I have a moral dilemma for you all, today. Purely hypothetical. Imagine that it’s January, and there’s just been a winter storm, and a snow emergency has been declared. The next day, you go to shovel out your car to get to a doctor’s appointment. You spend an hour digging it out, and then put out a cone or a chair as a space-saver, as you’re allowed to do in a snow emergency. When you come back, you find that someone’s moved it and parked in your spot. You drive around the block, and manage to find another space, while you consider what to do.

Now, you’re a good person. You don’t do what one friend of mine suggested, and smash the windshield of their car. No. The punishment must fit the crime. So you walk back to the space you’d saved, shovel in hand, and you start putting all that snow back. You shovel for about 45 minutes, carefully placing snow onto and around the car that had taken your space, and when you’re just about done, the owner returns, and says, “What are you doing???” And you tell them that you shoveled this space out, and they stole it, and so you’re just un-shoveling the space, so they get a chance to do some work. And they start yelling.

Are you in the wrong, or are they? Who thinks that they are in the wrong? Who thinks that you are? (Who thinks it’s hilarious, payback either way?)

Now consider some added context. The day before the snowstorm, you’d come home late at night, and parking spaces were few and far between. You’d managed to squeeze into a spot, but the next day when you went out to find it you realized that you’d blocked a driveway by about six inches. You find a note on your windshield: “I couldn’t get my car out this morning to go to work. I don’t have time to wait for a tow truck, so I’m taking the T. Please don’t do it again.” No damage to your car, no cash payment to get it back out of the pound. What you’d done was forgiven.

Does the prequel to the story change anything about what you did two days later, after the snow?

This very-Boston, 21^st-century tale is almost exactly the same as the story Jesus told to his disciples two thousand years ago. Jesus’ story is unsettling: it’s a story of masters and slaves, violence and punishment. But the mechanics are the same. Someone owes a debt, but he cannot pay. (Matt. 18:24-25) He begs for patience and forgiveness, and he’s shown mercy. His payment of the debt is not just delayed, but forgiven. (18:26-27) But the same man is a creditor himself. He’s owed another, smaller debt, and he intends to collect. He turns around and immediately, violently, tries to take what he’s owed. (18:28) And when he’s asked for patience, he shows none, throwing his debtor into prison until he pays it off. (18:30) The aggression and cruelty he shows while he’s trying to collect this debt are reprehensible. But the fact that he’s just been forgiven for the same thing, in fact for a hundred times the amount, makes it much worse.

Now, there are several ways to approach this story. We shouldn’t ignore the horrors of this system of enslavement that forms the backdrop. There’s a startling resemblance to modern human trafficking, in which people are offered a way into a country like the United States in exchange for a fee, and then the traffickers force them to work off this “debt,” deducting room and board, and threaten them with deportation if they refuse. And the magnitude of the “debt” this enslaved person owes the king is astounding. A denarius was about a day’s wages; 10,000 denarii would be the work of twenty-seven years. You might consider, as well, the way in which such a system creates a vicious cycle of violence. The first slave, frightened and oppressed, unable to fight back against the king, turns around and takes it out on the second one, taking the trauma he’d experienced and inflicting it on someone else.

But Jesus doesn’t really discuss either of these things. Jesus doesn’t tell this as a story about slavery, debt, or violence. Jesus tells this is a story about forgiveness. And to our modern ears, that may sound strange.

We often associate forgiveness with reconciliation, with the restoration of a right relationship between the two parties. So you’ll often hear people say that you shouldn’t forgive someone, maybe you can’t forgive someone unless they apologize, unless they repent. And this makes life hard. We ask God to “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But many of us have been wronged by people who have died, or who we don’t speak with; people who we never knew (think of the guy who cuts you off in traffic, then beeps at you) or who are convinced they’re right. (See last week’s sermon.) In these situations, there will be no apology: and yet Jesus warns us that we must forgive, if we want to be forgiven.

