Last Sunday my family and some other families from my
wife’s church had a barbecue. The adults did what adults do - sat around,
talked, and ate chips. The kids went and played. My son and another one of the boys had a bump
in and the other boy, who wasn’t wearing any shoes, got the toenail on his big
toe bent back. My wife asked my son, “Did
you apologize?” Of course my son in his
not wanting to accept responsibility for anything 9-year-old kind of way said,
“It was an accident.” My wife’s obvious
answer to that was, “That doesn’t matter. You still hurt him. You need to see if he’s okay and apologize.” So my son sucks up his pride and goes to the
boy and avoiding eye contact said, “Sorry.”
The other boy, also staring away, says, “It’s okay. It was an accident.”
I wonder, what would have happened if it had not been
an accident? What if my son meant to
hurt the boy to give himself the advantage in the game they were playing. In that event I am reasonably sure that my son
would’ve gotten punched and come running to mommy crying. Then, the barbeque would have become a very
uncomfortable situation for everybody – the other kids for the game is
disrupted, the embarrassed parents, the other guests wonder if a feud might
break out, and the host wonders if the party is now over.
There would then arise the formal process that groups
of people go through to resolve such situations. There would be interrogations to determine
who is at fault. Verdicts rendered. Both boys would have been forced to make an
apology that they would reluctantly make.
Wise parents would make them apologize to all the other guests and
especially the host for disrupting the barbeque. There would also be some sort of punishment
dealt out for ”when we get home”. Then,
it will take time for the boys to trust one another enough to behave like
friends and play together.
As conflict affects a whole community and not just
the parties directly involved, both sets of parents would also have made
uncomfortable apologies to one another and in order to relieve their
embarrassment and fears of being seen as bad parents, they would have tried to
explain why their child would have done such a thing. Indeed, the fellowship over the chips would
be strained until everybody saw the children getting along causing the
suspicions of bad parenting and the fears of rejection to subside.
At some point the barbeque would “lighten up” again,
but…things would not be the same as they were before the incident. Something happened that pushed the boundaries
of trust but that also created opportunities to change the nature of the relationships. The relationships could possibly grow as all the
parents shared their parenting woes and assured and encouraged one another and
the hosts refilled the drinks and the chip bowls; or…we could just label one
another “bad families” and find reasons to never do this again.
Well, what needs to be noted here? One, when offence happens whether intentional
or not it affects not just the two people involved but the whole community. Everybody at the barbecue was affected by
what happened between two children. Second,
there needed to be accountability for actions taken. Third, reconciliation, the restoration of
fellowship, is the work of the whole community – the kids, the parents, the
other guests, and the hosts. Four,
forgiveness is more than just the act of apologizing and accepting an
apology. Quite often I find that
apologizing is the very vehicle we use to skirt accepting responsibility for
our actions. Five, there is no reconciliation
without forgiveness. Thus, we need to
know what forgiveness is.
In our reading here from Matthew 18 Jesus lays out
for us a process for dealing with offence particularly within the Christian
community. It involves difficult advice about
forgiveness, particularly forgiving those who will not accept responsibility
for what they have done. It is a
difficult process that begins with the offended going to the offender and
pointing out the offense.
We tend to avoid this initial one-on-one encounter
for fear of escalation. And so, we likely
involve a third party unless we are too embarrassed or afraid to speak up or
there’s the tragic reality that being a victim is often accompanied by mutism,
the psychological inability to speak about the offense.
Well, why Jesus would start the process of forgiveness
with a one-on-one confrontation initiated by the offended one? I believe he does this because retribution and/or
restitution are not the goal of this process, but rather reconciliation is. The process that leads towards reconciliation
is different than the one the simply leads to retribution and restitution.
Moreover, the context here is Christian community in
which one disciple of Jesus offends another.
Christian community is radically different than other groups. In the Jesus way, loving your enemy is the
rule of thumb as opposed to simply exacting vengeance. So, when dealing with conflict in Christian
community we must be careful to guard the dignity of the offender as to not
shame them. Shame is not conducive to
reconciliation. Shame feels very
uncomfortable and we will do anything not to feel it. Avoiding shame is the likely culprit for why
people do not accept responsibility for their offenses against others. I believe Jesus begins with a one-on-one
encounter with the offender initiated by the offended so as not to shame the
offender who may not know he’s offended another. Moreover, the fewer the outside people involved
the lesser the felt shame and the more likely there will be reconciliation.
Let me say a little about forgiveness in the process
of retribution and restitution. We live
in a culture that says “you hurt me therefore you owe me”. Thus, we believe that there can be no justice
and resulting peace unless and/or until you pay me what is due. Even
when the offender has served the penalty for his actions, the offended still has
the right to sue for restitution. In
this process forgiveness is merely the offended “letting go” of one’s rights to
retribution and restitution and “releasing” the offender from obligation.
The Bible would seem to lead us in this direction –
an eye for an eye, forgive us our debts.
The New Testament Greek verb which we translate into English as “forgive”,
aphiemi, has among its deep well of
meaning the concepts of “letting go” and “releasing from debt”. It was a frequently used word to communicate
those ideas in the first century Greek-speaking world. Use of this Greek word in this way lends
towards our locating forgiveness in the process of retribution and restitution.
