Forgiveness: Who Holds the Key to Your Happiness? Preached on September 27th, 2020 For Wollaston Congregational Church Online Service Scripture: Matthew 18:21-35 Today we come to the third theme in our elements of Spiritual Health. The first week we considered Love and Belonging, last week we talked about Identity, and this week we will talk about Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Forgiveness and Reconciliation is a tough one. Today we’re going to look at it from the perspective of the forgiver. This sermon series is about our - yours and mine - spiritual health. And so, we are talking about how forgiveness makes the forgiver and reconciler healthier and more resilient. The benefit for the offender is for another time. It’s surprisingly difficult to find any hymns about forgiving others. I know, I tried this week. There are many hymns about us – human beings – being forgiven by God. The popular hymn “Amazing Grace” was written by John Newton, a former slave trader, who believed that he had been forgiven. By the grace of God he turned his life around and became an abolitionist. Newton found God’s grace to be quite amazing, considering that it “Saved a wretch like [him]!” God’s grace is amazing, and yet it’s unnecessary for us to think of ourselves as “wretches” today. That’s been overdone. So let’s turn the tables, and focus on what it means for us to forgive others. In the reading from the gospel of Matthew that we heard today, Peter comes to Jesus with a question. Peter asks how many times he ought to forgive another member of the church. This is a little confusing because, there was no church during Jesus’ lifetime. We can assume that Matthew is doing some back editing, appropriating Jesus’ words to apply to the church. This comes in a section of teaching on behavior in the church, or the faith community. We might suppose that Jesus is talking about his vision for the community of followers he is creating. This section begins with advice what to do if another member of the church sins against you. This isn’t a quick admonishment to “forgive and forget” this is no “cheap grace.” The aggrieved member is supposed to go and confront the offender. If they listen, then the offender can apologize, ask for forgiveness, and agree to mend their ways. If not, then one or two others should go along from the church and confront the offender together. If they are still unapologetic, things get serious. The whole church is told about the situation, possibly the offender is removed from the community of faith because they refuse to acknowledge their offense. Now Peter asks Jesus, “isn’t there a limit on how many times this can go on?” Effectively, Jesus says “no.” The offender is held accountable, apologizes and swears to do better. This could go on 77 times, that is infinitely. The disciples may remember an earlier time when Jesus taught them to pray to God: “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” They are to forgive in the same proportion and with the same frequency that God forgives them. Jesus goes on to tell a parable. It’s a hyperbolic story in which a King forgives the debt of a servant who owes him a fortune. Unfortunately this servant does not learn from the experience. He goes and seizes someone who owes him a much smaller sum, threatening to throw him into prison. The King is angry over the servant’s un-forgiveness, and so backs down on the forgiveness of his debt. The King severely punishes this offending servant. This is not a particularly inspiring story! But there is something we can learn from this story. Note which way forgiveness is directed. This tells us a lot about what forgiveness meant in Jesus’ time. The King forgives the servant who owes him a great deal of money. The servant has no need to forgive the King, who is keeping him as a servant. Perhaps he is an indentured servant trapped in a cycle of poverty. Now the servant is not supposed to forgive the King, but he is supposed to forgive his fellow slave who owes him a smaller sum of money. The direction of forgiveness goes from the one with more wealth and power toward the less powerful. Not the other way around. This is the notion of forgiveness in time of the New Testament. The “Book of Joy” by Douglas Abrams documents a conversation between the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. These two deeply spiritual and learned men talk about what they perceive as the pillars of joy. It not surprising to learn out that Forgiveness is one of those pillars. The chapter of the book on this topic is entitled “Forgiveness: Freeing Ourselves from the Past.” Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama give some powerful examples of forgiveness, from their own experience of deep hurts and wounds. The Archbishop talks about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was formed in South Africa when apartheid was ended. The idea of the commission was to seek out the truth of the atrocities that had been committed during the struggle for black liberation in South Africa. The intent was forgiveness and reconciliation, but first the truth needed to be told. A mother who came before the commission had seen “the body of her son being dragged … like the carcass of an animal.” Her son had been betrayed to government forces. When the mother saw the perpetrator during the commission, she took off her shoe and threw it at him. The meeting had to be adjourned, but during the break the woman came around, saying to the man “My child, I forgive you.” [1] The archbishop asserts that “no one is incapable of forgiving and no one is unforgivable.” The Dalai Lama had witnessed a similar act of forgiveness from a man, Richard Moore, who was blinded by rubber bullets in northern Ireland as a child. When this man grew up, and had a family of his own, he sought out the British soldier who had shot him so that he could offer his forgiveness. [2] The archbishop sums up our need to forgive in this way “Without forgiveness we remain tethered to the person who harmed us. We are bound to the chains of bitterness, tied together, trapped. Until we can forgive … that person will hold the keys to our happiness … when we forgive … we become our own liberator.” [3] And so I wonder: Who is holding the keys to your happiness? The parable Jesus provided describes a more powerful and wealthier person forgiving a poorer person. The problem arises when the poorer person was unforgiving toward someone less powerful than himself. Surely, it is not difficult to forgive people who borrowed from us and cannot pay us back, especially if that loan didn’t mean much to us anyway? Forgiving someone I lent a book to and they didn’t return it, isn’t too hard. “Consider it a gift,” I think. Perhaps that book will be more valuable to them than to me. Forgiving an offender who has some power over us is so much harder. How can you forgive your bully, your abuser, a political leader who enacted policies that ruined your life, the boss who fired you, the local gossip who damaged your reputation, or your spouse who left you for another lover? Bullies and abusers are not worthy of cheap grace. Some say that while someone like this has power over you it is impossible to forgive. And yet the examples from the Book of Joy tell of people forgiving those who had power over them. Those who say it is impossible to forgive someone who has power over you are forgetting the power of forgiveness. Forgiving a bully, or an abuser or a spouse who cheated on you, does not mean letting them back into your life. It does mean releasing yourself from the hold they have over you. Forgiveness must be done from a safe place. Perhaps it must be brokered by a moderator who will keep the victim from harm. In some cases someone may need to undergo trauma therapy before they can even begin to forgive. Perhaps this kind of forgiveness is not even done in person, but in the heart. Over this past summer, I took further pastoral education with a focus on the spiritual toll the pandemic is taking on us all. One of the tasks for the class was to put together spiritual resources for the COVID pandemic, such as songs, poetry, scripture passages and prayers, for each of the aspect of spiritual health. The one aspect that really stumped me was forgiveness and reconciliation. I realized that I am finding it immensely difficult to think about forgiving our leaders their mistakes and lack of transparency during the pandemic. I struggle with forgiving those who walk around without masks, those people who gather for large parties without a thought, and anyone who refuses to take quarantining seriously. Even though it may not make sense, I blame all these people for the fact that I cannot see my parents, that my son’s wedding was postponed this year, that we cannot gather to worship, that many of us remain isolated and alone … not to mention the fact that 200,000 Americans have died. And I know I am powerless over these people and circumstances. I worked with my supervisor on the problem of finding a spiritual resource for forgiveness during COVID. We both agreed that it will take some time to forgive those we hold responsible. And I can’t begin to imagine what how much more difficult that would be for families and communities who have been affected much more severely by the disease. Some “truth and reconciliation” will be needed when “all this is over”. Finally I realized the resource I was looking for was the song “You Can Do this Hard Thing” by Carrie Newcomer. [4] We heard the song during a service back in the spring. This song was performed by a virtual choir to encourage people during shelter in place. But, it could be the song we need to remind us that yes “we can do this hard thing.” In order to be whole and to release ourselves from those who hold the keys to our happiness. We can do this hard thing: we can and we need to forgive. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams, “The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World”, (New York, Avery, 2016), 229-230 [2] Ibid, 232 [3] Ibid, 234-235 [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHxRsSSeNBo
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May I See Your Id? Preached on September 20th, 2020 at Wollaston Congregational Church Scriptures: Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24 and John 4:5-29, 39-42 May I see your id? It’s a common question we encounter in the doctor’s office, or the bank and for the younger ones among us, maybe when ordering a drink at dinner, or buying alcohol in a store. And so we pull out this little card: our driver’s license, or something else with our little picture, hair color, eye color, height and a long string of numbers. This is our identity, according to the government. Of course we know that it is not our identity at all. Our true identity is something much deeper, more personal, truly unique. Our true identity is something so beautiful and complex that it take us our whole life’s work to discover it. For those of us who follow the way of Jesus, our true identity is all about our identity in God. Our identity is the image of God reflected in us, God’s beloved children. Last week we talked about a sense of belonging as one of the elements of spiritual health. Identity is another equally important element, closely related to belonging. When someone feels a loss of identity, perhaps by moving from independent living into nursing care; perhaps by being taken from their culture of origin to be forced to conform to a new community; perhaps by being denied the rites of their community, they feel as though their very self has been taken away. Those who identify strongly with their career, their marriage, or their role in the family, feel a loss of identity, when they retire, lose their life partner, or when their children grow up. When I worked with the spiritual care department in an eldercare facility, we’d be careful to check each resident’s sense of identity: Did they serve in the military? Were they born in another land? Were they a respected member of their community? Do they have a strong connection with their faith tradition? Are they a parent? Were they a singer or dancer, a musician or an artist? The best facilities lift up these identities. They share photographs of the residents in the roles that form their sense of identity. They honor their families of origin, cultures and faith traditions. Our faith tradition is grounded in the scriptures of Israel, the texts that formed Jesus of Nazareth’s identity as a Jewish man. Today we read from the book of the psalms, Israel’s hymnal or prayer book. Psalm 139 addresses the question of the Psalmist’s identity, through his relationship with God. The writer’s identity is understood because of who God is. God knows the psalmist intimately. God anticipates every word from the psalmist’s tongue. The psalmist simply cannot flee from God’s presence. He acknowledges that he is fearfully and wonderfully made. God knit him together in his mother’s womb, his frame was secretly and intricately woven in the depths of the earth. The gospel reading we heard today is from the gospel of John. John is a gospel looks back on the life of Jesus as the elevated risen Christ. And so, when we see Jesus encountering other characters in the story, he encounters them as God would encounter them. Jesus knows them intimately and fully before they recognize him. In the story we heard, Jesus approaches a woman at a well in Samaria. The Samaritans are the rivals of the Jewish people. They worship in a different setting, on a mountain instead of in the temple. They are “other” and “foreign”, they are suspicious. But Jesus does not hesitate to engage this woman in conversation alone at the well in the heat of the day. There is a back and forth. First she asks him who he is. His reply is enigmatic, it will take her a while to realize that he is the Messiah. And yet his reply reveals that he already knows who she is, and what her life has been. She has had five husbands and now lives with a man who is not her husband. That is her story, but for Jesus it is not her identity. She is not defined by her outsider status, or her marriages and relationships. She is known and now she can know God. She will be the one to bring the news of God come in Jesus to the Samaritan people. Historian and author Diana Butler Bass, says the question “Who am I?” is a fundamental human, religious and spiritual question. [1] I have attempted to answer for myself. As we go along, I invite you also to think about how you might answer. This is not necessarily an easy question for those of us who belong to the dominant culture. If you are, like me, white, you may not think much more about your ethnicity. Those of us who read the book “Waking Up White” by Debby Irving will remember the exercise we did on thinking about our own ethnic heritage. [2] If you are, like me, straight and cis-gender – that is, you identify with the gender you were assign at birth – you may not think to specify these things. When you meet someone who looks like you, you may assume they are all of the above unless they say differently. In order to make space for people who identify differently, I am trying to name some of these things and to remember to share my pronouns, “she/her/hers” when I meet someone new. Articulating my identity is a work in progress. This is how I have begun … “I’m a straight, cis-gender woman, white and northern English. The northern part important to me. My last name, Williams, is Welsh and is my husband’s family name. My last name at birth was Raby. My grandfather told me our family name indicates we were descended from Vikings who invaded and inhabited northern England long ago. I don’t look particularly Scandinavian, but then I had 3 other grandparents, last names: Scott from Scotland, Kershaw (English) and Hornsby, another Norse name. And no doubt there are many other strands in there too. “I am the daughter of Margaret and Paul, the wife of Simon, and a mother