Or, we sometimes think that forgiveness is about our own emotional processes, that to forgive means no longer to feel pain or anger about what’s been done, or that we must have “come to terms” with what’s happened in some way. And this, too, is hard. Emotions are one of the hardest things in life to control, besides other people and the weather. You can’t choose to “just get over” something, as nice as that would often be. We all want emotional healing, but to say that being forgiven is conditional on it is a very tall order. It puts a huge burden on the one who’s been wronged: if you can’t forgive someone in your heart, you might think, then you cannot be forgiven.

But what if forgiveness wasn’t really about either of these things. What if forgiveness was about something else?

The Rev. Dr. Matthew Ichihashi Potts is a distinguished theologian: an Episcopal priest and scholar of literature and religion, he’s now the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church and the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University. But in his recent book Forgiveness, Matt Potts asks a surprisingly simple question: What if forgiveness is not reconciliation or emotional wholeness? What if forgiveness is simply the habit of non-retaliation? He means this in a particular sense. “Retaliation” doesn’t just mean doing something to get back at someone; it means paying someone back in kind, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The law of retaliation sets limits on our actions by setting a exchanging revenge for payback. “A tooth for a tooth” means that if you knock out my tooth, I don’t get to chop off your hand, but I do get to knock out one of yours. The law of retaliation is the law of the space-saver: if you steal my spot, I don’t smash your windshield; but I just might make you shovel all that same snow.

And this seems to be the kind of forgiveness that Jesus is talking about. Think of the moment at which the king forgives the debt. There’s no sense of a reconciliation between the two characters. There’s no inner emotional work being done. The only forgiveness in this story is the choice not to collect the debt that the king is owed. It’s the decision not to demand what you are owed, not to make the other person pay, but to leave that snow where it is. Non-retaliation doesn’t mean inaction, or passivity. It doesn’t mean you can’t protect yourself for the future. It simply means you choose not to get payback.

“Forgiveness as non-retaliation” is much easier and much harder than the other kinds of forgiveness. It’s hard to rebuild a broken relationship and be reconciled with someone else. It’s hard to do the work of healing your own soul. It’s easy to do nothing. And yet in many cases, doing nothing is the hardest thing there is. Giving up the delicious satisfaction of payback is not always as easy as it seems.

And yet there is a lot of wisdom here. Because retaliation, as good as it may feel, can never fill that hole. A wrong was done, and it cannot be undone, even if restitution is made. Forgiveness, Potts points out, is something like grief. To forgive is to try to live in light of what’s been done, knowing that it cannot be undone. Nothing can take away the fact that I spent an hour shoveling and didn’t have a place to park. And in fact that process of payback can itself cause new pain. Because if I put all that snow back, then yes, I’ve made that other guy’s arms sore. He’s been paid back, in kind. But now my arms are twice as sore, and I still don’t have a spot to park my car.

This kind of non-retaliation isn’t the end of our response to being wronged. But it is a beginning. And, importantly, it’s this that Jesus asks for, when he asks us to forgive. Not that we feel good about what’s been done. Not that we excuse it, or allow it. Simply that we don’t turn around and repeat it, inflicting on someone else what was done to us. If we’re ever going to break that cycle of pain, if we’re ever going to forgive one another as we have been forgiven, it’s this kind of restraint that we need to practice: not seven times, or seventy-seven; more like seven thousand, seven hundred, seventy-seven.

Sermon — September 12, 2023

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

“So you, mortal,” God says to Ezekiel, “I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel;
whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.”
(Ezekiel 33:7)

I sometimes think that deep down, in our heart of hearts, most of us yearn to be Ezekiel.

Just think how satisfying it would be to be God’s appointed sentinel on earth. Think how good it would feel to go to that cousin whose political views you detest, or to that sibling who just can’t mind his own business—to that neighbor whose construction has ruined your week or to that spouse who insists on loading the dishwasher completely wrong (not my spouse)—and to say to them, “Listen: I’ve got a message for you from God, and this is it: Your ideas are nonsense. Your behavior is offensive. YOU ARE WRONG!” (And I, of course, am right.)

