690: Proper 19A OT24 (9/13/2026)

0:00Hello and welcome to the Pulpit Fiction Podcast, the legendary podcast for pre-tour Seekers and Bible Geeks. This is episode 689 for September 13th, 2026. It's proper 19, ordinary time 24, the 26th Sunday after Pentecost of Year A. Today our reading will pick up our Gospel reading, we'll pick up right where we left off last week on Matthew 18 versus 21 through 35 as Jesus talks about forgiveness. Then Exodus 14, 19 through 31 will be about the parting of the Red Sea. And then Romans 14, 1 through 12 is about not judging and loving. We're not going to talk about it though. Great topic, great passage. There's notes go to PulpitFiction.com

1:04and you can listen to old discussions about that passage and we have extensive show notes and all the good stuff that's at PulpitFiction.com. You can check that out if you're looking for some Romans. I am Rob McCoy, United Methodist pastor here in Rock Island Illinois. I'm joined as always by my good friend and co-host from the Shining Shores of Crystal Lake, UCC pastor Eric Fisseler. How are you doing buddy? I'm doing well. I'm doing well, man. Yeah, it's good. We're recording kind of back-to-back episodes today, which is fine because I'm taking a little bit of time off. So this is a live episode technically, but it's being recorded on the 26th of August. So things, yeah, so that's a little bit different. But no, overall things are things are good. You know, getting back into the swing of things. So we have our homecoming Sunday, this Sunday, the 13th will be our homecoming Sunday. That's when everybody's kind of back and doing stuff. And it was a bigger deal back when we used to not have Sunday school in the summer. And then we were like, Sunday school is back. But this year

2:07it's bigger because we're going back to two services. So we'll kind of see where that goes. We've had a kind of a smaller summer service because our sanctuary has been under construction. So yeah, we'll just kind of see where that goes. We haven't had to we've it's been long enough that we haven't had two services. We used to have that for years. And then after COVID, we went down to one service, shortly after COVID, so that my nine-year-old son does not remember us having two services. So we're kind of excited to kind of try that out again. And hopefully that works out well for us. How about you? How's everything going? I know you're you've got I was going to say you still have your cold. But I mean, for listeners, it feels like it's been a week and like, wow, that's a long cold. But it's actually been like 20 years. Yeah, that's feeling great. But we'll power through. Hopefully, you know, our next live show will be September 14th. I was a yes plan. Yeah, I think that would be a Monday. So we're going to shift to Mondays. So we'll be almost, you know, we'll be doing a Monday the 14th episode for the September 27th tech. So we'll be almost a full two weeks ahead.

3:12And I know a lot of people have asked for that that we wish we were, you know, more ahead of the schedule. And I'm thinking Monday might be a good time for people to sit down and watch and comment and be a part of the conversation. I know a lot of times Mondays is a start of the sermon prep week. So I'm hoping that we were doing it for a lot of reasons. But I'm hoping we get a little bit more participation in these live shows. If we can be consistent on Monday, that's not always easy. But I know I've got a Monday Bible study at noon in person. So I'm here pretty much every Monday anyway. And then we just stick around and jump into the Pulpit Fiction Tech. So I'm looking forward to that, that little shift in scheduling. Yeah, yeah, it'll be a nice change for everybody. So we hope again, that's on the 14th. So the Monday after the Sunday that we're talking about today. Just crazy. That's coming up real fast. So but right now, let's jump into it with a little bit of the good news.

4:15Very few comparatively know what is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Good news, everyone. All right. Well, the good news is the gospel of Matthew chapter 18 versus 21 through 35. This is the common English Bible. Then Peter said to the Lord, sorry, then Peter said to Jesus, Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times? Jesus said, not just seven times, but rather as many as 77 times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with the servants. When he began to settle accounts, they brought to him a servant who owed him 10,000 bags of gold. Because the servant didn't have enough pay enough to pay it back, the master ordered that he should be sold along with his wife and children and everything he had and that the progeny to see it should be used as payment.

