First Responder

Exodus 32:7-14

The LORD spoke to Moses, “Hurry down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted basely. They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I enjoined upon them. They have made themselves a molten calf and bowed low to it and sacrificed to it, saying, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’” The LORD further said to Moses, “I see that this is a stiff-necked people. Now, let me be, that my anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation.” But Moses implored the LORD his God, saying, “Let not your anger, O LORD, blaze forth against your people, whom you delivered from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth.’ Turn from your blazing anger, and renounce the plan to punish your people. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, how you swore to them by your self and said to them: I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of which I spoke, to possess forever.” And the LORD renounced the punishment he had planned to bring upon his people.

Psalm 51

Refrain: Have mercy on me, O God, as befits your faithfulness

Have mercy upon me, O God, as befits your faithfulness

in keeping with your abundant compassion, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly of my iniquity

and purify me of my sin;

for I recognize my transgressions,

and am ever conscious of my sin.

Against you alone have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight;

so you are just in your sentence, and right in your judgment. R

Indeed I was born with iniquity;

with sin my mother conceived me.

Indeed you desire truth about that which is hidden;

teach me wisdom about secret things.

Purge me with hyssop till I am pure;

wash me till I am whiter than snow.

Let me hear tidings of joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have crushed exult.

Hide your face from my sins;

blot out all my iniquities.

Fashion a pure heart for me, O God;

create in me a steadfast spirit. R

Do not cast me our of your presence

or take your holy spirit away from me.

Let me again rejoice in your help;

let a vigorous spirit sustain me.

I will teach transgressors your ways,

that sinners may return to you. R

Save me from bloodguilt, O God, God, my deliverer,

that I may sing forth your beneficence.

O Lord, open my lips,

and let my mouth declare your praise.

You do not want me to bring sacrifices;

you do not desire burnt offerings;

True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit;

God, you will not despise a contrite and crushed heart.

May it please you to make Zion prosper;

rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Then you will want sacrifices offered in righteousness, burnt and whole offerings;

then bulls will be offered on your altar. R

1 Timothy 1:12-17

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Luke 15:1-10

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who need no repentance. Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

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Fifteen years. How has it already been fifteen years? How has it only been fifteen years? I was a freshman in college fifteen years ago today, just starting out in my class on basic stagecraft and learning how to use a T-square, when one of my classmates came in late with the news about a plane and a tower, and it didn’t seem real. Then, flash forward seven years to my last summer as a camp counselor, and I had my first group of campers who were born in or after 2001, who never even knew what the world was like before the World Trade Center fell, before we started these color-coded threat levels at airports and saw a sudden rise in violence against Sikhs and Muslims. And it seems every generation has that definitive historical marker, be it knowing where you were when Kennedy was shot, to living through the draft, to the day the Berlin Wall came down. 

But what do we allow these things to do to us? How do we react, respond, rebuild? What kind of world would we make out of the pain if we could?

When Moses and the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness all those years, it was hard to remember what promises God had made to them, hard to remember the miracles it had taken to get them out of slavery in the first place. So they reverted to worship the way their captors and slave drivers had, by creating a golden calf and singing to it, praying to it, calling it their god so they would have something solid to look at, something they could lay their hands on. The story goes that this made their God angry enough to threaten to disown them. They chose another god, one of their own making (although, really, don’t we all make our own gods?), so the God who brought them out of Egypt told Moses to step aside and let him wipe them out. The God who brought them out of Egypt washed his hands of them, called them Moses’ people, told Moses he wanted no more to do with them because of their transgression.

We really like this image of God when other people are the enemy, don’t we? When we want vengeance, we want a God of fire, when we think we know who the enemy is, we want swift and complete justice to be done. But what if the lines aren’t that clear? What if we just perpetuate the cycles of violence and become the enemy for somebody else? Who will God listen to, then? How can we be sure?

Even God has to be reminded of mercy and faithfulness to God’s promises sometimes. Moses turned the question back around. “These are not my people whom I saved, God, they are your people, under your covenant. Don’t forget who you claim to be.” And the bit that gets me squeamish is that Moses has to get God to consider his reputation in order for God to change his mind. Not the pain of the people, not the mercy and compassion, but how, oh how, will Egypt talk about this God if he lets his people die in the desert after working so hard to set them free from slavery?

We’ve had to work the same way in the past fifteen years, though, haven’t we? What does it mean to be an American? To really live in the land of the free and the home of the brave? What do our founding ideals of freedom of religion mean? So many people died on that day, and death did not discriminate, so why should compassion be any different? Why should compassion reach only so far? Did we ever really see Muslims and Sikhs and people of color and people who speak languages other than English as equal, or did this excuse to lash out at them only reveal our fear of others that had always been there? Do we have to be white and Christian to be American?

Even God, in the first reading today, has a hard time with pain and disappointment and feeling betrayed. But over the course of Scripture even God seems to learn more and more what it means to be in this covenant with people like us, people who hurt and fail and learn and grow and change. So long after Moses, after hundreds of years, hundreds of heartaches, God steps into the world as one of us and tells stories, paints pictures, invites us to imagine a world where compassion far outreaches condemnation, where forgiveness runs deeper than fear, where healing and restoration are the purpose and culmination of our lives.

And Jesus tells the disciples this story about the lost being found. On any other day, we could see it metaphorically, consider it from the point of view of the lost sheep simply missing the mark or misunderstanding or even wrestling with unbelief, but fifteen years ago we saw what it looks like, what it really looks like, for the lost to be found. What the pain and panic and intensity of searching become when another survivor is pulled out, what the joy and relief and breaking open of hearts looks like in the middle of terror. … When we had our dinner for first responders this week, I sat down with a few of them to talk a bit. I heard from one chaplain who went to ground zero a week after the attacks, who saw the shock firsthand, who went through the rubble hearing story after story, exhausted, compassionate. First responders do not have time to decide who deserves to get out of a burning building, they just respond, they just serve and save and then later let things sort themselves out.

And this, my friends, is what the kingdom of God is like. Not vengeance against our enemies, for sometimes we ourselves are the enemy, not violence and retribution, because that sort of hate and fear and reactivity only destroys life. The kingdom is compassion for all, mercy for all, undeserved and unearned, even when unreciprocated. What Jesus does in coming among us, in feeding and healing and welcoming, in dying at our hands, in living again and promising us life, is rescuing us from our self-destruction. Rushing into our systems of oppression and fear and pulling us out. Responding first, and responding again and again, to our pain and disappointment and anger and anxieties, with compassion and grace and forgiveness and a love which follows us into every corner of our lives. He does this for all the world, my friends. Without discrimination. Without requirement. Without checking for identification or status or birth certificates. The kingdom of God is not vengeance, it is healing, it is rebuilding, it is sitting in the depths and bringing out life, again, and again and again. This gift is our definitive story, this resurrection is our moment to be known by, this promise is sure.