Reflection for January 26 or Day 20
Exodus 1-3; psalm 18:1-20; Matthew 18
As we move from Genesis to Exodus, the biblical narrative takes an ominous turn--”Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exodus1:8). Joseph’s family, who had been welcomed into Egypt, they had even been hired to keep Pharaoh’s livestock. They had now multiplied with the passing years to the point where the Egyptians perceive them as a threat to homeland security. Sin being what it is, enslavement and infanticide -- the systematic murdering of all the male children -- ensue. (I find the events in Syria today, in which a country’s army has been turned against its own people, so distressingly similar.) God, however, is on the move. A Hebrew child, Moses, is drawn from water by Pharaoh’s sister and raised, as the Disney movie terms it, a Prince of Egypt. Fleeing Egypt as a fugitive for the killing (and unsuccessful coverup) of an abusive Egyptian guard, Moses finds himself in the land of Midian where he encounters God and God encounters him in the bush that was burning but not consumed.
God hears the groans of the suffering and exploited and God acts. God waits for Moses to take notice of the burning bush, and then God call Moses by name. This call is personal and full of purpose. Moses encounters God’s holy presence face-to-face. This is a humbling, knee bending, head bowing, sandals removing holy ground. Moses encounters the Source of all life, of all being. “I AM WHO I AM” is God’s response to Moses’ request to know God’s name. God’s purpose: Moses is to be the instrument by which God delivers the Israelites from slavery and forms them into a holy community.
Moses is not the only one saved from the water to be an instrument of God’s purpose. In Holy Baptism, we are drawn from the water, reborn by the Holy Spirit, and charged with a purpose -- to share in the work of “confessing the faith of Christ crucified, proclaiming his resurrection and sharing in his eternal priesthood” (BCP p. 308). This is personal. In baptism our name is spoken and we are sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever. At the heart of our holy and dynamic relationship with God exists the holy intimacy of God calling us, naming us, loving us and leading us to share in God’s work of liberating humanity from sin and slavery in all its forms.
Jesus in Matthew Chapter 18 teaches us that the practice of forgiveness is an essential way we live, act and interact as God’s people. The parable Jesus tells at the end of the chapter needs little interpretative analysis: we who are forgiven are called to practice forgiveness. This is the Jesus way.
The Rev. Andrew J. Sherman
Rector, St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Boca Raton
Exodus 1-3; psalm 18:1-20; Matthew 18
As we move from Genesis to Exodus, the biblical narrative takes an ominous turn--”Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exodus1:8). Joseph’s family, who had been welcomed into Egypt, they had even been hired to keep Pharaoh’s livestock. They had now multiplied with the passing years to the point where the Egyptians perceive them as a threat to homeland security. Sin being what it is, enslavement and infanticide -- the systematic murdering of all the male children -- ensue. (I find the events in Syria today, in which a country’s army has been turned against its own people, so distressingly similar.) God, however, is on the move. A Hebrew child, Moses, is drawn from water by Pharaoh’s sister and raised, as the Disney movie terms it, a Prince of Egypt. Fleeing Egypt as a fugitive for the killing (and unsuccessful coverup) of an abusive Egyptian guard, Moses finds himself in the land of Midian where he encounters God and God encounters him in the bush that was burning but not consumed.
God hears the groans of the suffering and exploited and God acts. God waits for Moses to take notice of the burning bush, and then God call Moses by name. This call is personal and full of purpose. Moses encounters God’s holy presence face-to-face. This is a humbling, knee bending, head bowing, sandals removing holy ground. Moses encounters the Source of all life, of all being. “I AM WHO I AM” is God’s response to Moses’ request to know God’s name. God’s purpose: Moses is to be the instrument by which God delivers the Israelites from slavery and forms them into a holy community.
Moses is not the only one saved from the water to be an instrument of God’s purpose. In Holy Baptism, we are drawn from the water, reborn by the Holy Spirit, and charged with a purpose -- to share in the work of “confessing the faith of Christ crucified, proclaiming his resurrection and sharing in his eternal priesthood” (BCP p. 308). This is personal. In baptism our name is spoken and we are sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever. At the heart of our holy and dynamic relationship with God exists the holy intimacy of God calling us, naming us, loving us and leading us to share in God’s work of liberating humanity from sin and slavery in all its forms.
Jesus in Matthew Chapter 18 teaches us that the practice of forgiveness is an essential way we live, act and interact as God’s people. The parable Jesus tells at the end of the chapter needs little interpretative analysis: we who are forgiven are called to practice forgiveness. This is the Jesus way.
The Rev. Andrew J. Sherman
Rector, St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Boca Raton
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