Towards Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014

Scripture:  Romans 14:10-12; Matthew 18:21-35

Yes, I know these are the same readings as last week!  And that you've already heard a sermon on them!

But ... anytime we start talking seriously about forgiveness in the church, our ears perk up, questions start to emerge, and serious discussion begins.  So when a member invited me to consider staying with the subject and pushing it (or following it) a little farther this week, after some initial hesitation it seems I cannot but say yes in some way.

Not because I am an expert on forgiveness; rather, precisely because I am as unschooled in it as anyone.

I doubt this is uncommon in the church.  How often have I heard -- and you felt, that the church can be a fairly unforgiving place?  That we're not always practiced at forgiving one another when it really counts?  That any one of us can sometimes go for a long time without feeling forgiven ourselves?

I suspect it's always been this way.  Why else would Paul be so direct in his letter to the earliest church in Rome: "why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister?" he asks.  Why else would the first-century church tell so many stories in the Gospels (like the whole of Matthew 18) about the disciples having to learn the fullness of forgiveness, if not because the church that followed them needs to learn that, too?

So, even though the sermon this week will not be a return to the readings above, I assume the liturgy will in some way carry echoes of some of my own questions and un-knowing about forgiveness, and my desire for us all to grow more fully into its mystery.  I hope you bring your questions and desire as well -- not only to the liturgy, but to everything we do as church.  Maybe it will be the start of a beautiful, faith-renewing, life-renewing, church-renewing conversation.

Sermon from Sunday, Sept 14, 2015

Scripture:  Matthew 18:21-35
Sermon:  Why on earth forgive?

I think I am a fairly forgiving person.  

 

I try not to hold grudges – at least, not anything so strong as to call it a grudge.  I think I’m not too hard to get along with.  When someone says or does something hurtful, thoughtless or unkind I try to understand why, and what might lie behind it.  I believe whatever they have done somehow makes sense to them, and I try to understand it from their point of view.

I don’t get fussed up when someone speaks ill of me, or acts against me.  Most often I just shrug and go on, and if there is real harm or hurt, I step back, call a little truce, get a little distance, and let time do its supposedly healing work.

But I wonder, is that really forgiveness?  Or is it something else, like avoidance?  

If it was real forgiveness, for instance, would there be so many gaps and distances in my life?  People I’m no longer close to?  Family I don’t see?  Parents I spent so much time alienated from?  

There’s all kinds of issues involved in that, but is it at least in part an avoidance of really dealing with issues and conflicts in a way that makes forgiveness, reconciliation and real relationship possible?

If I knew how to practice real forgiveness, would there be the deeply stored resentment that I feel being touched and stirred within me at times in some relationships?  

 

If I knew how to practice forgiveness, would there be the quick flare-ups of anger that I then have to get over and try to explain or justify?  

 

If I knew how to practice forgiveness, would the horn in my car still be working, instead of being disabled from an overly long and loud blast I levelled one day at another driver beside me because she annoyed me?

 

In our reading, Peter thinks he’s pretty good at forgiveness.  Someone in the church has hurt him – maybe slandered or criticized him unfairly, cheated him out of something, snubbed or insulted him.  Peter has forgiven him and given him a second and a third, and even a 4^th and 5^th and 6^th and 7^th chance.  Peter feels he’s handled it pretty well, so he brings the matter to Jesus’ attention.

 

“How many times must I forgive a brother?” he asks. “As many as seven?”  Maybe he’s growing tired of how one-sided this relationship seems to be, how he seems to be the one who’s always forgiving  and reaching out to be reconciled.  Maybe he’s looking for affirmation and praise for how well he’s done.  Maybe permission to finally give up on making this relationship good.  Seven, after all, is the number of perfection.  Even God stopped and called it enough when God reached the seventh of the days of creation.

 

But Jesus doesn’t play along:  “No, not seven; rather, seventy times seven.”  

 

In other words, if you think you know when there’s been enough forgiveness – and that some day there may have been enough, think again.  Because there really is no end.  Rather it is all there is, and without it, there is nothing.  Without unending forgiveness, everything falls apart and is lost.

 

And with this we begin to scratch the surface of an important question about forgiveness, which is why.  We often wonder about the how of forgiveness – how do we do it, and how it happens.  We also wonder about who and what and when to forgive.  Whether to forgive.  In what situations it may or may not be called for.  We also wonder, as Peter did, about how often.

 

And why forgive is also a good question.

