September 17, 2023 ~ 16th Sunday after Pentecost
Rev. Beckie Sweet ~ Cultivating God’s Love in Humanity
What a week to be focusing on mercy, forgiveness, grace! Monday was the anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attack which killed nearly 3,000 and injured more than 6,000. Friday was the 60th Anniversary of the KKK bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church, which killed four black girls, and injured many more. All week we heard about the search for escaped convicted murderer, Danilo Cavalcante, who had stabbed his girlfriend 38 times in front of her children.
What does it really mean to forgive someone? That was the opening question in a sermon on “The Hard Work of Forgiveness,” offered by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford. What does it really mean to forgive someone? Sometimes we operate with the assumption that everyone knows what it means to forgive, and that everyone strives for forgiveness. But this particular week challenges all of those assumptions.
Forgive(ness): to grant pardon for or remission of an offense, debt, etc…; to cease to feel resentment against; to cancel an indebtedness or liability.
Mercy: compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or another person in one’s power; the discretionary power of a judge to pardon someone or to mitigate punishment; an act of kindness, compassion, or favor; something that gives evidence of divine favor or blessing
Grace: the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God; the influence or Spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them; grace is love and mercy given to us by God because God wants us to have it ~ NOT because of anything we have done to deserve it.
We begin to learn about forgiveness as a practice from a very young age, being instructed to say “I’m sorry,” and then “It’s ok. I forgive you” when something happens that hurts another person. But, as we get older and life gets more complicated, we discover there is far more to it than your cart bumping into someone else at the grocery store or even taking someone else’s toy away in the sandbox.
The truth is that life sometimes hurts; not just in general, but in specific, tangible ways that cause us real harm, emotionally, mentally, and even physically. And when we are hurt, or when someone we love is injured, forgiveness is often the farthest thing from our first response. Sure, we hear countless instructions to forgive, but when it comes down to putting them into practice, we humans often balk. Perhaps because we don’t quite know what forgiveness really looks like, or how exactly we are to go about it. “How many times must I forgive?”
That essentially is the question Peter is asking Jesus at the onset of today’s gospel reading. His suggestion of seven times is no accident – that is the biblical signifier of what is complete or perfect. Peter, not surprisingly, wants to get it right. He’s not asking the Rabbi what the bare minimum requirement is to pass the class; Peter wants to ace the exam with a perfect score. Jesus replies, though, with an astronomical figure – seventy-times seven. This isn’t just math to get him to the number 490. It is the response that forgiveness requires something even beyond perfection. Let that sink in for a minute. The goal is to learn and practice the patterns of mercy and forgiveness so frequently that we begin to fill a reservoir of grace which feeds our relationships. Grace upon grace, as I like to put it, so that our relationships more closely resemble Christ’s love.
How can one expect to achieve that?!? There is hope in this initial response from Jesus; he indicates that forgiveness is not so much about a check-list or sticker chart or final exam, but instead is about ongoing discipleship. Put another way, forgiveness must become a way of life. Grace Upon Grace!
One illustration of this can be seen in the Amish community. Typically, when we think about the Amish, our first images are of buggies, quilts, jams, and barn-raisings, or perhaps what we’ve gleaned from a reality television series; but an even better marker of Amish life and culture is seen in their practice of faith.
Amish people are likely to say that they are simply trying to be obedient to Jesus Christ, who commanded his followers to do so many peculiar things, such as love, bless, and forgive their enemies.
Almost 17 years ago, on October 2, 2006, tragedy came to Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania as a gunman entered the local Amish school, leading to a hostage situation that killed five schoolgirls and left five others seriously wounded. It was a devastating time that rocked this small, close-knit community and brought about intense media coverage to a culture that avoids the spotlight. Almost as shocking as the violence, though, was the response from the families and community of the victims.
Even as outsiders were responding with compassion for the Amish community in the wake of the shooting, the Amish themselves were doing another kind of work. Softly, subtly, and quietly, they were beginning the difficult task of forgiveness. . . . Within a few hours of the shooting, some Amish people were already reaching out to the killer’s family.
Some went to find the gunman’s wife, children, and extended family, offering words of sympathy and love and forgiveness. As cameras and bright lights shone in field interviews and questions came from tv hosts, the refrain was similar: the Amish insisted that they forgave the gunman almost immediately. A few days later, the community showed up at the gunman’s funeral, and even reached out with financial support for his family. Several weeks later they met with the gunman’s wife and other members of his family at a local firehouse. In each of these, and the relationship-building instances that followed, the Amish community modeled an authentic and powerful witness of what forgiveness looks like. It almost sounds too good to be true; inconceivable to even those who consider themselves faithful Christians.
