“Discipleship By Listening”

Jonah 3: 1-5, 10

After the whale, Jonah had a sense of urgency about time.  He felt something big was about to happen.  He said to himself, in essence, “I don’t have much time left. I need to act now.”  “Forty Days,” he cried to the king.

Unfortunately, the modern church is on a similar time frame.  Our anxieties generally remain focused on the short term.   Some issue needs to be fixed, now.  You will read in your annual report, there were some moments of financial uncertainty during the last year.  And most of the hand-wringing over this fiscal anxiety produced questions about how we will meet the budget this year. I know, it does not relieve the angst felt by so many to suggest to fearful folk that through faithful discipleship, stewardship really, these issues can eventually come to heel.  Anxiety is for now.

Hope is for later.  It is not so much that we don’t have hope, but that it rests in something off in the distance.

Too often, I think, modern congregations like us have become so captivated by the second coming of Christ that we fail to emphasize that he came in the first place.  Many things can be postponed “until the Lord comes.”   These things do not only apply to macro level concerns like world peace or the end of racism.  These postponed opportunities to act also concern those things as important as adapting our way of life together to serve our changing society, and adjusting service of this same God, so that the kingdom might be experienced here and now.  See there is a generalized sentiment that even the worst among us are not beyond the ability of the coming Christ to redeem.  So what we do, as much as anything, is bide our time, bop along, avoiding what God would have us do.  Jonah believed this.

The problem with this is that every little success will get in the way.  Meeting a budget can get in the way of doing the heart-searching work of being a good steward.  Receiving enough members to offset those who die or move or whatever can stall the important work of evangelism.  These days, even the ability to keep the church doors open can be the enemy of the change we should be making, or becoming the church we should be being.

I shouldn’t say should, let me say instead ‘the people and congregation God is calling us to be.’

Fortunately, we have the tradition of reading the creeds, why occasionally we even drag out the Heidelberg Catechism.  These should be dusted off from time to time to remind us of our purpose.  It is purpose that keeps us going in the right direction.   No amount of right thinking will move us in the way we think God is calling us.  We must put one foot in front of the other.  Remembering who we are called to be is important.

Strategy is also important.  Nothing wrong with a strategy, but to behave strategically we need to understand what our purpose is.  Purpose is a map that describes a destination.  Purpose helps to focus our attention.  I believe that our purpose is to make and strengthen disciples.  This idea is important because we can either become a church that we form ourselves to be, or we become a church that the world or others make us be.

Knowing who we are called to be is a matter of purpose, it is a matter of faith.

Nevertheless, whatever goals we may establish for ourselves, by whatever creeds we live, by whatever purpose we are guided, Jonah reminds us that we should not be surprised by a sudden change in direction. This does not mean that our purpose has changed, or that God’s intentions toward us has changed.  It may be that God is redirecting us in ways that we should have gone in the first place.  Jonah heads out for Tarshish and ends up in Nineveh.  The proud King removes his robes and humbles himself in sackcloth and ashes.  And a close reading of the original Hebrew reveals that even God’s mind is changed.

Finally, let me say something about this purpose of the church that I’ve spoken about.  Disciples must be formed through faith practices.  The Ninevites did not simply say “I am sorry.”  No, they engaged in lament, in prayerful contrition.  This was a faith practice, it was a ritual, a sign, of their convictions.

Discipleship requires support.  Discipleship is not easy and so, even believing we have arrived, we all need a supportive faith community to call ‘home.’  And this home is not made up of folks who look exactly like you.  Did you ever notice that the Apostles were not called for themselves?  Did you realize that Jonah was not called to speak to the Israelites?  He was called to speak the word of the Lord to the hated Assyrians (whom God forgave by the way).

Despite the immaturity and the inadequacy displayed by Jonah in the story, the grace of God was manifested magnificently, and the “bottom line” of the story was good news for any wanna be disciples who listen, just as it is even now.

“In the Wideness of God’s Mercy”

Luke 2:8-20

With no joking involved, I recently told a friend that the festival of “Festivus” has begun.

You may remember that this festival was an invention of George Castanza on the favorite sitcom, Seinfeld. George described it as: “a feast,” and then “feats of strength” where the head of the household must be pinned. The holiday is marked by an unadorned aluminum pole, as opposed to the Christmas tree. But the part of Festivus that I was referring to was the initial activity, “the airing of grievances.” In many places and in many ways, people begin this holiday weekend on the crabby side, and so it seems airing your grievances to other people begins our festival as well.

