Forgiving Nature

Again these sermons are older, previously unpublished ones. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer lectionary was replaced by the Revised Common Lectionary used in most churches in 2006 and so this sermon was originally preached on 9/11/05. But the gospel reading is the same as this week's: Matthew 18:21-35.

A woman comes in from her garden. She notices that the pie she left out to cool has a big ugly hole gouged out of it. There's a mess on the kitchen counter and a big gooey spoon in the sink. She immediately calls her son into the kitchen. “Didn't you promise not to eat any pie before dinner?” she demands. Her son hangs his head guiltily. “And didn't I promise to spank you if you did eat the pie?”

The boy looks up. “Well,” he says, “since I broke my promise, I don't mind if you break yours!”

David Steinberg, the rabbi turned comic, once said, “God is a comedian playing to a room afraid to laugh.” And it certainly seems ironic that on September 11 the gospel is all about forgiveness. But before we tackle the question of forgiving anybody for killing 3000 Americans and non-Americans, Muslims and non-Muslims, let us look at why anybody should forgive anyone for anything. Why shouldn't we just punish everybody who does wrong?

The Bible says people should not put anything before God. So anybody who has ever done that, like skipped church to go golfing or fishing or to Disneyworld or to sleep in, please leave the church. The Bible says not to commit adultery and Jesus said entertaining lustful thoughts about someone you're not married to is a form of adultery. So anybody who's ever cheated on their spouse, either physically or mentally, please leave the church. The Bible says not to steal. So anybody who's ever taken anything that wasn't theirs, whether supplies from work, or toys from a playmate, or food that wasn't yours from the fridge at work, please leave the church. The Bible says not to desire anything that belongs to someone else. So anyone who's ever wanted someone else's house or kitchen or car or boat or outfit or money or spouse, please leave the church. The Bible says not to lie. And since nobody has left the church yet, I think it's safe to say that we are all guilty of being untruthful. (Exodus 20:1-17; Leviticus 19:11; Matthew 5:27-28)

Obviously, then, having absolute sinlessness as a standard for accepting people into society or the church is impractical. In fact, being unforgiving is also a sin, as Jesus points out in today's parable. And when a movie wants to show you how bad a villain really is, it will include a scene in which he kills an underling for failing him. Sometimes you even fell sorry for the hired thug. You feel like saying, “Hey, he's just a guy with an I.Q. of about 50. And he was up against James Bond! Cut him some slack!” But for the master villain, it's all about keeping his other minions in line and loyal. Although I think it would hard for, say, Blofield to hire henchmen once word got out that any mistake could result in being fed to piranhas or suddenly being electrocuted in your nice leather chair.

It's obvious that we have to forgive little things. But sometimes people won't even do that. I've seen families split over the smallest thing—like a ring that one sister wanted to inherit but which another sister made off with. And so they never speak to one another for the rest of their lives. All those opportunities to share good times are lost, thrown away over a shiny piece of metal and minerals. I have a friend whose grandfather had a falling out with his siblings. As an adult, my friend started to research his genealogy and discovered all of these cousins that he never knew he had. Two of them worked for the same company as his wife! Because of his grandfather's unforgiving stance, my friend never knew what a large family he had. He never got to visit his cousins growing up, or attend their weddings, or spoil his nieces and nephews, or get to know some of his aunts and uncles because they died before he was even aware of their existence. Being unforgiving can also hurt those you love, even when they are not the ones you're mad at.

Ah, but doesn't being unforgiving hurt the person who hurt you? Sometimes but not always. I have another friend who hated her job. And then her boss fired her. It was a stupid move on his part because she was better at running his business than he was. Eventually she got a better job with better pay at a place where she's much more appreciated. But she still can't forgive her old boss. And you know how much he is suffering over her attitude towards him? Not a bit. But what he did is still bothering her. By not forgiving him, she is letting him spoil her present over something that is past.

At a clergy conference, Father Paul Edwards used this little cartoon priest he drew to illustrate points in his talks. In one, the priest asks someone, “Would you rather be right or be healed?” And the reply comes back, “I'd rather be right.” To which the priest says, “And how's that working for you?” A lot of people let past injustices continue to hurt and impede them when they ought to just forgive the sins and start healing.

Now my friend's boss did not ask for forgiveness. But if the person who hurt you does, Jesus says you must forgive him or her. In today's gospel, Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother. Peter suggests 7 times. And he thinks he's being real generous. William Barclay explains that in those days many rabbis said you need only forgive a person 3 times. They based it on the passage in Amos suggesting that God would forgive certain nations for 3 offenses but not for the fourth. The rabbis took this as a general principle that men need not be more merciful than God. Peter doubled the 3 and added 1 for good measure. 7 was also considered the number of perfection. So that ought to be plenty.

But Jesus says, “Not seven times but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” Some translate this “seventy times seven.” Either way that's a lot of forgiving. And if we are to be that forgiving, think of how much more forgiving God is. But the point is if you are keeping count, you really aren't forgiving anything, are you? “Sure, I'll forgive you...just as I have forgiven you all those other times!” That's not forgiving; that playing the martyr. And if you enjoy that role, then you also ought to thank the person who offended you for letting you stage your little drama.