 

One answer that’s big these days is that we forgive for the sake of our own well-being.  When we hold a grudge and hang on to a hurt, it’s really ourselves we hurt the most.  We harden our heart and limit our spirit.  We close ourselves in and we bind ourselves for longer than necessary to the pain of whatever happened.  I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying that holding a grudge is like drinking poison, and hoping your enemy will die.  Lewis Smedes, a Christian psychologist and therapist says “to forgive is to set a prisoner free, and discover that the prisoner was you.”   As I saw on a poster this week, “forgiveness is not something we do for other people; we do it for ourselves – to get well and move on.”

 

All this is true.

 

Yet, there’s also something else about the why of forgiveness – why we do it, learn it, and seek to grow into it as a practice, something less self-centred and less self-serving.  It’s that forgiveness is most often the most honest thing we can do.  However we understand the how and who and when and what of it – in relationship the most honest way of being true to what we know most deeply about ourselves and about God, is to forgive another.  It’s a witness – a way of openly living out and affirming what we know about ourselves and about God.

 

In the story Jesus tells it’s easy to see ourselves as the middle manager who when called to a true and honest accounting of himself – of herself, of myself – cannot but be aware of how dependent on mercy and the forgiveness of another he is. 

“Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything I owe,” he says, when confronted with his debt.  To which the master says, “I know you can never pay back all you owe.  I forgive you your debt; go free and let’s move on in a new way from here.”

 

One of the simplest and most ancient and universal of Christian prayers – so old and so common it’s known simply as the Jesus Prayer, is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.”  It’s a prayer Eastern Christians pray over and over at different times of the day.  And which of us has never had occasion to pray it as well?

 

And we know it’s not just Jesus’ mercy we depend on.  When I think of people I have hurt, let down, or betrayed, I know how dependent on forgiveness I am in my own life.  When I think of promises I break, relationships I damage, and thoughtlessness or selfishness I practice, I know how much my own life is supported by, and dependent upon the tolerance and forgiveness of others.  Without that, how on earth could I ever be and continue to be where and who I am?  

 

So who am I, the story makes me ask, not to forgive others in turn and be part of the world that God builds and sustains with the mystery of this most special of all graces?

 

Which leads to a second thing that forgiveness is honest to – it’s a way of being true to what we know of God.

 

Like the master of the household in the story, it’s not really God’s desire to punish anyone or bind anyone and their household forever to the wrongs they have done and the debt they have rung up.  If God were to do that, there would soon be no household, no family or community, no world at all that would be left.

 

Rather, God forgives the debts, takes the loss, absorbs the cost so that all may continue to work and grow into new life together.  It’s not a matter of just letting everything go.  Forgiveness is neither blindness to, nor avoidance of the issues.  But it’s a matter of letting go of the past to let the future still be a future – letting go of the past in such a way that lessons can be learned and the future can unfold in a better and healthy way.

 

To borrow a word from Rev. James Eaton that’s the heart of a sermon he’s preaching today to First Congregational Church in Albany NY, it’s about opening up and leaving open the possibility of transformation for all concerned – both the wronged and the wronger, both the sinner and the sinned-against.  It’s God’s deepest desire that the household, the family, the community of earth stay together and learn step by step and day by day to work together well, to be good and profitable, to be holy and life-giving.  And one thing that makes this happen – one thing without which it can never happen, is forgiveness, the practice of honest and open, personal and mutual forgiveness.  

 

It’s only when we force God’s hand that the master comes down hard to divide the bad from the good, and to punish the wrong-doer.  And even then, the one who is defined as being in the wrong and who faces stiff punishment is very simply the one who fails to forgive as he has been forgiven, the one who fails to grow into God’s eternal and ongoing practice of world- and life-sustaining forgiveness.

 

I know there’s still a lot unanswered about how and who and when and what to forgive, but we cannot escape the why – that forgiving others is the best way – sometimes the only way, of living true and being honest to what we know about ourselves and about God.

Towards Sunday, September 14, 2014

Scripture:  Matthew 18:21-35
Sermon theme:  Why on earth forgive?

We have lots of questions about forgiveness.  Like, how to forgive.  Sometimes, whether to forgive.  We also wonder about when and where and who and what to forgive.

In the reading Peter wonders how many times to forgive.  (And I wonder how he feels about Jesus' answer.)

 

Questions about forgiveness plague us on a personal level as we negotiate relationships and the ins and outs of family life and friendship.  The questions also come up in the bigger arenas of society and politics, and the answers are rarely easy.