Remember how Charles Dickens began his novel, “A Tale of Two Cities”? It began, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” That is what Luke is saying here as he lays the groundwork for the story of the birth of Jesus.

Many of you have read Scott Peck’s book “The Road Less Traveled.” You may recall the opening line of that book, a three word sentence: “Life is difficult.” St. Luke is describing just such a situation here in Bethlehem. Luke is saying, “Life was difficult beyond belief in those days.” And life is again difficult in our day. The economy, although some say is recovering, is bad. Family life faces strains and stresses that we have yet to conquer. The difficulties for each of us are both of our own creation and beyond our control.

This text is unlike most stories about God. Usually there are folk watching the horizon for the comming of someone to fix the gone wrongness of the world. There is a hair shirt prophet telling people they had better shape up or God is going to come down here and straighten things out, and God is coming with a rod or with love, which is it going to be? So people have their gaze fixed, from earth to heaven, watching, waiting.

But this is not how this story goes…at least here in Luke. In Luke’s gospel, heaven is pointing down to earth, intruding, saying, “look, the Savior is here…in your midst.”

So it is with this festival here tonight. It is an intrusion into a world whose gaze, lets face it, is directed elsewhere. We have come to turn our attention to the announcement made to shepherds long ago: “look, in the midst of difficult days, in the wideness of God’s mercy, God sends us hope for the future.”

The coming of Christ into the world announces the wonderful news that God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love. Some of us may be tempted to believe that there is no God. Or, if God exists, God is an absentee landlord who has resigned from running the universe. We’re on our own now. We cannot expect any help from God. We must face life by ourselves. “Just look at the world,” they say. “Look at the cruelty, the violence, and the despair.” How can there be a God with such a world? But the coming of Christ into the world is proof positive that God cares for us and loves us. It shows that we matter to Him. It shows that although we are not worthy, God counts us as worthy.

This is not only hope for us as individuals, but also hope for the whole creation. You might replay all of the natural disasters we’ve heard about this last year. Maybe in your mind you are replaying violence between nations and their peoples, I don’t know. I do know that even if I was not leading worship here tonight I would still be here, because whatever pain or unworthiness I may feel, I want to be interrupted by the Word that comes from outside myself and begs me to see things differently.

In the wonderful operetta, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Amahl, hearing the description of the Christ child, cries in joy, “For such a king I’ve been waiting all my life.” Haven’t all of us been waiting for such a king? A king who can dispel our fears and empower us to live with hope and confidence? Now we can take heart. We need no longer be afraid, for to us “is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.”

Amen.

December 18, 2011

“Where Joy Comes From”

Luke 1:46-55

⁴⁶ And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord ⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸ for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, ⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name. ⁵⁰ His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. ⁵¹ He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. ⁵² He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. ⁵³ He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful ⁵⁵ to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.”

 I once heard that the difference between happiness and joy was that happiness depends on your circumstances but joy comes from God.   This may be true because Joy is something deeper than gladness. It is certainly not some ‘be happy attitude.’ Joy, is not a flood of emotions, but rather a sustaining tide that may sweep me off my feet…just as it does Mary.

Mary has experienced great joy, and I wonder about it, as one who desires it, and as one who believes that we all need it.

It is one thing to wander around searching for something, and it is quite another thing to have an idea what it is you are searching for.  Joy is not happiness.  If you go around looking for things that make you happy, you might well have periods of smiling faces and laughter but you will not have joy.

Mary cannot be happy about her situation.  This season, above all others it seems, finds many people…not happy, but actually unhappy.  It is easy to feel the unease of people around us.  You do not need special colored glasses to see the negative feelings that people have about themselves and the future, and to experience the dark contagion of their feelings.[1]  Christmas, let’s be honest, is a time that brings to our remembrance occasions in our lives that were not particularly happy, or joyful.  Still, the angel tells her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” It is impossible to see Mary’s song as merely naïve. No Jew living in Roman-occupied Israel could think the lowly were being lifted up. Instead, Mary has come to see that what God is doing through her is a sign that all of God’s promises are as good as fulfilled. God is faithful, and the old way of doing things is as good as gone now that God is becoming human through her child Jesus. God’s kingdom is breaking into our world in a new and marvelous way that makes it clear that the lowly are as good as lifted up and the hungry are as good as filled with good things.

