Why Forgive?
Exodus 14:19-31/Psalm 114/Romans14:1-12/Matthew 18:21-35
Rev. Mindy Huffstetler
September 14, 2014
Each time I hear the Old Testament passage Jesse read this morning – I can’t help but
think of Charlten Heston. Maybe you do, too, if you’re my age or older. Heston was the
actor who famously portrayed Moses in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic classic titled The
Ten Commandments, one of many movies of that time inspired by events in the bible.
It’s a genre of film that one of my seminary professors referred to as “Bathrobe Dramas”
or “WWJW: What Would Jesus Wear.” Those films were hugely popular in their time
and while you may not see crowds flocking to see such movies today, the production
value for putting parts of the bible on screen has by no means run its course. We
occasionally see new dramatizations on television with series such as The Bible and
every so often Hollywood will churn out a new one, such as Noah, starring the
conspicuously caucasian Russell Crowe as the title character. No doubt large portions of
the Bible make for great cinematic storytelling.
But before the movies came along, the story of the parting of the Red Sea and the
Israelites passing through on dry ground from slavery to freedom had long been a
defining biblical text for both Christianity and Judaism. It’s perhaps one of the most
important stories that inspired many African Americans to persevere in overcoming
slavery and, later, claiming their civil rights. It’s a life-altering spectacle that begs to be
incarnated because we believe that it reveals the truth about God’s character: God
powerfully and decisively delivers the Israelites from slavery and deals a crushing blow
to the military agents of Pharaoh’s imperial refusal to let them go. It’s the culmination of
the contest of wills between the human arrogance of tyranny over the lives of others and
God’s liberating preference for the victims, and, in the end, God wins.
But at the same time there’s a danger with plucking this story out of context and reading
it as if it stands alone, because doing that is no different from what the movies have done.
Every movie has to end, and most movies about the Exodus ends either just after the
Israelites cross the Red Sea or soon after it. But what happens at the Red Sea may be the
end of Israel’s slavery under Pharaoh, but it’s by no means the end of their story, in fact,
it’s a whole new beginning, and not just a beginning but a becoming, because scripture
spends far more time telling the rest of the story of their long journey through the
wilderness of Sinai, and how the Lord transforms them: NOT into warriors
commissioned to return to Egypt to avenge their oppression, but into a covenant people
held together by God’s promise to shape them into a holy people whose purpose is to
become not a community unto themselves, but to be a light – a light that one day in the
future will draw all nations, including Egypt, into God’s reconciling love. God sets them
apart from all the peoples of the earth, for the sake of all the peoples of the earth.
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The thing is, though, that THAT part of the story, where God slowly and painstakingly
fashions them into holy instruments – that part isn’t nearly as fantastical as what happens
at the Red Sea. In fact, it drags on day in and day out for forty years while the people
constantly fret and complain. They complain against Moses for leading them out into the
middle of nowhere. They complain against God for not noticing how much worse off
they think they are. They insist that Moses tell this God of his to send them back to the
old life in Egypt where at least there was some decent food. Even Aaron and Miriam,
Moses’ own brother and sister, turn against him, and for what? They don’t like his choice
for a wife. It turns out that this so-called chosen people would rather go back into the old
life than to trust the enormous mercy that has set them free. Apparently, its easier to
remain in bondage than to be truly free. Yet even in the midst of their groaning and
complaining, God keeps forging their new identity. In spite of their chronic recalcitrance,
God refuses to forsake the relationship and keeps loving and forgiving Israel, as if setting
her free from her bondage, again and again.
Last week Jesse posed the question: what holds the church together as a community? It’s
not simply a matter of a set of rules, but of the stories from scripture that tell us who God
is what who God intends us to be. And he reflected on communion, the Lord’s Supper as
one of the primary ways Christ shapes us into his people whenever we share the wine and
the cup. And I would like to add to that baptism, because whenever one of us is baptized,
the community comes to the font to give thanks that we are like the Israelites passing
through the waters of the Red Sea as God delivers us through the waters of baptism from
the old life of our bondage to sin to a new life of freedom to be fashioned into to the body
of Christ. And just as it was for the Israelites, the event of baptism is not the culmination
of God’s work in the life of the baptized, but only its beginning.