In the midst of all this, do you ever wonder about the why of forgiveness?  It's this question more than any other that the reading makes me think about.

The parable Jesus tells gives a harsh negative answer to why forgive: God will punish you if you don't.  This is paralleled in the answer many offer today: that when we don't forgive we only punish and imprison ourselves most of all.  In other words, we suffer when we don't forgive, so therefore we should forgive the other to avoid hurting ourselves.

But is there also a positive reason for forgiving?  The parable suggests one.  

In worship this week, we'll explore the notion suggested by this parable that forgiving another is often simply the most honest thing to do -- the best way we have of being honest to what we know about ourselves, the other, and God.

Sermon from Sunday, August 31, 2014

Scripture:  Matthew 16:13-26
Sermon:  All he wanted was to love all people with God's love

All he wanted was to love all people with God’s love.  This is what it cost him.  Still, he says this is the only way to really live, and share real life with others.

 

The call is still the same.  As is the cost – at least, there are times when it can be.

 

In 1988 from across the country delegates gathered in Victoria to serve as General Council of the United Church of Canada.  One of the questions on the agenda was whether to affirm full participation of self-declared homosexual persons in church life, including the possibility of their being called and gifted by God for ordained ministry.  Many of the delegates went with the expectation – in their minds, as well as in the minds of the congregations they served and the presbyteries that selected them that they would vote against the ordination of self-declared gays and lesbians – that this was and always would be God’s revealed will.

 

But something happened when they met as General Council.  They discussed the issues in open forum and small groups, they read and studied and prayed, they met and talked with honest and faithful persons on all sides of the question, and many delegates found their mind and heart changed.  They came to believe that full affirmation is the only way to express and be faithful to the revealed will and love of God.  They voted in the majority to affirm homosexuality as no barrier to full participation in the life of the church, including ordained ministry.  In their hearts and minds they knew it was the good and godly to do.

 

But then there was the return to their home congregations and presbyteries, the anger felt there at the outcome, and the need to explain why they voted as they did.  For many of the returning delegates, the conversations they had and meetings they attended felt like crucifixion.  It took some a long time to recover.  Perhaps some never did.

 

I wonder if this is why many congregations today still practice a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach.  We’re not opposed; we hope people will know we are open and accepting.  We just don’t want to go out on a limb, and be crucified for publicly taking a stand and saying so.

 

To be fair, it’s not always easy to know and be certain of God’s will and how God loves.

 

Beginning in the 1870’s the Christian churches of Canada and the new federal government teamed up in what they thought was a good plan of care for the aboriginal peoples of the country.  Together they established a network of residential schools where the children of First Nations’ communities would be taken, housed, educated and assimilated into mainstream white-European Christian society.  It cost the churches and government a lot in time and money.  But it seemed like a good, faithful thing – a way of living out God’s love for the First Nations’ children.  So they bore the cost.

 

We now know what the real cost was to the children and to First Nations’ culture and society in general.  We hear the painful witness of the survivors, and we have grown in our understanding of how God loves and is known among all cultures and peoples, including the First Nations of Canada.  So in 1986 our General Council approved and offered a formal apology to the First Nations for the way we treated them and the harm we inflicted.  We also committed a great deal of time and money to repair what was done, to support the recovery of the survivors, and to seek reconciliation and new growth together as separate and equal people in the good will and love of God.  

 

It was – and still is a great amount of time and money required to make the apology real, and some still worry it may help kill us as a church.  But what is it he says?  That our only job ultimately is to love all people as God loves them, and that regardless of the cost it’s the only way to really live and share real life with God and with others.

 

In the reading this morning – in Matthew 16, Jesus calls those who follow him to the work of binding and loosing.  It’s a reference to the work of the rabbis to interpret and apply the revealed will of God so the people can know what God is for and against in their time, and people are then either bound – tied to their sin and unacceptability and kept out of the community of the righteous, or are loosed – set free from false guilt and shame, and openly welcomed into the holy circle.

 

Binding and loosing – keeping apart and publicly welcoming with open hearts and arms, is still the work of all who know and love God. 

 

I know how important it was for me over the winter while I was away on leave, that a small community of people – trained therapists as well as other people with me in treatment, committed their time and energy, and skill and compassion to help set me free of things that bound me – learned attitudes and behaviours that created unnecessary stress and shame, that inhibited free and open relationship, that made me a prisoner of my own life-story.  Being loosed is a real experience and it happens when other people care enough to help make it happen.

 

How many people around us live in bondage of different kinds – are imprisoned in ways that are not always obvious, but are real and deadening to them?