5:18But the servant fell down, kneeled before him and said, please be patient with me and I'll pay you back. The master had compassion on that servant released him and forgave the loan. When that servant went out, he found that one of the fellow servants who owned him 100 coins and he grabbed him around the throat and said, pay me back what you owe me. Then his fellow servant fell down and begged him, be patient with me and I'll pay you back." But he refused and said he threw him into prison until he paid back his debt. When his fellow servants saw what happened, they were deeply offended. They came and told their master all that had happened. His master called the first servant and said, you wicked servant, I forgave you all of that debt because you appealed to me. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant? Just as I had mercy on you, his master was furious and handed him over to the guard responsible for punishing the prisoners until he had paid the whole debt. My Heavenly Father will also do the same to you if you don't forgive

6:23your brother or sister from your heart. All right, so again, we're picking right up where we left off from last week after we talked about the chapter 18. Looking at this whole thing is really important. Again, this whole section of Jesus teaching starts with the disciples asking Jesus who is the greatest of the kingdom. Here, we're still sort of answering that question. The greatest of the kingdom is the one who forgives the most. This is the powerful, the way you are great in the kingdom of heaven is by forgiving others. Forgiveness is one of the basic, most fundamental aspects of the Christian faith. It is so simple in so many ways and yet so complicated and emotional and fraught with problems at the same time. But we should always be

7:28leaning toward forgiveness as much as we can. I think as much as we can is the caveat. But this is what they ask. How many times should we forgive? It sounds like seven times seems like an awful lot, Jesus. And Jesus says, no, not seven times, but 77 times. And of course, other translations will say seven times 70 or it's a big number. I don't think we have to, we're not putting up a tally on that's not where, is it 77 or is it 490 or I don't think that is meant? It's a lot. It's more than we realize. It's sort of like the parable that he tells. It's a bazillion dollars. It's like, it's more money than anyone could, any normal person could even fathom paying back. But anyway, it's a lot. And so this is a this is a challenge to us all to understand that forgiveness is the heart of what it means to follow

8:32Jesus. And this is coming from the one who will forgive, right? Who will forgive everything. Who taught us to pray, forgive as we have been forgiven. You know, back in Matthew 6 and sermon on them out. And here it is again. And it's something that we struggle with. Peter feels like that seems like too much. But and sometimes we feel like it's too much. But it's the heart of what we are. It's the heart of what we do. It's the heart of what the church is, is to be forgiving and always seeking reconciliation, always seeking not retribution, not punishment, but restoration and reconciliation. Yeah, we've got some great again. So some of those great resources there, Simon Bees and Thales famous sunflower, Jred and Marshall's book. It's a great little parable and things. I think it's difficult because as parables are, it seems like a pretty clear cut

9:33allegory from the beginning. And then maybe doesn't at the end, it's a little bit trickier toward the end. And then you have Jesus is kind of his commentary on it. So I feel like there's a little bit more in here than he's happened. Now I also will say like it doesn't say specifically, this is a parable, right? It just says this is it. Often this will call it, but it's questionable about is this just a, it's not an actual, it says Jesus then told them this parable, right? But a couple things, right? The absurdity. So let's just, let's unpack the parable, right? A debt is owed 10,000, right? So it's 10,000 bags of gold. 10,000, you know, Helen launched, Helen was the woman who launched 10,000 chips, right? You know, a lot of times 10,000 is used to, it's one of the greatest numbers in Greek. It just means a lot, right? Somebody, they own them in a massive, an unimaginable amount, gazillion dollars, right? I mean, it'd be, it'd be the equivalent of if I said Rob, there once was a king who

10:33wanted to settle accounts and I had a servant, he owed him a gazillion bags of gold. Like no one's asking like, but how many is a gazillion, right? I mean, it's a lot. So we have this unimaginable debt that then is, by the way, I, you all set to remember a little contextual thing. I love the fact it's not just in the, in the good old days back when the world was great, Rob, it wasn't simply one person that was sold into debt. It was the whole family along with the children, I don't know, back when, back on the world was great. But anyway, so we have this unimaginable debt that's met with an unimaginable grace, right? This is the amazing grace piece, right? And it comes from this moment of acceptance and repentance, which is an interesting thing, right? There's never a moment where the servant says, no, I don't owe this debt, right? The forgiveness begins when he comes, owns it accepts it and says and prays for it. Rob in our hymnal, we have the book, amazing grace. And it says in the hymn, amazing grace,

11:42amazing grace, how sweet the sound that what was the next line? Save it a retro like me. Right. But ours has changed. ours is amazing grace, how sweet the sound that like heard and set me free or something like that. It's terrible. It drives me nuts because it's absurd. The whole point of amazing grace is there is a point where where we recognize that we are wretches and yet are never defined by our wretchiness, which is the beauty of grace, right? And there is this aspect. There's this compassionate piece. So you have this amazing grace, grace. Okay. Then we have a much smaller debt, right? So this is the equivalent, how much smaller? Well, right? So he owes 10,000 gold. Someone owes him 100 coins, which is roughly what? 1% said how that works. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that sounds good, right? So, yeah, so let's say it's that. So much more smaller, much more manageable amount,

12:44that sort of thing. And he says, no, same thing, same kind of mercy, much smaller debt. He says, no. Right? So we have this kind of piece. Now this clearly seems to be the allegorical piece. If we want the grace of God, if we take the God's amazing grace, truly and holy and accept it for what it is, that it is given to us, you know, some might say it is given to us, not only is offered to us, but it's offered to us unconditionally. All we need the act of repentance is simply the accepting the grace that is preemanantly offered before us. Then what? We should do that to others. Right? So this is the piece, too, where I feel like it's one of those, which is it's not the question of Peter. So when Peter says, right, should I forgive seven times? And he says 77. The point is also like, how many times would you like God to forgive you? Because I got to be honest, Rob, I've confident I've used up mine up. I've used up, if it's seven, I've used it up by far. I don't

13:48even think I made it to eight, eight years old. If it's 77, maybe freshman year of high school, if it's 490, maybe sophomore year high school, you know what I mean? Like teenage or years were up. So I'm just saying like, like we all want the amazing grace of God and do accept it. And so his point is, you're sure you want to put limits on forgiveness? Yeah. And it's also not to dwell on the sin. That's the other thing. It's not that you are a rich. It's that you need to be humble. Right? And that's where we're chapter 18, the whole chapter comes into play where it's not, you know, this, again, this all started with someone asked, how can we be great? And the greatness comes in the humility. Greatness comes not in never needing forgiveness. It's in the being willing to offer it to others. And because I've needed it, it's there. But by the grace of God, go I, right? That how many people, and if you do

14:49want to make this economic and take it away from, you know, the, you know, sins and moralistic, how many people are a paycheck away from poverty? How many people are one, you know, bad accident from crippling medical debt that will, you know, could, could destroy them? How many people are, you know, I mean, you can look up the statistics about how many people have even a thousand dollars saved. It's, it's an incredibly small percentage, right? And that is because of, in many ways, because of predatory economic systems and, you know, all these things that are out to get people, there is something of, you know, the United States, you know, there's a allegory here for a nation that demands debt repayment from, you know, smaller nations and developing nations, while being so far

15:56into debt, it's hard to even fathom. Like it, it truly is a gazillion dollars, right? I mean, you can look at the trillion dollars as of last year. Right. And wanting to increase defense spending from, you know, 50, you know, to, to asking for a $1.5 trillion defense budget to, to, to perpetuate wars that nobody wants, right? I mean, if you really want to get into debt and forgiveness and some really big things, you, there's, there's a lot of ways you can go with this. Not everybody wants that kind of stuff from the pulpit, but it's certainly there. And I think when we talk about, you know, Jesus teaching us to pray, you know, forgive us our debts, right? I mean, that is the most, I think that's the most biblical translation of the Lord's Prayer, you know, as Methodist, we'd like to say trespasses. But Jesus was talking about debts and it reminds me to that not just economic debt,

17:02but what do we owe each other? And this is a famous philosophy book, written 1998, moral philosophy by TM Scalant, what we owe each other, I think is a really interesting look at this whole system of forgiveness and what it means to be society and what it means to be community comes from this idea that we do owe each other something. And so we also have to forgive each other something as well. If only Rob, we had a way in, in most Christian churches to remind us of this every week, you know, like if we had something words, you know, that we would say every week that would remind us exactly of this passage and exactly this idea of, I don't know, forgive us, our debts as we forgive our debtors. Like if we could say that on a weekly basis, oh wait,

