Sermon for September 13, 2020 - The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 19A - The Rev'd Jeffrey W. Mello

Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 14:1-12;  Matthew 18:21-35  

Archbishop Desmond Tutu says, “Those who say forgiving is a sign of weakness haven’t tried it.”

Forgiveness is a tricky topic in the church.  Much like “sin” or “salvation” or even “kingdom of heaven” (also featured in today’s gospel), the concept of forgiveness requires a bit of unpacking before we can proceed with any possible application for our own lives.

For many of you, the word “forgiveness” brings up impossible standards, such as Joseph forgiving his brothers after they plotted his death, as we heard in our reading from Genesis this morning, or Jesus on the cross speaking the unimaginable “forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” 

For some, the call to forgive feels deeply wrong, because there are people, groups of people, and institutions who have hurt you deeply, betrayed you, or abused you, and the expectation that you would forgive your perpetrator feels like just one more abuse on top of all the others.

Everytime I preach this Gospel, or talk about forgiveness, I try to be very intentional to draw the distinction between forgiveness and condoning, between forgiving and forgetting, between forgiving and denying the truth.

In our current national context, I wondered how communities of color might hear a Word about forgiveness. 

The anger and built up frustration with our country’s historic unwillingness to address the violence perpetrated upon communities of color is pushed back upon, tamped down and even the nonviolent protest is booed in football stadiums.  

Violence on property is vehemently condemned while the violence on black and brown bodies continues to be tolerated, rationalized and explained away.

How much like the first servant in today’s Gospel is the white supremist culture in our country;  others must forgive us for our negligence, while we refuse to forgive the response our 400 years of negligence incites.

We elevate grand, miraculous acts of forgiveness. Like Joseph with his brothers and Jesus on the cross, we remember the Amish who forgave in the wake of a mass shooting.  We remember the relatives of those killed at Charleston’s Emanuel AME church forgiving the one who killed them while at bible study.

I think these stories make the news and attract our imagination because of how impossible they sound to us, were we the ones in the position to forgive.  But it also creates a dangerous narrative that grace-filled forgiveness is the only appropriate response to being wronged.  Anything else is less than Christian, sinful even.  We, as a society, ask “Why can’t you be more like those nice victims of hatred, and forgive? If they can do it, why can’t you?  Why can’t they?  Why can’t I”

And that false dichotomy prevents far too many of us from exploring the possibility of practicing forgiveness in our own lives.  Forgiveness, as it is taught to us, is unattainable, it is impossible, or it appears to condone the transgression, or dishonor the pain and the loss we have experienced.

But that’s not the forgiveness to which we are called.  That is not the forgiveness Jesus is talking to Peter about and it is not the forgiveness that Jesus himself practiced in his own life.

This conversation with Peter comes just after last week’s instructions on how to be in disagreement and remain in relationship.

How many times will I need to forgive the ones I love?

Over and over and over and over again.

Forgiveness is not a “one and done” event.  It isn’t, in our everyday lives, like the climactic moment of a Hallmark movie or reality show.  Forgiveness is a practice, it is a way of life for those of us who want to taste a bit of the world as God imagines it for us.  

Forgiveness isn’t really about the other person, at all.  It is about freeing us from the hold the other person holds on us. Forgiveness can be practiced completely separately from apology or even acknowledgment.  Forgiveness can be practiced without the perpetrator ever even knowing it.  We can forgive even those who are no longer alive to hear our words of forgiveness.

Elsewhere in scripture, Jesus tells his followers to “shake the dust off their feet” should they encounter a town who does not want what they are trying to offer.  

Shaking the dust meant not carrying the weight of one town into the next.  It meant to start fresh, free from the burden of old hurts and past transgressions.

Forgiveness is about freedom, but it is about the forgiver’s freedom, not the forgiven’s.

Forgiveness is the best way to understand the mercy that God shows us, the forgiveness we receive constantly from the one who made us and loves us enough to forgive us over and over and over again.

In today’s parable, the fact that the first servant ends up in eternal torment isn’t supposed to be teaching us about the character of the God of Love.  Ours is not a God that longs to torment us for our inability to show the same kind of grace to others that God shows us.

The eternal torment comes from the servant's unwillingness to forgive the other servant.  Without giving forgiveness, the servant can never know the kind of forgiveness they have been given.  And their life is so much the worse because of it.  

Attributed to many, but thought to come out of AA, there is a great truth that says “withholding forgiveness is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Notice that, at the beginning of the parable, Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven is like.”  What he means there is not about what happens to us when we die, and what we need to get to the “Good place.”  What he means is that to experience the reality of God in our lives, here and now, this is how it works.

Withholding forgiveness means never really knowing how forgiven we are.

Forgiving isn’t about condoning, or accepting, or subjecting ourselves to repeated transgressions.  Practicing forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves, not to earn God’s forgiveness, but to feel the enormous grace and mercy of the forgiveness we have already been given.

You are loved.  You are free.  You are forgiven.  Who might you need to forgive to know just how loved, how free and how forgiven you are?

AMEN.

© 2020 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello