S E R M O N CNR1073
Pentecost 14a (24) North
Ryde Community Church 14 Sep 2014, 9.30am
Exd 14:19-31; 15:1b-20f; Matt 18: 21-35; Rom 14:1-12
1 A
MESSAGE FROM SANTORINI (Exd 14:19-31)
1.1 Mt Thera blows
its top
Around 1540BC was not a very good time
and should you visit the Greek island of Santorini
you would see why.
Back in those ancient times there was a certain Mt
Thera
and it was a volcano, a very active volcano.
Around 1540BC following earthquakes in the region Mt
Thera blew its top.
Certain records describe from miles away
a tall pillar of cloud surging high into the sky
during the day
turning into a pillar of fire by night.
Huge waves formed a tsunami which crashed
into what was left of the ancient Minoan civilisation
on the island of Crete.
It surged further southward into the Nile delta in
Egypt.
1.2 Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night (Exd 13:21-22)
Why have I told you this ancient story
and how do we know this great event was recorded?
Did we not read in Sunday School in those days before
LiftOff
that certain groups of former slaves were leaving
Egypt
under their leader Moses,
and how they were guided in Exd 13:21-22 by
“a pillar of cloud to lead them along
the way, and by night …
a pillar of fire to give them light, so
that they might travel by day and by night … and did not depart from before the
people.”?
They were not to know the origins of this pillar as
we can now know
but to the children of Israel this was their
deliverance out of slavery in Egypt.
1.3 The Tsunami
They were not to know how after such a volcanic event
the waters were sucked in before flooding back with a
vengeance.
It just so happened these children of Israel were
trying to get across
the “Yam Suph”
or the “Sea of Reeds” within the Nile delta,
mistakenly confused with the Red Sea.
Just in time, the waters that blocked their path
retreated as if sucked out,
as indeed it was.
The children of Israel saw this opportunity and made
it across the other side
before the waters came surging back to catch the
pursuing Pharaoh’s army and drown them.
1.4 The miraculous deliverance
We who know about tsunamis, at least since 2004, know
how it happened while back then no one then could possibly have known
how this miraculous deliverance happened.
It matters not because for the children of Israel
it still was a miraculous deliverance that changed
forever their future
as a people in the hands of God.
And that is the point of this Exodus story.
Deliverance from certain disaster focuses the mind
on what really matters in life.
2 THE
PARABLE OF THE MEAN SERVANT (Matt 18:21-35)
2.1 The thousand dollar debt (Mt 18:24)
Which is why our Gospel reading draws our attention
as to how Jesus in his coming to deliver us from the disaster of ourselves
focuses our attention on our future directions.
This parable on forgiveness is a case in point.
Here we have a ruler out to collect his debts
from those to whom he had lent money.
There were no banks then.
Kings owned the wealth so their subjects had to
borrow from them
to get their start in business.
Servant No 1 owed in our currency about $1000 and
wasn’t doing very well so the king was about to foreclose
and to have him and his family sold into slavery to
pay his debt.
2.2 An unexpected forgiveness (Mt 18:27)
Servant No 1 was not happy about this arrangement.
After much pleading and grovelling and bargaining,
he was forgiven his $1000 debt altogether,
which was actually more than he’d expected.
O for a kind bank manager like this, or at this time
of the year, the ATO.
2.3 The two dollar debt (Mt 18:28)
Servant No 1 emerged into the sunlight breathing
again.
He suddenly spotted Servant No 2.
He grabbed the poor unsuspecting fellow by the throat
(we were going to re-enact this parable except for our
safety regulations).
Servant No 1 loudly demanded Servant No 2 pay Servant
No 1
the $2 he owed him.
The spluttering Servant No 2 didn’t have any money on
him at the time,
so Servant No 1 led him firmly by the ear and had him
locked up in prison
for depriving Servant No 1 of his $2.
As was once put Servant No 1 was mean enough to take
the holes out of a harness strap.
2.4 The small debt part of the bigger debt (Mt 18:31-35)
This did not go down well with the neighbours, nor
with the king.
“OK”, he said, “all bets are off”.
Servant No1 had it coming to him because that’s how
he treated Servant No 2 for the mere 0.2% of the amount owing.
For those of you who have been secretly calculating
these financial transactions on your electronic
security blankets,
you will have picked up that not only was the 2nd
debt 0.2% of the 1st debt,
it was also part of the 1st debt that
would have been owed back to the king
in the 1st place.
So, the money Servant No 2 owed Servant No 1 wasn’t
Servant No 1’s money in the 1st place.
3 A
NEW OUTLOOK (Rom 14:1-12)
3.1 Christ the Lord of Living and Dead (Rom 14:9)
Which is what Paul was explaining to the Romans in
his epistle to them.
Just as the children of Israel under Moses were
miraculously delivered
from disaster to face their future under an
unexpected freedom,
so we have been miraculously delivered from ourselves
through Jesus Christ.
Both the Gospel and the Epistle bring to our
attention
that because we have this new lease of life through
Jesus Christ
then our outlook changes.
3.2 God tears up the debt
We cease to measure the list of wrongs done to us by
others
because we have experienced God, through Jesus Christ,
tearing up the list of wrongs we have done in our
time.
God could well run an eternal ICAC and Royal
Commission forever
over the wrongs human beings have done and keep on
doing to one another.
God, instead through Jesus Christ,
as Paul has reminded the Romans and others,
has torn up this unsurmountable debt.
Because we have this new freedom, we are freed to
have a fresh outlook, imitating the outlook God has expressed to us through
Jesus Christ.
This remains his message to us and, through our
outlook,
our message to the world
so the world may come through its own Sea of Reeds
and live in hope.
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