I have some thoughts about it. One implication of the teaching on forgiveness is that, even for those who accept a just war tradition, our foreign policy must be based on prudence and a duty to protect the innocent rather than vengeance and rage. Forgiveness is about letting go of the power of the past. We don't have to forget, but we should be careful about how we remember. We should also keep the remembrance of the crucified and risen Christ central to our self-understanding. 9/11 must not be allowed to become a rallying cry for our baser instincts. How do we keep alive the memory of self-sacrifice and mutual aid that emerged in the wake of the attacks? What might this teach us about forgiveness in the interpersonal and communal spheres? How would practicing forgiveness and remembering our own need for mercy help us to overcome the dangerous polarization in our national life?

I'm actually focusing on the Exodus reading from the Hebrew Scriptures as the main fare. The text presents an opportunity to probe the notion of "God is on our side" from a critical point of view. How can we abandon the notion of "God is on our side" and replace religious jingoism with a critical understanding of how faith as salvation events sustains us in times of crisis?

Bill: helpful thoughts as usual. "We should be careful how we remember."

Rod: I totally can see that. Hope it goes well!

Kurt C. Wiesner

An art assemblage piece I did several years ago will be on display at Christ Church for this coming Sunday. Also, copies of the Lord's Prayer in Arabic, that our priest brought back when he was in Saudi Arabia about 7-8 years ago.

http://pensys.com/pages/jrjkk/ForgiveCollage.JPG

I thought these just seem to relate to the Gospel message for Sunday, Sept. 11th.

We'll be hosting a Peace Walk on our new labyrinth, in the Chapel, open to the community, after the Sunday Services on that day too.

Something about God drowning the Egyptians in this Sunday's reading from Exodus does not seem appropriate for September 11th.

Hi Chris, appreciate your concern.

Last week we had the Passover with the death of the first born, this week the crossing of the sea of reeds and the drowning of the Egyptians. The narrative episode is especially acute at the Easter Vigil when the “Song of Moses” follows it

I share the concern. This coming week, as last, I plan to name the dark feature in the text for what it is. It is troubling. Must salvation for one group always be coupled with some divine visitation of judgment on another group of people?

A perhaps conventional reading lures us into thinking that god chooses sides. We feel justified in that which we then visit on the other. Terrorists wrap themselves in religion to rationalize their violence. A countervailing national chauvinism wraps itself in religion to then justify its position.

The problem is compounded by a social climate, at least in this country, where people do want to hear from any religious tradition because of perceived complicity with systemic violence.

I think there is a way to face the text, using Christian "Zen" verbal judo, breaking the balance of the feelings of justified retribution that run at us from the text, turning their momentum toward faithfulness.

Not a lot of space here, but do we see our society as the Israelites and the Egyptians as our enemies getting their just desserts?

Or, do we see our society as constantly wrestling in times of crisis between opportunities for salvation and the rush into violent oblivion?

Re: The drowning of the Egyptians

The church has long struggled with the issue of divine violence in the biblical narrative. Some have gone as far as to say that the "Old Testament" god was not the god of the "New Testament." I wonder sometimes if we should re-capture some really old ways of biblical interpretation for some of these difficult texts, such as symbolism and allegory. Since there is really no archaeological evidence that the Exodus ever really happened as it is told in story, how about a non-factual/non-literal interpretation? Pharaoh represents the tendency to use power and privilege to exploit and harm and control. The waters of the sea are the waters of baptism and the spirit that drowns our hatred by our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus in which we then experience liberation, healing and victory over sin and evil? The "Egyptians and Pharaoh" are "We" and our all-too-human but un-Christlike inclinations to do harm to others. By our imitation of the love of Christ and his forgiving compassion and his victorious defeat on the cross, we cross the sea in pilgrimage to the heavenly city?

Too flowery?

Jeffrey raises some really good points. Just to complicate things, I would add that troubling features in a text, strata that discomfort, undercurrents in tension with the notion of God's abiding covenant love, looking for and facing the same can make us attentive to major tensions in the text that then allow the text to challenge us, allow old myths to renew or renovate our faith experience.

One book I pitch to folks these days, one that has really helped me as a preacher in dealing with these kinds of texts, is "Reconstructing Old Testament Theology: After the Collapse of History. Leo G. Perdue. Fortress Press, 2005.

I think we also have to abandon the rather false dichotomy of O.T. Law vs. NT Gospel. The Hebrew Scriptures are life giving and a witness to God's good news, not as proof texts and prequels, but on their own integrity as Sacred literature.