Sermon, September 15, 2002
17 Pentecost -- Proper 19, Year A
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Gospel – Matthew 18:21-35 How often should I forgive?  

"Lord, ...how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus’ answer is a "number pun" – seventy seven times – but the meaning is clear. There’s no limit to forgiveness. We say it every time we repeat the Lord’s Prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." It sounds like an absolute expectation. Forgive. Even Osama bin Laden?

Well, that’s what I’m going to try to work with today. Forgiveness and Osama bin Laden. Let me start with this caveat. I’m out of my depths here. I don’t know how to forgive Osama bin Laden either. So, I’m groping more than preaching. Many of you may have much more constructive experience in forgiving than I do. So, I offer this as a tentative contribution to a conversation that moves into deeper water than I can negotiate.

I believe that forgiveness of anyone begins with my own self-awareness. I have done rotten things in my life. I have been rotten. I need forgiveness. In some sense, we are all in the same boat; in need of mercy and forgiveness.

But I have never done anything remotely approaching the intentional evil that Osama bin Laden has committed. There’s a big difference between my mere "garden variety" sins and his. Aren’t there some things so horrendous that they transcend forgiveness?

Osama bin Laden has been doing evil things. His words and works are destructive. He intends the annihilation of the United States and of the culture of Western Europe. It is right to seek to stop him and to dismantle his Al-Qaida network of terror. The strong have an obligation to try to protect the vulnerable. But, from a Biblical perspective, it is important to do that work for the purpose of defending justice and security, not for revenge. We heard in last week’s Gospel a theme repeated often in scripture – vengeance is a divine prerogative, not a human one. And revenge does not heal. But forgiveness does.

The reason we forgive is that it frees us. Not forgiving drains our energy, consumes our time, and keeps us living in the pain of the past. It paints our very identity with hurting, hating, and grudge-holding colors that mar and corrupt our true beauty. And, the failure to forgive will blind us so that we see only the darkness. Beware of trying to slay the dragon lest you become the dragon. Failing to forgive will retard and stop spiritual growth. We forgive in order to liberate ourselves and get on with our life in a more constructive way.

Here is what a woman wrote as she worked through her own life after having been sexually abused by her father for six years during her childhood:

[It makes it easier to forgive when you] accept the fact that there is nothing you can do to change the people who hurt you; no way that you can shame, manipulate, humiliate, subtly torture, punish, or hate them enough to make them make up for what they did to you. There is no form of revenge that can heal your wounds... Learning that the rapist or mugger or drunk driver who wreaked havoc on your life has gotten the maximum sentence for his crime provides a certain amount of satisfaction, but it does not restore the order and tranquility to your life. The only way to do that is to work through the healing process and reach the point where you can say, "Yes, it happened to me, but it is not me. I am more – and so is the person who hurt me."

(Sidney & Suzanne Simon, Forgiveness: How to Make Peace with Your Past and

Get on With Your Life, p. 199. Much of this sermon is indebted to this fine book.)

Author Corrie ten Boom was imprisoned and tortured in a concentration camp where she watched her sister Betsie starve to death. In 1947 she had just finished speaking in a church in Munich when a guard from that camp put his hand out to shake. She writes, "It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. ...And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion – I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘Jesus, help me!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’"

And so woodenly, mechanically, she thrust her hand into the one stretched out to her. And as she did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in her shoulder, raced down her arm, sprang into their joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood her whole being, bringing tears to her eyes. "I forgive you brother!" she cried. "With all my heart!" For a long moment they grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. Corrie said that she had never known God’s love so intensely as she did then. (from Christianitytoday.com Campus Life for Teens)

When a young Jewish man was being unjustly tortured to death by religious people who believed they were doing the right thing, who were certain that what they did was for the glory of God, he spoke from the cross, "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do."

We’ve seen the resilient spirit of America rebound from the attacks of last September. We are working to contain bin Laden and the Al-Qaida network of terror. If we are not blinded by motives of revenge, we will be freer to make wise decisions for the justice and security of the world. If we don’t get stuck in our fears, we will be freer be creative as we seek to bring peace and safety to the world.

My hope is that we can reach out to our moderate Arab neighbors and help them begin to enter this modern age while protecting the treasures of their Islamic faith. That’s where America’s Islamic community can help the whole Arab world. My hope is that we can help provide education for Islamic children with no life skills whose only option for learning to read is in schools run by fanatic militants, a breeding ground for little Osamas. My hope is that we can use our influence to create justice and security for Israel and Palestine. We are freer to do those challenging things when we have made some peace with our past in order to get on with life now. Forgiveness is that freedom. Forgiveness empowers us.

It is likely that Osama bin Laden will not change. He will not triumph either. He will die in a dark place and be a bad memory like Hitler and Stalin. The question is, who will we be? Will we continue to be a people of freedom, tolerance, creativity, and compassion? We will, as long as we embrace our highest values and not get stuck in resentment, fear and revenge. Forgiveness is the way we get ourselves off those hooks. It’s the way we make peace with our past and get on with our lives. "Lord, how often should I forgive?" Whatever it takes for you to be free.

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