Yet, here we have this young girl, who has received the word of her situation.  This is not a word delivered by a wand that produced a blue stripe.  The word has not come from the hand of a family physician, accompanied by the warm embrace of a spouse.  This girl receives the word without anticipation, in a social situation where it is not good news.  This news may land her out on the street, banished from her future husband’s home and shamed by her family.  This is not 2012, where Mary may get some assistance from a social service agency, go to night classes, get her GED, maybe go to college, meet a nice boy and have a nice life.  This situation is grim.  And yet, we have this beautiful prose from her lips that has become a favorite of Christians for a millennia.

Mary sings that this is not some new thing God is doing, but it is in fulfillment of all that God has promised Israel. The God of Israel is now acting in human history in such a way that it will not just break the kingdom of God into this age for the Jews, but for all humanity.

Jesus will affirm the very things his mother now sings. Jesus continually reminded his disciples in different ways that the last would be first, and the first would be last. He preached that those who exalt themselves will be humbled. Jesus said blessed are the poor, the hungry, and those who weep, for God will give them the kingdom, fill them with food, and exchange their tears for laughter. Jesus told his followers that he came to serve, and those who follow him must also be servants. Jesus’ whole ministry lived out the words his mother sang, showing how God’s kingdom is radically different from our present age.

In Mary’s Song, the Magnificat, we see in hymn form that the kingdom of God has broken into our present age. No one is too lowly, too weak, or too undesirable for God. There are no outcasts in God’s kingdom. God does not look to the outward signs of status and success, but rather God looks at the content of your heart.

Of today’s gospel lesson, Frederick Buechner, in his book Peculiar Treaures, wrote:

“She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. ‘You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,’ he said. And as he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.”

And so it goes with us, much of the time. God’s messengers come to remind us that what is happening around us is not the final word.  God’s Word is the final word, and all we need to do is turn our trust toward it and say yes.

Still, we cling to what we know, the ordinary life that pays the bills. But God keeps calling and, surprisingly, is often answered by the least among us, the most unlikely people from the provinces. It is the barren Hannahs, and innocent Marys who hear and believe, and experience true joy.

True joy comes from saying yes to God. 

As many times as we turn away from their witness, God has put us together on the road to Jerusalem. It is never the right time, and we are never ready. We have other, more important things to do and places to be. The burden is too great for us to carry. But once we say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord,” the angel will depart, and the path will open before us. We can trust that even in this violent, unjust and despairing world, God’s word of hope is true, and we will sing it with joy “from generation to generation.”

Next to the closet that contains my vestments, near the door of my study, I have a small plaque that reads: vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit.  It is Latin, from the writings of Erasmus.  It means: Bidden or unbidden, God is present.  In other words, God is present in all things.

This is a not so subtle reminder to me that I have a choice.  I can notice that God is generously present in all things, and in all situations, or I can ignore this reality. 

Read Mark, chapter 8:1-10. This is Mark’s account of the feeding of the 4000. The people sat down, Jesus asked how much food there was and they told him: nothing but one boy’s lunch.  They could have complained that there was so little.  To these people, probably already on the margins of society, they could have lamented, here we go again.  Instead, Jesus paid attention to what was offered, gave thanks to God, and distributed what there was.  In those ‘less than perfect’ circumstances, somehow, God provided all that was needed.

In prayer, notice your tendency to make comparisons that result in feelings of dissatisfaction or entitlement.  Practice giving up comparative statements about what you have or don’t have.  Instead, give thanks for what you do have. (Gratitude, from Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, “Spiritual Disciplines Handbook,” p. 30

It is a discipline to stitch our days together with the thread of gratitude.  And, the decision to do so is guaranteed to stitch us closer to God, who is present, bidden or unbidden.

