Year C

Luke 6:27-38

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Merciful Forgiveness

The Pope, Billy Graham, and Oral Roberts were in a plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean. Tragically they all died. But when they all got to the gates of heaven St. Peter said, “This is terrible. I’m so sorry, but we don’t have your rooms ready yet.” But then he got an idea. He called up the devil and asked if the three of them could stay with him for a couple of days until their accommodations in heaven were ready. Reluctantly the devil agreed. But the next day St. Peter’s phone rang and it was the devil. The devil said, “Peter, you have to come down here and get these guys. The Pope is forgiving everybody, Billy Graham is saving everyone, and Oral Roberts has raised enough money to air condition the place.”

These three fine gentlemen certainly took to heart what the texts and the collect expresses today; O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. What we find in the scriptures is that the love God intends is not feeling-oriented or self-centered. Rather, it involves showing mercy to others, and is grounded in and motivated by who God is, by God’s character which “is merciful.” This theme of mercy, forgiveness, love is what we hear throughout our texts today.

The gospel lesson continues Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain. It is plain talk-tough talk-hard to listen to talk. It is one of the most difficult teachings of Jesus that sets apart the Christian faith and defines the core of Christian ethics. Jesus tells us we are to “Love our enemies.” And then goes on to suggest that this means doing good to, blessing and praying for one’s enemies. Yet, to love an enemy is simply impossible; for an enemy is by definition someone hated rather than loved. An enemy who is loved is no longer an enemy. So great is the contradiction implied in these words of Jesus that Christians have always had a rough time figuring out, or crawling out from under, Jesus’ demand that we love our enemies and practice the Golden Rule.

A hundred years ago, theologian & musician Albert Schweitzer, believed that Jesus, or the early church when this teaching was actually recorded, never intended that we could live like that—at least not for long. Schweitzer held that the early church believed that Jesus was going to return to earth very soon-in a few years at the most, and that the command to love one’s enemies was a temporary edict; what was called an interim ethic. It was like holding your breath. You could do it for a while but as we know, Jesus has not immediately returned and the church has been stuck with an ethical command no one can live up to.

As Jesus points out, we can squirm all we want and reinterpret the Lord’s words but, if we don’t do these things we’re no better than the culture that surrounds us. Sometimes we all have used the larger culture as our excuse—this is what everyone else is doing or acting. We would rather be more socially acceptable, comfortable and in line with the way we ordinarily do things. Yet, if we confess and seek to follow the Golden Rule which is counter to how everyone acts, that’s what makes us Christian. Jesus is changing the ground rules. He is saying don’t do it the way everybody else does it, do it God’s way instead. God loves all that God made, even if they don’t love God back. Jesus is the proof of this. When he accepts the violence done to him, without retaliation, he creates a completely new situation in which all hate and hostility to God, all separation from God, is reconciled, forgiven. We have done our worst, and it didn’t change the way God feels about us    

Joseph in his story today demonstrates this power to turn things around by his unexpected response to his brothers. They expect retaliation-it’s what they would do but what they did enables Joseph, in effect, to love his enemies. Passing up a perfect opportunity for revenge, he instead forgives his brothers, blesses them, and does good to them. He shows God’s mercy and provides for others as God does.  Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy once called the Joseph saga the most beautiful story ever written. At its heart is forgiveness, he says, but preceding that forgiveness, is a tale of dreams, sibling rivalry, murderous jealousy, false charges, unjust imprisonment, redemption, and an unexamined dysfunction that plagued a family until the fourth generation. Joseph grows from spoiled brat to shaman and wise man, and despite every effort by others to put an end to the story, God’s will is done.    

Joseph clearly shows us the merciful, forgiving God when he makes the choice to forgive those who hated him. I’m sure it was not easy, but forgiveness allowed God’s love to flow though him, as it does with us. Forgiving is a process. It usually begins with a decision about how we are going to deal with a past wrong. It doesn’t mean we forget. It is important we acknowledge our hurt, not forget it, and then, with God’s help through prayer, meditation, reading of scripture, confession, to make a choice to forgive from our hearts. It helps to reflect on God’s forgiveness of us and to see God’s perspective, and then allow God to work in us, to lead us into the future with the gift of a forgiving spirit. For, only when we accept God’s forgiveness can we offer it to others.

Forgiving is the work not of the weak but of the strong. We forgive not because we are compelled to but because we wish to and we have the freedom to. God’s love working in us, give rise to the desire to forgive so that we can help build a new world of justice and peace. The power of God’s love works in us to give us the confidence that this transformation can actually happen. This same theme is in our reading today from 1 Corinthians. Belief in the resurrection assures a future that transforms the present. This means we can begin to live now according to the new life in Christ, even if we do not yet have our new bodies

The new life Jesus speaks about in the Sermon on the Plain, the new life that is seen in Joseph’s decision to forgive, these are signs that Christ is alive in us. Something new happens. We “put on” Christ and are “conformed to the body of his glory.” God provides the imperishable, the powerful, the glorious, the spiritual-a reality that is a gift given to us in the resurrection. We move closer to the hope of resurrection in this life when we show mercy and compassion and recognize that that compassion is God working in our lives helping us to “live out” and ethic that in a way that is contrary to our human nature.  Jesus calls those who follow toward a narrow and difficult path. To answer hurt with forgiveness only because Christ is our strength. “Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give generously of your love…for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”