"he will repay for what has been done" (sermon)

“The Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and he will repay everyone for what has been done.” God help us, Lord have mercy.

Threatening, foreboding, intimidating, frightening, trembling: he will repay you for what you have done, have a nice day.

Matthew 16:21 through 28 comes round every three years on the lectionary cycle, so I’ve preached this gospel a dozen times over the decades; if people tire of hearing it, I am weary of saying it over and over and over again and nobody gets it, so before Matthew this morning I’ll first escape into the good old Sunday School Bible story of Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3): “Moshe, Moshe, welcome! You’re on holy ground: take off yo’ shoes and make yo’self comfortable, I’ve been wanting to talk!!”

Moses you remember as an infant, the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt. Pharaoh (Fah-rah-oh is the Hebrew) Fah-rah-oh said Hebrew girl babies could live, but kill the boy babies to prevent their growing into a military force to overthrow the Egyptian masters.

Saved from Fah-rah-oh’s death edict, as we read last Sunday, Moses was raised in the royal palace as a Prince of Egypt. But Moshe grew up eine grosse und starke Junge and, seeing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, murdered the man. Fah-rah-oh condemned Moses to death, but he escaped a second time, now to Midian, took shelter, married a daughter of Midian; and from life as a Prince of Egypt, began work as a lowly, stinking shepherd, the most contemptible of vocations.

Which brings us to this morning’s Bible story, Yahweh’s Call of Moses. But also, and this is the really big thing, we get to be there when Moses asks God, “Who are you, whass yo’ name?” And God retorts, 

“eeyeh asherrrr eeyeh 

I AM that I AM

I AM WHOever and WHATever I SAY I AM.”

I AM is no proper name at all; but God’s assertion of Being is bold and clear enough that Moses never again dares ask God, “Whadjou say yo’ name was?” And we call him Yahweh. Adonai. God. The Lord.

Established at the Burning Bush, this was a fraught relationship in which God and Moses never became old drinking buddies as God and Abraham had done. In fact, the confrontation at the Burning Bush begins a long, contentious relationship, forty years of Moses whining and complaining as God patiently and impatiently directs Moses in leading the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, through the wilderness, toward the Promised Land. As we saw with the patriarchs, God chooses whatever loser God choses to walk with, and Moses proves to be so vexatious a colleague and co-leader that God can hardly stand him. But those forty years in the wilderness with Moses, God forges a new and unbreakable bond with the Jewish people, a bond of covenant to which we Christians are heirs through Jesus whom Paul and the gospels proclaim as God’s promised Messiah.

So, from Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the story of Moses and the Burning Bush continues our loving relationship with Adonai the Lord: eeyeh asherrrr eeyeh, The One Who IS, I AM that I AM, King of the Universe who, through Logos the Creating Word (whom John’s gospel says is Jesus God the Son) said, “Let There Be,” and it was so.

Today’s is an Important story. Important because it tells God’s love for us. Important because of the relationship God strengthens with us through Moses during the wilderness trek. Important because of God’s commandments that come to us as covenant, The Law of Moses. Important because generations and centuries later comes Jesus Messiah whom Moses prophesied. 

We’ve read through the summer about Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, about God’s blood covenant with Abraham and his family. We now move on into the story of God establishing Covenant of Law through Moses. If you keep on coming and keep on listening, these wonderful old Sunday School Bible stories will come true again in Bethlehem as we hear angels sing, and join shepherds around a manger, and kings, for the ultimate story: God’s Covenant of Love in Jesus Christ.

For every Christian who loves Jesus and claims him as Lord and Savior, the story completes itself both in the blood covenant of the Cross that, anamnesis, we do not forget but remember in bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ - - and also in the water of Baptism, when we covenant finally and above all promises, to believe in Jesus the Son of God precisely by respecting the dignity of every human being.

Hesitantly I’ll confess this, you may already know it about me: I have almost an obsession, a searing obsession, with Nazi Germany, and that for two reasons: first because as a growing child during World War Two I remember the evil, the unspeakable cruelties the German Volk and Nation committed against human beings who were different, who did not fit the German view of Aryan supremacy, and their hatred of Jews. And second because, an American of German descent, I realize that my own distant Wäller cousins would have been among frenzied crowds of Germans shrieking Sieg heil, and Heil Hitler, the Nazi salute and cheering the swastika flag of the Third Reich.

With traumatizing horror I watched the NewsReels at the end of World War Two, as American, British and French soldiers liberated concentration camps of starved prisoners; of stacks and piles and heaps and mounds of mass-murdered twisted, naked corpses of Jews and other enemies of the Reich; of ovens into which human bodies, sometimes still alive, were crammed for cremation to dust; of fiery pits into which Germans threw little Jewish children alive (ostensibly so as not to “waste bullets”) to burn to death screaming in excruciating agony. If you did not know, know now. If you were not aware, be aware now and share my anguish about my ancestral people. A kinsman and heir of German ancestry, I’ll carry that shame to my grave. 

So therefore know how and why and what decent human beings feel seeing Americans today carrying the swastika flag of the Third Reich through the streets of American cities, White Supremacy, God help us, in God’s eyes we are supreme to nobody and nothing. And the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, which I revered as a boy growing up in the South, now paraded, waved and flaunted as a call to violence and a symbol of hate, where the claim that we’re celebrating and honoring our heritage is sheer skybalon (it’s an NT word, look it up); the Confederate flag no longer, if indeed ever truly, a symbol of honor and heritage but of human indecency and consummate evil. My personal hard work as an American Christian in this age of division and hatred is minding myself, that I do not allow myself to hate them. And yet, as a witness of history I remember what those people were, and I see who and what they again are. Memories old and deep fade but slow, return quick to mind, and I am only saved from myself by my vows of the Baptismal Covenant and my love of the Lord Jesus.

Status Confessionis: the blasphemy of “white supremacy” is incompatible with the Cross and Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any man, any person, who waves a flag or symbol, or marches for self-supremacy and hatred of others, is not and cannot be a Christian owning Jesus Christ as personal savior, baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection, eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ, and claiming salvation by the Cross of Calvary.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? We say I believe, but do we really? If you believe, are you therefore then constantly mindful of the sacrifice and love that Jesus demands of you and of all who claim and believe in him?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? Will you, will you really? Because that - - your respecting and striving, to keep covenant with your baptismal promise - - is what makes all the difference in God’s Kingdom Come today.

So where am I? Ashamed. Horrified. Sharing and feeling the guilt of the human ages and especially my own 20th century. Where am I today, now, this moment, this 21st century Sunday morning? Hopeful, truly hopeful, with faith and hope in you. Longing for his coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead, when his kingdom will have no end. 

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” 

God help us, Lord have mercy. 

Even so, Maranatha, come. Come, Lord Jesus. Quickly come.

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Sermon, homily, by the Rev. Tom Weller at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, FL on Sunday, September 3, 2017. Proper 17A. Texts Exodus 3:1-15 and Matthew 16:21-28.