SERMON FOR SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2020.   TEXT: MATTHEW 18:21-35
     It is important to read today’s Gospel in relation to the story which immediately precedes it, where Jesus instructs the disciples on the practice of discipline. He tells them, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:15-20).
     It is in response to these commands that Peter then asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” The Greek word in the text translated as “member of the church” is adelphos, literally brother, as in “Philadelphia,” the city of brotherly love. Jesus is talking to the disciples of his own day and beyond them to the members of the community of faith in Matthew’s time and then to all the generations of those, marked by the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit, who will follow. As I read it, these are injunctions for insiders. The way believers structure their shared life and deal with one another is an essential part of their witness. Jesus does not assume perfection. Forgiven sinners, seeking to grow together in grace and obedience, are still sinners. The Lord enjoined us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” because he knew that sin and forgiveness, accountability and amendment of life would be our constant concern.
     Those of you who have been through a church conflict, one that has divided people who were once friends, caused them to fight over property or drive a pastor out, know how destructive the experience is. I remember a particularly brutal dust-up in my home congregation. The church council president, who held on with decency through it all, told me that once the fight was settled, he was going to leave. “You know,” he said, “I loved this congregation. I really thought the Gospel was alive here. But if something like this could happen, I must have been wrong. I just can’t look some of these people in the eye anymore.” He let the congregation be to him as a Gentile and a tax collector.
     Whenever I was back in Annapolis to visit my parents, I went to my home church. Over the years I recognized fewer and fewer people. There were still some of the old guard present and accounted for, but many who lived through that conflict never returned. The former church council president appeared to be among them. And then one Christmas there he was again, singing in the choir and worshiping once more in a new configuration of the congregation. It consisted mostly of people who did not share the painful memories, yet among them were still some whose stern judgments had not been unfounded but whose cruel behavior had surely not been forgotten by those who witnessed it. I speculated as to how he had found his way back, just as I had watched my parents try to make their peace with what they too experienced as a shameful failure of the church.
     Mom and Dad had been shut down when they spoke in the midst of the fray. But they continued to honor their commitment to the congregation, filling their envelopes and pondering these painful events in their silent hearts. They were never the kind to confront anyone, to press the case for an apology, even when they were owed one. They weren’t the kind to hold grudges either. They mostly let time and experience wear down the rough edges of the offense, and they prayed about it. At some point what they had left was the memory of a cautionary tale minus the hurt and anger. Is this forgiveness? I think so. You wait it out, and one day, maybe a long time down the road, you realize the offense has lost its hold on you. It belongs to the past and will no longer be traveling with you into the future.
     What Jesus has to say in these passages from Matthew’s Gospel, although intended specifically for the church, will shape our relationships beyond the community of faith. We come together to learn what it means to live as Christians, to practice close to home what Jesus commands us to do, so that we can go out into the world and be, as Luther put it, little Christs one to another. Jesus calls us to forego judgment and follow in the way of his love. Even the final acts of the Lord’s life were gifts of mercy: “When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ . . . One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:33-34, 39-43).
     Forgiveness is a straightforward part of discipleship but a complex way of life. Jesus commands his disciples to bind sins as well as to loose them. The goal is to bring those at fault to repentance, not to hold them hostage to your righteous indignation. Forgiving is not the same as dismissing harm done or blotting out transgression as if it never happened. The consequences of sin have a life of their own. There are things that cannot be mended. There are others that can be ended. And that too is a form of forgiveness. We recognize the complicated feelings of those who hurt us; we are often the victims of their projections; we need not take so personally the hurt they inflict. And what of those who are not repentant, who know what they have done and have no desire for our forgiveness? Sometimes it’s best to bring the relationship to a close, to step away and move on. Loose yourself, if you cannot loose those who sin against you. “Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past can be changed.” It is also claiming the hope that the future can be different. Whether it results in a relationship ended or a bond mended, forgiveness tempers our broken nature with grace and frees us to make things new. That we will not succeed entirely is a given. We are not God, the only true source of mercy. But we are made in the image of God, who forgives seventy times seven and then some. Amen.