Sunday 11 A (2023)

A large family, a clan, driven by famine, emigrates to Egypt.

Over time, the family grows, is seen as a threat in their new country,

and is exploited, and harshly treated.

Generations later, one of them, Moses,

has a profound experience of God:

God, who promises to set them free – and does.

That is the background to today’s first reading from Exodus,

in which, Moses leads the freed children of Israel to a holy place,

a mountain,

and there Moses has another profound experience of God:

the freed slaves are no longer just a clan,

they are now God’s people, God’s nation, God’s priests.

God chose them.

God lifts them up: away from slavery

and into these mountain heights where God makes them holy –

summarised in the beautiful words

I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself.

This is God’s work, God’s gift to them for the world.

Moses’ intimacy with God

and the closeness between God and the chosen people  

foreshadows greater things to come.

In the fulness of time, God sent the Son, Jesus,

the new ‘Moses’.

Jesus, who ‘felt sorry for’ the crowds –

whose heart goes out to the crowds

because they were harassed and dejected,

like sheep without a shepherd –

as we heard in today’s gospel.

This is not simply a description of a scene;

Jesus doesn’t feel sorry just for this particular crowd;

his response is universal and eternal.

God sees the whole of humanity as

harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd,

feels sorry for us, and sends Jesus, the Son,

the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep.

Jesus, who announces, and personifies,

and brings about in his person

a new covenant,

a new creation,

a new relationship between the human race and God.

For, as St Paul reminds us in today’s reading from Romans,

we are reconciled in Christ’s death

and saved in Christ’s risen life.

So, in Jesus, God lifts us up:

lifts us out of darkness,

out of helplessness,

and into the heights of God’s own presence –

the beautiful words at Mount Sinai are amplified,

their meaning enhanced:

I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself.

This is God’s work, God’s gift to us;

and we are filled with joyful trust in God.

We respond with gratitude,

for nothing merits what Jesus accomplished.

As we contemplate this mystery of grace, of gift,

as we contemplate the unconditional love God has for us,

we can feel the force of Jesus’ words at the end of today’s gospel:

You received without charge, give without charge.