So tomorrow, Veterans Day, i’ll pray this prayer, and remember my friend Spence. [Command Sgt. Major Spencer L. Gilliard]

O God, we give you thanks today for our nation’s veterans.
We honor them for their faithful service to our country,
and for what they have done
to defend and preserve our freedom.
Generation after generation,
young men and women
have answered our country’s call,
and their lives have been changed forever.
We are grateful to all who have served,
whether in peacetime or in conflict.
But today we especially remember
those who have been tempered by fire,
those who continue to bear wounds
of the body or the spirit
as a result of what they endured.
They lie in our veterans’ hospitals
or struggle for recovery in rehabilitation centers;
they suffer from post-traumatic stress
and survivor’ guilt;
they yearn for peace in their souls.
Dear God, we ask you to heal their wounds,
to banish whatever inner demons may haunt them,
and to give them peace within
so they may return fully to their families and to society.
We thank you, God, for all of our country’s veterans
—those of past generations,
and those who continue to earn this title today.
May we never forget what our country has asked of them
and what they have given in return.
Help us to give them the respect and honor they are due.
And strengthen our resolve
to build a world modeled on your realm,
where war will be pursued no more.
This we ask in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Amen.

[from UCC Worship Ways, "With Gratitude and Honor" 2008]

Monday night came with me feeling refreshed and ready to jump back in to the very busy ministry I share with the good folks at St. John’s.

Getting ready for bed I had a, let’s call it a twinge.  A familiar twinge in my right flank.  A twinge that telegraphed obstruction in the right ureter.  By midnight, I was waking up my wife to ‘take me to the ER or put me out of my misery’.  The next morning my Urologist saw me in the hospital and said, well, the lazer worked for 9 months but now we have to do ‘that surgery we talked about.’  ’Fine,’ I said, ‘how about this afternoon?’  ’Come on, you know it doesn’t work that way…how about 2 weeks?’

So last Wednesday with a host of preoperative tests and procedures done, the surgery was completed and the obstruction is ‘permenantly’ resolved.  There were sacary moments here and there, complications, setbacks, etc., but the recovery itself has been progressing.

Now, to do nothing for a week.

I a frustrated that this whole thing comes during the peak time of the Pennsylvania Archery seasons (my wife says if I say that one more time she’ll do something painful with an arrow to my anatomy).

I am frustrated that this whole thing comes at a particularly busy time in the life of our church.  We have a new secretary, we are getting ready for a mission emphasis called “Mission 1″, Advent is just around the corner, and a new Director of Music begins in 3 weeks.  In short, I don’t have time for the nonsense of a compromised health condition.

I am so eager for this procedure to WORK, however that for once I am inclined to listen to my physicians instructions and take it easy this week.  I’ve decided to be vigilant in prayer the hours and to do some reading and thinking that I’ve wanted to do for some time.

I’ve gotten back to reading “Cult and Controversy: The Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass,”  ”The Pastor: A Spirituality” by Gordon Lathrop, and for the hours I am using a book given to me by one of our Prayer Team: “Praying with the Earth: A prayer book for peace” by John Philip Newell.

I have read Lathrop before and he and I have an ongoing dialogue over this particular piece.  The Nathan Mitchell book is something I’ve been whittling away at.  Newell is not new to me (by reputation), but I’ve not read his stuff before.

I was struck, this time, when Lathrop quotes Aidien Kavanaugh: “Reverence is a virtue, not a neurosis, and God can take care of himself.”

This quote is in the context of liturgical leadership.  I think the same could be said about other aspects of ministry…reverence is a virtue, not a neurosis.

I insisted, to myself at least, that I would not perseverate about everything happening at church while I was here ‘doing nothing.’

I did do everything that I could do, prior to this sick leave, to ensure that others could do what they needed to do.   You could say that I was ‘reverent’ to the ways others would break the bread, speak the Word, and ensure that there was an offering for the poor.  This is Holy ground best not left to chance or happy accident.

The second part of the quote is the most important: God can take care of himself.  I do not know exactly how everything will occur.  The Lord knows that there will be some whose hackles will be raised should some activity not happen in a prescribed fashion.  There may even be something that doesn’t happen at all.

I do not have time for this recuperation nonsense.  Apparently, one way or another, the church will go on without me, and I needed this time to be reminded that.

This Sunday, for instance, my colleague texted me to let me know they were cancelling church because the power was out.  And for the first time ever, with news like that, I smiled.

