Love and Forgiveness: Do They Matter? A Sermon by Rev. Won-Jae Hur - October 20, 2024

Pent 22 (Is 53:4-12, Ps 91:9-16, Heb 5:1-10, Mk 10:35-45)

10/20/2024

The gospel and other readings today make the claim that loving service to others has the power to bring life and freedom out of unmerited suffering and death. Does love have any real power today in a world beset by overwhelming injustice and violence? Can we stake our lives as Jesus and his disciples did on the promise that the costly way of love saves and liberates us and others?

Let me share a story of one person who helped me answer that question. I first met Richard Moore as a second year phd student when a friend invited me to visit and attend his talk at Emory University. Richard grew up in the Catholic estate of Creggan during the Troubles in Derry, Northern Ireland. 1972 proved to be a fierce year for his family. Richard’s maternal uncle died at the hands of a paratrooper during the infamous civil rights march on January 30th, Bloody Sunday. Five months later, ten-year old Richard was walking by an army post on his way home from school when a British solider shot a rubber bullet at him. The bullet struck the bridge of his nose and severly damaged his eyes. Several days after he returned home from the hospital, he was eager to get back to playing (football) soccer with his friends. But one of his brothers took him for a walk in their back garden and told him that he wouldn’t be able to see again. For some reason, Richard said, he simply accepted his blindness as a fact and moved on. He never felt depressed or angry. He also never felt any bitterness at the solider who had shot him. 

Richard finished university, got married, and later became the owner of two pubs in Derry. Although he was leading a full and happy life, a desire grew in him to meet the British solider who had shot him. He found a way to track down the soldier, whose name was Charles, and asked for a meeting with him in 2006. In his communication, Richard said he did not harbor any resentment toward Charles and was not asking to meet him to confront him about the past. He only wanted a chance to talk to the man who had had such a huge impact on his life.

I was mystified by Richard’s telling of that encounter. Richard said that sitting with Charles over a pint and talking to him was “an amazing experience.” He did not feel any anger or hatred toward Charles because he had already forgiven him in his heart. “Forgiveness,” Richard said, “is a gift to yourelf. It doesn’t depend on what the person who harmed you does or doesn’t do. And I’ve discovered that you can’t change the past, but you can change the future.” Richard and Charles became good friends, and they have traveled the world, talking about the power of forgiveness and compassion. I later heard from a friend that when Richard met Charles for the first time, he said he felt in the depth of his heart that something was being set right in the world at that moment, a moment forged by a spirit of forgiveness and love. 

It was a powerful story, but I was left wondering, “But how did he come to forgive Charles? What was the process?” When I asked him later, Richard said that his capacity to forgive so freely came from the power of his parents’ love after he lost his sight. His mother and father never spoke an angry word about the soldier. When one of his brothers wanted to take revenge, his mother would tell him, “If you are going to do anything, do something that’s actually going to help Richard!” They made sure that Richard heard only words of love and support, and never hate or vengeance. But the choice to show love and refuse hate was costly for his parents. His mother’s was striken with such grief that the family worried she would harm herself. His father died several years later, and the toll that the shooting took on him likely contributed to his untimely death. Richard says he has no doubt that it was only their prayer of deep faith, the church, and the tremendous support of the community that allowed his parents to pull through those years. 

His parents’ love, even in their heartbreak, and the love shown by the larger family and community freed Richard from the burden of anger and hatred and allowed him to live an amazing life of compassion and service to countless people. In 1996 he founded an organization called Children in Crossfire, which serves children who suffer from poverty across the world. The Dalai Lama calls Richard his hero, and they have collaborated to provide compassion-based educational training for teachers and students in Ireland and beyond. 

To me, Richard and his parents are examples of the truth that Jesus teaches in today’s gospel: that there is a form of power that is greater than domination over others, which is loving service. The price his parents paid to choose that path over hatred and retribution, especially at a place and time when that choice was so easy and so widespread, was immense. But in the long run, their path saved Richard and through him transformed the lives of countless individuals and communities around the world.

A person, a community that chooses the path of love and service in this world are bound to suffer, because our world is broken and the way of domination still rules much of it. But those who walk this path with Jesus, praying with loud cries and tears for the world, bring light where it’s most needed and help repair the world God so loves. The servant song in Isaiah 53 is not just about an individual whose undeserved suffering leads to redemption. It is about God’s community facing evil and suffering head on with a determined commitment to nonviolent love, and the nuclear power that unleashes to redeem what’s lost and bring life even from death. To be such a community was the call of the disciples living under the violence of Roman oppression. And that is the call for us now as God’s church today, as our world faces similar challenges of violent divisions and new crises that have little precedent. Will we run in the face of these challenges, or will we listen and answer the call that God has prepared for us as St. Paul’s Church, at this time and place, to be a sign of just and reconciling love in a world starved for it? As Christ is with us, we will listen. We will answer. We are up to the task.