18:03it's literally there. Like, you know, you started out by saying like, this is such a big point. I was at a church council meeting once and I had a member of my council, this is years ago, that we were talking about mission statements and they were like, I don't know if we should have, I don't know if forgiveness belongs in the mission statement. I'm not sure that's really what we should be doing. And, and a little part of my brain just exploded there for a moment, like my soul, just pot, I was like, it's literally in the Lord's prayer. It's what we say every single week. And it's funny because I have said every variation in different churches I've worked in. This is, this was the last, this church I'm in. I finally hit the debtors one. I mean, never had one with debts, but the debt's is an important piece and people say, well, it should be sins, it should be trespasses. And you can make, we've, we've done podcasts about that because it appears in lecturing and it, you know, you can defend trespasses, sins, and debts. But I do like the debt

19:05language because it is so powerful. And it does have this idea. And I love what you brought the end of that, which is what do we owe each other? You know, it's that good place callback, right? That piece, which I like so much, but it's, but truly what, what do we, what do we owe each other? And what do we owe each other? Not just, not just generally, not just socially, but specifically, and I think this is important, especially for progressive congregations out there, which is, what do we owe each other as followers of Jesus Christ? Right? It is not simply what we owe each other generally, but there is a specific way of forgiveness and reconciliation that happens, not just at an individual level, but also branches out into a communal, a social, and even a corporate level. You have this massive kind of like widening focus of forgiveness.

20:09What does that look like? And remember, too, this idea of the forgiveness of debts doesn't emerge with Jesus, but is built upon a deep, ancient and long Jewish foundation of Jubilee debt forgiveness, of Sabbath debt forgiveness of these ways in which the forgiving of debts is part of the religious and regular rhythms of life. So, so there are multiple layers here in which we're being called back into this idea of, of what that means, what debt forgiveness looks like. And it's a great opportunity, Rob, you know, that you bring up about, you know, that like, what does it mean when we have a $40,000, I'm sorry, a $40 trillion national debt, in which we pay more money on, we pay more money on debt maintenance, which is a fancy word for interest. Then we do a national defense. And what is it? Our national defense is a budget is larger than I think the next,

21:14like ten nations combined and they're all allies, or at least they were, relatively recently. Like, you know, there's a lot that can be said, a lot that can be done there, but this idea too, again, it's when we talk about this last week, Rob, too, which is there is an abusive form of forgiveness that Christians too long have had, which bully people into forgiveness. And we talked about that with Joseph, especially, yeah. Yep. And so we've talked about it quite a bit. So I don't know if we need to keep going back to that, except to say this, no matter where you find yourself and forgiveness, there's never a moment where we can just give up, where we can just say, I'm not going to do that work. It's not there. We may, we may have to have forbearance, we may need to protect ourselves. It may take time. We may, we may continue to try to struggle to forgive ourselves or someone else our entire lives and it may not happen in this life, but we still are called to enter into the struggle. As hard as that is. Yeah. And we've got more in the

22:22show notes about, you know, firm dread and martial from some other resources about the complexity of forgiveness and allowing people to be angry before they forgive. And, you know, there's some really important stuff. One thing I wanted to lift up, there's a great quote from Michael Joseph Brown from Chewd, our native land, talking about this parable. And it says, the parable highlights the idea that life should be understood as interconnected practices of social interaction that maintain dominance of some over others or that liberate some to the detriment of others are to be renounced as immoral and inconsistent with the divine character. There's an element here that, you know, you can talk about that and economics and sin or you could just talk about where the heart of with this whole chapter is how do we treat one another? How do we stay in community? If we're only about punishing and getting even and making sure I get in mind, that's not a Christian way of

23:28understanding that the the self-determination is not necessarily a Christian value, you know, rugged individualism is a great part of our American history. It is not a Christian value. Community is the common good is working, looking out for one another is. But these are things that are called, you know, weak or worse, you know, in our in our discourse too often. Yeah. And I think especially with rising Christian nationalism, it is making that harder and harder to differentiate, I think for many people, because too often people think they assume that it is a Christian value, that that is, that those two are, you know, hand in glove. And when we actually talk about the fact that they're not, that's a whole different, yeah, that's a whole different thing. Friends so much more in the show notes. So go and check that out

