Commentary on Revised Common Lectionary texts for September 17, 2023

Celebration at the Red Sea: Exodus 14:19-31 (15:1-11, 20-21)

Did you sing the “Pharaoh, Pharaoh” song in Sunday school and camp? You know, the one with the fun hand motions and the line “all of Pharaoh’s army did the dead man’s float.” I will admit that, back in the day, I yelled those “huh”s and sang the “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”s as enthusiastically as anyone. But the casual disregard for the lives of “the enemy” never quite sat right with me.

To preach this story with integrity, I think we have to acknowledge its complexity—the presence of death in the midst of celebration, questions about violence as a means of salvation. Many of your listeners, the ones who are paying attention, will feel at least a twinge of discomfort at the thought of God throwing horse and rider into the sea.

I find, though, that when I engage in too much hand-wringing about Pharaoh’s army, I am in danger of missing the power and joy of this story; and, more significantly, I may be diminishing the evil of oppression and inadvertently shaming those who, out of necessity, seek freedom by desperate means. After all, the Israelites are not leaving Egypt because they got tired of looking at the pyramids or listening to the Egyptians’ accents. They are leaving Egypt because they were enslaved, raped, and beaten there; because the leader of the nation ordered their children to be killed. The Israelites are running for their lives, and Pharaoh’s army has been tasked with capturing these runaway slaves and bringing them back to their masters. There is, in fact, reason to celebrate that horse and rider have been thrown into the sea.

How do we hold the tension in this text? And for those preaching in a context similar to mine (predominantly to people with significant privilege), a key question is: How do we preach this story to people who have more in common with Pharaoh’s army than with the fleeing Israelites?

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Accountability and Forgiveness: Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

Imagine that you are a young adult in the church and someone in the church has abused you. You go to a person in church leadership and share what has happened. At first they don’t believe you. Then they explain all of the reasons that the person who abused you shouldn’t be judged too harshly or held accountable for their actions. Then the church forces you into a “reconciliation” process that requires you to “forgive” your abuser and remain in the same relationship with them that led to the abuse in the first place.

This—or something very close to it–has been the experience of far too many people. And these three scriptures have the potential to reinforce these harmful practices and re-traumatize survivors in our midst if they are not dealt with prayerfully and carefully.

I won’t tell you what to preach, but here are a few points I urge you not to preach:

• Don’t say that God requires us to forgive people who have harmed us when and how those people (or others in authority) ask us to forgive them.
• Don’t suggest that forgiving someone means that there are no consequences for their bad behavior toward you and that your relationship with them must remain the same.
• Don’t interpret Paul’s statement that we should not pass judgment to mean that we cannot take the side of an abuse victim/survivor over someone who has committed abuse.

In considering forgiveness in the context of Joseph and his brothers, here are a few points I found helpful:

• Joseph forgives his brothers from a position of power, not vulnerability.
• When Joseph offers his brothers forgiveness, he has a lot of people on his side, backing him up.
• Joseph lets himself experience the emotions of forgiveness; he does not treat his decision to forgive as if it is merely what’s expected or no big deal.
• He forgives in response to his understanding of God’s will and God’s work in his own life.
• His forgiveness allows him to be in relationship with his brothers again, but that relationship is not the same as it was when the offense occurred. Joseph invites them to move to Goshen, not into the palace with him.

So, my friends, have fun with these tense texts this week.

Or maybe preach the psalms.