to three amazing young adults with unique identities of their own. “I’m a pastor, and I served in the United Church of Christ. I respect those of all faiths and none. I was raised in Anglican and Methodist churches.” Your identity is not the same as mine, of course. I invite you to try this exercise, maybe this can be an ongoing project for us all. Claiming our identity is empowering, as it was for the woman at the well. Far too many times, in history, different groups of people have been denied their identity. To take away someone’s identity is to rob them of themselves. Louise Erdrich writes about the attempts to remove Native American identity from generations of children, in the book “The Night Watchman.” The story is fictitious but refers to the experience of Erdrich’s grandfather as a child. In Erdrich’s culture, a boy’s braid would only be cut when someone had died. But the nuns at the school would cut all the children’s hair. Erdrich tells the story of Thomas, being taken away to boarding school “Thomas’s mother, Julia, or Awan, wept and hid her face as he went away. She had been torn—whether to cut his hair herself. They would cut his hair off at the school. And to cut hair meant someone had died. It was a way of grieving. Just before they left, she took a knife to his braid. She would hang it in the woods so the government would not be able to keep him. So that he would come home. And he had come home.” [3] Children in the boarding schools were not allowed to speak their own language, wear their own clothes, or practice their own religion. They were robbed of their identities. [4] Sometimes, though, a loss of identity can be restored. Perhaps you have attended the Bar or Bat Mitzvah of a Jewish friend. This ceremony usually takes place when the child is 13 years old, following rigorous preparation studying Hebrew and the Torah. The Bar Mitzvah is a right of passage, in which a boy is said to become a man. These days most Jewish sects hold the equivalent Bat Mitzvahs for girls, but this rite was not available until around the 1970’s. And so there are many Jewish women who never had a Bat Mitzvah. Over the summer, I met Rabbi Lior Nevo who serves as a Rabbi for the Hebrew Seniorlife organization at the Jack Satter House in Revere. Last year Rabbi Lior was approached by one of the women at the residence, asking if it would be possible to hold Bat Mitzvah classes. A group of women was assembled, their ages raging from 71 to 100 years old. They began their studies as a class but were interrupted by the COVID shutdown. And so Rabbi Lior figured out a way for them to continue, delivering the weekly texts for study to their apartments and running classes by conference call on the telephone. Each woman was recorded separately, reading their Torah portion in the residence’s synagogue. On August 21st, they assembled outside, socially distanced and with beautiful blue masks and prayer shawls, to complete the mitzvah. Thanks to Rabbi Lior and Hebrew Seniorlife, even in their older years, the women’s Jewish identity had been affirmed. This morning we sang or heard a hymn that tells of God’s loving presence in our lives from the moment we are born. The hymn resonates with Psalm 139, and celebrates who we are in God. Earlier this week Marian told me she loves this hymn, but feels that there is a missing verse. There should be something that speaks about God’s presence in the later years of our lives … in the time before we “shut our weary eyes.” I think she is right. Our life’s work is discovering our true, deeper identity: that is, our identity in God. Diana Butler Bass puts it this way: we discover our identity in God “through a process of intuition and discovery, we peel back layers of falsehood, dark motives, and hidden character to reveal the truth that has been there all the time.” [5] And so, here is the way I might write that missing verse: “I’ll be with you in your later years, marveling at all you’ve done, As you learn exactly who you’ve been, all those years along. You’ll reflect on all that’s gone before, you’ll recall my constant love, You’ll let go your criticism of self, and join in the sacred song.” “I was there to hear your borning cry, I'll be there when you are old. I rejoiced the day you were baptized, to see your life unfold.” May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Diana Butler Bass, “Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening”, (New York, Harper Collins, 2012) [2] Irving, Debby. Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race. Elephant Room Press. Kindle Edition. [3] Erdrich, Louise. The Night Watchman . Harper. Kindle Edition. [4] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/traumatic-legacy-indian-boarding-schools/584293/ [5] Diana Butler Bass, “Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening”, (New York, Harper Collins, 2012), 186 We Belong to God Preached on September 13th, 2020 At Wollaston Congregational Church Virtual Worship Scriptures: Genesis 50:15-21 and Romans 14:1-12 How is your spiritual health? How do you think is the spiritual health of our community right now? And why do I ask? We are living in complex times assaulted by news stories of devastating events and upheaval in our nation and our world. And we are experiencing the trauma of the ongoing need for social distance and vigilance