Regret, resent, release: which shall it be? (sermon from Sunday, Mar 27, 2022)

 Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:9-12, 14 

‘This, then, is how you should pray: 

‘“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us today our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors…”

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Meditation 

How does forgiveness work?  How does it happen?  And is it important?

Forty years ago when I was working in my first pastoral charge in Bruce County, a neighbouring minister told me about a woman in his congregation in the midst of leaving a toxic and abusive marriage.  She had managed to separate physically from her husband, was receiving good support, and was making new plans for her future apart from him.

She still felt imprisoned, though, by the anger she still felt towards her soon-to-be ex-husband.  Whenever she talked about him with others, thought about him during the day, and especially whenever she and he met with a mediator to try to work out the details of their divorce, she felt overtaken and consumed by memories of all she had suffered and by anger.  By a cold bitterness.  And by the heat and energy of vengefulness.

She didn’t like it.  Didn’t like it what it did to her, or what it made her want to do to him.

She knew she would need to forgive.  Not to go back to him.  But to be able to work out, and move on to her new life in a good way.

Each time she drove to a mediation meeting, she rehearsed what to feel, what to say and how to act out a more forgiving spirit.  Each time she failed to be able to do it.

Until one day, on the way there, she stopped to pray.  In her car at the side of the road, she confessed to God her anger, and how deep it was, and her longing to move beyond it.  She confessed her desire to hurt her husband, and asked God to take care of both her and him.  She asked God to help her forgive, and move on. 

And by the time she got to the mediator’s office, the mystery had happened.  Her feelings, her words, and her goals were changed.  She was changed.  And she was free to move on, and work out in a good way what moving on could mean for her and her soon-to-be ex-husband.

The minister who told me this story marvelled at the great mystery that forgiveness is.  Such an interplay of human weakness and divine grace, of human willingness and divine gift.

It's not always instantaneous.  Sometimes it’s the fruit of a long – even life-long, journey and struggle.

I’ve talked here before about Wilma Derksen, a Mennonite woman from Winnipeg who literally has written the book on forgiveness.  We read it and discussed it a few years ago in a book group.  It’s called “The Way of Letting Go: One Woman’s Journey toward Forgiveness.”

The story and Wilma’s journey began November 30, 1984 – the day her teenage daughter was abducted, assaulted and left to die in the freezing cold of the Winnipeg winter.  Her body was found seven weeks later, and at a press conference shortly after that, Wilma and her husband Cliff talked about their relief that their daughter was found, the great shock that she’d been murdered, and their thankfulness for all who had helped and supported them along the way.  And then, just as the press conference seemed over, one reporter asked The Question: “And what about the person who murdered your daughter?”

As Wilma puts it, “The reporter who asked the question was standing in the back, his black note pad in his hands, pen poised.  The question hung in the air for quite a while as we just sat there deliberating about what we should say.  I think we were in a bit of a fog.

“Cliff, my husband, was the first to answer it.  And he said it with a kind of fait-accompli assurance: ‘We forgive.’

“…I envied my husband’s confidence; I still do.  But I am a reluctant forgiver who needs a lot of time.  Plus, we didn’t even know what that would mean.  I answered honestly, ‘I want to forgive.’ “

And then she spent – has spent, the last thirty-eight years living into that desire.  Learning along the way what forgiveness means.  Learning that it’s mostly about letting go step by agonizing step of a lot of different things you cling to be in control of life.  Things like belief in happy endings, the power of the ego, the desire to control, and notions of fairness.  Things, too, like guilt and self-blame for what has happened, and self-pity.  And a lot more seemingly normal things that we use to try to be in charge of our life.  In the book Wilma names and explores 15 things she has to outgrow and let go of, step by step, to find peace and the depth of forgiveness of the other, of herself, and of life that she seeks, and wants to know.

It’s a journey that has deepened and enriched every side of her character and life-story, and brought into sharper focus and enlivens every bit of the faith, the hope and the love that she knows as gift and a sign of God’s presence in her life.  It’s been an amazing coming together of heaven and earth in her experience – a gracious interplay of human desire and divine direction, of her willingness and God’s empowerment.

I don’t know that I’ve ever worked at forgiveness that hard and that doggedly.  Not that my life has been as terribly traumatized as hers.  But like many, I live with broken relationships and unresolved conflicts with others.  Also, with all kinds of regret and self-blame about things I’ve done that have been hurtful of others, and of myself. 

And one thing I am glad for in my life is a spiritual growth group that I’ve been part of for a number of years now.  It’s a small group of people who meet weekly to help and support one another in journeys and challenges towards spiritual wholeness and well-being.

One of the things the group uses – one of the tools of spiritual transformation we take advantage of is a version of the 12 Steps of the AA Movement.  And it’s interesting ho those steps are focused on the work and in the practice of forgiveness – in forgiveness of self, and forgiveness of others; in letting go of regret and letting go of resentment.

