The Discipline of Forgiveness [Proper 19A]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Matthew 18:21-35
The Discipline of Forgiveness
It is a great question – asked in just the right way. Peter knows what he is doing here. “How often
should I forgive?”
That's a good question. But he
doesn't stop there. “As many as seven times?” Not one.
Not two. Not three. Not four.
Not five. Not six. But seven times. A good man might forgive. What about one who would forgive seven times? That person would have to be pretty
extraordinary. And so you see, it is a
great question.
Every pupil wants to impress their
teacher. Peter is no different. He wants Jesus to be impressed with him – impressed with the great depth of his kindness and
goodness. And so he asks the question
just knowing the answer will of course be something along the lines of: “Seven times. Well, Peter that is above and
beyond. I was going to say once is
enough. Your generosity astounds
me. I mean, seven times!”
Peter really just asks the wrong
person. Jesus' standards are always
ridiculously high. If he would have
asked me, for example, the same question
he would have likely received the answer for which he was looking. I'm impressed any time someone chooses to
forgive at all because many people do not forgive those who wrong them. Seven times then sounds like a lot of times
to forgive someone.
It is difficult to get a pat on the
head from Jesus; he is a pusher. Jesus
heard Peter's offer and raised it. Jesus
essentially says to Peter: just keep doing it.
Don't give up at seven.
Forgiveness is a hard subject. We're always looking for the limits. What is good enough. And just when we think we've got it, just
when we, like Peter, think we've become excessively generous with our
forgiveness, Jesus moves the line.
We just marked on Thursday the 13th
anniversary of 9/11. For many of us
there is no better reminder of the burden of forgiveness. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, challenged the depth of our willingness to forgive that which seems
unforgivable. The dancing in the streets
that marked the death of Osama bin-Laden years later proved that most of us
never quite got there.
It is hard. Forgiveness is hard. Not always, of course; there are instances
when forgiveness is easy – like when
the offense is minor, someone parks in our parking spot or bumps into you in
Kroger. The offender says “sorry”; we say “don't worry about it; no problem.” And it is
over. But then there is the big
stuff. It seems like there is always
someone or something that lives just beyond the reach of our forgiveness.
I think forgiveness is so difficult
because we seldom feel like forgiving.
It doesn't necessarily feel good to forgive. It doesn't undo the wrong. Often it feels like a loss, like we're
letting the offender win. It does help
release us from the burden of carrying around bitterness. And from a pragmatic perspective it is
probably better for us to let go of past hurts.
But that doesn't mean it feels good.
Forgiveness does not always take away the pain or heal the scars or even
prevent future violations.
It is not something we feel. It is something we do. Forgiveness is a disciple.
Many consider Jerry Rice the
greatest wide receiver in football history.
But coming out of high school he received no major college scholarship
offers. He attended a small college; he
wasn't the most physically gifted athlete.
He should not have been the best.
But he was incredibly disciplined.
It is said that: “In team workouts he was famous for his hustle; while
many receivers would trot back to the quarterback after catching a pass, Rice
would sprint to the end zone after each reception. He would...continue
practicing long after the rest of the team had gone home. Most remarkable were
his six-days-a-week off-season workouts, which he conducted entirely on his
own. Mornings were devoted to...running a hilly five-mile trail; he would
reportedly run ten forty-meter wind sprints up the steepest part. In the
afternoons he did equally strenuous weight training. [The] workouts became
legendary as the most demanding in the league, and other players would
sometimes join Rice just to see what it was like. Some of [these professional
athletes] got sick before the day was over.”[1] But he kept doing it – and not because it was fun. It was a discipline. And it made him the athlete he wanted to be.
Forgiveness is a discipline. It is not fun. It is a duty.
It is work. But it makes us the
kind of Christians God wants us to be. And so of course seven times is not
enough. We have to do it again and again
every day. Because the pain doesn't
usually leave after the first time; the memory doesn't magically
disappear. You might find there are
certain people who wronged you terribly; who scarred you in ways that cannot be
undone; there might be people you need to forgive every single day of your life
because you live with the pain they caused every single day of your life. Forgiveness is often not a ‘want to’; but it is
a ‘need to.’
Forgiveness only makes sense
through the eyes of God's mercy – a mercy
that transgresses the limits of fairness.
God's forgiveness always crosses the line – offends
even our generosity. And that is Jesus'
challenge in today's Gospel. If Peter
would have suggested seventy-seven times Jesus would have still offered a
higher number. There is no limit to the
mercy God shows us. And that is why we
are challenged by Jesus to forgive and forgive and forgive without
reservation. Not because it is nice or
because it is easy or because it feels good but because it is the way of God's
kingdom.
Forgiveness is like breaking open
your heart to let God's kingdom come into the world. It is costly and painful; it's
heart-breaking. Forgiveness is a loss. When you truly forgive someone who has
wronged you, sinned against you, hurt you, you take the loss. It is not fair, but in a winner-take-all
world, Jesus is asking us to take the loss.
But why should we? Why should we take the loss when vengeance is
an option? Why take the loss when you
could have the win? Long ago, there was “a meeting [in a monastic community] about a brother
who had sinned. The Fathers spoke, but [one
of the monks,] Abba Pior, kept silence.
Later, he got up and went out; he took a sack, filled it with sand and
carried it on his shoulder. He put a
little sand also into a small bag which he carried in front of him. When the Fathers asked him what this meant he
said, 'In this sack which contains much sand, are my sins which are many; I
have put them behind me so as not to be troubled about them and so as not to
weep; and see here are the little sins of my brother which are in front of me
and I spend my time judging them. This
is not right, I ought rather to carry my sins in front of me and concern myself
with them, begging God to forgive me for them.' The Fathers stood up and said,
'Truly, this is the way of salvation.'”[2]
We are all debtors – both victims and perpetrators – with nothing to do but collapse into the mercy of
God. And that means, in life, we have a
choice: to look obsessively for all of the ignorant, stupid, evil, misguided
things that other people do or to look past all of that and gaze into the
overwhelming mercy of God. Which is not
to say that we don't confront sin in the life of the Church and the World; we
are called to defend the vulnerable and protect the suffering. But evil can only be overcome with good; the
sin of the world can only be overcome with love; a history of destructive
cycles can only be overcome with forgiveness.
Forgiveness has never been
easy. And never cheap. Forgiveness comes into the world through the
broken body and broken heart of God. In
a winner-take-all world, God already took the loss. So that we might be forgiven – again and again and again. And so that we in turn might forgive – again and again and again.
GREAT message son.
ReplyDelete