76 STRIKES – AND YOU’RE STILL NOT OUT
Matthew 18:21-35
Rev. Gary Paterson
September 14, 2008
“I forgive you.” – three simple little words. So easy to say; so hard to do, to live. Reminds of a story of two young brothers, who one evening had a real set to that ended in blows and tears. Their mother swept into the act as she tucked them into bed - “You can’t go to bed angry with each other. John… say you’re sorry; and Nathan, you forgive you brother now.” After much cajoling, and sullen silence, Nathan finally muttered, “Okay; I forgive him; but if I’m still alive in the morning, he’d better watch out, cause I’m gonna get him.” Easy to say; hard to live.
But in today’s gospel reading, Peter is ready to jump right into the middle of the dilemma, ready to ask the difficult questions and come up with wrong answers. “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me?” Perhaps he wondered if Jesus would make it easy, offering up commonsense, along the lines of “Once bitten, twice shy!” or “If you hurt me once, shame on you; if you hurt me twice, shame on me.” Once is enough… and then you protect yourself. But hey, Peter knew Jesus better than that; perhaps he thought that Jesus would be like other religious authorities, and name three times as the magic number… surely that’s all that could be realistically expected; three strikes and you’re out. Works for baseball; and some of our American brethren have decided that it works for criminals – trouble is, they’re constantly having to build more jails. Actually though, this is one of those moments when Peter surpasses expectations; perhaps with just a slight tone of self-satisfaction he suggests, “Seven times?” Fulfilling the law; no, surpassing any legal expectation; seven… a nice round, lucky, almost holy number. Seven times… surely that’s all that could be expected; hey, it’s hard enough to do once; seven was full-on grace. Right? “Wrong,” said Jesus -- though I imagine him smiling at Peter with love. “No, no, Peter… seventy-seven times; that’s how many times you need to forgive your sister or your brother. Seventy-six strikes and you’re still not out.”
Ouch! How is that possible? So easy to say; maybe easy for Jesus to say – but so hard to live. Impossible to live! Reminds me of another story… husband and wife with a less than perfect relationship; always at each other, sniping, poking, just plain being miserable. There they were at church on a Sunday morning, and the preacher was waxing eloquent on forgiveness… and that number 77 came up. How many times must one forgive an offender… seventy-seven times? Well, silence in the car on the way home, but wouldn’t you know it, just as the wife was parking the car… an argument, with some significant heat. They both stomped into the house and each grabbed a sheet of newsprint, stuck it on different kitchen walls, and with a bright red marker, wrote at the top, “Forgiven” and carefully recorded… “ONCE”! Don’t think it would take them all that long to get to seventy-seven. Good thing their preacher didn’t use the Revised English translation, where Jesus’ words get translated, not as seventy-seven, but as seventy times seven. You’d need half a dozen sheets of newsprint to keep track.
You get to asking yourself if Jesus really meant what he said; but then you remember some of those other verses… “Judge not lest you be judged, for the judgment you offer will be the judgment you receive. Turn the other cheek, bless those who curse you; love your enemy. Forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” No, it would seem that this forgiveness stuff is an integral part of what Jesus was about; a central part of the gospel.
A story -- about Simon Wiesenthal, a Jew who survived the Holocaust and who subsequently spent the rest of his life bringing to trial those Nazis who had personally participated in the mass murder and attempted extermination of the Jews of Europe. He was passionate and determined in his demand for justice. And oh so rightfully so!! Wiesenthal tells the story of being called to the bedside of an SS officer who was dying and who wanted a Jew to hear his confession. Simon went, and listened to the young man describe unspeakable atrocities, stories of women and children rounded up, herded into a building which was then set ablaze, while the soldiers listened to their screams, and watched them die. When he had finished confessing, the officer said, “Please forgive me; let me die in peace.” Simon Wiesenthal describes how he sat there, hands folded in his lap, in silence; and then, how he stood up and left the room without saying a word. He finished his story-telling by asking, “What would you have done?” Are some crimes unforgiveable? Who but the victim can offer forgiveness? What would I have done?