24:35over at pulpitfiction.org. Right now though, let's turn to our amazing sponsor. It is sanctifiedart.org, which we are so happy to have them back as a sponsor of the show at sanctifiedart.org. They have so many incredible resources over at sanctified art. But we want to talk about one in particular, which is until the dawn, actions for the work of Advent, creative resources that are inspired by the RCL year B. Now they have done some other stuff and sometimes they stray have strayed from the revised common lectionary and we're so happy that they've come back to doing resources directly connected to the revised common lectionary. A couple of things that are cool for this. So if you have a Sunday school program that is meeting Rob, you guys don't, for example, don't have Sunday school, during service, but you have a prayer ground, right? Pretty sure that you guys have a prayer ground. I think I'm at a lot of time.

25:38Yes, we do. We have a great little section there and there's some great resources for this kind of thing, coloring sheets, I believe. And we also do an insert every week with a reading. So there's so many things that take home reading. So yeah, there's some great resources for those kinds of options. Yeah, so if you're looking for a curriculum to use for Sunday school during Advent that dies directly to what's going on upstairs, they have a children's curriculum. But if you have a prayer ground like a lot of churches do, there's great. There's coloring sheets, but also ways for the kids to engage in the midst of that prayer ground. One of my favorite things that they have here is the Advent calendar. So I'm going to read this description. This year, they have two Advent calendars featuring daily prayers, one for children and young families, another for older teens and adults. Use the children's prayer calendar to build an intentional bedtime ritual with your child centered around conversation and prayer. There are 24 conversation question slips that can progressively turn into a prayer chain throughout the month of December. Additionally, you can cut out

26:43in color the rhyming bedtime prayer and display it near child's bed so that you can read it each night. Now the adult and teen friendly calendar contains a breath prayer for every day from December 1st to the 25th inspired by a daily action. So each one of these is a daily action. And you can print that out on one of those large 11 by 17 posters. You can also do it through social media. So you can, this here's a pre-made social media thing that you can put online. Those are just two of the amazing resources that again is the children's curriculum with coloring pages and the Advent prayer calendars for children and adults. Those are just two of some of the incredible resources. And again, when I see some of the incredible right now, there are 14 different resources and there are more things that are coming. So as you get this bundle, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Now, talk about the gift that keeps on giving. When you go and check out each of these bundles is priced according to the size of your congregation. So smaller churches pay less than larger churches to kind

27:45of have that equitable funding strategy. But no matter if you have a little church or a big church, use pulpit fiction at checkout and that's going to save you 15%. That's pulpit fiction. All one word at checkout will save you 15% off that bundle. Again, the name of that bundle is until the dawn, actions for the work of Advent. And again, it is all tied to year B of the Revised Common Lecturing, which is where we are headed this year. So head on over to as sanctified art.com today. Previously on the Bible, I smell heaven's bakery cooking up something good for you sister. We have got the party of the Red Sea. It's Exodus 14 verses 19 through 31. God's messenger who had been in front of Israel's camp moved and went behind them. The column of cloud moved from the front and took its place behind them. It stood between Egypt's

28:47camp and Israel's camp. The cloud remained there and when darkness fell it lit up the night. They didn't come near each other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord pushed the sea back by a strong east wind all night, turning the sea to dry land. The waters were split into two. There Israelites walked into the sea on dry ground. The waters formed a wall for them on the right and on their left. The Egyptians chased them and went into the sea after them. All the Pharaoh's horses chariots and cavalry. As morning approached the Lord looked down on the Egyptian camp and the column of lightning and cloud and threw the Egyptian camp into a panic. The Lord jammed their chariot wheel so that they wouldn't turn easily. The Egyptian said, let's get away from the Israelites because the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea so that the water comes back and covers the Egyptians, their chariots, and their cavalry. So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. At daybreak the sea returned to its normal depth. The Egyptians were driving toward it