The steps, when you look at all 12, can be seen in three parts.  The first – steps 1-3, are about learning to live in trust and obedience to God, committing your life for your own good to the care and direction of a God of love.  A version, really of the first Great Commandment to love and commit to God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.

The third of the three parts of the Steps – steps 8-12, are more about other people and your relations with them.  It’s about creating honest and caring relationships with people around us, whatever shape is best for those relationships to take.  A version in some sense of the second Great Commandment, to love our neighbour in very practical ways as ourselves.

And the middle of the three parts of the Steps – steps 4-7, the part that holds it all together and makes it all work, are about forgiving.  They’re about being as thoroughly honest as you can be, about yourself.  First, the steps help you name and list out all the regrets you carry about yourself and all the resentments you harbour about others.  Then they help you share all this first with someone else whose job it is, is to accept you as you are, and then with God, who you ask to take all this from you and set you free of its burden.

Because all this stuff – the regrets and the resentments, are a burden.  They are a barrier to wholeness, well-being and peace.  They imprison you and keep you chained to the past.  They ruin the present, both for yourself and for others around you.  And they keep you from growing with others towards a new and better future.

And it really is this middle part – these steps about naming and knowing and letting go of resentment and regret, of living into practical forgiveness of others and of self, that makes all the rest work, and work for good.  It’s what makes the words about loving God and loving others more than just words.  It’s what makes them real, and makes life really better for ourselves and for others around us.

I know I’m still just a beginner in all this.  I have a long way to go in letting go of regret and resentments.  But I’m pretty sure this is the way to go towards a new and better life.  I’m pretty sure that I am only as free to grow and keep maturing as a human being and a child of God, as I allow others to be as well.

So I pray, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”   

And I like the way some have rendered this line of the prayer from the original Aramaic into English:  “Loosen the cords of mistakes binding us, O God, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt.  Erase the inner marks our failures make, just as we scrub our hearts of others’ faults.”   

Amen.

Daily bread: can it happen without the "us" and the "our"? (sermon from Sunday, March 20, 2022)

 Reading: Matthew 6:9-11; 7:7-12

How we pray is how we live.  At least, that’s how it’s meant to be.  And it is, when we pray as Jesus does, and as he teaches us to pray and to live.  We read Matthew 6:9-11 and 7:7-12, two excerpts from what the Gospel presents as the Sermon on the Mount.

“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.”  

And, a little farther on in the Sermon, he says this: 

“Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; they who seek find, and to those who knock, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your child asks for bread, will give them a stone?  Or if they ask for a fish, will give them a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” 

 

Meditation 

“Give us this day our daily bread.” 

It sounds so simple.  As I say this line of the prayer, I think of three simple meals a day.  I think of saying grace and giving thanks before eating, not taking any meal for granted.  I think of next-door neighbours from years past who to this day, now into their retirement years, still go together every day to the grocery store to pick out and pick up some part of their diet for that day, receiving their daily bread as a social activity and a daily discipline.

Interesting that as soon as the Lord’s Prayer turns to the "gimme" side of praying, the focus is on something so simple.  This is no Miss America prayer for world peace or a cure for cancer.  Nor is it the punch-line prayer of someone who rubs Aladdin’s lamp and for their three wishes asks the genie for a million dollars in their bank account, their own tropical island to live on, and then three more wishes.

Just, “give us this day our daily bread.”  How much more simple can our desires and our request of God be?

Except, is it really simple?  Is “daily bread” so easily available and so common for all the members of God’s family as it is for us?  Is it so easy to come by for all who sit with us at God’s family table?

I think, for instance of the now-over 3 million people who have fled the war in Ukraine in the past three or four weeks.  How easy is daily bread for them?  Or for the unknown number still in the country but displaced from their homes?  Or for those still in their homes like the Mariupol resident named Elena quoted in a story in Friday’s Sepctator, who said, “We are trying to survive somehow.  My child is hungry.  I don’t know what to give him to eat”?

And it’s not just Ukrainians who are affected by the war.  Remember the phrase, “we’re all in this together”?  Ukraine is known as “Europe’s breadbasket” because of its wheat harvest – normally accounting for 3% of the world’s wheat and 12% of global wheat exports, and nearly 20% of global maize exports.  We’re told the effect on world wheat and corn supplies will not be catastrophic, and will be short-lived.  But the experts base their projection on Ukrainian farmers being able to do fieldwork in April and Ukraine and Russia crafting a ceasefire in the next few weeks.

And it’s not just from far away that the question comes, as to how easy or hard daily bread is to come by. 

Through the month of April – before, during and after Easter, the day of resurrection and new life, we’re having a food drive for the Stoney Creek Food Bank just down the road from us, for households and families around us who are at risk of not having daily bread enough for healthy growth and to keep body and soul together.