Another story… a bit more local. It’s New Year’s Eve in Squamish, 1997 and everyone is having a fine time. But next door to Bob Hutchinson’s home things are getting out of hand. Over a hundred young people are into over-the-top partying; a lot of booze, drugs, and no parents around to keep things under control. So Bob goes over to ask them to quiet down… he ends up being kicked to death. No one knows who actually did it; no one confesses; a wall of silence descends over Squamish. Bob’s wife, Katy, is left trying to explain to her five year old twins what happened to their father. She’s left with … well, with devastation! But somewhere along the line, somehow, she made a decision to not let her life be destroyed by this event, with rage, hatred, bitterness controlling her. When eventually Ryan Aldridge confessed to the crime, Katy chose to meet him; she went to the prison to talk to him. And eventually she found herself able to forgive him. It was at that point that she decided that she need to talk about her experience, her process, her decision; she began speaking in schools about her experience, what it meant to her and her family to forgive the man who had killed her husband. When Ryan was eventually released on parole, the two of them shared the stage together, and talked about their journey. Katy eventually participated in a documentary called, “Embracing Bob’s Killer”. “I forgive you.” – easy to say; but not impossible to live, it would seem.
A final story… you might have caught the recent headlines about Kelly Ellard winning the right to yet another trial for the murder of Reena Virk. Remember Reena… back in the fall of 1997, ironically just a few weeks before Bob’s death, Reena was swarmed by a group of teens; hit, beaten, kicked, until she staggered away, to the river’s edge, only to be followed by someone who then pushed her under the water and held her there until she drowned. Her father, Manjit, has just published a book, entitled, of course, Reena; he describes how his life fell apart when his daughter was murdered; how he was unable to work because of post traumatic syndrome; how he lost his job; how he and his family live on small disability pension. But he also talks about his response to one of his daughter’s killers, Warren Glowatski. Warren went to trial, confessed, expressed remorse, and asked for forgiveness. Which Manjit slowly was able to offer. Indeed when Warren participated in a native healing circle in support of his application for parole the Virks chose to be there, to help Warren find a way back to life. However, Manjit also said… and this is what has stayed with me, -- “We don’t want a relationship with him. I can’t do. It would bring out too many old wounds. Forgiveness doesn’t come naturally.”
Forgiveness doesn’t come naturally. That’s right! What does come naturally is anger, rage, the desire to strike back, to hurt in return. What comes naturally is the need to protect oneself, to ensure that you never get hurt like that again. What comes naturally is the hunger for revenge, for pay back. Not forgiveness.
At first it feels good, almost enjoying the taste of that anger, nursing the hurt, feeling righteous in the pain, lips smacking in anticipation of getting back. That’s what feels natural. The only trouble is… and we all know this… such rage, this hunger for revenge, it has a way of turning on you, of eating you up, of darkening the light, of swallowing up your heart, until bitterness is all you can taste. As the writer James Baldwin has said, “It is a terrible, an inexorable law, that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own.” We know that; we’ve experienced that diminishment, that darkness.
And it’s not just true for us as individuals. Just talk to the people of Northern Ireland; of Bosnia; or Palestine and Israel. Sadly, what seems to be natural is that human beings hold onto and nurse their grudges, with all the distortions that long memories can bring; they are keen to seek revenge for real or imagined hurts; and have a capacity for losing sight of the humanity of their so-called enemies. Forgiveness … you gotta be kidding! Unfortunately, the endless cycle of violence brings only death and destruction; as Gandhi said, “If we insist on demanding ‘an eye for an eye,’ then soon the whole world will be blind.”
The irony, of course, is that we need to forgive others for our own sake, for it’s the only way we will find a way out of the hurt and anger that eat away at our own joy. We need to let go of the overweening desire for revenge that too often controls our lives. Forgiveness becomes a way of reclaiming our own power, choosing to shape our own response to what has been done to us, rather than allowing the actions of the other, no matter how heinous, to control our lives. We take back the power, and then choose to let it be. To forgive the other is to discover our own freedom. Easy … of course not! Hard work… absolutely. But the rewards for ourselves are amazing.
