A Meditation on Jesus and Forgiveness, reading Matthew 18:21-35.
1.
How much forgiveness is enough
forgiveness? Peter says seven times;
Jesus says seventy-seven. Peter says
eight times; Jesus says eighty-eight.
Peter says nine times; Jesus says ninety-nine. Peter says, I give up. How much forgiveness is enough forgiveness? And Jesus says, I don’t know. But I can tell you this. That’s not the right question.
A twelve-year-old boy named John
was playing one day with a nine-year-old girl who lived next door. Her name was Marie. Tragically, the two found a loaded pistol in
a dresser drawer and before long their game turned into a nightmare; and little
Marie was dead. Everyone in their small
town attended Marie’s funeral—everyone that is except for twelve-year-old John,
who just couldn’t face anyone and refused to talk at all.
That morning, after the funeral,
Marie’s older brother went next door to talk to John. He said, “John, I want you to come with
me. I want to take you to school.” But John refused, and he said, “I never want
to see anyone ever again. I wish it was
me who was dead.” But he insisted,
Marie’s brother, and finally persuaded little John to go with him.
At school, the brother asked the
principal to call a special assembly.
Five hundred and eighty students filed sadly into the gymnasium; and
Marie’s older brother stood, quietly, before them. He said, “A terrible thing has happened; my
little sister was accidentally shot by one of your classmates. This is one of those tragedies that mars our
lives.” There was silence in the gym;
silence and uncertainty as to what would happen next.
And Marie’s brother said, “Now I
want you all to know that my family and John’s family have been to church
together this morning; and we shared in Holy Communion.” Then, calmly, he called John next to him, put
his arm around the twelve-year-old’s shoulders, and went on: “This boy’s future
depends much on us,” he said. “My family
has forgiven John because we love him.
Marie would want that. And I’m
going to ask you to love and forgive him, too.”
Then Marie’s brother hugged John, then and there, in front of five
hundred and eighty kids; and they wept together.
Now here’s the thing: This little story undoubtedly marks the
beginning, and not the ending, of that community’s journey in forgiveness. You’ll never get away with forgiving just
once, says Jesus, or just seven times.
It’s going to take a lifetime, an orientation of the heart, a turning
toward grace day by day by day. Marie’s
family will continue to struggle to embody this kind of love and forgiveness, a
journey as demanding as any they’ll ever know.
And John, John will most certainly continue to struggle to accept this kind
of love and forgiveness.
And yet. And yet, Marie’s brother sought John out when
John most needed it; and he risked his own raw feelings of grief to offer the
arms of grace to a broken little boy.
The world doesn’t heal with vengeance, Jesus says, and it doesn’t heal
with bitterness and cynicism. The world
heals, the world evolves with forgiveness.
And a neighborhood gets another chance.
2.
This little exchange between Peter
and Jesus—the one we’ve read this morning—is as puzzling to me as it is crucial
to our Christian practice. “How often
should I forgive?” Peter asks. “How
about seven times?” In other words,
should I forgive every time? Should I
forgive everything? Is that what it
takes to please you?
But Jesus, as is his mind-bending
wont, goes somewhere else; changes the conversation; dodges the question: “Not
that, not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” In other words, eighty-eight times. In other words, ninety-nine times. In other words, quit counting! Quit tallying your little acts of kindness
and expecting God to reward you for good behavior.
See what he’s doing, Jesus? Peter wants some idea, some sense of when
enough’s enough. When he can jump ship
on the whole forgiveness thing and get on to bigger and better things.
But Jesus says, there are no bigger
and better things. And forgiveness has
nothing to do with completing the task; nothing to do with appeasing God;
nothing to do with earning God’s favor.
You don’t just forgive because you have to...you forgive because it’s
who you are. You forgive because you
were born to forgive. You and I were put
on this earth to forgive. It’s where
blessing begins. It’s how healing
matures. You forgive, Jesus says,
because it’s who you are. It’s what
Christians do.
3.
And it’s hard.
In a story about the 9/11 attack at
the World Trade Center, a mother is asked on camera about her feelings of rage
and anger. Her son was a New York City fire-fighter
and a first responder at the towers that morning. He died heroically, rushing in to help
whomever he could. Years later, his
mother says she’ll always be angry; she’ll always resent those who decided life
was cheap enough to bring destruction on her city and family. There’s a scowl, a sadness etched in her
cheeks, that’s completely understandable.
You watch her try to find words, and it just breaks your heart. He was 30-something. He had kids.
But she goes on. And it turns out there’s even more to her
story, and even more to her pain. She
hesitates between words, ideas; she gasps in grief; and then this same mother
describes her last weeks with her son.
Summer 2001. It seems they’d had
a rocky go of it; something about his recent divorce and her just not accepting
it. I think she says on camera that she’d
refused to go to his second wedding, when he’d found love and made a new
beginning. And their last phone
call—days before 9/11—was hard, and angry.
And then he died. He was one of those selfless firemen rushing
up the tower steps to do something, anything to help. Not only does this mother struggle, now, to
find some way of forgiving the forces of hate that tore her family to pieces;
but she struggles, even more, to forgive herself. To forgive herself for judging him. To reconcile with a son she can’t call up on
the phone. To find a way to reconnect
with better times and memories.
