Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 14 Sept. 2014, Proper 19
Year A RCL: Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35
What
makes life fulfilling for you? Fear, resentment,
anger or joy, peace,
love?
A
Cherokee Parable1
tells of an elder Native American teaching
his grandchildren about life. He says to them: “A
fight is going on inside me. It is
a terrible fight...between
2 wolves. One wolf represents fear,
resentment,
anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt,
inferiority, jealousy & lies. The other wolf stands for joy,
peace,
love, hope, sharing,
serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, compassion &
truth.
“This
same fight
is
going on inside
of you & every other person too.” The children think for a bit.
Then one child asks: “Grandfather, which wolf will win?” The wise
one replies simply: “The one I feed.”
Key
words in this are resentment
for the one wolf & peace
for the other wolf.2
Which wolf do
you feed? Forgiveness is an essential nutrient for the wolf of peace.
Jesus
tells us in today's Gospel to forgive not just 7 times but 77 times.
In the Bible, 7 is the perfect number, the idea of completeness like
at Creation3
when God calls the world & us into being in 6 days & rests to
enjoy that completeness on the 7th
day. We are to have a day to rest & worship to celebrate our
completeness in God's love.
Jesus
challenges Peter – and us – to live into that completeness.
Forgiveness nourishes it. Jesus
expects us to offer an infinite amount of forgiveness4.
How
can we do this?
How
can we do this when So-And-So has done what they did to me? How could
they? They shouldn't have done that! They
should have been reasonable.
They
should have cared about me. They should have respected me.
They should have apologized.
Notice:
How that set of questions
& statements
has a
demand quality to it. They are from the wolf of resentment, demanding
that the past should have been different. Demanding
that the past should
have been different
is a really good way to stay miserable.
As
Nelson Mandela said:
“Resentment
is like drinking poison & then hoping it will kill your
enemies.”5
Resentment
takes considerable energy & effort from us. And it's a
way of staying near the person (who hurt you).6
More
important than question of how could they do that to us is this
question that speaks to the heart of our faith in Jesus: How can
Jesus forgive us – each of us – as he hangs dying in agony,
nailed to that cross?
Jesus
cries out: “Father, forgive
them for they know not what they do.” If Jesus can forgive us for
doing that, how can we not forgive each other an infinite number of
times?
Notice:
Jesus says “Forgive them. They don't know what they are doing.”
In other words: We are
clueless. Our bad behavior comes from ignorance & really bad
behavior comes from profound ignorance. Our resentment is arguing
with ignorance. You can't win an argument with profound ignorance.
Beheading people shows profound ignorance.
When
it comes to forgiving, many of us are like a car stuck in mud: we
just can't get enough traction to get out of it. What stirs solid
soil into mud? The murky water of resentment that confuses
forgiveness with reconciliation & trust.
To
get traction to get out of that mud, know this: There is
a difference between forgiveness & reconciliation. God-given
wisdom tells us there are times to forgive from
a distance,
times it is wise not to restore a relationship, for
example, an abusive relationship. Think of what we've heard on the
news about NFL players & have read in the Post-Searchlight
headlines about an abusive father.
Forgiveness
is
something
we do about a past experience that is totally independent from the
person who hurt us. It
may not be helpful to
talk to the person we are forgiving. In
most cases our motivation to talk to the person is to get them to
acknowledge the hurt they caused.
The
beneficiary of forgiveness is yourself. The secondary beneficiaries
are other people
in your life. Resentment
leaks into all relationships, so people in our lives, who had nothing
to do with the injury, suffer because resentment deprives those we
love of our best self.
Forgiveness
precedes reconciliation. It does not
require
reconciliation, which is an agreement between 2 or more people about
how they will live & interact in the future. (Think
of
South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation Commission's work in the
post-Apartheid era.)7
God
longs for us to be
reconciled, yet it is impossible to force a person to do that.
Forgiveness
doesn’t mean we have
to trust
people, especially when they have yet to demonstrate that they are
trustworthy. Forgiveness means we can continue to protect ourselves
from untrustworthy people. But:
we don’t have to protect ourselves with a wall of resentment.
The
Art of Forgiving sets you free from the walled prison of resentment.
It releases you from spending so much of your time & draining so
much energy in that hard labor of resentment.
We
can’t change the past. Demanding that the past would have been
different does not change it.
Think
of the unbearably hot & muggy weather we had the last few weeks &
the gnats that kept us company to make us more miserable. Got that
picture in your mind? Feel the misery & physical discomfort. Feel
the frustration about what the weather forces you to do & what it
prevents you from doing. How hot does it make that attic you have to
go up into in the Parish Hall to check the roof? How much more yard
work do you have to do now – with
gnats – because it was too
miserable to do it then?
Please
join me in demanding that the heat & gnats wouldn’t have
happened. Come on, demand that with me. Heat & gnats: we DEMAND
that you were different last week. Say it with me: Heat & gnats:
we DEMAND that you were different last week.
Notice
how hard we have “demanded” that the heat & gnats wouldn’t
have been the way they were.
What
has changed? Look at the futility of our demanding that the past be
different.
In
the Art of Forgiveness, it doesn’t matter whether people should or
should not have done something, despite how heinous their actions
were. The fact is they did what they did regardless of its morality.
Demanding they didn’t do it does not change what they did. So what
are we to do with our demands?
Rather
than demand that the past be
different, we can prefer
that
the past would have been different. Converting demands into
preferences keeps our values – your values – intact. Forgiveness
does not require that we violate our values by saying something
doesn’t matter –
especially when it does
matter.
When
we say, “I would have preferred that you hadn’t done X
or
had done Z” we can feel a difference & notice what it is that
we value
that was violated. We can think about that value
being with us in the future & sharing it with someone else...When
we are looking forward to something, we get unstuck from the past.
As
we get unstuck, we can release the person into the completeness of
God's unconditional love.
As
we release the person into the completeness of God's unconditional
love, we stand firmly on Holy Ground.
Freed
from the mud of resentment & unforgiving-ness, we can stand on
Holy Ground in this place & share Holy Communion to nourish the
wolf of peace.
Bibliography
Bacon,
Ed. 8
Habits of Love: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind.
Boston: Grand Central Life & Style. Grand Central Publishing.
2011.
Book of Common
Prayer And Hymnal.
New York: The Church Hymnal Corp., and The Seabury Press. 1979.
Harper’s
Bible Dictionary.
General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1971.
Holy Bible.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Jewish Study
Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.Lectionary Page. http://www.lectionarypage.net/. Accessed: 4 Aug. 2014.
Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd Ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2004.
The New American Bible for Catholics. South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
Voyle, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment. Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010.
Voyle, Robert J. “The Art of Resolving Resentment”. Forgiveness Forum: Teach Your Congrgation How to Forgive. www.appreciativeway.com. 2014.
1
Voyle,
Robert J. “The Art of Resolving Resentment”. Forgiveness Forum:
Teach Your Congrgation How to Forgive.
P.
66.Ibid. Voyle. P. 54.
2
Ibid.
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