How Do We Respond?

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Exodus 14:19-31 and Matthew 18:21-35.

            Today, September 11, 2022, is obviously an important day in our country.  Of course, most of us know why.  It’s because today is the first Sunday of the new NFL season.

           No, obviously, today is the twenty-first anniversary of the attacks that destroyed the Twin Towers in New York, and it’s clearly not something to joke about.  About three thousand people died on that day, and it still amazes me that the number was not higher.  What happened on this day fifteen years ago is among the most significant events that have happened in my lifetime.  If it’s not the most significant event, it’s certainly on the short list.  After all, this was not just an attack on New York City.  This was an attack on all of America.

            In the aftermath of those attacks, a lot of Christians struggled with what the proper Christian response should be.  I mean, we all knew that we should do whatever we could to help the victims of the attack, but beyond that, what should we do?  Some Christians believed we should immediately launch a counter-attack against the people who did this to us.  Other Christians said we should pray for our attackers and offer them forgiveness.  There were lots of other Christian opinions as well, from viewpoints all along the spectrum.  The proper Christian response to those attacks was the source of a lot of conversation and debate at the time.

            Twenty-one years later, it still is.  A lot of Christians still struggle with the proper Christian response to those attacks and to the whole issue of terrorism.  A lot of things have happened in those twenty-one years, of course.  We’ve seen acts of terrorism all of the world, including some in this country.  Luckily they so far have not been on the same scale, but there’s no guarantee that they won’t be.  In fact, a lot of people say that not only is another terrorist attack on that scale possible, it’s almost inevitable.  And we now have additional issues regarding immigration and refugees.  

If another large-scale terrorist attack does happen, we’ll probably have the same debates and conversations again.  Inevitably, those debates and conversations get bound up in politics.   And of course, that makes it even harder for us to find answers.

            Our scriptures for today give a couple of different responses for us to choose from.  The first one is our reading from Exodus, the story of the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea.  If you remember the story, Israel had been oppressed by the Egyptians for some time, and Moses was chosen to go to Pharaoh and get him to let them go so they could go to the land God had promised them.  Pharaoh refused until he was convinced by a series of plagues.  Then, after agreeing to let Israel go, Pharaoh changed his mind and sent the army to bring them back again.  The people of Israel get to the Red Sea, have no way to cross it, and the Egyptian army is hot on their trail.

            You heard the rest of the story.  God acts through Moses, parts the Red Sea, and allows the people of Israel to cross.  God gives the Egyptian army problems, they decide to run away, and God acts through Moses to wipe them out.

            There’s not a lot of forgiveness for the Egyptians in that story, is there?  Not much tolerance, not much understanding other viewpoints.  The goal is not to try to make peace with Egypt, the goal is to destroy the Egyptian army.  In fact, even after the army has decided to retreat and run away, God does not let up on them.  God does not say, “Okay, you’ve learned your lesson, so I’ll let you go and give you another chance.”  God completely obliterates them.  We’re told “not one of them remained.”

           On the other hand, we have the story from the gospel of Matthew.  Peter asks Jesus how many times he needs to forgive someone who’s wronged him, suggesting what to him was a high number of seven times.  Jesus responds with a much higher, almost limitless number.  He then tells a story about someone who asked for forgiveness and received it, only to refuse to give forgiveness to someone else.  His refusal meant that he was no longer forgiven, either.  This is a pretty common theme in the gospels:  that the forgiveness we receive from God is directly tied to the forgiveness we give to other people.  Jesus does not tell us that when someone attacks us, we should fight back with everything we’ve got.  Jesus tells us to forgive.

            So, where does that leave us?  Are we supposed to try to wipe out our enemies, the way God, acting through Moses, did to the Egyptians?  Or are we supposed to forgive our enemies, the way Jesus told us to?