Forgiveness is, of course, also a gift for the other. No matter how hurtful the other has been, no matter what they have done, somewhere inside of that other person is a spark of humanity, a real person… made in the image of God; a person who still is loved by God. Forgiveness is a recognition of that truth, an action that reaches out to affirm the goodness within the other, no matter how small it may seem, even when it feels lost and twisted.
The writer Alan Paton once said, “What is tragic is not that things get broken; what is tragic is that things do not get mended.” And he’s right, no? Things will always get broken… relationships that go off track; betrayals, misunderstandings, addictive behaviours, greed, clashing egos, angry moments, the harsh word, the raised voice…. But it’s the mending that we are called to work at, and forgiveness is a primary part of that journey. Forgiveness is often what enables repentance; it doesn’t necessarily come after. Reconciliation is what we seek… and although it isn’t an inevitable result of forgiveness, it most certainly can’t happen without it.
But I suspect we know all this, in one way or another. The real question that slams into us is “How?” How do we go about offering forgiveness seventy-seven times; isn’t that beyond possibility? To better understand the “how” let’s return to the parable that Matthew attached to the challenge to forgive without reckoning, the parable about the King forgiving his servant an enormous debt. You remember… it turns out that the servant owes the King an huge amount of money, ten thousand talents, which some policy wonk figured out would require an ordinary working stiff to work for 164,000 years to pay off… without interest. And you thought buying a home in Vancouver was challenging!! So zillions of dollars; no chance of ever getting out from under the burden; and no way just to declare bankruptcy and walk away. It’s the end of the road. So down on his knees falls the servant and pleads for mercy. And this is where it happens. “Oh,” says the King, “okay; done; you’re free; no more debt – it’s all forgiven.” I imagine the servant looking up; tears streaming down his cheeks; a stunned, joyous, “I-can’t-believe-this” kind of expression on his face. Grace, so unexpected, so undeserved, so amazing. This is the mercy sweeping in, knocking him off his feet, declaring that there’s a new life being offered that is not based on keeping track of debts and wrongs and sins and broken promises; but rather a life based on forgiveness, mercy, the love of God – who forgives not just seventy-seven times, but ten thousand times and then ten thousand more.
How do you forgive? Well, I think you need to recognize how you yourself stand in the need of grace, and how you yourself have been forgiven, over and over and over. When you experience the reality of Holy Love, that simply embraces you in acceptance, forgiveness, then you receive your own life as a gift, and feel love spilling out of you, offering mercy, grace and yes, forgiveness to those around you. Now I may not owe a zillion dollars; my debts tend to be bit more humble. I didn’t send Jews to the concentration camps; I didn’t kick someone to death. But I have my own pile of pain… my life of strained relationships, regrets, things not done well to friends, kids, family, loved ones, neighbours. I could make a long, long list… way over 77; way over seventy times seven. And that’s before I even begin thinking about my life as a very rich Canadian whose life-style seems to be predicated on a global system that impoverishes billions of other human beings, and is sending the whole planet into an environmental tail spin. As Tillich once said, “It is impossible to have a sensitive conscience and a clear conscience at the same time.” How true, eh? But the good news of the parable is that the mercy comes sweeping in for me, just as it did for that servant. I am forgiven; I can root my life in that amazing grace, and live as a forgiven and forgiving human being.
Trouble is, that’s not where the parable ends, is it? The vision of the Kingdom, where we are all rooted and grounded in love, it comes, and we rejoice… and then it’s gone. We lose it, and fall back into our old ways. Just watch that servant… you’d think he go skipping down the highways and byways forgiving everyone in sight, rejoicing in what he himself has been given and sharing the love. Instead, he grabs the first person who owes him something and demands instant and total repayment. You want to ask, him, “What part of what just happened to you didn’t you get?” Well, you know how the story goes; it gets scary actually, with the servant ending up back where he started, only worse. But let me just say, I do not believe that God revoked the grace and sent the servant off to eternal punishment. It’s a parable, folks… suggesting, though, that if you’re not forgiving others, then it’s pretty clear that you haven’t really internalized the grace that is being offered to you. Which is to say, God is always offering forgiveness; but we have to be ready to accept it; the further it gets into our hearts, the richer our living; but we’re free to refuse that grace, to turn away, to say “No thanks!” And that can end up feeling like eternal punishment.