29:51and the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the cavalry. Pharaoh's entire army that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. The Israelites, however, walked on dry ground through the sea. The waters formed a wall for them on the right and on their left. The Lord rescued Israel from the Egyptians that day. Is Israel saw that the Egyptians dead on the seashore? Is Israel saw the amazing power of the Lord against the Egyptians? The people were in awe of the Lord and they believed in the Lord and in their servant Moses in his servant Moses. All right. So yeah, a famous story, a story of the parting of the sea. Sea of reeds, the red sea is a variety and there's debates on which it is or things like that. I'm not sure really to be honest matters one way or the other. I mean, it matters very much exegetically but for the point and the actual point of this Rob, I'm not sure that

30:57you know, it's one of those debates that Bible nerds like me and we can debate but I'm not sure it matters for the main thing. The importance is that this two two exciting things like this is the moment, right? This is the this is the moment that will be referred to back over and over and over again and it is defining in two ways, Rob, right? It is both definitive for the Israelites and it is definitive for the for God or arguably how the Israelites will understand who God is and what I mean by that is what do we hear over and over again? I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, right? This establishes God as the liberator. Now, now, Devin from last week, it is not say I am the Lord your God who murdered the firstborn of the Egyptians. I am the Lord your God who cast all of these plagues. I am the you know, the Lord your God, you know, who caused the Nile to turn to blood. It is always I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

31:58So there is this idea of this this birth of a nation, this God who who claims and liberates a group of slaves and makes them into a nation of peoples, right? And this is the ritualistic arguably, I would say, Resurrection Act that happens. And I mean, I say that Resurrection Act, this is part of our baptism liturgy. Every time we baptize someone, we have an iteration of the flood prayer. Just as Noah turned from death to life and it turns to you amidst the raging waters, just as your servant Israel found it close to you hand amidst the raging waters. And you know, I mean, this is part of it that this is this is what not only defines us defines the Israelites as people of God as those who were heard in their despair and those who were liberated, but also that this is a God who hears and a God who liberates. So this is the this is the moment where we will hear

33:01this call back over and over and over again, who is this God? This is a God who hears the cry of, you know, going back to the idea, this is God who hears the cry of the enslaved, the indebted, the desperate, the cast out wretches of the world, quote unquote, right? Here's them and liberates them. Into being a nation, being a people of God. You're muted again. This is sort of the second Passover, right? I mean, we had the Passover meal last week. This is the past three of the Red Sea. Yeah, yeah, or the Passover, the dry land, right? Yeah, that's absolutely. There is a, you know, this is stuff that can get really interesting in the Bible study. I don't know if it's got a place in the sermon moment, maybe at least introduce it, but there's some really

34:03interesting, you know, source material stuff here. It's a great story to show, you know, when we talk about the priestly tradition, the P tradition as opposed to the Yahweh's tradition, of this kind of two stories, right? Like, because there's the story of the wind sweeping over the water and drying out the land, and then the horse and rider getting confused. And then there's this other other story, the priestly account, which is the angel of God and the pillar of cloud and the stretching out his hand and the walls of water and the left and the right, right? And that's the very ten commandments kind of, you know, canyon of water through the sea and Moses holding his staff and the pillar fire, keeping them from crossing over. And it's very cinematic. It's a very priestly, you know, Moses is the one who is leading this great deliverance. And then again,

35:08there's the more sort of grounded in reality to a certain extent where it's a strong easternly wind, dries out that's, you know, and this is why the sea of reeds stuff comes important. Because a lot of people think the sea of reeds is probably a much shallower body of water, right? And if you want to talk about, is there historicity in this story, it's probably more in the J.E. story than it is in us serving the P. I think it's fascinating stuff. I'm not sure if it's sermon material. I think it's great for Bible study. And, you know, depending on the preacher, you know, in your context, if you can go into this stuff in the sermon moment, but understand that this is also, these are two understandings of God that we see both the great and powerful, you know, God, breathe, God said, and it was, and it was good. And the relational God that's walking in the garden. And, you know, it's just a strong wind that dries up the land, right? That's very intimately connected to these

36:10people that are struggling. It's the intimate sort of almost human-ish kind of God saving a people and it's the powerful speak and it happens. But they're all, but both are for the people and thwarting the power of the empire, thwarting the power of Pharaoh who comes out, you know, on the losing end of all of this. But it's some fascinating stuff. I think if you dig into the, you know, verse by verse, and we've got it broken down in the show notes, you know, you can pull out, you know, which verses are definitely, you know, feel like the priestly account and which verses are the the yawest account? Well, it makes sense too because otherwise it doesn't quite, it doesn't quite work otherwise. You know what I mean? Because it doesn't make sense like it when one of the counts that it says, right? Verse 23, the Egyptians chased them and went into the sea after all of

37:12them, all of Pharaoh's horses and chariots and cavalry. As morning approached, the Lord looked down at the Egyptians' camp from the lightning and flew through the camp, Egyptian camp into a panic and jam their chariot re-it wheels so they wouldn't turn easily. So, so did they follow them or did their weird chariot wheels? Good jam. And so, so you do have these two kind of interesting accounts. I think there's also, you know, there's this great, it's, you know, there's there's so many things that we miss from our, our kind of beautiful, you know, our Jewish siblings or ancestors, which is the question of what happens after this, right? So, there's a midrash story about this that says that after this happened, right after the Israelites crossover and immediately what happens after this is, is the singing and dancing, right? There's a celebration and they sing and dance that over the death

38:12of the Egyptian army. And famous here, in the midrash, God silences in the angels, not only to the people on earth, but all the angels in heaven start singing and dancing in all of these different pieces that happen. And according to the the Talmud, Ga'ilah God silences the angels and says, how dare you sing for joy while my creatures are dying, right? And there is this this recognition that even those who are dying in in the sea are the beloved children of God, right? And so, I think that that piece of the moral, you know, we talked about this last week with the plague, the moral piece of this is difficult. Again, I think the question is, do you, and it's interesting you see this even the tension. And this is the only reason why I think, you know, yeah, these textual things, because they tell two different stories, the Yahweh tells a story of a liberation of a people and the Egyptians are stopped by Yahweh. The the praise the account tells a story of the destruction

39:19of Pharaoh's entire army. Now, now historically, we know that the praise the account is historically false. There is there's zero evidence that that ever actually happened. And if it had happened to the Egyptians who did record tons of things, would have written it down. I've been like, hey, remember when our entire army got entirely drowned, that would have been that would have been a notable thing that they would have written down at the time, which they did that. But it is this, I think this interesting way coming back and perhaps I'm just caught up on this today. But it's this idea of how we choose to tell stories. Is this is this the story of a liberation or is this a story of liberation and destruction? Right. And I think that the difficulty of this rob is it's going back to what you were talking about before about this idea of of, you know, what do we owe one another and things like that. And I want to put up something that Scott Elliott put in the chat here. Because it's really beautiful where he says, if I had to provide one

40:23word for what Christians owe its well-being, love, justice, forgiveness, all aimed towards Shalom, fullness, well-being, not just for the self, but for all others and all creation. Christian nationalism is nowhere near well-being for anyone or for anything. And I think that's really well said and really important because it comes to this, which is it's Christian nationalism or Jewish that this this religious nationalism and at any level gets toxic really quick. We can celebrate the liberation of a people, but it's not the liberation of the people over and against another people. Right. And so this is where it's this Yahweh's account that says, look, we were liberated by the saving power of God who kept aback those who were trying to hurt us. And in doing so, revealed the power of God to the Egyptians so that all the people were in all of the Lord and

41:24they believed in the Lord and in a servant Moses. As opposed to our liberation was only possible because of their destruction. And those are two very different stories that are being told in in this, in this one story that we have. And I think it's difficult because too often in our current politics and current conversations, we, is this Christian nationalist of, of we can only zero-sum nationalism. We can only survive at the risk of other people. You have to be destroyed nor they're for us to do. And it comes out in different ways. I, I'll end on this. You know, we had a church that built a new church in town, a big evangelical church. This was years ago. They built a new church in town. And it still stands as the day I had the most people stopped by my office because it was on the front page of the local paper and they came in and they were very upset. What are we going to do about this mega church, this building a new church?