Now, the Lord has never descended in any of our sight in a majestic heavenly chariot, as he did to Ezekiel, wreathed in fire and flame, propelled by the beating wings of four magnificent beasts, to set us aside for a lifetime of prophetic ministry in his name, and that’s too bad. (Ezekiel 1) But we know we’re often right, all the same. And we still take it upon ourselves, from time to time, to speak in God’s name, or at least to speak as if we know what is good and true and right. Sometimes we do this with other people who agree with us, and there’s a certain satisfaction in this: it feels good to solve all the world’s problems when we’re talking to people who already agree with us about everything. But there’s a deeper, darker kind of satisfaction that comes from a fight, from a confrontation, from telling someone how wrong they are.

(If you don’t recognize this tendency in yourself, then it’s possible that you’re a better person than I am, or maybe that you’re fooling yourself. But if you think I’m wrong about people in general, try putting on a Yankees hat and walking down Main Street, and see just how much people love to tell you that you’re wrong. To say the least.)

In today’s gospel, Jesus gives some very helpful hints on the best way to go about telling one another that we’re wrong. “If another member of the church sins against you,” Jesus says, first go alone, in private, and “point out the fault.” (Matthew 18:15) If they don’t listen, do it again, but bring a friend or two. If they still think they’re right, tell the whole church, and if that doesn’t work, strike three, they’re out with the Gentiles and tax collectors. (Matthew 18:16-17) Unless they’re the Rector, in which case, they kind of have tenure and you’re going to need to get the Bishop involved.

Now, I’ve been a little irreverent so far, but this is actually really good advice: if you have an issue with somebody, then in most cases, talking to them is a much better idea than talking about them. Of course, there are cases of abuse or inappropriate behavior where reporting it to someone else is the right call, and of course, there are times when you just want to vent about something to a friend. But in general, in churches and in friendships, in marriages and in families, no problem has ever been solved by talking behind someone’s back. Jesus’ advice is good: when you have a conflict with someone, the right person to talk to about it is probably them. Gossip won’t get what you want. Embarrassing them in front of someone else is unlikely to be productive. If you have a problem with someone, go to talk to them. Fair enough.

It feels good to be Ezekiel: to be in the know and to be in the right and sometimes, yes, to tell other people that they’re wrong. Jesus’s words help us channel that in a productive way, guiding us on how best to confront one another, how best to “speak the truth in love,” as Paul says, (Ephesians 4:15) how to stand up for what’s right, for the good of the whole world.

So, there’s a nice, quick sermon for a muggy Sunday morning.

There’s just one problem.

None of us is actually the voice of God. None of us is infallibly right, all the time. As much as we might like to be, none of us is actually Ezekiel. God has not told us that we must tell our cousin (neighbor, partner, friend) that they are wrong, and we are right, or that they will die, and God will require their blood at our hand. (Ezek. 33:8) We believe that we’re right, not because of a vision from God, but because… well, if we thought we were wrong, we’d still think we were right, just in the opposite direction.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stand up for ourselves. It doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as right or wrong. It just means that the confidence of condemnation that we see in our reading from Ezekiel and in Jesus’ words needs to be cushioned by the compassion and the ultimate commandment of love that Paul reminds us of this morning.

There are many times in life when you really do need to confront someone else, to tell them that you think what they’re doing is wrong, because it’s harming you, or someone else, or because it’s harming them. There are other times when you really don’t. And the important question to ask yourself might be this: am I doing this out of love, or am I doing it because I know I’m right? Everyone has an uncle or a cousin who won’t stop spouting off about politics, and often the appropriate response is to roll your eyes and move on, even if you know he’s wrong. But if your uncle won’t stop talking about how bad immigration is, even with your first-generation-American daughter-in-law at the dinner table, it might be time to step in.

If you think your friend shouldn’t have bought those new shoes because they’re ugly as sin, you should probably keep your mouth shut. But if your friend shouldn’t’ve bought those shoes because their shopping addiction is bankrupting the family, that’s a whole other thing.