 

I could probably try to answer that question – to try to name and list different ways in which people around us are bound to their sin and past mistakes, to shame and a feeling of unworthiness, to loneliness and isolation, to addictive and self-destructive behaviour, to the prejudices and unmerciful un-forgiveness of others, to anonymity, abuse, poverty, hopelessness, fear.  But that would be only my list, and it would only be partial at best.

 

What’s probably important is how each of us answers the question in our own lives, and how all of us together answer it as a church.   And we know how to do it.  Sometime we do it well; sometimes not so well, or not so boldly.  Sometimes we get afraid of the cost, and like Peter try to hold back a little.  

 

But especially now as we look ahead to a new year of ministry and mission together as a church and in our own lives, I wonder whose bondage and imprisonment we will be touched by, and how we will make real to them what we understand of God’s revealed will and love – what public and private binding and loosing we will engage in as followers of Jesus – just how we will love all people with God’s love, regardless of the cost?  

 

And is it as we answer that call and live it out, that we also are more completely unbound and set loose to really know God’s love ourselves?  He does say it’s the only way to really live.

Toward Sunday, August 31, 2014

Scripture:  Matthew 16:13-26
Sermon theme:  Take up your cross

Take up your cross and follow me..."

This is what can happen when you don't agree with others (or they don't agree with you) about who should be bound and kept out of the community, and who should be set free to be as much a part of it as anyone else.

In Matthew 16 when Jesus tells us to "take up our cross and follow him" (v.24) he is calling us specifically to follow him in opening the kingdom and welcoming into the community of grace, people whom others may think should be excluded (vv. 17-19), and to accept the cost that may come when we do this (vv. 21-23).

The reference in v. 19 to "binding and "loosing" is to the work of the rabbis in interpreting what God's law prohibits and what it allows, and making clear what kind of people are bound to their sin or brokenness and excluded from the community of the righteous, and who is free (or loosed) to be included in the community.  Early on in the Gospel, Jesus takes on this work himself in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) where he repeatedly criticizes the rabbis' interpretations of God's Law for excluding too many from the community of grace and reinforcing the self-righteousness of a few.  Then he continues to preach, teach, heal and forgive people in a way that emphasizes the wideness of forgiveness and mercy at the heart of God's Law, and makes the point that even though the rabbis and religious leaders who exclude people seem to have God's Law on their side, they are wrong in their interpretation.

He knows this puts him at odds with the traditional leadership and will lead to crucifixion (v. 21), but he says this is the proper work not only for him but also for us as his disciples (vv. 22-26). 

• Who is bound today and kept outside the circle (and how are they bound), either individually because of their sin, or as a group because of something unacceptable or prohibited about them?
• What do we understand God's Spirit and God's Word to be saying about this today?
• What might be the cost of affirming and acting out the Spirit of mercy in God's Law?
• What happens when Christians disagree, or interpret God's Law differently?

Toward Sunday, August 31, 2014

Sorry ... under revision; available by 5:30 pm EDT, Aug 27

Sermon from Sunday, August 24, 2014

Scripture:  Matthew 16:13-20
Sermon:  A growing faith

My name is Peter.  You know me well.  I won’t be long.  Like everyone else I want to get over to the Peach Festival before your pies are sold out.

But I want to talk with you a bit about my faith because apparently it’s my faith – and yours as you share it, that is the bedrock foundation of our being Jesus’ church – a community of light and hope in the world.  And I wonder sometimes about it – about my faith.

Every time I meet Jesus my faith seems to grow bigger.  It grows deeper; I become even more fully grounded in him, more appreciative of him and happy to be Christian.  But it also grows broader and wider; it seems to take in and cover more territory – become more open to things I once thought were maybe outside the boundary of faith in him.

Like the day Jesus and we were walking near the city of Caesarea Philippi.   It was always a hard city for us.   From long ago days it was the centre of a pagan cult dedicated to Pan, one of the pantheon of Greek gods.  In our time it was a Roman administrative centre – one of the places Rome set up in our country to send its tentacles into all our lives, all the better to control and suck the life from us.  

The city was beautiful.  Philip the Tetrarch spent millions rebuilding it to make it a showcase.  But it was a showcase of Roman pride and arrogance.  There really was idolatry at work there.  It was right around that time that Philip minted new coins to commemorate what he called his “great founding” of the city, and the coins had his image on them.  His image!  What idolatry!

