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Proper 19A
September 11, 2011
Genesis 50:15-21 * Psalm 103:8-13 * Romans 14:1-12
*Matthew 18:21-35
Rev. David M. McNair

Where were you on 9/11?  All of us are old enough to remember have vivid memories of that day. Images and stories of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, are seared into us. It is a date Americans consider one of the most significant in our nation’s history. It’s associated with other epic historic events such as the founding of the United States, the end of the Civil War, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the end of World War II. That day challenged the freedom of a free people.

It is also a day that challenged the grace of forgiveness that we who claim to be Christians have been told by our Lord Jesus Christ to offer, even to our enemies.  Today’s gospel lesson is the second in a row in which Jesus talks about the fundamental human need to forgive. For a species such as ours, riddled with selfishness, short tempers, cruelty, and betrayal, forgiveness is not a luxury.  We cannot live without it.   

You may know the old story about a woman who was having her portrait painted. When it was finished she complained, “It doesn’t do me justice!”  The artist then replied, “Madam, it isn’t justice you need, it’s mercy!”

Mercy is the deepest need of us all. The past has it full share of failures, disappointments, and wounds. So the question is: what power will the past play in our lives? Are we going to continue to be bound by the painful parts of it, or can we find our way to freedom. 

Jesus put forgiveness at the center of everything.  Often, when Jesus encountered someone in need of healing, the first thing he would say to them is “Your sins are forgiven.”  He told stories of prodigal sons and lost sheep and lost coins, which are all stories of forgiveness. And of course, he died on a cross saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” 

In prayer class 101 with his disciples he taught them: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”  The early church, following the Jewish practice of prayer three times a day – morning, noon, evening – taught that we should pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. In our prayer book the Lord’s Prayer is included in the daily office four times per day. Four times a day: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”   

In today’s gospel lesson Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if a brother or a sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" The Jewish teaching was that you were obligated to forgive a repentant person up to three times. Peter must have thought he was going to win “disciple of the month” when he asked, “Seven times, Lord?”

“No” Jesus says, “seventy-seven times!”  The Greek can also mean 7 x 70.  Both numbers signify an unending number. It’s not like you can go to a friend or a spouse and say, “Okay, that’s number 77 or that’s number 490. One more and it’s over.”  It’s not about counting.  It’s about not counting! 

True forgiveness of others or ourselves – for most people, most of the time, is not quick and easy.  It is so hard especially when someone has horribly violated you or someone you love. Or when someone whom you trusted deeply has betrayed you. Or when someone has rejected you or abandoned you. Forgiveness is often a long spiritual path. 

First of all, it is a decision someone makes – independent of the wrongdoer. It is, after all for-give-ness not after-give-ness. It is something the offended or hurt one chooses to do regardless of the other’s attitude or change in behavior. To forgive someone does not always mean that we will be reconciled with them. It certainly does not mean that someone remains in a hurtful or abusive relationship. Whereas reconciliation requires mutuality, forgiveness can be done unilaterally. Forgiveness leaves the door cracked for future relationship. 

Forgiveness is not cheap. It is not amnesia. It is not pretending that things are other than they are. The complete truth of the past, no matter how atrocious, must be confronted and not denied. Facing the truth often involves acknowledging your hurt and hate. You cannot be deeply hurt without some hate.  The depth of love is shown by the extent of your anger.  God calls us to do our hate work and let it go. If hate lodges in us it can trap us in a state of victimization…it can consume us. The famous psychiatrist Karl Menninger once said we need to “hate expeditiously”: To do our hate work honestly in as timely a way as possible, then be done with it. 

C.S. Lewis wrote in his book Letters to Malcolm about how hard forgiveness is:  “I really must digress to tell you a bit of good news.  Last night, while at prayer I suddenly discovered – or felt as if I did – that I had really forgiven someone I had been trying to forgive for thirty years." (1)  Earlier in the book he wrote:  “To forgive for the moment is not difficult. But to go on forgiving, to forgive the same offense again every time it recurs to the memory – there’s the real tussle.”(2)

Maybe this is what Jesus had in mind by “seventy times seven.”  We keep on the road to forgiveness. Every time the offense comes to mind we forgive it again. And here is the great hope:  With every time we forgive it the hurt is healed a bit more. And the times the memory comes back grow farther and farther apart. With God’s gentle grace the hatred and bitterness which have a death-grip on us are slowly jarred, relaxed, and loosened.

I think Jesus is asking Peter and us to take the first step, then the next step, until the work of forgiveness is done, and both the forgiver and forgiven are set free. Loosed!

Garrett Keizer, an Episcopal writer and priest, writes about conversations with people who come to him struggling with how to forgive:  “When in my work as pastor wounded people come to me with the confession that they cannot forgive, I do not tell them to ‘try harder’ or to ‘move forward.’  I ask them if they are able to pray for the grace to forgive. And if not, if they are at least willing to pray for the grace to say that prayer. And if even that is too difficult, if they are willing to express their refusal to God.” Then he adds, “But before asking God for the grace to forgive, a person might think to give thanks for the grace to be angry.”  Anger is part of God’s first aid kit.  Anger helps restore violated boundaries." (3)

Sometimes the best prayer we can pray is: “God, I hate that person. And I cannot forgive them. I don’t even want to.  But I want to want to.”  To want to forgive is itself a grace given.  There will be scars, but scars are evidence of wounds healed. 

Wendell Berry has written a poem about an old tree near his home.  Here are some of the words:

…There is an old tree growing, a great sycamore…
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightening has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in
that has not harmed it . . .
Over all its scars has come the seamless white of the bark.
It bears the gnarls of its history healed over. 
It has risen to strange perfection in the warp
and bending of its long growth. 
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose. 
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate…
In all the country there is no other like it… (4)

Nor is there any other like you. Through the mystery of God’s grace, each of us who is hurt and healing, forgiven and forgiving
is being saved. We are being redeemed from even the worst sins and failures by a God of unquenchable love.

Notes: