Readings:
Genesis 50: 15-21, Romans 14:1- 4, 7 – 12, Matthew 18: 21-22
Friday 15 September 2017
Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 17 September, 2017 Pentecost 15
We pray: may the words of my mouth and the meditations
of our hearts be acceptable to you O God, our rock and our sustainer. Amen.
In our very short excerpt from
the Gospel reading today we have the beginning of another Peter/Jesus
moment. Peter speaks - thinking he is on
the right track – and so he is because he recognises that we need to be much
more generous in how many times we forgive someone who slights us. But Jesus urges him to a greater
understanding and responds with the parable of the unforgiving servant – the
one where a slave comes before his king with an enormous debt –one that he
could not hope to pay off in his lifetime and against all expectation and after
some pleading his debt is forgiven.
Completely, utterly. And then
this forgiven soul, this person saved from being sold to pay debts, goes from
his salvation to deny the same to one who is in debt to him. He has his small time debtor thrown into
prison, with no hint of mercy or understanding.
And Jesus suggests to Peter and
to us, that as God forgives us completely and time and time again so too we
should forgive and show mercy rather than judge – judgment, in the end belongs
to God and God’s alone.
There is sweeping extravagance in
this statement that doesn’t necessarily sit well with us. Much of that has to do with our understanding
of forgiveness, mistakenly feeling that to forgive is to condone or to forget or
invite ongoing mistreatment. That is a
whole big discussion all by itself but today I would like to us to think about
how our sense of who we are as beloved children of God impacts how we do
relationship and therefore what we choose to take umbrage at in the first
place. I’m going to suggest that it is
much easier to feel slighted by others than try to understand where they are
coming from. That we seem to have a culture
of seeing different perspectives as a personal affront rather than a way of growing
and learning.
How can we instead create a way
of living that invites truth telling without adversity- which in turn requires less
in the way of forgiveness because we don’t feel wounded? Now there is a big challenge.
Each of the readings from the
lectionary today speak into this understanding of forgiveness in a different
way. Joseph, the young man betrayed by his
brothers, sold off into slavery chooses, when his moment of potential
retribution arrives, to say that there is no need for his pound of flesh, that
although his brothers intended harm, he saw what happened as God’s plan for a
greater good. Now I am pretty sure that
would not have been his thinking as he was bundled off into slavery but over
time and in prayer he recognised that his forgiveness was a given well before his
brothers asked for it. He had worked out
that it served no purpose, especially God’s, to exercise judgement on those who
had harmed him and so he welcomed them with a truly open heart and
welcome. I wonder if the brothers learned
from this in their interactions with others, unlike the servant in the parable.
Then from Romans we have Paul
talking into a volatile situation – where a rather ‘self righteous’ group are saying
that there is but one way to know God and it happens to be their way. They
judge as wrong those who think differently and with that judgement comes a
sense of superiority that then justifies them despising those with different
views or approaches.
And Paul asks: who are we to put
down those who God welcomes? ‘Those who
eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass
judgement on those who eat; for God has welcomed them.’[1]
We stand or fall before God, not
each other. I’m not sure that this is
completely understood in the church’s often very judgmental, exclusive approach
to faith. Encouraging the people of God to follow the way of Jesus is just that
– encouraging, discerning, listening, praying so that together we allow the
Spirit to guide us in truth and love. The
way is not the noisiest pushing others off the path that they and not God have
designed and operate the toll gate for!
There was a really good
illustration of this in an online reading this week. It was a blog re the election – the writer
didn’t see how anyone who called themselves a Christian could possibly vote for
Labour because they supported same sex marriage, abortion etc etc (ignoring the
fact that the MPs had conscience votes by the way) – oh and the leader used the
word comrade so she was a commie. Then
the replies came back – how could you not when National had done nothing about
social justice, environment. Into this
maelstrom of oneupmanship came a voice of perspective – Malcolm Gordon – his words
to the writer of the blog are to us all: A
more useful approach might be to ask your Christian friends that might be
voting Labour to help you see how their faith is leading them to do so. It might garner more interesting responses with
starting with increduility!”
It is not for us to judge the way
in which others approach God or where they are at in their journey but rather
to be in community with each other where respectfully hearing their story is as
important as telling ours. And when we
want to challenge an approach not reacting in this adversarial way where words
are spoken that need forgiveness but instead being good listeners as well as .
Instead there are other ways and
a couple of conversations of this past week have got me thinking about this.
One is the way in which
discussion and debate happens in the context of the marae – where the intent
always is that each speaks their truth and that truth is respected if not
agreed with. In other words you don’t point
score by dissing the other but by stating your position clearly and
truthfully. We could learn a lot from
that form of sharing. I have listened to Rev Wayne Te Kaawa, ex moderator of Te
Aka Puaho, the Maori Synod a couple of time speak into a wrong with integrity
and respectfulness – to state the truth without insult, to challenge in a way
that does not invite retaliation, to influence from his faith understanding
without stepping on another’s.
The other is a research study
that I have been involved in on Women in Ministry. While there are a number of issues that arise
from the respondents, one of the clearest is that the style of right and wrong,
adversarial debate in our church meetings is an unhelpful and sometimes unsafe
environment to speak into. When we have
majority voting that elates one side and sends the other into despair we are
not being the church of Jesus Christ – we are being people who judge other
people and seek to sort them out. That is
for God to do not us!
So today we have not so much
addressed the issue of how to forgive and what forgiveness is but rather the
way in which we use it as a weapon and a tool of judgement.
As the beloved people of God how
can we better understand that it is not just us who are welcomed (whoever ‘us’
might be) but all who turn to God. When
will we realise that it benefits no-one and certainly not God’s purpose in
Jesus Christ for us as Christians to either create situations that require forgiveness
or to withhold the power of forgiveness when we have been forgiven for all that
we get wrong. Are we unforgiving
servants like the parable or does the power of God’s love transform us beyond
ourselves into God’s purpose for the world – showing a new way to live together
in love and respect and mercy, to forgive those who sin against us as God
forgives us and to treat all whom we meet as God’s beloved children. Amen.
So be it.
Margaret Garland
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