We didn’t go into the city, but I wouldn’t be surprised if just being near it prompted Jesus to ask what he did – the questions of identity and allegiance that we should have expected.  It was hard to be near that city and not feel that your commitments were being tested, and that for the sake of your soul you really needed to declare yourself.

So he asked, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  

As soon as we heard the question, I was nervous.  I think we all were.

“Son of Man” is a loaded image for us.  It was the prophets of old who promised the coming of “a person as unto a son of man” to set all things right and bring an end to evil and history as we know it.  By our time the Son of Man was a kind of superhero from God who would come with holy words and powerful actions to avenge evil and put an end to it, to protect the good and make the world safe for all God’s people and creatures. 

We debated sometimes if the Son of Man had already come and maybe done his work, or if he was still to come, or if maybe he was already among us.  So when Jesus asked us who people saw as the Son of Man, we assumed he thought people saw him as that One.  And we had to tell him, no.  

We knew we couldn’t lie to him – couldn’t pretend.  So we stammered, “Well … some say John the Baptist is the Son of Man,” and we could see why people thought that; he did come on like an avenging angel ready to set all the world right.  “And … some say Elijah was the Son of Man – that great old prophet who stood up in bygone days against the king and his idolatrous advisors.”  “Others say Jeremiah – you like him, Jesus; some say his words still have the power to undo evil and make room for what’s right in the world.”  “And other prophets, too, Jesus.”

In the nervous silence we slowly became aware Jesus was not upset.  In fact he seemed content that when people either prayed to God or thanked God for an avenging, finally-setting-things-right kind of presence in the world, his was not the first name on their lips.  He seemed relieved.

I think I was too, because there’s some aspects of the Son of Man – like his extreme vengefulness, that just don’t seem to fit the Jesus I know.

Also, I wonder, was Jesus maybe also happy to know that people recognized other messengers of God apart from him – that he was not the only one people looked to, that people knew the truth of God is too big to be taught by only one teacher, to be known in only one tradition, to be lived out by only one community – that he and we were not alone in the world?

“So then,” he asked, “if I am not the Son of Man that people are looking for, who do you say I am?”  

It was a direct question – not the kind we’re used to asking one another.  We like to hold our faith in Jesus inside, and keep it to ourselves.  We also don’t like to pry into others’ faith and ask maybe-embarassing questions – not even in worship and other church activities. 

But he asked, so I said, “You are the Christ – the messiah, the son of the living God,” What a wonderful confession of faith, I thought.  As good as the one you say every week: “We believe in God…who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new.” 

I was pleased with saying it, and waited for his approval.  There was silence – not a disapproving, but a waiting on his part, to see if I might say more.  When I didn’t, he did.

“Yes, Peter – and all of you, now and in ages to come.  I am happy you see me as your leader and teacher.  I want you to know the meaning and the way of true life.  I want to help you live freely and openly as true human beings among other people and before God, warts and all.  Unlike many of your leaders, I want to teach you the way of real community through compassion for the poor, openness to the stranger, humility about ourselves, and forgiveness and blessing of your enemies.  I want to teach you (how do you say?) to celebrate God’s presence, to live with respect in Creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, and to see me crucified and risen as [the] judge and hope of all you do.  

“And when you do this – when you really know and follow me as your messiah, you will be strong no matter what happens; right, no matter how others judge you; and light in a world that lives in much darkness.  You will be a community of light among other communities of light against the darkness that seems always to be here.”

I had to think about that.  I confessed my faith in him as messiah – as leader and lord, and I thought that was what he wanted.  But in response he talked about me – about us, as though in the end it’s at least as much about us as it is him.

And then he said the darnedest thing – the darnedest thing.  He said, “And don’t go telling everyone I am the messiah.”

I’ve wondered about that a long, long time.  And I still wonder.

I know he wants other people to know him.  But was he saying, “Don’t feel like you have to plaster my name on everything you do; let the holiness of what you do speak for itself; if people ask why you do it, tell them; but don’t worry about it”?  I don’t know.

Or is he telling us that belief in him is not the only way of real faith in God and openness to God’s kingdom?  Is he afraid that if we push our faith in him too hard or in the wrong way, other people and even we might start making him and the meaning of messiah into something he isn’t and doesn’t intend?

Or does he want us to remember that it’s not him as some superhero, but us as a community of faith in him that makes the difference the world wants to see, and that God wants to make in the world?

Faith in Jesus is the bedrock foundation of who we are.  I wonder sometimes about it, though.  And as I said, every time I meet him, my faith always seems to grow bigger in some way.