The Grace of Forgiveness
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Sermon Proper 19A, September 14, 2014
Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT
Marie Alford-Harkey, M.Div.
Matthew 18:21-35
Perhaps you remember the 2006 shooting at an Amish school in Nickle Mines, PA that left 5 Amish girls dead and 5 more wounded. The story in the media quickly became about Amish forgiveness. They said they forgave the killer, Carl Roberts, but they went far beyond words. Amish people comforted the Roberts' family. Amish families nurtured relationships with his parents, and his widow. The book group is reading the book about this event in September. It's called Amish Grace.
Here's what the Roberts' mother recalls. "On the day it happened, Henry, our Amish neighbor up on the hill, whom I call an 'angel in black,' came to our house. My husband [Roberts', the killer's, father] provided transportation for the Amish when they needed to travel by car, and he was just devastated. All day long, my husband couldn’t lift his head. He kept taking a towel and wiping it over his head—he just kept wiping the tears away and couldn’t lift his head up at all. And then Henry came, and he was the first sign of healing for my husband. He put his hand on my husband's shoulder, just stood there and comforted and consoled him for an hour. Henry said, "Roberts, we love you," and just kept affirming and assuring him. The acceptance we have received from the Amish community is beyond any words. To be able to have a community of people that have been hurt so much by what our son did and yet to have them respond to us the way that they have has been an incredible journey." (p. 192)
Amish people attended Carl Roberts' funeral. They donated some of the money that they received from kind people around the world to Roberts' family. The Amish community in Nickle Mines, PA reached out to extend forgiveness in a situation where no one would have expected it and the world was astonished at this reaction. Media stories for months on end focused on "Amish forgiveness."
And yet the book that examines this phenomenon is titled Amish Grace. Here's how the authors define grace and forgiveness.
"Grace, as we use it in this book, is a broad concept that characterizes loving and compassionate responses to others. Forgiveness is a particular form of grace that always involves an offense, an offender, and a victim (in this case, a victimized community). When forgiveness happens, a victim forgoes the right to revenge and commits to overcoming bitter feelings toward the wrongdoer." (p. 151-152).
The book makes the point that the Amish extended the grace of forgiveness not because they are heroic, but because it is woven into the fabric of their lives and of how they practice Christianity. The Amish believe that what they are called to do is emulate Jesus in their actions. That explains a lot of the practices that many of us find strange.
The Old Order Amish, of which the Amish community in Nickel Mines is a part, believe that judicious use of technology, a commitment to non-resistance, mutual aid, and a yielding of one's self for the good of the community and the Christian faith are the ways in which they are called to emulate Jesus.
In emulating Jesus’ forgiveness, the Amish believe that this parable, teaches us everything we need to know about forgiveness. They teach that forgiveness is an ongoing practice. Many of the Amish people interviewed for the book talked about how hard it was to continue to forgive when they remembered what they called "the happening."
The Amish believe that today's parable teaches us that God initiates forgiveness out of God's grace to us, but if we don't do our part and continue to extend forgiveness and grace to one another, the relationship becomes broken.
This is not because God is angry or vindictive, however. Not forgiving, not extending grace, not asking for forgiveness when we need to, allows us to hold on to bitterness and hurt and anger. And those things separate us from a loving God who cannot be angry or bitter or hurt. We aren't asked to forgive one another out of fear that God won’t forgive us or out of duty. We are asked to forgive one another because it's the surest path to the reconciliation of all people to each other and to God. Because it's the surest path to healing and wholeness for ourselves and others. Forgiveness doesn't mean that what someone did was right or that it's ok with us. Forgiveness means that we have decided (and perhaps continue to decide) to allow ourselves to move on from the pain.
I joked that I was going to title this sermon "Don't be a jerk." Because on a day to day basis, when we're not talking about forgiving a monumental wrong, that's what grace and forgiveness look like. "Don't be a jerk."
When I was a high school teacher, the classroom-appropriate way I expressed this was, "Be respectful." I had 5 classroom rules and this was the first one. I always told my students that it didn't just apply to them, but to me as well. I can still remember when I had to apologize to a whole class of students for being a jerk.
I had scolded them like crazy the day before because of their bad behavior with a substitute teacher. I had used phrases that I told them we would never use in my classroom, like "You all know you're supposed to sit down and shut up when a sub is here!" I never, ever allowed my students to say "shut up," and I never said it either. Well, almost never. I raised my voice. I pretty much modeled everything I had told them was NOT respectful.
The next day, the day after that lecture, they came into my classroom, still abashed. I could tell they were trying to sort out whether I was going to continue to be angry. But it had not taken me long after they left my classroom the day before to realize what I had done. And so I began the class by apologizing to them. Their eyes went wide. They were as attentive as I could ever have wished. They were absolutely unnerved by the idea of a teacher apologizing to a class. It was kind of touching, really. So I asked them to forgive me, they mumbled like the embarrassed teenagers they were, and we went on with our lesson.
But I noticed that the apology had made a huge difference in our relationship. They had the power to forgive me or to decide to be bitter and sulky and see me as just another example of an adult who didn’t practice what she preached. Those kids became my most enthusiastic class, and I believe it was because they chose to forgive me. They trusted me, they worked hard for me. They did silly skits and sang silly songs and allowed their teenage cool to be replaced with a spirit of fun and playfulness.
So what I mean by "don't be a jerk," is that we Christians need to practice extending grace and forgiveness to one another, all the time, in things big and small. It changes our relationship with God and with one another when we do. Sometimes, that will mean reconciliation with the person that wronged us. Many times, it won't. But we can choose to let go of a desire for revenge and bitterness, even as we move forward in our lives.
And we can choose to let go of judging one another.
In the activist communities that I'm a part of, we often engage in what my friend Christian calls "spectacular displays of distrust and hostility." He goes on to describe how we do this to each other. "We shoot accusations like arrows from the safety of our Facebook chairs, far enough away to avoid getting splattered with the mess. Simply disagreeing with a person’s ideas or interpretation of an event is immediately labeled as bullying, slander or worse."
This is true in most of our daily lives, isn’t it? It's so easy to criticize other peoples' actions and motives. We often assume the worst about our interactions with another person. We take things personally. We don't even stop to give people the benefit of the doubt, to lead with love, or at least with curiosity. It's almost as if we look for ways to be hurt. This is exactly the opposite of what we are called to do.
Imagine if we tried leading with grace and forgiveness, for the big things and the small ones. And imagine if we tried it not just with other people. What if we tried leading with love and grace and forgiveness toward ourselves as a spiritual practice? Many of us have been brought up to believe that God sees our sins, all the time, and that those sins make God angry, and that God then judges us because God is angry. But what if the reason our sin disrupts our relationship with God is not because God is angry, but because God is perfect love? God sees us as good, so before we even ask, God has forgiven us.
Let that soak in for a minute. Imagine yourself as God sees you: good, cherished, loved to your core. Even the parts of you that you hide from yourself. God’s perfect love you, all of you, in your glorious potential. If you can open yourself up to even consider what that might feel like, then that, my friends, is the grace from which forgiveness flows.
Let’s begin to believe in the deep well of love that God has for us, and then let’s absorb and live in that grace and forgiveness that God extends to us. Then we can naturally extend the same to others. Amen.