If you you’d just prefer that forks, knives, and spoons go in separate compartments because it’s easier to unload, then that’s between you and God. But if the dishwasher’s going to break if one more Tupperware lid melts on the bottom rack,then it’s a situation like the one God describes to Ezekiel: “If you warn the wicked, and they do not turn away, then they will die.” (Ezekiel 33:10) Or at least the dishwasher will. When someone is headed down the road to destruction, to the loss of a relationship or a life or a dishwasher, and you love them, then you need to have that difficult conversation, and the way Jesus lays this out is a pretty good way to go about it. But if you just think they’re wrong, but there’s not really any harm, then maybe consider: Why am I so bent on telling them that I’m right? As God says to Ezekiel, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that they turn and live.” (Ezek. 33:11) It’s not about being right. It’s about saving someone you love.

Because if you ever have that kind of conversation, you need to have it not only out of love but in love; not only for the right reason, but in the right way. You need to remember that you are not God, and not even a prophet from God; to remember that every one of us is as likely to be judged as to judge, to be corrected as to correct someone else; that each one of us is as likely, on any given day, to be in the wrong as we are to be wronged by someone else, and that our prayer is not “God, forgive those who sin against us,” but “God, forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Sermon — September 3, 2023

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

In a 2012 book, the writer Anne Lamott described what she calls “The Three Essential Prayers”: “Help,” “Thanks,” and “Wow.” I’ve always loved that. It captures the essence of prayer. Most of our prayers, from the incoherent ones we say while lying awake in the middle of the night to the highly-polished ones we say in church on Sunday mornings, fall into one of those three categories: asking for God’s help when we need it, or someone else does; giving thanks for the good things in our lives; or simply expressing the awe and wonder of existence in this universe.

But I can’t help but think that Anne Lamott missed a fourth, one-word prayer, one that’s often left out, a kind of prayer that many people aren’t even sure they’re really allowed to pray: “Why?” As in, “Why God, why? Why is this happening? Why is it happening to me? Why now?” Just “why?”

Listen to some of Jeremiah’s words in this morning’s reading, taken from a couple different translations. Listen, and think for a minute: Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever prayed this kind of prayer?

“Lord, you know how I suffer. Take thought of me and care for me…” (Jer. 15:15 NET) “Why am I always in pain? Why is my wound incurable, so far beyond healing?” (15:18a CEB) “Will you let me down when I need you like a brook one goes to for water, but that cannot be relied on?” (15:18b NET)

Have you ever prayed this kind of prayer? Have you ever asked God, “Why?” Have you ever been angry at God for letting you down? Have you ever felt like saying, “God, you know I’m suffering,” do something?

Sometimes this form of prayer, this “why, God, why?” is the only one that feels authentic. But people often feel like it’s not a prayer they can say. For some, it’s because they’ve been taught that they’re not allowed to. They’re not supposed to question God’s plans. Their attitude has to be “thy will be done,” no back-talk allowed. They’re supposed to “take up their cross” and bear it without complaint. For others, the kinds of situations that lead to this question drive them away from God. Surely no loving God would allow such situations to occur, and so it’s not worth bringing them to God in prayer. Either they’re too angry with God to be on speaking terms, or they just don’t believe that there’s anyone listening. Still others, I think, have trouble with this kind of prayer because they can’t find the right thing to say. There are no words to express the depth of confusion, or pain, or sorrow. And so they can’t.

But this is the kind of prayer that we find, again and again, throughout the Bible. The Psalms are full of cries to God, demands that God finally act to make things right. The Book of Jonah turns the question into a short story, with Jonah shaking his fist at God’s unfairness; the Book of Job sets it in poetic verse, as Job demands repeatedly and at length that God explain how any of this is okay. And here, we see the prophet Jeremiah’s prayer, the prayer of a man called by God to prophesy unpleasant things to his people, and to bear the brunt of their anger in response. Jeremiah blames God: You did this to me! “Your words were found, and I ate them, and they were my joy…” (Jer. 15:16) But look what’s happened now. Jeremiah looks at his life, in which he’s done everything God has asked, and he asks in response, “Why, God? Why? How is this fair?”