And it’s so common.  I mentioned the story from Ukraine in Friday’s Spectator.  In the same issue there was a story about a labour conflict at Mohawk College, and right in the middle of the story was one paragraph assuring readers that even with labour disruptions “the Mohawk College union rally and food raiser for students who require food support slated for 11 am Friday in front of the college on Fennell Avenue … will go ahead as planned.”

And there was another story a few pages on in the Business section about a non-profit called Food for Life that now operates 44 food programs and 16 community fridges across Halton and Hamilton stocked 100% with “rescued food” – food that is perfectly good but because of expiry dates is about to be sent to landfill as waste, and that Food for Life purchases to make available “for those who are struggling with food insecurity and do not have the means to otherwise purchase their food.”  In 2019 Food for Life rescued more than 4 million pounds of food from going to landfill to help feed people around us are hungry.

And why is this?  Enough food is produced in the world to feed us all – every man, woman and child on earth.  But today over 800 million go hungry – about 10% of the world’s population, up from 8% two years ago.  Why is “daily bread” so hard for so many in God’s global household?

According to the UN and the World Health Organization some degree of world hunger today is caused by climate change and the pandemic, as well as periodic economic downturns and weather-related disaster.  But the two chief causes, hands-down, are poverty – number 1, and conflict – number 2.  In other words, “daily bread” is a hard thing for many, when societies don’t take care of all their members, and when societies, nations, and tribes don’t get along with one another. 

In other words, it’s in large part a spiritual issue.  It seems to me that how we as human beings see and treat one another – and whether we even let ourselves see one another, to know how others are doing and are being treated beyond our immediate circle. is a spiritual question.  It’s a question of how we see God, and the kind of God we believe in.  It's a question of who we count as part as God’s family and our responsibility – our brothers and sisters, and what kind of people we choose to be within that family.  It’s a question of what we think is the meaning of life on earth – the meaning of our own life, and of human life itself.  A question of what we’re living for.  And who.  And why.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

“Our Daily Bread” is a well-known little book of daily devotions, that’s been around forever, and that millions read every day to feed their souls with the knowledge of God’s good news and God’s love for all.  This year in Lent, we’ve been promoting also a book of daily readings called “Lesser Evils” designed to help us think about the way of God in a world where good and bad are not always neatly defined, and sometimes we have to choose the lesser of evils to do good.  I’ve also been given a copy of “Rediscover Jesus” – a series of 40 daily readings to help the reader focus their attention more clearly on Jesus and on the kind of life he models and makes possible for us in the world.

All of these are “daily bread” – and there’s no shortage of godly loaves for us to get our teeth into on a daily basis, to chew on and make part of our living, to nourish us in ways that help us live better and live well as God’s people in the world.  And whether at first we like the taste of it, or not, we trust it is good for us, and through us, good for the world.

I don’t know, though.  Are words and reading them – especially solitary reading of them, enough to help us grow in our openness to God, and to others, and to our own truest wat of being?  Are good words and private devotional readings a full enough diet for a soul and a society to grow into helping God’s kingdom come, and helping God’s will for the well-being of all to be done on earth as it is in heaven?

Or do we also need some particular experience or other kinds of nourishment – other kinds of daily bread to help us grow in good ways? 

Like the experience of belonging and of being part of something beyond ourself – like a spiritual fellowship, a community of faith, a circle of friends?  It’s important to me.  Belonging to a welcoming and supportive community is something I need to experience on a regular basis to feed my soul and keep my spirit growing in healthy ways.  Belonging and being part of something bigger than myself and bigger than family, more inclusive than tribe, greater even than nation.  Don’t we all need something – some experience or commitment that pulls us towards a bigger table and helps us to see all members of God’s family within the “our” of “our daily bread” and within the “us” of “give us this day”.

And how important – how nourishing and necessary too is the experience of being loved and forgiven and accepted and cared for by others beyond what we deserve or earn, and in spite of our weaknesses and mistakes.  I can’t say enough about this – the deep and rich taste of being loved just because the other chooses to love me as God does, and as they know – or at least hope, God loves them. 

If our souls, our spirits, and our faith are not fed in this way by others, how shall we ever be encouraged or even able to love and feed others as well, and as freely?

Are belonging and being loved necessary parts of your spiritual diet?  Part of the bread you need for your soul to grow and be well?  And are there other things – other gifts, too – compassion maybe, forgiveness, support, friendship, respect – that you also need to be strong and healthy, and a real human being the way you’re meant to be among others?  And with others?  And for others?

Give us this day our daily bread – both physical bread to keep body and soul together, and all the other things we need to keep us growing and healthy as children of God.

We lift up this prayer to God.  Sometimes we say it together. 

And I wonder if it’s mostly through others that God answers it for us.  

And through us, that God answers it for others.

As we gather together around the table – any table – bringing what we have, bringing what we need, and enjoying together the feast, the great meal, the daily bread of what is, and is given.