answer with the story about the servant who did not forgive.

This servant owed a huge debt which he would never be able to repay. He begged for more time – even though it would be fruitless. His master took pity on him in compassion and mercy and forgave him the debt,

However, upon his return home this servant found someone who owed him a debt in an amount which was a tiny fraction of the amount he had just been forgiven. With unsparing severity he demanded repayment. The one owing this smaller amount used the same plea yet instead of being met with the same compassion and forgiveness he was thrown into the debtor’s prison.

When the master of the servant who had received mercy heard what had happened he was understandably angry that this man who had been forgiven so much had then been so unforgiving. The servant ends up in prison to be tortured.

Giving genuine forgiveness from the heart is required of all who have been forgiven. God forgives us all unconditionally and in comparison our sins against each other are but a tiny percentage of our sins against God. Therefore we have no justification for not forgiving.

We incur greater wrath from God by refusing to forgive than we do for the rest of our sins.

We must forgive from the heart, unconditionally and not determined by whether those who sin against us are repentant.

It’s worth saying again; since we have been forgiven so much we have no right to withhold forgiveness.

Jesus’s parable shows we must be more forgiving not less forgiving. If we forgive in words only and not in our hearts we are still condemned.

Granting forgiveness is evidence of having truly been forgiven. Whereas being unforgiving shows that the heart of the unforgiver has not allowed in the love of Jesus.

The unforgiving servant in the parable was delivered to the torturers. Not forgiving others is a form of torturing ourselves and can do us great harm.Those who will not forgive cannot expect forgiveness.

Forgiveness goes hand in hand with love. If we really want to love and be loved we must learn how to forgive and how to accept forgiveness. There is no love without forgiveness and no forgiveness without love. Forgiveness is the final form of love and cannot be separated from love.

When you forgive, you love, and when you love God’s light shines upon you.

So, if we really want to live, we must learn to forgive.

We can pray: I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.

Forgiveness. One forgiving another. (Photo by Clement Eastwood on Pexels.com)

Calling Levi

In chapter 9 of Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew recounts his own call from Jesus to become a disciple. Matthew was the name Jesus gave him. Until he became one of Jesus’s disciples, he was called Levi. And he was at his place of work in the tax office. The Jewish people did not like those among their number who became tax collectors. They viewed these people as sinners and collaborators with the Romans against their own people. Tax collectors had the force of the Roman soldiers behind them to force the people to pay the taxes, but not only that, they were considered to be extortioners because they were allowed to keep any money they over-collected. Consequently, most if not all tax collectors over-charged on purpose to line their own pockets.

The call from Jesus gave Levi Matthew the opportunity to literally turn his life around. When he was a tax collector he was busy taking but Jesus was calling him to a work that was essentially giving.

Jesus said to him “Follow Me” and he did. He left his desk, taking nothing but his pen. Jesus called him and the only thing he took from his trade was the pen this trade had taught him to use; a skill he then used to compose his Gospel of Jesus’s teachings.

There is archaeological evidence that fish taken from the Sea of Galilee were taxed. So Jesus took as His disciple the taxman that may have taken money from Peter, James, and John and the other fishermen among the disciples. Certainly, initially, it would have been difficult for them to accept each other. Yet, in one way, Levi made more of a sacrifice than some of the other disciples. Peter, James, and John could easily go back to their fishing business, but it would be practically impossible for Levi to go back to tax collecting.

Jesus sat at the table in the house, and many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him. This context suggests that this was a gathering of Matthew’s friends and former business associates. Possibly, Jesus took advantage of Matthew’s decision to also reach those whom he knew.

And so the disciples were asked, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” The answer to this question was simple, because Jesus is the friend of sinners. As Paul wrote in Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.

We are fortunate that God calls sinners and not just saintly people. Jesus came to benefit those who understood their inherent need for Him. Yet the proud who see no need for Jesus do not benefit.

Jesus quoted Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”. In Hosea’s day, God’s people were still good at bringing sacrifice, but they had abandoned mercy because they gave up the knowledge of God and truth. God would rather have right hearts, full of truth and mercy than sacrifice.

These words are more striking when we remember that they were addressed to the teachers of men. This rebuke showed that they did not know God, and Jesus bade them go and learn the meaning of their own Scriptures. These “teachers of men” thought they knew everything already, and the rebuke made them angry.

This event illustrates Jesus’s mission to seek and save the lost, calling them to repentance and a new life.

The Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan is a well-known story. Is it really just a parable or was Jesus recounting something that actually happened?

It’s certainly feasible and likely enough to have been an actual occurrence. Let me tell you a real, modern day version:

We got in the car, turn the key in the ignition, and, you’ve probably guessed it, the car wouldn’t start. The battery had suddenly and unexpectedly died. RIP battery!

So, there’s us by the roadside with my husband holding jump leads and jumping up and down trying to flag down the cars that were passing to ask them for help.

So many cars just drove past …

… and then another past, slowed down, turned around and drove back to us. The driver had turned around so that his car was facing the right way to be able to link up the jump leads. He got the car started for us.

We didn’t know him, he didn’t know us, he was just passing through, seen someone in need of help and provided that help.

Willingly, for no reason other than seeing someone in trouble and knowing that they could help. A real good Samaritan.

Jesus told the parable in response to the questions from the lawyer. Now, the lawyer had asked Jesus a question to which he knew the answer and so Jesus answered him with a question, drawing out the answer to the lawyer’s question so that it was provided by the lawyer himself.

Consequently, in a bid to justify asking the question in the first place, the lawyer asks for clarification on who classes as his neighbour. It is this that provokes Jesus into telling the good Samaritan parable.

There was a constant threat of bandits on the wilderness roads. And they did indeed beat people up and steal their possessions. Jesus’s audience, therefore, would not have been surprised by this scenario; it was after-all a part of their normal lives.

The audience may well have expected it to be the priest or Levite who’d help the victim, especially as they both have a calling to care for others.

Yet, they just pass by.

It is the one the audience would have least suspected to assist who gave the victim aid. Samaritans and Jews were not normally friendly towards each other. In fact, the Samaritans were hated by the Jews.

The victim’s own people passed him by. It was someone they would have considered an enemy who stopped and saved his life. Not only that the Samaritan provided for him whilst he healed and returned to health.

Jesus gave the lawyer, crowd, disciples and us the instruction to “Go and do likewise”.

But, like those cars that just drove straight past, how frequently are we the ones who pass the other by. The compassionate generosity of the Samaritan are the example for us to follow but so often we ignore the cries of the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, the forgotten.

The victim. ignored by his own people, reminds us what it feels like to be forgotten by others. The feelings of loneliness and forsakenness call for compassion and empathy for all experiencing it.

Whilst Jesus is the one telling the story, on a theological level God is both the one in the ditch as His children pass by, and the one who shows compassion and mercy to us when we are in need – the one who saved us through the cross.

This parable is a reminder that the call to care for others often goes unheard as we pass by the cries of those needing help.