Inevitable Crisis and Unlimited Forgiveness

Proper 19A
Matthew 18:21-35

This past week, almost 130 priests and deacons from the Diocese of California gathered at the Bishop’s Ranch to listen to, learn from and pray with our central sacred texts—the four canonical gospels—in ancient and fresh ways. Alexander John Shaia, a psychologist and scripture scholar who led this year’s clergy retreat, offered us a way of experiencing the gospels not as conflicted historical records, but as a continuous and sequential path for spiritual transformation.

I am a recently ordained priest in our diocese, and like my clergy sisters and brothers, I count on my bishop to take counsel with, strengthen and guide me—which is his vow—so that I can be a pastor and teacher, which is my vow. Our annual clergy retreat is one of the ways in which our diocesan community ensures that clergy remain faithful and fresh on our Christian journeys, so that we can be good companions to you on yours.

What if we imagined the Gospel of Matthew as the journey’s beginning; as an invitation to wake up and face the inevitability of change? What if we heard Mark as a trustworthy companion in times of trial and suffering? What if John became our invitation to receive joy, and Luke our pattern for growth in love and service? These were some of the questions that our retreat leader offered to us, and which we offer back to you.

Approaching the gospels as a fourfold spiritual path would, among other things, change the way we hear our Sunday lessons. In a year when most of our liturgical readings come from the Gospel of Matthew, we might ask ourselves how the good news first preached to a messianic Jewish community birthed the midst of a crisis—that is, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem—invites and illuminates our present-day experience of crisis.

In a global and historical sense, we are a people of privilege. But we are nevertheless a people who live in proximity to crises: to an unstable tectonic terrain, to a dry and thirsty land, to memories of danger and loss precipitated by the attack of September 11, 2001. Can we look upon the crises we have faced and will yet face—the personal as well as the communal and environmental—as a wake up call and an invitation to a deeper journey with Jesus Christ?

Some years ago, when I was working through some complicated family history with a therapist, she said to me “you may be too quick to forgive this person.” Then this past year, when I was working with a spiritual director in preparation for my ordination, he said to me “you must forgive this person.” The very same person, of course. How very far I had to travel—on the inner journey—to end up right back where I had begun.

I must forgive. You must forgive. We all must forgive far more and far more often than we ever wanted to, and—frankly—ever could do, under our own steam. The gospel text we just heard ought to provoke a crisis of conscience for all of us who have ever failed to forgive… which is of course all of us.

Jesus teaches that we must forgive seventy times seven sins, which in the Hebrew numerological system is like saying that we must forgive every hurt we have knowingly suffered multiplied by every hurt we can ever imagine suffering. When Peter asked if he should forgive as many as seven times, he was already stretching the limits. Jesus’ response was as if to say that there is no limit at all. All is forgiven, all should be forgiven.

That’s the costly good news of this Sunday’s gospel. But perhaps even costlier is the news is that forgiveness is not the same as denial. That statement may seem self-evident, but let me unpack it a little bit. For me, the difference between denial and forgiveness meant a five year journey between therapist and spiritual director. In order to really forgive, I needed to own up to the fact that I had really been hurt. Which necessarily requires that I own up to the fact that I have really hurt others. This is truth of our human condition: we wound each other and God’s creation. If not by what we have done, then by what we have left undone.

Real forgiveness doesn’t allow us to sugarcoat the tragedy of relationships broken by failure, disappointment or betrayal. We might say that forgiveness itself is always predicated on acknowledged crisis. Which makes it hard work, regardless of whether we are the one who sins or the one who is sinned against. Asking for forgiveness requires radical self examination and humility, but so does the granting of forgiveness. To forgive means that that we forego the privilege of bitterness and hanging onto the judgment that belongs to God alone.

Being willing to forgive, or to honestly ask forgiveness, is a discipline of courage. Its costly enough to acknowledge the crisis that demands our forgiveness, and costlier still to give and receive this grace, and yet the journey of faith really only begins there. Because the fruit of forgiveness is not so much the resolution of a problem as it is a participation in the unlimited forgiveness of God, as taught and modeled by Jesus. Which, whenever and however we encounter it, makes a claim on or hearts and invites us to go deeper with him.

Fortunately, we do not have to make this journey alone or under our own strength. God has given us a community of people like ourselves who make baptismal vows to repent and return to our Lord when—not if—we fall into sin. Our sacred texts, which we share with each other and a whole communion of saints, map a trustworthy journey from crisis and loss to joy and communion.

We who gather this Sunday in Episcopal churches renew our commitment to this journey every time we step forward to receive the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood. When you take that step today, I invite you to encounter anew that one who has mercy upon you, who forgives you all your sins—even seventy-fold seven times—and who strengthens you in all goodness.