In response, a trio of professors worked to explore more about the notion of forgiveness and grace in the Amish community and the implications for the rest of us, interviewing dozens of Amish people from Nickel Mines and beyond. They shared this work in a book titled Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, which inspired a Lifetime Movie a few years later. It’s worth a read or view as we consider our own theological understanding of forgiveness.
As they spoke with the Amish about forgiveness, they found a strong rooting in the community’s belief that forgiveness was an expectation for what it means to follow Jesus Christ. The most prominent citation given from scripture was the parable we read today from Matthew 18, often known as the parable of the unforgiving or unmerciful servant. It is a parable of extremes. Just as Peter and Jesus used big, epic terms in their exchange in the preceding verses, Jesus introduces characters with larger-than-life debts and responses. The concept of ten thousand bags of gold was astronomical. The amount that the royal official owed the ruler was absurd. The concept of the ruler forgiving that amount of debt? Also absurd. Thus, the illustration shows a measure of grace in abundance. It is a seventy-times-seven kind of forgiveness of debt. In contrast, of course, is the response of the royal official to the one who owes him a debt, comparatively miniscule at only a hundred silver coins. While we might expect a repeat of the grace extended to him, instead we see quite the opposite. And the ruler summons the official to make it clear that this isn’t how it works.
In the face of tragedy, and other instances of loss and pain both intentional and accidental, the Amish seem to do the impossible. As the professors discovered in their research, it is largely because, for the Amish, forgiveness is a way of life. It is some of what marks them as a community, and is practiced in smaller ways, which makes the practice of it on such epic levels not as outlandish as it may seem. This fits with the understanding of the pattern that Jesus gave to Peter, a repeated, ongoing forgiveness, seventy-times-seven, might lead to an embodiment of grace upon grace even in the most trying of circumstances.
Forgiveness, on its most basic level, is a letting go. Many offer that it is a choice that we make, regardless of remorse shown. It is both psychological and social; it happens both internally within ourselves and externally as we engage with other people. Forgiveness is freeing, for more than just the one who might receive it. It is also freeing for the one who does the forgiving.
But, as with most things that are ultimately good for us, it’s often not the most attractive option unless we make efforts for it to become our pattern. Our nature seems to be to get sucked into our own anger and the need for revenge to settle the score. Such an attitude breeds resentment, which is when we re-live that anger over and over again. Incidentally, that’s one of the signs that you haven’t really forgiven – if you are re-living all of those emotions over and over again. Forgiveness calls for a release of the harms that bind us. This is what makes it such a theologically important concept – when we let go of that resentment and anger and relinquish the grudges we have, we open up space – space to experience all of the other emotions present in our lives; space to experience grief if we need to grieve, joy and hope in the promises of a brighter tomorrow, and time to work through other things that prevent us from living the lives God intends for us. Most of all, forgiveness offers us the space to experience God’s grace and love more fully.
Let me be clear, though: forgiveness is not just “getting over it.” It is not pretending that some wrong did not occur or forgetting that it happened or acting like the harm done is ok by condoning or excusing it. And it most certainly does not mean putting ourselves in positions where we continue to subject ourselves to harm. “Seventy-times-seven” is not meant to be a number of times which anyone must endure abuse at the hands of another. Rather, forgiveness is naming the offense and declaring that it should not be repeated. Forgiveness is also declaring that the offense will no longer take hold in our lives. Forgiveness proclaims that mercy and grace are what will define us.
I think that’s what Jesus was hoping for in his conversation with Peter, and in the following parable; that the lives of the disciples would be marked by forgiveness, mercy, and grace. Forgiveness can certainly open the door to reconciliation and grace to the restoring of relationships. In the instance of the tragedy in Nickel Mines, it did just that, as the community came together and continued to be in relationship with the gunman’s family, who they saw as victims as well. Such a move, though, can only come with a renewal of trust, which may not always be possible. If you aren’t able to get to that point of reconciliation, right now, or ever, that is ok. Focus your work on that of forgiveness – it may be enough for you to handle.
Forgiveness calls attention to our humanness at its most human. It reduces us to our most base of instincts, and challenges us with the hard work of responding in the way of Christ instead. Examples like that of the Amish, or the lessons taught by Jesus, can be daunting. They are big. Larger than seems possible. We need such big images to begin to wrap our heads around the nature of God. And such seemingly unreachable examples might just be what we need to begin to take even a little step in the direction forgiveness, mercy, and grace upon grace. One opportunity at a time, then seven, then seventy times seven. May we, little by little, move more into the ways of God’s grace. Amen.