The Rev. George A. Chien Sermon
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Sermon Delivered Sunday, February 23rd, 2014, at Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford
Matthew 5:38-48
The Rev. George A. Chien
Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
In the Name of God, who Creates, Redeems, and Sustains our lives. Amen.
Today’s Gospel contains a verse which has come, for me, to encapsulate something at the core of Christianity. At the heart, at the foundation of Jesus’ message, is this image of God’s all-encompassing benevolence: “God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Jesus speaks here of the divine refusal to hold our sins and shortcomings against us. He speaks of the infinite compassion and mercy of God, offered to all, not because it is deserved, not because it has been earned, but because it is the nature of God to give it.
He speaks of amazing grace. And that grace operates in our lives most powerfully through forgiveness. As Gandhi famously remarked, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and pretty soon the whole world is blind and toothless.” Jesus points to another way. “Be perfect,” he says, “As your Heavenly Parent is perfect.” That’s all he asks, just perfection!
But the perfection of God is forgiving, reconciling love. And as children of such a Heavenly Parent, we are invited to forgive as we have been forgiven. Forgiveness is a lubricant that allows the machinery of our common life to function smoothly. It is rain that waters the garden of our spiritual growth. Because we are merely human, we will require both to be forgiven and to forgive, and on a regular basis.
Now, I come from a tradition, the Methodist church, which values the idea of perfection. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, believed in and taught spiritual perfection. At ordination, as clergy candidates stand before the congregation, the bishop asks us, “Do you believe you are going on to perfection?” And the correct answer, if you want to be ordained, is “Yes.” Also the bishop asks, “Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life-time?” And again, we answer, “Yes.”
My colleagues and I have smiled at these questions. But now, looking back over some 25 years, I have come to believe they point to something profound and real. They encourage me to think of perfection as a verb and not a noun, as a process, and not a state of being. I am, we are, going on to perfection. I am, we are, being made perfect. Every day, every relationship, every decision, is an opportunity to grow, maybe just a little bit, maybe quite a lot—but to grow in forgiveness, to grow in compassion, to grow toward the perfection in love of a God who sends sun and rain on the good and bad, the just and unjust.
I am not in a position to tell you that you must forgive, who you should forgive, when you have to forgive. I am not Christ. Nor should you take this Gospel as license to demand forgiveness from others, or for others. But you can, I can, we can, bear witness to the power of forgiveness to liberate us from the past. It is possible for us, each in our time, and in our way, as God leads, guides, and empowers us, to forgive, and so to allow God to make us that much more perfect, bring us that much closer to being the people we were created to be.
Anger, resentment, grudging, holding onto hurts we have experience, cherishing the memory of wrongs, clinging to betrayals—all these things disfigure our souls and enslave us to the past. We can reduce ourselves to the status of victims, without agency, without power. We can imprison ourselves in shame and regret for things done, and things left undone. But forgiveness sets us free.
Life will offer us many opportunities to practice the art of forgiveness. Because we are merely human we will fail each other and ourselves, and repeatedly. Our families, our communities, our neighbors, our fellow church members, our nation, the world, our own bodies and our own behaviors, will provide us occasions to choose to be forgiving. And the good news is that we can. We don’t need others to good enough, sorry enough, worthy enough to receive our forgiveness. We just need to choose to be forgiving people. We can forgive ourselves for our own failures, shortcomings, betrayals, disappointments, which may loom larger in our self-assessment than they do in others’ experience of us.
In the church of my youth, I was taught to count my blessings. And the counting of blessings is a good and fruitful spiritual discipline. I would also encourage us, however, to bring our hurts, wounds, failures, disappointments, our losses and our grief to conscious awareness. Not to wallow in them. Not to cherish them. Not to define ourselves our others by them. But to recognize them, and to let them go. Forgetting is not forgiving. And denial is not healing. When we pretend that all is for the best and couldn’t possibly be any better, that doesn’t make the bad stuff go away. It just places it in the shadows, where it weighs us down, hinders us, deforms us.
Forgiveness can bring healing, not just to situations of egregious violence, betrayal, and abuse, but even to places where no hurt was intended, and where no real moral wrong was done. We can, for example, forgive our parents for not being the all-wise, all-loving, all-competent beings our young selves looked to them to be. We can forgive our spouses, partners, lovers for not being the solution to every one of the problems our needy selves brought to them. We can forgive ourselves for holding such false expectations. And as we forgive, the past loses its power over us. It is not, and may never be easy, but it is necessary.
Nelson Mandela, whose passing the world has recently mourned, modeled forgiveness on a world-changing scale. When Mandela came out of Robbin Island, he made the choice, the hard choice, the choice inspired by teachers like Gandhi, like Jesus—he chose non-retaliation, non-violence. He chose mercy, even to those who had shown so little mercy to him. And he encouraged all sides in his bitterly wounded country to do the same. And so, in spite of youthful excesses, and excesses committed in his name, and in spite of the many real problems that continue to plague the land, Mandela is rightly honored as the father of the new South Africa. He showed a people the way to put the past behind them.
Now, if Nelson Mandela could, after the years he endured in unjust imprisonment, abuse, hard labor, come to his inauguration as president, and invite his jailers to be with him on the platform, could we not perhaps consider, in our own lives, in our families and communities, in this church, how we might become more forgiving people? We can, if we choose, let go of that which limits us, and, in opening ourselves to each other in mercy and compassion, open ourselves as well to the future which God is preparing for us in love.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.