But, let’s consider something here. The writers of the New Testament were Hebrews
and thought with Hebrew ways in mind, ways and words that didn’t always
translate so literally into the Greek words and ideas embodied in the Greek
language that they needed to use to function in the first century Mediterranean
world. The Hebrew idea of forgiveness is
not rooted in the process of restitution and retribution rather in
reconciliation. There is another nuance
in meaning for the Greek word aphiemi
that the Hebrew writers wanted to use but we loose in translation because
culturally the Western whites who have predominated the world of theology and
Bible Study are predisposed to Greek ways of thinking. Aphiemi
can also mean “to send off”. This idea
of the “sending off” of our sins against one another is more in line with what
the Bible has to say about forgiveness and particularly understanding Jesus
death for our sins.
To understand how Hebrews thought of forgiveness we
must look, of all places, to the Book of Leviticus and understand the Day of
Atonement, the one day year that the Jews dealt with their perpetually broken
relationship with God and their offenses against each other. On this day the high priest took a bull and
two goats and set about the process of reconciliation between Israel’s God and
his people. Forgiveness is forged in
what happens to the bull and the goats.
First, the High Priest dealt with his own sins and
the sins of the priests. He took the
bull and slaughtered it and collected some of its blood in a dish. To Hebrews the blood is the “life” of the
animal. This blood that he collected
from the slaughtered bull in essence was blood or life that had passed through
death. This points us towards Jesus and
the Holy Spirit who is the blood of Christ who has passed through death. The High Priest would take this blood into
the Holy of Holies of the temple to the Ark of the Covenant. The lid of the Ark was called the Mercy
Seat. It was God’s throne on earth. The priest would fill the room with the smoke
of incense so that he would not see the LORD when he came to sit on the
throne. This smoke represents
prayers. He would then turn to the Ark
and dip his hand into the bowl of blood and then sprinkle it onto the Mercy Seat
and in this act the LORD God of Israel and the priestly family would be united
in this blood, this life that had passed through death. The Hebrew word used for this act connotes a
covering over and washing away of a stain much like how bleach can remove a
stain. The priest would then go out and
do the same thing with one of the goats and this goat is on behalf of the
people. The blood of this goat sprinkled
on the mercy is the union of, the reconciliation of the LORD God of Israel and
his people in life that has passed through death.
After this act of cleansing of the stain of sin and
unioning of God and his people in life that has passed through death, the
priest would go back out and take the second goat, place his hands upon its
head and whisper into its ear the sins of the people. Then, a Presbyterian, a chosen person, led
this goat who is carrying the sins of the people out far away into the
wilderness and then loosed and sent it off on its own where it would be
destroyed in death by a demon called Azazel.
This is where we get the term “Scapegoat”.
So, to the Hebrew forgiveness involved covering over
and cleansing and carrying the burdens of others and sending off. King David in Psalm 32 said “Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.” The Hebrew word for forgive (NaSA) means to lift up and carry away. The idea of covered there is like having
one’s nakedness or shame appropriately clothed so that there’s nothing to be
ashamed of anymore. The lifting up and carrying
away of that which we are ashamed by another so that we appear appropriately
clothed as beloved children of God is what forgiveness means to the Hebrew.
Sounds foreign.
What’s it look like? You remember
the story of four men picking up a paralytic and carrying him on his mat to
bring him to Jesus so that Jesus could heal him. They came to the house where Jesus was and it
was so crowded they had to break through the roof and lower him down in front
of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all
say that when Jesus saw the faithfulness of the men not of the paralyzed man,
he said to the man on the mat “you sins are forgiven.” They lifted up and carried this man on his
mat of shame and brought him to Jesus who healed him. That’s what forgiveness is. Notice the absence of an apology-based
transaction.
Forgiveness that leads to reconciliation is seated in
the relationships of a whole community not just the relationship between the
offended and the offender. Forgiveness
is when the Christian community picks up and carries the offender in all his
offensive and in great love brings him to Jesus to be healed, where he can be
appropriately clothed with the cleansing of the presence of the Holy Spirit in
him. It’s what recovering alcoholics do
with still suffering alcoholics in AA. We
Christians should do the same with each other.
Today is Aboriginal Sunday and we gather together
here as an ecumenical community to worship and fellowship. Reconciliation will happen among our two
communities the more we gather together in union with one another in Christ
Jesus where his life that has passed through death can be applied to us by the
presence of the Holy Spirit to cleanse and heal us with the sweet medicine of
his very presence. When we gather
together in worship, in holy Mystery, knowing the Spirit is here Jesus will do his
healing work of forgiveness.
Moreover, we the body of Christ must take up
participate in Jesus ministry of being the “Scapegoat”. We must carry one another, bearing with one
another in our sins against one another.
This means that we must patiently and compassionately understand that
broken people do broken things and we have and will continue to sin against one
another, but we must in the love of Christ seek each other’s healing in Christ that
we may all be healed. We must approach
those who offend us in the love of Christ – the self-denying, even self
sacrificing unconditional love of God in Christ Jesus which has been poured
into our hearts richly and powerfully with the Holy Spirit. We must go to our offending brothers and
sisters in Christ and by the love of God in us by the presence of the Holy
Spirit point them back to Jesus, draw them back to Jesus Christ doing all we
can to guard their dignity. So also,
when people come to us to confront us in that we have sinned against them we
must in the love of Christ accept accountability for what we have done for we
have caused them shame.
We are now new Creation – the old life is gone and
the new one has begun. Like eating
together after this service, this is what we do. Forgiving is what we do. The peace of Christ be with you. Amen.
