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The Eve of Saint Joseph
The Fourth Sunday In Lent (Laetare)
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which giveth life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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The Fourth Sunday In Lent (Laetare)
The Eve of Saint Joseph
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A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
✛
And Forgive Us Our Trespasses...
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Over the forty years of my life as a priest, the issues raised by this sentence in the Lord’s Prayer have been among those matters most regularly raised by people seeking pastoral guidance. I confess that as a would-be disciple of Christ, I have myself often struggled over both sides of the petition. It is not easy to climb down from the high horse of righteousness and to say, “I am a sinner, and I need to be forgiven.” Perhaps even more difficult is it to forgive those who have sinned against us or against those we love.
Jesus told parables against people who were forgiven enormous debts but then turned around and demanded that their debtors pay up on their debts to them. The Book of Jonah was a favorite of Jesus – that’s the story of the prophet who was angry at the Lord’s forgiveness of repentant Nineveh, the worst and most brutal of all Israel’s enemies. Peter, who would thrice deny Jesus, asked him, Lord, how many times, if my brother sins against me, should I forgive him – as many as seven times? Jesus replied, not seven, but seventy-times seven times. Jesus forgave those who crucified him on the grounds that they didn’t know what they were doing.
Some things, it seems to us, are unforgivable. A priest I knew who was headmaster of a ranch which was a venerable home and school for abused children once told a story of a graduate of his school, a woman, who came back to him with severe depression; she sought his counsel. Her father had violently abused her and her brother when they were little. The father had gone to prison and had died. The woman had gone on to some measure of adult success but was dogged by depression, which she knew focused on her father. She had lived in spite of him. She could not forgive him. The priest said he completely sympathized with her feelings. But the issue was, how was she to go on living? Could she let go of her father, give him over to God? Could she let God mind her father’s business, since it clearly was too much for her? She had not considered handing over the whole burden of her father to God. And what if it included God’s mercy in some way? Could she let God be God? [That was Jonah’s problem.] The conversation didn’t work like magic, but it was a turning point for the woman. She let go of her father. Without telling God what to do, she let God mind her father’s business. Her depression began to lift. She had been angry, angry enough to die. Now she began to live some more.
The mystery of forgiveness lies in the love of God, the God who sent his Son to die for sinners. While we were yet his enemies, Christ died for us. That is the fountainhead of all other forgiveness. The question is, do I believe in this God? I say I do. So what now?
In the matter of being willing to climb down off my high horse of pride and righteousness and to be forgiven by others for whom I have a low regard, I begin by being honest. I am every bit as much a sinner in my own way – in thought certainly, and perhaps also in word, and from time to time in deed. I believe I am a child of God for whom Christ died. I believe that Jesus knows me better than I know myself (since I am so ready to excuse and to fool myself), and yet in spite of that he went to his cross on my account – he loves me, even when I am so very unlovable. Well, so it goes for those other persons, the ones I do not like. God made them, Christ died for them; the Lord knows them far better than I, in my prejudice and wounded pride, can possibly know them. Besides that, there is the truth that none of us knows the burdens, sorrows, wounds, and cares that lie behind the faces of the people we so readily misunderstand and misjudge.
Similarly, in the matter of being willing to forgive those who have wounded us, we can at least begin by allowing God to mind their business. If they deserve retribution, that is God’s business. Our anger does not work God’s righteousness. Vengeance is God’s; God will repay. No, says Christ and the Apostle, we are to pray for and bless our enemies. Feed them, clothe them; for by doing so we heap fire upon their heads – we kill them with kindness. Who knows, an enemy may be destroyed by changing into a friend! If this be impossible, then at least remember Jonah; or the woman dogged by depression over her monstrous father. Let God be God: the matter is beyond us; if we try to usurp God’s prerogatives, the burden will crush us or turn us into the monsters we abhor.
In the aboriginal era of Man described by Genesis, Lamech, one of the descendants of Cain – the first murderer – boasts of taking revenge. “Lamech said to his wives, ‘Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, hearken to what I say: I have slain a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.’” (Gen 4:23-24) This boast, whose echoes have reverberated down through the ages and generations to the present day, was the source of Jesus’ answer to Peter about forgiveness. We are to forgive seventy-seven times, he said.
Many times we are unable to put our forgiveness into concrete interpersonal action, especially with our enemies, persecutors and slanderers (or the enemies, persecutors and slanderers of those we love). And it may be impossible in this life. But in this life, it is truly the thought that counts. It is what is in the heart that defiles a person, said Christ. And we can, in this life, start there. We can ask God to cleanse our hearts. We can pray to our Savior – that his will be done in us. We can let God be God and mind his own omniscient business. We can be ready, if ever the time or opportunity comes – in this world and, as surely it will, in the next – to be forgiven as we forgive others, even our worst enemies. God asked Jonah if he did well to be angry over God’s mercy. He did not do well to be angry, and neither do we. In a world of sin, the only way forward is forgiveness.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