October 2, 2011

“Signs of a Real Church”

Matthew 21:33-46

“Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” The answer is obvious, and the tenants offer it: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time”

Last week someone pointed out to me a major error on my part.  Somehow, during the questions of the Confirmands, I forgot to ask them, “Do you proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?”  So, let me ask them that now…

I also ask each of you to consider that question, as I think aloud about this parable.

See, if this question was answered by the tenants in this story affirmatively, and if they followed it, they would not find themselves in a jam when the landowner comes.  After all, they are only asked to serve their Lord.  They are instead self-serving and do everything they can to keep the Lord, the landowner, out of their enterprise.  The gospel tells us that the kingdom will be given to “a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

This story is best understood if we read it carefully, and wonder how it feels to be the tenants.  Last Sunday, I was listening to Garrison Keillor’s program on the radio.  He mentioned the parable from last week, no less challenging than this one, and he said that the “good Lutherans in Lake Woebegone had an opportunity to be confused and depressed by the gospel lesson, and would simply hear it and say, ‘Well, that’s interesting.’”  This ‘Well, Interesting’ is an indication that ‘there you go again, Jesus, giving us a standard that is impossible to live up to.’ These folks, says Keillor, would never object to anything in the gospel, even to a standard they know they cannot keep,  they would  just say, “Well, that’s interesting.”  We know, too, that even parables sometimes point us in a direction we think we cannot go.  Yet, here it is, the gospel tells us that the kingdom will be taken away from tenants who misuse it and given to “a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

This parable does not use the story to set forth the surprising nature and qualities of God’s reign, as do so many others in the Gospels.  There are no signs here, no qualities or activities that a real church might demonstrate.  In other places, Matthew shows us care for those the world disregards and disregard of the world’s standards of strength and honor.  In this Kingdom, Jesus challenges us to do the unthinkable, to turn the other cheek and let others think us weak, to care as much for God’s children who make our clothes and shoes, who mine the ore for our electronics and dispose of the toxic computer monitors we toss out when we’re ready for bigger and better ones, as we do for our own children. Life in this Kingdom challenges us to bless and honor the peacemakers rather than the mighty, to strive for justice and peace and the dignity of every human being above our own comfort.  This text says nothing about the reign of God in Christ, the rule that everyone of us has affirmed when we said “Yes” to the confirmation or baptismal question, “do you profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior” and join the church.  The parable doesn’t talk about any of this, and I wish it did…but it doesn’t. What it does tell us that the kingdom will be given to “a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

At the end, the tenants nice little world is turned upside down.  So what this parable does point out is the futility of debates about, and maintenance programs for, our institutions…as if the church was ours.  If we were to put ourselves in the place of the tenants, and understand the vineyard as the resources we have as members of the Church, it is easy to see that all our handwringing over finances misses the point.   If the tenants were to come to accept that all their resources really belonged to the land owner, their response to the messengers would be different.  The text does not speak about proportional stewardship, or tithing, or anything of the sort.  In this gospel, the landowner wants all of the fruit.  The gospel tells us that the kingdom will be given to “a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

On Wednesday, I was visiting my In-Laws at Phoebe.  Someone over there said to me, “it’s a nice apartment, you can see your steeple from their living room window.”  I said, “if it is a real church, it isn’t my steeple, it’s Christ’s steeple.”

In a church like that we would see the budget as a faith statement.  It would reveal, when we looked down the income ledger, a people who were serious about generosity and gratitude because everything they have belongs to God.  On the expense ledger, it would not only show an emphasis on keeping the place open and well kept, it would show that these people were about the work of the kingdom in a way that recognized that everything was produced to the glory of God.

Some of you get uncomfortable when I do not offer a ‘pick me up’ on Sunday morning…so here it is: If we read this parable carefully, we tenants would see that the terms of God’s relationship to God’s own people are new. Did you notice how there was opportunity after opportunity to receive the message from the Lord and respond with gratitude?  This is not a once and done event.  Here God, over and over, tries to draw the tenants in the vineyard to himself.  The gospel tells us that we have an opportunity, over and over, to be “a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

Fortunately for us the landowner, God, is patient and long-suffering. We are given another chance. We come to Christ’s table today with all of Protestantism, it’s World Communion Sunday, and repent of our sins — sins of commission and sins of omission. The Good News is that in Jesus Christ we are forgiven and given another chance to be faithful tenants who are a blessing to others.