We've all met people who love playing the martyr. They are never so happy as when they are letting out big sighs and acting put upon. Sometimes it becomes a competitive sport. C.S. Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, has a marvelous comic scene featuring a family of “martyrs.” One member of the family lets on that he really doesn't want to go on a proposed Sunday outing but, if everyone else really want to go, he will. So another family member says that if the first person really hates the outing, none of them will go. The first says, “No, no, I don't want to spoil your day. I'll go.” To which the other person says, “No, we won't make you go if you really don't want to.” Eventually they all go but nobody enjoys it. Sound familiar?

But what if the person isn't sincere in asking forgiveness? What if they are just pretending to be sorry to get back into your good graces? What if they routinely do this and then take advantage of you? Well, I don't see any place where Jesus says to act stupid. If a friend or relative is constantly borrowing money that he can't repay, and asks for forgiveness, then forgive him...and offer to help him find a financial planner. If they have a substance abuse problem, and ask for forgiveness, forgive them...and stage an intervention. If they are violent and ask for forgiveness, forgive them, but tell them they must get professional help. And remove yourself from the possibility of being a victim again. If they have to go to jail to get help, well, that's better than going to their execution for murder. Forgiveness doesn't mean enabling someone to keep sinning. Jesus told the woman taken in adultery, “I do not condemn you either. Go and from now on do not sin any more.” (John 8:11) Because harming a person either financially, psychologically, spiritually or physically is a sin. Letting a person do those things to someone else or to themselves endangers his or her soul as well as the wellbeing of both of you.

But what about the big things? What about murder? What about torture? What about rape? What does Jesus say about forgiveness in those instances? In today's gospel, Jesus tells a parable about a servant who owes his master an incredible debt. 10,000 talents would be the equivalent of many millions of dollars today. According to Barclay, it was more than 10 times the revenue of Judea at that time. How could a servant owe that much? I think Jesus made that debt ridiculously huge on purpose. He's saying there is no limit to God's forgiveness, so there shouldn't be any on ours.

I read of a woman who forgave the man who killed her daughter. Not at first, though. At first she wanted him to die. But eventually she realized that she had to forgive him, if for no other reason than to stop living in a hellish past and start living for her husband and other children. And for herself. Not letting go of what that man did was poisoning her life and making her bitter. If she didn't forgive him, she would be the killer's last victim. She chose to let her life to be about love and life again and not about hate and death. And she started to visit him in prison. She learned how totally screwed up his life had been. It didn't excuse what he'd done but it did explain how he got to where he was. She became the one person in his life who showed him mercy. He didn't deserve it. Which makes it grace.

Sure, there are people who deserve death. But do you want the job? You want to be the person who hunts down every member of Al Qaeda and kills them? Then you'd better kill all their families as well or they might become terrorists because of your actions. Violence begets violence. Remember Nietzsche's warning that he who slays monsters is in danger of becoming one himself. You certainly won't become a more godly person. Unless your definition of godliness is the same as that of terrorists, all wrath and vengeance. “But,” you object, “we only kill bad guys!” What do you think they feel they are doing? The men who took over the planes on 9/11 thought they were punishing evil.

We are all bad guys in the strictest sense. Some are worse than others but none of us is perfect. As we've seen, strict justice would have us all meeting in the parking lot rather than in the church. Strict justice would mean hell on earth for all us sinners and exile from heaven afterwards. Any of us would contaminate the peace of heaven with our selfishness, envy, anger and lack of humility. Thank God there is another option for us than facing absolute justice: forgiveness and mercy.

As Jesus said, only they who are without sin can justifiably cast stones at others. (John 8:7) We need not condone the wrongs people do but we must forgive. But that's a hard thing to tell those who've been wronged. How can you tell someone whose spouse died in the twin towers or whose son was tortured and beheaded by terrorists or who was molested as a child by someone she trusted to forgive that terrible thing? I couldn't. No one could. No one but Jesus.

Jesus was betrayed by a friend, abandoned by his followers, convicted in a corrupt court by his fellow countrymen, beaten and whipped bloody by the soldiers of an occupying order, and nailed naked to a tree outside the religious capitol of his people to die a slow and painful death. And from the cross he asked his Father to forgive all those people. Only Jesus has the moral authority to say, “You must forgive others what they have done to you if you want God to forgive what you have done to others.”

That's not fair, you say. You're right. Forgiveness doesn't balance the scales in the sense of good acts erasing evil acts. But nothing in this life can undo evil in the sense of it never happening. You can't unrape people or unkill them or even unbreak their bones. Forgiveness doesn't replace justice. And it doesn't mean you won't need therapy in some cases. But, as Father Edwards pointed out, Christianity isn't so much about doing as about being. It's about transformation. It's about becoming ever more Christlike. The best way to get people to do good is to make them into good people. God's plan to defeat evil is to transform us, the people who do evil, into people who share his good and forgiving nature.

Forgiveness is difficult. It may take time. You may think you've forgiven someone only to find you really haven't. Then do what Jesus did on the cross. He didn't say, “I forgive you” to his executioners. He said, “Father, forgive them...” (Luke 23:34) So ask God to forgive the person. And ask him to help you get to the place where you can forgive them.

Refusing to forgive is not an option for us. Not if you want to grow into the person you were created to be, full of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. That's the only kind of person who can truly be called a Christian, a follower of Jesus, whose unjustly spilled blood pays for all our sins, if only we accept his forgiveness in the Spirit in which it is offered.