Readings (Track 1)
We could easily give all our attention to any one of these texts—but how do we hear them together?
Our first reading describes a situation of brutal oppression. There’s a new king who lies, stokes fear, demonizes a minority (the Israelites). It all sounds uncomfortably familiar. Over the centuries these early chapters of Exodus have helped many oppressed peoples recognize that the same God who cared about the Israelites cared about them.
The situation Jesus and Paul encounter is different, but oppressive in its own way. Empires survive/prosper by extracting resources from the periphery to the center; Rome was no different. Recall the listing in Revelation: “gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves” (18:12-13).
In today’s Gospel Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah. That sounds like good news: oppression is the sort of thing the Messiah is supposed to deal with, right?
Unfortunately, the Gospel reading stops just before Jesus explains what he understands being the Messiah to be about: “From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (16:21). To pick up Paul’s language from our second reading, being the Messiah is about presenting one’s body “as a living sacrifice.”
So the oppression doesn’t matter? It matters. But to get at the roots of the oppression it’s no good focusing on the Pharaoh or the Emperor. A bit later in Matthew’s Gospel we’ll hear Jesus say “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave” (20:25-27). It’s this unending competition for dominance that’s the root, a competition that expresses itself in oppression as soon as we have sufficient power. So here the Messiah must take the lead, take a different path.
Recall Paul in our second reading, who moves immediately from “Do not be conformed…but be transformed” to “I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.” At this point he’s working the same issue Jesus was working.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Of course that’s multidimensional, but one of the dimensions—as shown by the following verses—is abandoning this unending competition for dominance. That, of course, is risky, which is why Paul started the paragraph with “present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Not being conformed, being transformed: it doesn’t stay in the head, but embraces the whole body. “A living sacrifice”—including the many situations in which not competing for dominance will involve turning the other cheek (recall Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount).
In the context of today’s readings, the complementary dimension of “be transformed” is love of the enemy, which Paul addresses later in this chapter—and which we also encountered in the Sermon on the Mount. In situations of oppression or perceived oppression, hatred comes so easily, so naturally.
“You are the Messiah.” Being the Messiah: bearing witness to God’s reign, even when the consequences are predictably lethal. God’s reign: a reign in which we’re free to disengage from the unending competition for dominance, from the ensuing oppression, free to love our enemies. This freedom means more options. As Paul will put it at the end of this chapter, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (12:21).
We might summarize the conversation between our readings from Romans and Matthew like this: Paul can exhort “present your bodies as a living sacrifice…Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” because that’s we’ve heard Jesus describe as his job description. In fact, it’s hard to think of a clearer example of “Do not be conformed…but be transformed” than what Jesus does with the popular expectations of what the Messiah will do. And, obviously, “Do not be conformed…but be transformed” doesn’t stay in Jesus’ head, but shapes his entire life. Conversely, Jesus’ words help us bring into focus the sort of reorientation of life that Paul’s encouraging.
As I said earlier, not being conformed, being transformed is multidimensional. The dimensions I’ve focused on, abandoning the competition for domination and love of enemy, come from wondering what this Messiah’s doing about oppression. To flesh this out, the testimony of one of the Messiah’s 20th century servants, Martin Luther King Jr:[1]
Nonviolent resistance “does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.…The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.”
Again, nonviolent resistance “avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit.…The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. [] Parenthetically, that’s not a bad description of the Cross.This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives.”
Now, having given Romans and Matthew the lion’s share of attention, where does that leave our first reading and psalm?
That standoff between God and Pharaoh that today’s first reading anticipates, isn’t it a competition for dominance? Of course. On the one hand, that’s one of the things God reserves for God’s self. On the other hand, even for God it’s more a stopgap measure than a long-term solution. “We had to destroy the village in order to save it” works no better for God than it does for us.
It’s also worth noticing that the behavior of the two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, as well as the behavior of Moses’ mother and sister, are textbook examples of nonviolent resistance.
What of Psalm 124? If we’ve been listening to Jesus, we recognize that the fundamental danger (“swallowed us up alive…prey for their teeth”) is not our physical death, but that we become indistinguishable from our enemies. Then again, Jesus’ story plays out differently. He is swallowed up, becomes prey for their teeth—and Death (capital D) develops a fatal case of indigestion. As the psalmist rightly concludes “Our help is in the Name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”
But back to Jesus, his servants Paul and Martin Luther King Jr., and the contemporary kings so skilled at oppression and stoking fear. We prayed in today’s collect, “Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name.” What might that “show forth your power” look like today?
[1] From “An Experiment in Love” (1958) in A Testament of Hope pp.18-19.
With Jacob at Bethel 