So in a way, this just takes us back to the question of “How?” “I forgive you.”… so easy to say, so hard to live. Let me offer three thoughts about the “How?” First, it’s a choice; second, it’s a process; third, it requires grace.
First then… choice. Forgiveness is an act of will. You truly can decide what you are going to do. No matter how horrendous the crime, the sin; no matter how overwhelming the grief and pain, there is always freedom of response; you can choose how you are going to react. An example… I love mystery novels. After a full day of church, church, church, and dealing with all the ups and downs of real, flesh and blood human beings, I love to slide into bed at night, and haul out a mystery, where the good guys win and the bad guys get theirs. Well, this week I have been reading Lost Lights by Michael Connelly, and suddenly it hit me… this is sermon material! What a great justification for reading a mystery novel – it’s not disappearing into “escape literature,” I’m actually doing sermon prep. Let me explain… Harry Bosch, the hero of this novel, is busy tracking down all the bad guys -- but there is a subplot concerning his ex-wife. Will the two of them get back together despite a four year separation? Will there be forgiveness? A recognition of their love for each other? A new commitment? Can Harry find the courage to take a first step? Well, in the last few pages, Harry jumps into his car, heads off to Vegas, and arrives unannounced at his ex-wife’s home; he’s not sure what or even who he’s going to find, nor what kind of reception he will receive; but he takes the risk. As the door opens, he sees Eleanor, his former wife standing there:
There is a choice; there is always a choice. It doesn’t even have to be couched in religious language. These days many psychologists are exploring the power of forgiveness, recognizing how central it can be to a person’s healing. Robert Enright in Exploring Forgiveness suggests that forgiveness is “a willingness to abandon one’s right to resentment, negative judgment and indifferent behavior towards one who has unjustly injured us, while fostering undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity and eve love toward him or her.” Yes, it’s your “right”; a wrong has truly happened, but you surrender your right to anger and you choose to embrace qualities of compassion. Another study, from Stanford University, points out what forgiveness is not: “[it] is not condoning, pardoning, excusing, forgetting, denying or even reconciling. It does not condone violence, abuse or injustice. It does not release others from the consequences of their behaviors.” So forgiveness never means asking an abused wife to return to her violent husband, accepting injustice and violence. But even in the demand that such behaviour cease; even with speaking public truth; even when fighting legal battles for justice – there is still the possibility of forgiveness. Let me add one final definition, from theologian Brian Stoffregen: “Forgiveness is not letting past sinful behaviors (my own or what was done to me) determine how I will act in the present.” Forgiveness is rooted in freedom… the freedom to choose the path of love. Choice!“You should have called me first.”“I know. I should have done a lot of things but I didn’t, Eleanor. I’m sorry, okay? Sorry for everything. Are you going to let me in or should I just melt out here in the sun?”“Before you come in I have to tell you, this is not how I wanted to do this.”[At that moment a little girl comes running into the room, a little four year old who looks a lot like Eleanor… and Harry. His daughter; their daughter; that he didn’t know existed.]“Why didn’t you tell me?”“I wanted it to be the right time.”“When was that going to be?”“Now, I guess. You are a detective. I guess I wanted you to find out about it.”“That’s’ not right.”“What would have been right?”Twin skyrockets were going off inside me. One left a trail of red, the other green. They were going different ways. One anger, one warmth. One led to the heart’s dark abyss, a devil’s punchbowl filled with recriminations and revenge I could dip my cup fully into. The other led away from all of that. To Paradise Road. To bright, blessed days and dark, sacred nights. It led to the place where lost light came from. My lost light. I knew I could choose one path but not both. I looked up from the girl to Eleanor. She had tears on her face and yet a smile. I knew then what path to choose and that there is no end to things of the hearts. I stepped forward and squatted down in front of the girl.
