Sunday, September 17, 2023

Proper 19 (Year A)

Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

The Rev. Clint Brown

I am going to begin today by quoting Nietzsche. Now you might think it a bit of a stretch that Nietzsche could have anything useful to contribute to a Christian sermon – the philosopher who declared God “dead,” who dismissed Christianity as backward, even harmful, who was the darling of the Nazis – but the quote is helpful, and I hope to show why. In the early pages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes, “One must be a sea to be able to receive a polluted stream without becoming unclean.”[1] I’ve often thought of this quote in my personal interactions. Now I don’t mean to suggest that I think people are pollution, although Nietzsche seemed to think so. Rather, I have found this quote helpful for keeping things in perspective. In a difficult moment or disagreement my thoughts will go something like this: that what is most important at this moment in this situation is not the satisfaction of telling this person off or having my way, but that, for this relationship to have a future, to have a tomorrow, I’m going to have to bite my tongue and not say something I’ll regret. One of us is going to have to be bigger and stand for something more than just having it our way. And I feel that this same spirit – this largeness of spirit – is at the heart of forgiveness, too, the subject we have to talk about today, for forgiveness can be extraordinarily difficult sometimes, requiring vast emotional and spiritual resources – a “sea” as Nietzsche says.

Just prior to our reading today, the disciples have come to Jesus asking, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matt. 18:1). They want to know the pecking order and where they will rank. In their minds, it was now only a matter of time before Jesus was going to be through with being Mr. Nice Guy and declares his real self, the Messiah who will vanquish Israel’s foes. In a dramatic reveal, he was going to throw off his lowly, humble peasant’s cloak in exchange for a royal robe, like a fairy tale prince who hides his true identity until the very end. In the new political order, the disciples were going to finally be vindicated for choosing to place their bets on this man, unusual though his methods were, and they wanted to know what it had gotten them. But instead of looking ahead to victory and dispensing rewards to all his loyal lieutenants like another Alexander, Jesus turns the question around completely. Greatness is not measured by externals, he says. Greatness can only ever be a matter of character. To be a great person, it’s not about standing out from the crowd or having your way, it’s about contributing to the greater good, often to the hurt of the ego. To be truly great, one has to know that the individual is nothing without the many.   

It's at this point that Peter jumps in. “How many times?” he asks. How many times must one overlook an offense and forgive someone in the new Christian community? The rabbis had traditionally said three times, but what does Jesus say? Having walked many a mile with Jesus and observed his confrontations with the scribes and Pharisees, he fully expects that Jesus will require an even higher standard. Shall it be seven times, more than twice the traditional mandate? But Jesus shakes his head. No, Peter, not seven times, but so many times that the number is inconceivable. Peter is speechless and so are we. It would seem that Jesus does expect of us a spirit as vast as the sea itself.

The parable Jesus tells makes the point. It’s very simple, really. There is no score to keep. There are no calculations to make. We forgive because we have been forgiven; we are merciful because we have been shown mercy. To set any condition whatsoever on how much or how often would only demonstrate that we don’t truly accept or comprehend the mercy that has been shown towards us. And this is where we need to make a crucial distinction. This is not the way we normally experience life in the world. In the church, we have to be clear what kind of people we are. We are not like other people. We do not hold onto sleights. We do not seek revenge. We pray for our enemies. We always hold out hope for redemption. We are those who stand for the ridiculous, nonsensical, utterly courageous claim that “we are saved not by getting it right, but by the love that redeems us while we are getting it wrong.”[2] We are the ones who follow a God bloodied on a cross.  

If being able to forgive in this way sometimes cuts against our notions of what’s fair and right, perhaps that just goes to prove that this is not something we can do on our own. The ability to forgive in the way Jesus demands asks too much, and that’s why we can only succeed with God’s help. Supernatural forgiveness must be by supernatural means. To make the church work we are going to have to take some blows. To be agents of reconciliation in the world, we must be willing to demonstrate the kind of mercy that surprises and subverts. And so I would like to end the way I began by talking about largeness of spirit, and I know no better example of how the Christian way of being in the world has the power to change the world than in a prayer pinned inside the clothes of a dead child discovered at Ravensbruck concentration camp where 92,000 women and children died:

Oh Lord, remember not only the men and women of good-will, but also those of ill-will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits we have bought thanks to this suffering – our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this. And when they come to the judgment, let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.[3]

[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: The Modern Library, 1995), 13.

[2] The quote is by Richard Holloway, formerly Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

[3] Quoted in Michel de Verteuil, Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels: The Year of Matthew – Year A (Dublin: The Columba Press, 2005), 225.