St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
September 17, 2017
Year A, Proper 19:
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 50:15-21
Psalm 103:1-13
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35
Forgiveness Is Power
So,
by now many of you know that I’ve got a few little jokes that I use all the
time – and maybe by now some of you are wishing I’d knock it off – or at least
come up with some new material!
For example,
sometimes when people ask me how I’m doing or kindly express concern that I’m
not getting enough rest, I’ll smile and say, “I’m OK because, you know, I only
work on Sundays!”
At that, people
usually either laugh a little, or roll their eyes, or look at me with confusion
– not sure if I’m serious or not.
Well, of course I
don’t just work on Sundays but maybe some of you wonder what exactly it is I do
during the week.
Well, we have our weekday
services, and I attend a ton of meetings, and I make pastoral visits, and take
care of the business of the church, but most of all, I spend a lot of time
simply listening to people.
Sometimes they
make an appointment to see me or they’ll just come by or call the office.
Sometimes people will stop me on the street and just start talking.
Often they’ll
share some challenge or struggle in their life and hope that I’ll know a way to
fix whatever is wrong.
It took me a while
to realize that I must have been absent the day they gave out magic wands at
seminary, a long time to accept that I can’t really “fix” anybody’s situation –
that all I can do is listen, and offer a shoulder to cry on, and pray, of
course – all I can do is offer my companionship on this road of faith that
we’re all walking.
Sometimes, people
will come and see me because they’re having a crisis of faith. And, that’s no
surprise since, you know, it’s hard to be a Christian – it’s hard to trust
God when the world seems to be going to hell, it’s hard to love your neighbor
as yourself, even harder to love our enemies.
It’s hard to give
generously when we have so many responsibilities and there’s that tall pile of
bills waiting for us on the kitchen table, it’s hard to be faithful in worship
when we’re so tired from the week or we’re suffering from aches and pains, and
it’s hard to pray for someone we don’t like one bit, or maybe even fear.
It’s all very hard
and only possible with God’s help, God’s grace – which, fortunately, is always
offered to us.
Amen? Amen.
And,
maybe there’s nothing harder about Christianity than what we heard today in the
exchange between Jesus and Peter.
Peter
approaches Jesus and asks a really good question:
“Lord,
if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As
many as seven times?”
Wouldn’t
you like to know the backstory behind that question?
Something
not so good must have happened, right? It seems that Peter has been wronged and
he wants to know just how far he has to go with this forgiveness business that
I’m sure he’s heard Jesus talk about a ton of times.
Maybe
to cover himself and show he’s not stingy with forgiveness, or maybe just to
show Jesus that he’s been paying attention, Peter picks a big number: seven.
Even
today, forgiving someone seven times for the same offense would seem pretty
generous to most of us, right? But for first century Jews, seven was more than
seven: it was the number that represented infinity.
So,
that’s a lot of forgiveness.
But,
Jesus, in his usual Jesus way, takes it even further, replying,
“Not
seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.”
An
infinite infinity of forgiveness.
Christianity
is hard, right?
The
truth is that even the most forgiving of us are probably not quite up to speed
in the forgiveness department – oh, we may be good at forgiving little things,
maybe, but the big stuff, that’s hard.
That’s
why we marvel at examples of extraordinary forgiveness.
For
example, in today’s first lesson from Genesis, we heard the tail end of the
story of Joseph and his brothers.
You
may remember how out of jealousy the brothers had sold Joseph into slavery in
Egypt – ah, family – where he rose to become a powerful official in the
Pharoah’s government.
It’s
a long and wonderful story but the bottom line is that when Joseph has the
opportunity to get his revenge, he instead offers bighearted forgiveness.
As
we heard him say to his brothers:
“Even
though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to
preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself
will provide for you and your little ones.”
Pretty
amazing, right?
And,
of course, we marvel at modern-day examples of extraordinary forgiveness, too.
I’ve
mentioned it before, and I’m sure many of you remember the story of Charles
Roberts, who it seems was unable to forgive himself for his own past misdeeds
and who blamed God for the death of his young daughter, and one day back in
2006 walked into an Amish one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, opened fire, shot eight of the ten young girls present, killing
five of them before killing himself.
This
would have been just another tragic mass murder in a country that loves its
arms so much, except for what happened next:
The
Amish immediately offered forgiveness.
That
same afternoon, the grandfather of one of the girls publicly offered
forgiveness.
The
same day, some Amish visited the Roberts family to console them in their loss.
Later, one the
Amish families invited the Roberts family to the funeral of their little girl –
and, finally, the Amish outnumbered the non-Amish at the funeral of Charles
Roberts, the man who had inflicted so much pain on them – had taken away their
children, their greatest treasures.
And, even more
recently, just a little more than two years ago now, I’m sure many of you
remember the senseless massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South
Carolina, when Dylann Roof, a young white man horribly twisted by racism,
walked into a Bible study and after sitting for a while opened fire, killing
nine people, including the church’s pastor.
At Dylann Roof’s
bond hearing, Nadine Collier, whose mother was among those killed, said to the
young murderer:
“I forgive you. You
took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk with her
again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have
mercy on your soul… You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. If God forgives you,
I forgive you.”
A
year later, Nadine Collier shared an insight she gained from this horrific
experience. She said,
“Forgiveness
is power. It means you can fight everything and anything head on.”
Forgiveness
is power.
She’s
right – and we see that power in Joseph forgiving his brothers, the Amish and
the people of “Mother Emanuel” forgiving those who had taken so much from them
– and we see that power in Jesus himself, hanging on the cross, praying to the
Father to forgive those who had wronged him so terribly.
Now,
at this point we might be thinking that these are all kind of extreme
situations, the stuff that makes the news, and so doesn’t really apply to us or
the people we know, the people we’re sitting with right now.
But,
we’d be wrong.
After
listening to so many people, one thing I’ve learned is that many of us, maybe
all of us, carry some deep wounds or, if we’re fortunate and have healed a bit,
maybe now they’re just scars – and, unfortunately, most of that hurt comes at
the hands of other people – maybe physical or emotional abuse, or some kind of
betrayal, or, perhaps, profound disappointment.
And,
sometimes those wounds and scars are self-inflicted.
There’s
so much pain, right here.
And
yet, Jesus calls us, commands us, to be like God and forgive – which, as I
believe we mentioned, is hard – and, I want to be absolutely clear about this, depending
on what’s going on, especially in an abusive or some other dangerous situation,
forgiveness isn’t necessarily the first thing we need to deal with.
But,
eventually, we’ll need to face the command - and maybe even the need - to
forgive – to forgive someone who’s hurt or wronged us and, maybe, we might even
need to forgive ourselves.
So,
just how can we be like God and forgive?
Just how can we be
like Jesus and Joseph and the Amish and the people of Mother Emanuel?
Just
how can we tap into the power of forgiveness?
Well,
I don’t know exactly. But, I’m pretty sure the key is community –
community just like this.
When
we’re all alone, alone with our wounds and our scars, alone with our fears,
hurts, and grievances, forgiveness may seem nearly impossible.
But,
when we’re part of something larger, when we listen to each other and
offer a shoulder to cry on, when we pray together and walk beside each other - when
we come here each week and listen to these old, old stories and say these
prayers and sing our songs – well, I know that God works with and
through all of that, uses all of that and more to give us an ever-stronger
sense of who we are and whose we are and what we’re about, so that, like those heartbroken
Amish and the grieving people of Mother Emanuel, like Jesus himself, we too can
have the confidence and courage to tap into the power of forgiveness, not just
once but maybe seven times, or even
seventy-seven times.
Hard?
You bet. But, with God’s help, we can do it.
Amen.
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