Watching this, you see this brave
woman, this mother like so many other 9/11 mothers, working all this out,
really struggling to name it and live it.
And you also see how this kind of forgiveness, this kind of
reconciliation, might take a long, long, long time. She’ll need friends, and a church, and
encouraging stories along the way.
She’ll need to work out ways to forgive terrorists, and then ways to
forgive her son, and then ways to forgive herself. It’s her calling now; it’s her journey.
4.
And I think that’s some part of
what Jesus is saying to Peter. Forgiveness
isn’t a simple transaction. You don’t just figure it out, offer it up and call
it a done deal. Forgiveness is a matter of the heart, a life-long
commitment, a way of being. And often,
it takes a long, long, long time.
C.S. Lewis, for example, once made
this note in his personal journal: “Last week, while at prayer, I suddenly
discovered—or felt as if I did—that I had really forgiven someone I have been
trying to forgive for over thirty years.
Trying, and praying that I might.”
Imagine that. Trying for over
thirty years! Jesus wants Peter to
practice forgiveness like that.
As an orientation of the heart, as a daily practice without guarantee of
success, as a daily walk with God. It
takes as long as it takes. And even
then, we keep forgiving, because it’s who we are. It’s rarely as easy as whipping off an email;
or signing over a check; or even a Sunday prayer. Forgiveness is our life-long journey, the
Christian’s life-long journey of spirit.
5.
Several years ago, I came across
the teaching of another great Englishman, Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop
of Canterbury. It knocked my socks
off. He says, “Forgiveness is the deep
and abiding sense of what relation can be...and so it is itself a stimulus, an
irritant, provoking protest at impoverished versions of social and personal
relations.” It’s a stimulus, an
irritant, he says (that’s the part I love), provoking protest at impoverished
arrangements.
So this morning, on this tenth
anniversary of 9/11, I want so much to embolden your practice of
forgiveness. I’d go so far as to say the
world is CRAZY with longing for children of God who practice and embody mercy
and forgiveness. On the global stage: in
places like Jerusalem and Kabul, places like DC and Sacramento. But in your own lives, in your own
neighborhoods, too. I want to anoint you
as agents of divine forgiveness—wherever you go, wherever you go. Let it stimulate in you new visions, fresh
visions of what the world can be. What
your life can be. Let it be an irritant—don’t
you love that word?—let it be an irritant among us—when our communities run
through bitter ruts and grow accustomed to the toxic blame game and the
merry-go-round of cynicism. We know life
is more than this. We know we are
capable of more than this. We believe in
the power of forgiveness: to heal the brokenhearted, to resurrect hope and
creativity, to make all things new. That’s
the gospel this morning: and you are Jesus’ partners in this forgiving, healing
mission.
6.
I want you all to think about
taking part in the small group studies we’ve organized this fall—exploring a
brand new curriculum I’ve written around “The Core Four”—four essential
practices, transformative practices for progressive Christian folk. It’s a whole new thing. Very experimental. And I’d love for you to be in on it from the
beginning.
Mindfulness, discipleship, communion. And forgiveness. I’m starting with my conviction that faith is
indeed a journey, and I daresay, a journey of transformation. It’s a journey from a cradle in a cave to a
cross on a hill; it’s a journey from Good Friday grief to Easter Sunday joy; it’s
a journey from holiness to wholeness.
And this faith journey necessarily involves practices—practices likemindfulness, discipleship, communion and forgiveness—practices we learn and
mess up and learn all over again—practices we take up one day at a time, over a
lifetime.
These practices invite an opening
in us, a turning in our lives—and this turning makes all the difference. This is our turning to the One Big Love. This is our turning to the One Big
Heart. This is our way of partnering
with Jesus, and with Grace, with the Power of Love. Mindfulness, discipleship, communion. And forgiveness.
So Jesus says to Peter: You’ve got
to forgive not just once, not just seven times, not just seventy-seven
times. You’ve got to forgive—because
that’s what forgiving souls do; that’s what disciples of love do; that’s what
children of the light do. You
forgive. Not just once to be done with
it. Not just once to say you’ve finished
your unpleasant task and earned divine appreciation. But you forgive every day, you open your
heart to the promise of grace, to the possibility of reconciliation. You don’t settle, you never settle for
long-term grudges or daily gossip. You
don’t settle, you never settle for suspicion and resentment as tools for family
life and day-to-day community. You
forgive—every day, you open your heart to the promise of grace. And that’s like walking with Jesus. That’s like seeing him at your side. That’s like holding his hand and dancing toward
the light and knowing that all will be well.
And if you ever need
encouragement—for this practice—turn to the end of the story, to the last
moments of Jesus’ life on earth. How he
hangs on the empire’s cross, his own 9/11; he’s tortured by some, betrayed by
others. And how he reaches deep—into his
own practice, into his soul—and says, “Father, my God, forgive them all, for
they just don’t know. They don’t know
what they’re doing.” Right to end, in
the throes of chaos and befuddlement and pain, in his own 9/11, Jesus
forgives.
As will we. On 9/11.
And every day we follow him.
Offered in worship, Sunday, September 11, 2011: First Congregational Church in Santa Cruz.
