Description
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A
Ordinary Time
Proper 19
Exodus 14.19–31
Romans 14.1–12
Matthew 18.21–35
The tidal wave struck, and we were unprepared. Comfortable liberal civilization, in which we were OK and they were OK – the corporate version of the street-level feel-good philosophy of the 60s – wasn’t expecting post-Cold-War tribalism. Ideologies based on blood and turf have spilled blood, and dug fresh turf for mass graves, in Africa, central Europe, the Middle East, and of course Northern Ireland. We were
looking inland, anxious about the coming Cold War hurricane. Meanwhile, behind us, the dark wall of water was gathering height and speed.
What might it mean, after the great wave (and before the next one), to trust the God of the Exodus? Simply this: that the pillar of cloud and fire, the presence of the world’s mysterious Lord, goes before us, carving a path of freedom, away from the slavery of ethnic conflict, territorial claim and counter-claim, and blood-feud, and on towards a new promised land...
Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year A by N T Wright
Published by SPCK