Matthew 21:23-32

When I was finalizing my ideas about this sermon, it was Thursday.  Thursday night is a particularly challenging night at my house.  It is garbage night.  I have two sons who still live at home and whose responsibility is to see to it that the garbage and recycling get out to the curb on Thursday night so that it can be picked up early on Friday morning.

This is particularly important because these young adults stay up much later at night that my wife and I, and they sleep in much later than we do.  So putting the trash out the night before is a necessity.

This is what the Thursday night scene usually looks like: I get home from some meeting here at church about nine-thirty.  The garbage is not at the curb.  I go into the house and find one of them on the computer and the other in front of the TV.  I say, “are you guys going to take the garbage out?”  “Oh yea, Dad,” they say, “just as soon as I am done here. I promise”  But with frustrating frequency I get up in the morning, get ready to come here, and as I leave I notice that there aren’t any garbage cans or recycling bins at the curb.

I know that none of you have problems like this, that someone tells you they are going to do something and then doesn’t do it.  Maybe it was even me who let you down, I don’t know.

What I do know is that in this parable Jesus is telling about the two sons he is not talking about someone who was so busy they simply couldn’t do it.  He wasn’t commenting on any of the possible valid reasons for a disconnect between promise and action.  He is simply pointing out that there is a difference between affirming something with your words and affirming something with your actions.

Today is Confirmation Sunday.  Most of these students are here because their parents took seriously the promises they made more than a decade and a half ago, to see to it that their children affirmed their baptism.

The reality is that this is not the last time they will do this.  No, they will not stand before us again in these white robes and make these promises.  In fact, they will now join us, those of us who have said yes to this Jesus, and affirm their baptism over and over and over again.

They will get a chance to do this every time a baby is baptized, every time a worship leader introduces a creed, “let us say these words we believe,” and every time they must respond in faith with the rest of the congregation, speaking words.  These words, however, and not the most important way we affirm our faith.

Throughout Matthew’s gospel the phrase, “the will of the Father” is used over and over again.  At the very end of the Sermon on the Mount where, in Matthew’s Gospel, the audience is the disciples, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt. 7:21). When Jesus’ family comes to speak with him, Jesus makes the comment, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (12:50).  Jesus tells the parable of the Lost Sheep, concluding with this saying: “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost” (18:14).  Jesus is praying in the Garden in Gethsemane, he says to God, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Mt. 26:42).

To live a life of hearing and doing the will of God is to respect and adhere to Jesus’ authority as teacher and Lord. To live a life in which one gives lip service but not life service to his teachings is to disrespect the authority of Jesus.

We reformed folk do live by grace and not by law.   And, I freely admit that I am prone to distractions and failure of memory.  So, I am thankful for St. Matthew, that this story of the two sons is written down so that I won’t forget what I am supposed to be doing.

September 4, 2011

“The Way of Forgiveness”

Romans 13:8; Matthew 18:18

“See how these Christians love one another,”’ was the pagan observation of the new quality of life among the members of this new sect, alive and growing in second-century Rome. It is tempting to look at the early church and fondly call it the ‘good old days.’  But like most recolections of this kind, it fails to recognize all of the less beautiful aspects of this period.  Still, for this one characteristic, I wonder if this comment can still be made about the church.

If we were somehow able to clothe ourselves in this one quality, love, I am quite sure that the church would see a remarkable change in its popularity and its place in the world.

What is Paul talking about here?  He is talking about the Torah, the Law.  This covenant is often described as having two parts.  The first part refers to the vertical dimension or our relationship with God.   Sometime in chapter eleven, Paul has shifted his focus to the second part…our relationship with others.  In Paul’s summary of the second table of the law, those commandments having to do with our horizontal obligations, he emphasizes that “love” fulfills the law. As he summarizes Leviticus 19, he reminds us of the final word: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is not sentimental, hormonal and romantic “love.” This love is an act of the will. As N. T. Wright says, this “love will grit its teeth and act as if the emotions were in place, trusting they will follow in good time.” This love is not modeled on any emotion or behavior naturally available to us human beings.  It is modeled on the love of Christ. What Paul is suggesting here is that this quality, when lived out, is an essential element of the community, and it is a power that overcomes the world.