Secondly, forgiveness is a process, not a one-time event. It takes work and discipline; feelings that you thought you’d dealt with, have a way of sneaking back and catching you by surprise. Sometimes your own inner healing, that slow adjustment to a new reality, that too takes time. Just when you think you might be ready to take another step, bam! … you’re caught up again in the turmoil, the pain. However, the very desire to move towards forgiveness, to commit your energy towards that end may help carry you further along the route. I remember being in a prayer retreat, and there was a particular behaviour that I needed to change. My spiritual director suggested that I pray for the grace to make that change. Well, I had to admit that I wasn’t really ready to make the change; knowing that I should change, and actually wanting to change… those were two very different things. She smiled with a knowing look, and suggested that I start by praying for the desire to make the change. I thought about that… shook my head again… eventually I ended up praying for the desire to have the desire to make the change. As I said, forgiveness can take time.
Finally, and here’s the rub, I do not believe that forgiveness depends only on us, on our hard work. I believe we need grace, not only to experience deep down the reality of our own forgiveness, but also to offer this gift to others. Otherwise we will too often find ourselves like the servant of the parable, grabbing offenders by the throat and demanding payback. This “spiritual” help, though, can come in different ways. Sometimes we recognize the movement of God; other times it simply feels like a puzzling, surprising shift; sometimes we find ourselves marveling at a strange coincidences. For instance… while reading through some stories recounted through “The Forgiveness Project I came across the witness of Rebecca, woman whose twelve year old daughter Andria was raped and strangled. Rebecca’s heart was broken and darkened by rage. When her daughter’s murderer, Karl Roberts, was sentenced to death, she rejoiced; during the subsequent appeal process, she found herself praying that he would be raped and beaten by the other inmates; she wanted him to suffer. Rebecca’s hunger for revenge took over her life, and was destroying her family. Then, one afternoon, as she was watching TV, she happened upon a programme about the Green River killer, Gary Ridgway, the man responsible for the murder of 48 women. The show focused on victim impact statements, an opportunity for family members to tell Gary Ridgway what the death of their loved one had done to them. One after another, people came forward to share their hurt, their rage, their hostility.. But then, Bob Rule stepped forward, and said, “Mr. Ridgway, there are people here who hate you, I'm not one of them. I forgive you for what you've done. You've made it difficult to live up to what I believe, and that is what God says to do, and that is forgive, and he doesn't say to forgive just certain people, he says forgive all. So you are forgiven.” At that moment, Gary Ridgway began to cry; and so did Rebecca. That’s when she realized that she needed to let go of her anger; to forgive her daughter’s killer; and thus reclaim her life. I don’t know if Rebecca is a religious woman, or whether she would use the language of faith to describe what happened for her, but surely what occurred was a moment of grace, the movement of the Spirit.
You’re not so sure? Then let me offer one final story of grace that is more explicit in recognizing the power of God that moves in us and through us, that enables us to forgive. Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsy were arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. It was brutal… and Betsy did not survive. After the war Corrie returned to her home in Holland, and committed herself to a ministry of reconciliation, speaking about the need for forgiveness as a necessary aspect for people to find healing after the devastation of the war. It was a powerful witness. But then, one evening, after Corrie’s talk, a man strode forward, full of gratitude for her words; he held out his hand, and said that her forgiveness was so important for him. Corrie looked at him, and suddenly realized that he was one of the officers from Ravensbruck; in fact, this man was the guard directly responsible for her sister’s death. He didn’t remember Corrie, but she found it impossible to forget. And impossible to forgive. She couldn’t speak the words of forgiveness to him; she could not reach out her hand and accept his greeting. Suddenly those simple words, “I forgive you.” felt impossible to live. She prayed for forgiveness for herself, for her unwillingness, her inability to forgive this man. But as she prayed, she felt the spirit move within her; she had a clear sense of God’s love, of God’s forgiveness flooding through her and out, into the man whose hand remained outstretched. Suddenly she found a new grace, a new strength; she was able to return the greeting of the man who had killed her sister, and without his knowing the cost, was able to forgive.
Choice; time; and grace… and forgiveness becomes possible; a gift for ourselves; a gift for others; God’s gift for all of us. Seventy-seven times; seven times seventy.