When we ask these questions of one another, we human beings tend to reach for answers that make the senseless make sense. “Everything happens for a reason,” we might say. “God never gives us more than we can handle.” These words can sometimes be comforting—although often not. But in a sense they always minimize. In the face of the many tragic situations in life, the things that simply don’t make sense, they try to make them make sense; and usually fail.

God’s answer to these prayers is different. God doesn’t offer a rationalization. God doesn’t try to make it make sense. God reveals compassion; and God offers hope.

“Compassion” is at the heart of what the life of Jesus reveals about God; com–passion, in its original sense: con- meaning “with,” and passion meaning “suffering,” as in “the Passion of the Christ.” God is a God of compassion, because God has suffered with us. When we cry out to God asking why, God isn’t angry that we’re asking the question. God just answers, “I know it hurts.” I’ve been there too. This is why Jesus tells the disciples that he “must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering.” It’s not an accident. It’s part of the plan. And it’s part of the plan because Jesus is God incarnate, the God who hears our prayers walking on the face of the earth, and to say that Jesus suffers is to say that one of the Trinity suffers, that God suffers; that God knows what it is to be betrayed and to grieve, to suffer pain and to die, not just in the abstract sense that God “knows” everything but because God has experienced it all. Whatever you are going through, whatever you have gone through, whatever you will go through in this life, God knows. God has been there before, and God is with you now. And for what it’s worth, this is why the Christian belief in Jesus’ divinity is so important: if Jesus is not God, then God remains aloof from all our pain and all our suffering; the human experience remains, at best, an academic pursuit.

This is also why Jesus’ response to Peter’s rebuke is so harsh. This is the “stumbling block”: that Peter’s tempting Jesus to stay aloof, to avoid sharing in our pain. And Jesus could choose to do that. He’s a miracle worker, for goodness’ sake. He’s God. He can walk on water, walk through walls. He could simply walk away and live a pleasant life by the sea, multiplying loaves and fishes and turning water into wine. But instead he chooses to walk in the way of the cross, and to transform it into the way of life.

And he invites the disciples to do the same. If they want to follow him, he says, they should follow him; follow him in the way of the cross. They shouldn’t try to insulate themselves, or stay aloof from the suffering of the world; it’s going to come, one way or another. But the way of the cross is the way of life, because the way of love inevitably brings up closer to suffering. When he says that “those who want to save their life will lose it,” but “those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” (Matt. 16:25) the word he uses here for “life” is psyche. It’s a word we often translate as “soul.” If you want to do as Peter suggests—if you want protect yourself from pain and spare yourself from any kind of suffering—you can only do it by risking your own soul, by giving up on love, by shutting off the compassion you feel for the people around you or by pretending that no one else is worth thinking about. We ask “why is this happening?” and God almost never answers the question. God listens with compassion, and God invites us to treat one another with compassion.

But that’s never the end of the story. God isn’t just there to comfort us in the face of suffering. God promises something more. God promises salvation: new hope, new life, a better future world, an actual solution to the problems that face us. Jeremiah asks God why, and God doesn’t only answer, “I am with you,” but “I will deliver you,” “I will redeem you.” (Jer. 15:21) Likewise, after Jesus tells his disciples that if they’re going to follow him, they’re going to need to take up their crosses, he offers them hope: those who are willing to be vulnerable, those who are willing to risk compassion and love, will be redeemed. “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels,” Jesus says, “and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.” (Matt. 16:26) And it’s this same hope for God’s future that animates Paul’s exhortation to the Romans: they can be patient now, because God’s justice is coming.

Again and again in life, we ask God “why?” And I’m sorry to say, there is no easy answer. But an answer isn’t really what we need. We need compassion. We need comfort. And we need hope: the hope that the story doesn’t end here, that there is a future in which all the wounds of this world will be healed.

So “let love be genuine,” Paul says. “Hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection… Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:9-10, 12, 21) “For I am with you,” God says to Jeremiah, “I am with you to save you and deliver you.” (Jeremiah 15:20)

Amen.