I must say that, for the most part, Christianity (if not individual Christians) have forgotten this central tenet of the faith.  I suppose it is easy to forget, even easier to deny, because if most of us really knew that we were signing on to ‘love our neighbors as ourselves’ we may have been more circumspect in our joining this crazy community.

And, if we make even the most casual review of what it is like to be part of a Christian Community, or any community for that matter, we would realize that we are required to forgive each other over and over again so that we might be able to “love one another, as I have loved you.”

The gospel shows us just such a problem: “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” The forgiven community must forgive since we are forgiven first by God. Our temptation can be to exclude, but Jesus set the example for us in the Upper Room. Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray him, but he did not break table fellowship. The invitation remained for Judas to rejoin the community of forgiveness.  This is the “…as I have loved you” part.

Forgiveness, if it is the way to truly love each other, can be a huge barrier to us becoming this kind of community.  I say this because I have witnessed firsthand how difficult this is: to forgive.  I have even had people tell me, people of faith, “I cannot forgive.”  I suspect that they say this because they do not really know what forgiveness looks like, in real life, and not the forgiveness of dreams.

Forgiveness is letting go of the need for revenge and releasing negative thoughts of bitterness and resentment.  We all have certain ‘tapes’ that we play in our mind.  One of the most destructive is this one, “so-and-so did this-or-that to me and whenever I see them I get angry.”  This tape, when played repeatedly, does no harm to the transgressor.  It harms us.  In the movie “Avalon,” a story about an immigrant family struggling to become ‘Americans,’ the uncle stopped talking to his family members for the rest of his life because they started Thanksgiving dinner without him after he was excessively late for the zillionth time. What a waste of energy it is to stay angry for decades.

Forgiveness is not forgetting or pretending it didn’t happen. It did happen, and we need to retain the lesson learned without holding onto the pain.

Forgiveness is not excusing. We excuse a person who is not to blame. We forgive because a wrong was committed.

Forgiveness is not giving permission to continue hurtful behaviors; nor is it condoning the behavior in the past or in the future.

Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. We have to make a separate decision about whether to reconcile with the person we are forgiving or whether to maintain our distance.

Forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge.  Literally, it is a ‘setting aside’ of those feelings so that you may go on with life.   It is a setting aside of the impulse to get revenge, to get even, so that the community can be maintained.  This is what both Matthew and Paul are concerned about.  This is what defines the Christian community and makes it so strange compared to the rest of the world.

Many observers have come to say that the Christian church is in decline, at least in the West.  And, there is no want of reasons to account for its galloping demise. For Robert Wuthnow, Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney, it is ‘declining birth rates”; for Tony Campolo, “affluenza”; for Martin Marty, “weekend trips”; for John Buchanan, lack of “mission” (defined as outreach ministries); and for Will Willimon, it’s because “Rotary meets at a more convenient time.”

It is, I believe, the lack of forgiveness that belongs at the top of the list. More than anything else, the unwillingness to perform the difficult task of forgiveness in the love and spirit of Christ is what robs the church of that quality of life that first attracted outsiders. It was that quality of the church’s life that set it uniquely apart from all other attempts at creating community.   

There are some of you who actually read your bible and will say to me, “but Jon, didn’t Jesus himself say, ‘If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector’?  And you would say this verse, meaning, that these are people you do not associate with right?  Matthew’s good and faithful Jewish community would not associate with these types under any circumstances, right?  My question to you is this:  who did Jesus associate with?  We know from the Gospel of Matthew how Jesus treated the Gentiles and tax collectors.  He invited them to sit at table with him, just as we should invite everyone, anyone, to sit at this table of sacrifice and blessing with us. 

Jesus uses hyperbole: He exaggerates by telling Peter he must forgive seventy times seven.  He mentions unmentionable people, who in fact he has included in his circle of friends.  He tells them that they have the power to ‘bind the present’ in eternal ways.  If this exaggeration is heard for what it is, the real point is made:  When we refuse to forgive one another, for whatever reason, we will perpetuate violence against one another and justify such harm in God’s name. In this, we will limit God. That’s not an exaggeration.  When we forgive, we free ourselves, as well as the forgiven.  Just remember with me what they did down in Lancaster County at Nickel Mines.

The early church was a community that stood out against the rest of the world because they were able to love one another, since they continually forgave one another…By the grace of God, it still can.