42:27I was like, well, the last time I checked, we had, there are 50,000 people just in our town, not including the county. And that's a church of 2,000 people. Like I think we're fine. This is, we're not, this is not we're in competition. And in fact, they're doing great things. So why wouldn't we rejoice and celebrate in the good work that they're doing? It's not a zero-sum game, but all more and more enough, we think of it as a zero-sum game. Well, I think it's also, but maybe this is a sermon point that I tell these two stories and point to people that say, yes, there are two. And sometimes when we do, when we read the Bible, we pick one. All right. What story are we picking? Are we picking the story of acknowledgment is there, the story of God destroying and delighting in the death of others? Or are we picking the one that is liberation and deliverance? And I think about, you know, how often in the rest of the Torah, in the Old Testament, what does God's how people to do over and over again? But remember,

43:32right? And again, this is remember, you were no people. You were slaves in Egypt. Remind me of the new, again, the New Testament. Remember, you, you had a debt too. You had a debt forgiven that's been, and now how you should treat others should be based on how God has treated you. Remember, you know, Israel, you were slaves. You're not anymore, not because of anything you did, but because of what God has done. And so remember that when you treat others, remember that when you've got foreigners living among you or when you've got, you know, the sojourner among you or when you're struggling or when you, when you are powerful, when everything is good, and the land of milk and honey is overflowing, remember that this is all God that did this. And that is that the hard part of faith is sometimes keeping the faith when things are good.

44:36Yeah. Yeah. Keeping remembering that, you know, this, this, remember the struggle and remember where you've come from. Remember who and whose you are can be just as difficult in the boom times as it is in the bus times. Yeah. I think that there's another piece as you kind of bring it back to the gospel. It reminds me of the gospel this week and the gospel last week, which of course are very intrinsically connected to each other. Okay. So even if we take the, the, the priestly account, what if we take the priestly account in the dune and mystic sense, right? So we're in the middle of the Torah. This is a big piece of the Torah. We're going to end this is going to happen in a handful of weeks. We're going to get to do the ronomy, the death of Moses and it's going to talk about, I think it's at the end of October, October 25th. We'll hit this and it will be this moment of, you choose before you, you have the ways of life and death, right? And if you follow the way of Yahweh,

45:38of justice and righteousness and love and mercy, then that will lead you to life. And if you don't, it will lead you to death. And in this one can say, the Israel's chose to trust God. And in choosing to trust God, in choosing this, this new community based on God's justice, they chose life and they walk across on the dry land. The Egyptians choose to put them, all themselves and all of themselves at risk for the sole purpose of enslaving the Israelites, of injustice, of working for their own goodness at the, at the, at the expense of other people and oppressing other people. And that results in death. Some of the work of reconciliation and forgiveness is, and I think that especially the work of reconciliation is recognizing that reconciliation is as much of a benefit

46:43to the oppressor as it is to the oppressed, right? The idea of the reconciliation is not one wins and one loses. The ended goal of a reconciled people is both people win, both people have an abundant life. And so there's also a piece here that says, here you have literally before you, the ways of life and the ways of death. And Moses had begged and tried and God had begged and tried over and over again to convince the Egyptians to choose life. And they repeatedly chose death. Now in Deuteronomy, we're talking about not necessarily an actual life in death, but something deeper, you know, an abundant life and eternal life as Jesus talks about it, which is a fullness of life, the quality of life is supposed to quantity of life. But I do think that that's if you didn't want to get too much into it, into the textual stuff, that's another angle. I feel like you could definitely take in this text about choosing life or choosing death. Choosing life is community affirming,

47:45other affirming, other loving choosing death is when we don't do that. And it leads not only to the destruction of the other, but to the destruction of the self as well. Yeah, absolutely. So much more in the show notes friends. And you can find all of that by going head on over to pulpitfiction.com. All right, beloved. Well, thank you so much for joining the Pulpit Fiction podcast, especially if you're joining us for the first time. Welcome to the pulpit fiction community. We would love to hear from you. You can do that in a variety of ways. You can comment on our show. Rob's going to talk about that a little bit later. And we want to give a shout out to Scott Elliott for doing that. You can also go to our webpage at pulpitfiction.com. That's pulpitfiction.com, where you can find all of our past shows. You can find our past commentary links to all of the resources that we mentioned and leave comments, leave suggestions, corrections right there on the webpage. We love to hear that feedback. You can also do that on Instagram and Facebook,

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