Sermon 9.13.26 Forgiveness in the Face of Tragedy
On this Sunday, just a few days after observing the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, I’m moved to preach to you about forgiveness.
How often do you pay attention to the collect for the day?
Not the collection, but the collect;
That short opening prayer at the beginning of every service that we do every Sunday morning; the one that changes every week depending on the lessons.
Today’s collect says: “O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord…”
I would venture to guess that we don’t often pay attention to the collects very closely, because they are very formulaic.
The first part is generally about who God is, or what God does, or one of God’s attributes (like Islam’s very astute observation about the 99 names of God) “God, because you are this (fill in the blank), or because you do this (fill in the blank),”
The second part is generally a follow-up request based on what was just said about God’s person or God’s powers or God’s attributes,
“mercifully grant that… give us we beseech you… save us from… surround us with… watch over our going out and our coming in… forgive us, we pray…”
Of course, as with any writing genre, there is a formula, but the formula can be transgressed, or reversed, or broken,
But as a general rule, our collects follow this basic formula and end with an acknowledgement of the Holy Trinity as one God forever and ever.
Another interesting thing about our collect is that, in some way, it is also usually thematic of the lessons that come after it;
It gives us a concise thematic preview of what is to come.
But, (and here’s the catch), the connection between the collect’s theme and the readings is not always self-evident;
The collect is fertile ground, but it takes a little digging and tending to receive its yield.
Today’s readings from our Scriptures focus on the theme of forgiveness and its antithesis: judgement.
The collect asks that God give us the Holy Spirit to “direct and rule our hearts.”
The question, then, is how or why is the Holy Spirit directing and ruling our hearts the answer to the question about judgement and forgiveness in our Scriptures?
The gospel parable about the master who has mercy on one of his slaves for an unpayable debt, only for that same man to hold another liable and abuse him for a much smaller debt, is a familiar parable.
Overwhelming in its use of the term “slave,” which makes many uncomfortable to the point of changing the word to “servant.”
This parable shows us something about human nature that we all know to be true;
In our very basic nature, we are all more ready to be let off the hook than to extend mercy out to someone else, who owes us something.
Or, how my grandfather used to put it, “when I do something it was inevitable, but when you do it, it’s inexcusable.”
When asked about how many times we are to forgive one another, Jesus shows us the ugly side of our human nature compared to God’s mercy.
In its own way, Romans 14, though it doesn’t seem to be about forgiveness on the surface, takes on the question;
“What does the Holy Spirit directing and ruling our hearts have to do with forgiveness and judgement?”
In this passage, it is obvious that disputes have arisen among the Roman Christians about how to be Christian in the heart of a world still adhering to the old gods.
There are questions about whether true Christians should eat meat on civic festival days, because there was an inherent religious aspect to those Roman feast days.
To what extent should this new group of Christians participate in the civic life of a pagan empire, whose gods they did not believe in?
Many of them had been Roman citizens for their whole lives and Christianity was this new thing that they were beginning to give themselves to.
How much of their Roman identity did they have to give up?
This question would be a very interesting one to explore, but actually, identity is not the main question that the Apostle Paul focuses on.
Like Jesus, Paul changes our focus to human nature.
In the face of questions about right and wrong ways to be Christian, questions that began back then concerning meat, but are no less present today;
I mean, I had a conversation yesterday with an acquaintance and it took everything I had to physically keep my face in check as they told me that they grew up catholic, baptized their children catholic, but then re-baptized them when they started going to a non-denominational church.
I felt the way that those early Roman Christians felt, I felt a little judge-y.
I had to remind myself that those Holy Mysteries are in God’s hands and not mine;
That the Nicene Creed says we “acknowledge one baptism,” not “anyone who does more than one baptism isn’t truly Christian.”
Our human nature tells us that we are the ultimate arbiters, the ultimate judges of what is right and what is wrong.
What we received is right and correct and good, what anyone else received contrary to that is evil and bad and dangerous.
In such a world, judgement is not really the opposite of forgiveness, but it occludes the possibility of forgiving, it makes it harder to see a path toward forgiveness.
In our Genesis lesson, Joseph asks the most important question; the thing that we have been working toward all along.
His brothers cannot believe that he is going to forgive them, and Jospeh says, “Am I in the place of God?”
God who can see and know all things.
This is why our collect begins with “without you we are not able to please you,”
Because by ourselves, in a human cycle of judgements, a cycle that tells me that my sins were inevitable and forgiveable, but your sins are inexcusable,
My judgement of right and wrong undeniable, and your judgements dangerous,
There is no way to break the cycle, no way to pull ourselves out of our own perspective.
We need the power of the Holy Spirit to direct and rule our hearts, to pull us out of our humanity and let us experience a taste of the divinity that lies within us.
On a weekend like this, when we hear messages like “Never Forget,”
When many of us remember exactly where we were 25 years ago, but as many as 1/3 of all Americans were either not born or too young to remember that day,
As we continue to grapple with the chains of events that came after that day,
We may be tempted to let human nature direct and rule our hearts rather than the Holy Spirit.
Tempted to say, “Never Forget that they were Muslims,”
“Never Forget that they hated us,”
For some who were intimately involved on the day, they may be holding onto “Never Forget what you could’ve done differently,”
For those who would use the day’s trauma for their own ends, “Never Forget this as a symbol of whatever it is we want to justify, because we’re still afraid.”
In this context, “Never Forget,” has been a harmful antithesis of the old adage to “Forgive and Forget;”
Human nature getting us stuck in a cycle that perpetuates harm.
Instead, what if the Holy Spirit directed and ruled our hearts,
What if “Never Forget” wasn’t the opposite of “Forgive and Forget?”
What if we said,
“Never Forget the people.”
“Never Forget the unity that existed, if only for a few days.”
“Never Forget the bravery.”
“Never Forget those who cleaned up ground zero.”
“Never Forget that more than three times as many people have been victims of that day in the last 25 years, than on the day itself.”
“Never Forget that we can be better than what we’ve become.”
In the last few days, we’ve seen both ways of remembering; those all too human ways, and the more divine ways.
And the truth is, that when we look at an event as tragic as what happened on September 11th 2001, there can be no facile, easy forgiveness.
It is not a hypothetical situation with no emotions involved.
It is in fact a time, when we can recognize that without God we would never be able to even make a start.
If it were left to our human nature, we would be stuck in the grip of fear and hatred for the rest of our days.
But the Holy Spirit, if we allow her to, can help us to make a start;
Can help us to transcend our human judgements and bitterness, those places where events like this get their beginnings, in the corrupted hearts of human people.
We can break the cycle, but only with God’s help.
We can please God again through our mercy.
Yesterday the Jewish people celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the New Year on the Jewish calendar.
Each year, Rosh Hashanah is followed in quick succession by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
The cycle intimates that every new beginning must coincide with a cleaning of the slate; our part – seeking and giving forgiveness, God’s part – offering mercy.
As we have collected our thoughts around God’s role in directing and ruling our hearts this morning,
I pray that if there is someone in your life that needs forgiveness, you will find a way to let the Holy Spirit lead you toward a form of mercy that is pleasing to God,
Knowing that even if you cannot, God can and God will,
But even the desire is pleasing to God.
Let’s leave behind the torment of holding onto one another’s debts and sins.
Let’s revel in the wideness of God’s mercy that only divinity could possibly achieve.
And let’s never forget, forgiveness.
Amen.
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