Year A Proper 19 2023 Err on the Side of Grace

Year A Proper 19, 17 September 2023 St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA “Err on the Side of Grace” Collect: O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your

Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives

and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Romans 14:1-12 Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.

Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not

despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat;

for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is

before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to

make them stand. Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be

fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the

Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those

who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and

if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the

living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother

or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written,

"As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

and every tongue shall give praise to God."

So then, each of us will be accountable to God. Matthew 18:21-35 Peter came and said to Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how

often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I

tell you, seventy-seven times. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle

accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand

talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together

with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on

his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out

of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same

slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii;

and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and

pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went

and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had

happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had

taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you

all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave,

as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would

pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not

forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Today we start with one of the hardest teachings of Jesus. Matthew puts

it this way… Peter came and said to Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church

sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” Now in the Jewish mind, forgiveness took a few things.

• Recognition that a wrong had been committed.
• A ceasing of the sin or transgression and never do it again.
• And ask for forgiveness, and it should be sincerely given up to three times.

Three times. Three times for something really bad. So what does Peter do? He doubles the expectation and adds one to be

safe. “I’ll see your three and raise you four more, ha!” But then Jesus gets into complicated math. The NRSV translation (the

one we read from) says seventy-seven, while most translators say seventy

times seven. Either way it is a lot of forgiving. Forgiving without end.

Math, either way, that most who heard him could not imagine. Seventy

times seven! Now this is elementary math to most of us, but the staggering

sum of 490 would have probably been incalculable to most who were there.

It is like saying a gazillion, or some other nonsense word. Jesus is saying that we keep on forgiving. And because we had received it,

we are to be on giving side of it, too. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Or, better yet, “Forgive us our debts &/or sins, as we forgive those who

owe us &/or sin against us.” Matthew uses the same word for debt and

for sin. The nature of forgiveness is the root of our sermon today. It is about

receiving it and giving it. Then, and only then, can we have Grace-filled

lives. Jesus tells the story of one ingracious, who received grace beyond measure

and could not extend a cup of the same to someone else. The actions of

the forgiven servant could not be more ingracious and hypocritical. Friends,

we are to give to others as we have received. Forgiveness means letting something go. And that is why Jesus is so

adamant about forgiving things a gazillion times. He knows there is a

small little troll in each of us that hoards grudges. We hold onto it. It

comes out at strange times and in strange ways. And we have to once

again, forgive. We have to let it go. Fr. Richard Rohr said, “Forgiveness is to let go of our hope for a different

past.” Our hope for a different past could be that this never happened. (But it

did.) Forgiveness is not pretending it did not happen. Forgiveness cannot

change the story that has passed. Forgiveness is rewriting the story of

the future that is in our power to create. What’s done is done. What will

be can be influenced by us, our choices and responses, and ultimately

God’s Grace. Again, think on St. Paul, no greater sinner as a persecutor of the church,

as he put it. And yet, called in his sinfulness, redeemed by God’s Grace,

reformed through the Spirit, and sent by Christ himself to take the faith

that found him and saved him to a hurting and broken world. If God can

do that, God can do ANYTHING! When we are wronged, there is nothing we can do to change what

happened. The only power we have, the only choice in the situation, is to

forgive. If we wait for anything else to make it happen, it won’t. We have

to be the bigger person, the Grace-filled and Grace-giving person who will

offer and live into forgiveness. Often it is not fun. It might make us look naive or a fool. So be it. We are to forgive because

God forgives. Just as we are to love because God loves us. He models for us what is right and proper and God’s will. Paul talked about that in our Romans passage. There are some mature in

Grace (and if that is true, then they are also mature in forgiving). We all

make the best decisions we have with what we have got, and the intention

is the heart of the matter. The right thing in one context is anathema in

another. When we pray or say the national anthem, we ask people to take their hats

off. In the Jewish tradition, you cover your head to pray to show humility.

Opposite actions trying to reach the same outcome. Kneeling or standing

to pray. Opposite actions, but both set apart prayer by doing something

out of the ordinary to set it apart. In Paul’s writing in Romans, he looked at those who chose to be vegetarian

and those who chose to eat meat. He argued that the action was not the

thing, but the intention of the heart. I have seen a lot of arguments in the church in my short life. Women in

ministry, Gay bishops, LGBTQ+ participation, and now trans rights.

Every time one of these weapons of mass DISTRACTION comes up, I

have to remind myself of Paul’s words:

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you

despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment

seat of God. For it is written,

"As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

and every tongue shall give praise to God."

So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

Often, too often, these issues have been raised to get people’s ire up, and

if people get angry then they can be controlled. I would rather keep my

focus on God, and God’s way of doing things. And even then, I cannot judge too harshly my judgy fellow Christians,

for then I am just as bad as them. But I am called to discern and ask what

God is asking of me! I can remind myself of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth,

do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.  

Isaiah 43:19

What seems impossible for us is possible with God. (Matthew 19:26, et al.) God can make water where there is none. God can make things that we

cannot fathom be real. God can put forgiveness and CHANGE in our

hearts when we are hardened and unforgiving. THANKS BE TO GOD! You probably have heard some of the story that led us into the Episcopal

church. And there was one guy who made it his mission to get me gone. I

will never know for sure why, but I have my guesses. Whatever the reason,

he did what he could to make sure I was fired, and besmirch my character

to never work in a church again. He was a fellow pastor, and I trusted him.

Long story short, he did not win, but the damage done meant that neither

could I stay where I was. Mine was a pyrrhic victory. And I had a lot of

questions about polity, power, and protocol that allowed that to happen. But more importantly, this was a guy that life in Richmond meant that I

kept bumping into him. Repeatedly. The first time, I slunk away, not

wanting a confrontation. Second and third time, similarly. But as the years

went on, it came that he avoided me. He would not make eye contact

with me. In the years since, I have come to pray for him and his healing.

Forgiveness took a long time. Not three times. Not seven times. Probably

about seventy-seven times or more. Forgiveness was letting go of the story

I had written that he had derailed. Forgiveness was letting go of the pain

that I felt. Hating him did nothing except feed my pain. Forgiveness meant

seeing him as the flawed sinner I was, as is each and every one of us. We

are flawed sinners that can be saved by Grace, if we let it. God may give

me a chance to bump into him again one more time and I can finally,

honestly, say, “I forgive you.” God can make all things new. Even our mess-ups, even our sins, even our

broken relationships, everything single thing can be redeemed. God desires

all to come to God, and is breaking down the barriers and walls we build to

keep that from happening. If God’s intent is for us to live in Graciousness,

Love, and Forgiveness, how can we get in anyone’s way to the path? In Jesus' parable, the ungracious servant is the one condemned. Let that

stay with you. When we withhold forgiveness, when we keep up barriers and parameters

that are about our comfort not someone else’s safety, when we are not like

Christ who forgave sinners and welcomed them into paradise, are we like

Christ or the ungracious servant in the parable?
Think on it this way: if we err on being too gracious, God has to forgive

us, because we are only trying to be like God. Amen