            It’s interesting that both of these stories give us a way to avoid applying them, if that’s what we’re looking for.  In the story of the parting of the Red Sea, one could make the argument that it was not the people of Israel who attacked the Egyptians, it was God.  All the people of Israel did was run away; God did the fighting, not Israel.  So, one could argue, when we’re attacked, we should let God fight our battles for us, not fight them ourselves.

            On the other hand, in the story of forgiveness from Matthew, the question Peter asked Jesus was “if another member of the church sins against me, how many time should I forgive?”  One could make the argument, then, that in the case of terrorist attacks, we are not sinned against by members of the church.  So, one could argue, what Jesus said about forgiveness does not apply.

           I also don’t think we can just solve the dilemma by saying, “Well, the story of the Red Sea is the Old Testament, and the story of forgiveness is the New Testament, so we have to follow the New Testament and forget the Old.”  It’s not that simple.  As Christians, and as United Methodist Christians, we say that we believe in both testaments, the new and the old.  We say that both of them are the inspired word of God.  It’s not a good answer to say that we’re going to ignore certain parts of God’s word just because we don’t happen to like them or because they complicate things for us.

            Another thing that complicates this is that we can find sincere, committed Christians on all sides of this.  There are sincere, committed Christians who believe in a strong military, so strong that we are not just able to prevent attacks but so strong that no one would dare attack us.  There are sincere, committed Christians who believe that war is never justified, and that we need to make deep cuts in our military.  There are also, of course, sincere, committed Christians at many other points along the line.

           Because of that, I’m not going to stand here and tell you what I think the Christian position is.  I don’t think I have the authority to do that.  If I say, “here’s the Christian position”, I’m implying that anyone who disagrees, is not really a Christian, or at least not a very good one.  Not only don’t I believe that, I don’t think I have the right to decide who’s a Christian and who’s not.  God decides that, not me.

            What I will do is tell you some things we all need to consider as we think about this and similar issues.  This is not a full list, but I think doing these things will help us as we try to sort it all out.

            For one thing, we should not assume that we already know it all.  In the twenty-one years since the World Trade Center attacks, and as we’ve seen other acts of terrorism, a lot of us have pretty well decided what we believe.  That’s okay, but we should also not be afraid to re-examine what we believe.  We’re all allowed to change our minds.

            Also, we should never believe something just because someone else believes it.  That’s the case even if that someone else is someone we really respect. We need to make our own decisions, not just trust the opinions of others.

            One thing we should definitely do is pray.  You probably knew that one was coming, but it’s necessary.  We should pray in all circumstances, of course, but we should especially pray when we need guidance, and this is an area in which we need guidance.  God will probably not just pop an answer into our heads, but the more time we spend in prayer, the closer we will be to God, and the closer we are to God, the more likely we are to live our lives the way God wants us to live them

            We should also read and study the Bible.  After all, the Bible is God’s message to us.  There are lots more scriptures that talk about these issues than just the ones we looked at this morning.  We need to read them and study them.

            We need to be willing to struggle with these issues.  It’s okay for us to not have an answer right away.  Sometimes, things take time to work through.  We need to think about this to the point that we know not just what we believe, but why we believe it.  We need to be able to have solid reasoning and scripture behind what we believe, not just a vague feeling that we’re right.

            Finally, we need to accept those who disagree with us.  That’s not to say we need to agree with them, but we need to realize that some of those who disagree with us have struggled with the issues just as much as we have.  They’ve prayed, and they’ve studied, and they’ve come up with different answers.  They may not be right, but they are still sincere Christians who love the Lord just as much as we do.  The fact that we may disagree with someone, even if we have a pretty strong disagreement, does not change that.

            Jesus never promised that being a Christian would be easy.  When Jesus was on the earth, his disciples struggled with a lot of issues.  Today, two thousand years later, we continue to struggle.  That’s okay.  It’s not our job to have all the answers.  It’s our job to be faithful, to love others, and to leave the answers to God.

            The one thing we know is that, no matter what happens, God is always in control, and God will win in the end.  If we trust that and do our best, God will take care of the rest.