I would like to start with a prayer, from the Franciscan priest Father Mychal Judge. You may have heard of him. He was the chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. He spoke this words in a Bronx fire station in his final homily, just before he reminded his congregation – firefighters and first responders – that we follow God’s call to our lives, not knowing always what comes next, but to know that God needs each of us, and calls each of us.
Let us pray.
Thank you Lord for life. Thank you for love. Thank you for goodness. Thank you for work. Thank you for family. Thank you for friends. Thank you for every gift because we know that every gift comes from you, and without you, we have and are nothing. So, as we celebrate this day in thanksgiving to you, keep our hearts and minds open. Let us enjoy each other’s company, and most of all, let us be conscious of Your presence in our lives and in a special way in the lives of all those who have gone before us. And Father we make our prayer, as always, in Jesus’ name who lives with You forever and ever. [Amen.][1]
Father Mychal prayed that prayer of thanksgiving, and gave that homily, on September 10, 2001. The next day he was called to Ground Zero of the Twin Towers, standing and praying with the firefighters who were there, and was killed by falling debris.
Among God’s gifts are the gifts of grace and forgiveness, and in today’s Gospel Jesus answers Peter’s questions about how often you should forgive someone. Jesus’ answer is exaggerated – he tells a story about a servant who owes a king what to us might be billions and billions of dollars, far more than even a king could have amassed much less owed, and certainly not a servant. The king’s actions are drastic – first he says he will sell the servant and his family, then he gives in and forgives the servant his debts, and then he watches the servant turn around and offer no mercy whatsoever to his own debtor, and so he throws him into prison to be tortured, which is hardly a strategy for getting someone to pay their debts.
And then Jesus says, and if you do this – because we are human, and we all, in some way, do this – God will do the same thing to you.
Jesus was being overly dramatic perhaps, but he was making an important point about something that is particularly hard for us – forgiving. Letting go of our grudges, our resentment, our sense of being wronged. We all do this. Forgiveness is hard.
But forgiveness is also at the core of who we are as Christians – receiving forgiveness, and giving it. Every Sunday morning, we confess our sins as a congregation –
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We kneel and bow our heads, and admit where we have fallen short:
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
And then we make a promise to God to turn away from sin and try to follow more closely in his way.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
As Episcopalians, we can also confess our sins to a priest one on one, a practice we often think of with Catholics. If you come to Sunday School today at 9:15, you’ll learn about this – it is one of our sacraments, the Reconciliation of a Penitent, and you can find it on page 447 of the Book of Common Prayer.
So Peter asks Jesus, how many times should I forgive? Seven? Seven seems like a lot, but it’s a holy number, and surely that’s generous.
Jesus says – no. Not just seven, but seventy-seven. Jesus isn’t saying, count it out, and when you hit 77, that’s it, no more forgiveness – Jesus is saying, forgive without ceasing. Forgive over and over and over – 77, seven times seventy-seven, seven hundred times seventy-seven.
Why should we forgive?
First, we forgive because God forgives us – as Jesus tells us in this morning’s parable. Because God’s grace is endless. Because we know that each one of us has been hurt, and each one of us has caused hurt – to God and to our neighbor. All of us do things that need forgiving. And God will keep forgiving us seventy-seven – times seven hundred seventy-seven – times.
We forgive because forgiveness heals us. It allows us to move on, to not define ourselves or or days or a particular time of our life, or our relationships, or each other, by the hurt that we are forgiving. When we can’t let go of a grievance, of hurt that someone else has caused us, we remain angry. The wound does not heal. Forgiving puts something else in place of anger, in place of hurt. The person who has spoken thoughtlessly to us, or the argument we got into with a spouse or parent or sibling, the friend who disappeared when we needed them most.
Forgiving someone else helps us heal and not get stuck in that anger and that sadness.
We forgive because forgiveness is a way of saying to someone else, this thing that I did to you, or you did to me, that was hurtful, is not the most important thing between us. Instead, it’s the thing that we can make right again. It’s an opportunity for reconciliation, for healing. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean we’re saying what they did was right, that it was ok, but it’s saying, I will give you grace, just as God gives me grace. It’s saying, we can be kinder to each other, starting with forgiveness.
We forgive because forgiveness cools anger, transforms hate, and puts something good in their place. Forgiveness can make a path for reconciliation, for healing across political and national borders. When we forgive, we put something in the world that is good. And we might inspire others to do the same.
And the greater the hurt – the greater the forgiveness – perhaps the deeper the healing. Some of Jesus’ last words from the cross were words of forgiveness for those who killed him, forgiveness for the criminal crucified next to him. Over and over, Jesus preached forgiveness – in parables like the exaggerated story we heard today, in the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. Jesus practiced forgiveness in the ways he welcomed and respected strangers and sinners – tax collectors, the woman accused of adultery, the soldier who wanted to follow, but couldn’t go so far as to give up all his possessions to the poor.
Diana Butler Bass, this week in her column, The Cottage, connects forgiveness to mercy, a word which was part of today’s reading and which we have been taking about in recent weeks – forgiveness is one expression of mercy. It is a compassionate act. Forgiveness is compassion for the one being forgiven – forgiveness is compassion for ourselves – and it is compassion for the imperfect human world around us. And if we forgive, because we are forgiven, if we commit that difficult, compassionate act, let us pray it will keep moving – that forgiveness will beget forgiveness in ever-expanding circles of mercy, reconciling where there is anger, healing where there is grief.
Let us pray.
Thank you Lord for life. Thank you for love. Thank you for goodness. Thank you for every gift of compassion, mercy, grace, forgiveness, love, because we know that without you, we have and are nothing. Keep our hearts and minds open. Give us the peace and strength of your goodness. And Father we make our prayer, as always, in Jesus’ name who lives with You forever and ever. Amen.[2]
[1] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2014/09/fr-mychal-judges-last-homily-91001/
[2] Adapted from Father Mychal’s homily prayer, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2014/09/fr-mychal-judges-last-homily-91001