Yet the scriptures are honest about how being that kind of community is easier said than
done. Both Matthew’s gospel and Paul’s letter to the Romans remind us that when as
few as two or three are gathered in his name, not only is Christ among us, but so are all
the differences of opinion and practice that emerge from our diversity. The potential for
conflict is always there, and it shouldn’t surprise us when it emerges. It’s how we
respond to it that matters. Do we see conflict as an opportunity to turn to Christ to heal
our divisions and to teach us forgiveness, or do we allow it to distract us from his
presence altogether?
Matthew reminds us that conflict has existed in the church since the time the disciples
begin asking which of them will be greatest in the kingdom, and Jesus insists that they
live according to a completely different standard where forgiveness isn’t just talked
about, but practiced within the community of faith, day in and day out.
But just like Peter, we are tempted to put a cap on how far we have to go to forgive one
another. At some point, there has to be a reasonable limit. Like the lawyer who asked
Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” we want to define the terms and conditions on how long
we have to extend love to each other. One of our favorite tricks is to point to worst case
scenarios, both real and hypothetical, as reasons why we should be the ones to decide
which sins to forgive: genocide, murder, rape, abuse, and terrorism, claiming that it isn’t
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humanly possible to forgive as lavishly as God calls us to. And as real and as serious as
those problems are, too often you and I allow such heinous forms of evil to cloud our
minds on the topic altogether, and we end up not putting much thought or effort in
practicing it every day in the less extraordinary yet far more frequent ways we sin against
each other. Notice Peter doesn’t ask how many times he has to forgive all the evildoers
in the world – he asks, how many times do I have to forgive another member of the
church? He’s not asking yet about the heavy hitters of his day like Herod or Pilate or
Caesar – he’s asking about his fellow disciples standing there with him, who have been
traveling with him for quite some time. The reality is, if you and I are committed to the
journey of faith as the community of Jesus for the long haul – our humanity is going to
get in the way of ourselves and our fellowship is going to suffer for it, and before we
know it, we’re whistling all the way back to Egypt..
But what Jesus teaches us about forgiveness won’t let distance ourselves from the
subject. He says we all are held to the same standard. And that standard is no less than the
heart of God. In his parable, the size of the debt the servant refuses to forgive his fellow
slave is nothing compared to the enormity of what the king forgives him, yet he is
expected to forgive with the same generosity as he was shown. All are called to stand in
the posture of forgiveness toward all sin, big or small. But when we Christians accustom
ourselves to picking and choosing those sins and those people we deem as reasonable
recipients of our forgiveness, we end up with little to show and almost nothing to say
about the reconciling love of God to a world that turns on unbroken cycles of violence
and vengeance and seems incessantly to manufacture new models of Pharaoh.
Living in such a world, it seems almost ridiculous to imagine that Christians forgiving
each other over what seems like such small disagreements. But forgiveness among
Christians isn’t about us, it’s about reflecting what God intends to do beyond the church,
which is to heal the entire creation of sin and hatred and death. Richard Hayes puts it this
way: “the church community is a sneak preview of God’s ultimate redemption of the
world.” And unless our lives and our actions toward each other offer even the smallest
glimpse of that kind of love, where will the world learn it? There’s not much love out
there today.
When you and I fail to practice forgiveness, we miss out on learning together what God
does and does not require of us. Practicing forgiveness does not require us to take sin and
its consequences lightly or to deny that evil is real and pernicious –but it does require us
to remember that we are sinners in constant need of forgiveness and mercy ourselves.
Practicing forgiveness doesn’t require us to believe that God does not or cannot judge sin,
but it does require you and me to let go of our desire for God’s justice to impose
perpetual punishment rather than to clear a the way for redemption and reconciliation. It
doesn’t require us to keep our mouths shut and not speak against evil when we see it, but
it does require us to let go of our wanting to kick the Lord off his rightful place as the
ultimate judge and claim that position for ourselves.
But above all, practicing forgiveness requires you and me to admit that it is not our nature
to forgive and that the last place to find strength to do so is within ourselves. The only
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place to find it is in God’s abundant love, poured into us through Christ, a love so
unlimited, a love so unreasonable, that it forgave us, even as we nailed it to a cross.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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