over the coronavirus pandemic. In the midst of all this we are faced by many questions on a cultural and personal level. Right now, we need resilience; spiritual resilience, to move forward. Our spiritual resilience is built up when we are spiritually healthy. And so, over the coming weeks we are going to focus on elements of the spiritual health, using a tool created by the Hebrew Seniorlife organization. These elements are: - Love and Belonging - Identity - Forgiveness and Reconciliation - Trust - Meaning and Legacy - Gratitude - Hope This morning we begin with Love and Belonging, most especially Belonging. A sense of belonging is needed for emotional and physical wellbeing, as well as spiritual health. Author Brené Brown writes “Love and belonging are irreducible needs of all men, women, and children. We’re hardwired for connection—it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The absence of love, belonging, and connection always leads to suffering.” [1] A sense of belonging begins in our very early lives, within our families, our neighborhoods, our communities and schools, our places of worship, workplaces, and home countries. That foundation is vital for our emotional wellbeing. Today we heard two readings from scripture concerning belonging. The first was from the book of Genesis toward the end of the story of Joseph; the second was from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman church. The lectionary readings from the Hebrew Bible over summer have been following the story of Jacob’s family, culminating in the story of Joseph, Jacob’s favorite child. Young Joseph must have had a foundational sense of belonging in his family of origin. They were a nomadic group, an extended family, including Jacob’s wives, servants and Jacob’s children by both the wives and servants. As they traveled the wilderness with their flocks of sheep, the children must have felt a strong kinship and a sense of belonging. But Joseph’s belonging doesn’t last. He becomes puffed up and arrogant, because of his father’s favoritism. He has the special ability of interpreting dreams, which he skews in his own favor. His older brothers become so jealous they plot to kill him and to tell their father he has been attacked by a wild animal in the wilderness. The brothers only decide against that plan when they meet a caravan of traders who are passing at the time. And so they sell their brother into slavery. They return home and tell Jacob that Joseph has been killed. Joseph is taken from his place of belonging in Jacob’s family. He becomes an outsider in Egypt. As a slave he has the lowest possible status. Gradually, though, he establishes himself using his ability to interpret dreams to his advantage. He matures in Egypt and becomes more humble, trusting in God for his guidance and his sense of belonging. Even in his darkest hours, Joseph has a sense of his belonging to God. This sees him through his journey from belonging to his immediate family group, to a greater sense of belonging in the human family. The second reading we heard today is written to the early church in Rome. The Apostle Paul writes to a church, offering words of wisdom and guidance: a theme in all his letters. In this church there seems to be conflict and tension, a sense of “them and us”, perhaps the well-established church members and the newcomers. These are issues that echo in our churches to this day. The tensions in the church in Rome concern dietary practices and observance of a special day. Some members eat meat and others remain vegetarian. Some members judge one day to be better than the others, perhaps the Jewish Sabbath. Others do not. Paul characterizes those who are most observant as weak in faith. Perhaps they need to observe these stricter practices because their faith is not yet fully developed. Paul reminds the community to welcome the weak in faith and not to pass judgment. He reminds them that whether we live or die, we belong – not to one group or another – but to the Lord. Our ultimate belonging is neither family, nor team, nor social group, nor even nation. Our ultimate belonging is in God. I was fortunate to have a strong foundation in terms of love and belonging. I come from an intact family, that has lived in the same northern English town for many generations. As a child I would recognize aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins in the pews of our small Methodist chapel. Church always felt like home. When I left my hometown to go to college, I lost my sense of belonging in a place where my accent marked me as an outsider. But I discovered I could always find a place of belonging in a church community. That feeling remained with me through my move to the United States with my husband, years ago. It has remained during the times when I left behind another “home church” for a new place of worship, most recently when I came to pastor Wollaston Congregational Church just four years ago today. Joseph’s story echoes for many of us as we remember our own journeys away from “home.” We were forced or we chose to leave, for education or military service. Or perhaps our home disappeared, through changes in our culture. Our childhood neighborhood melted away as strangers replaced old friends. Family members died, or we were divorced. We were evicted or given no choice but to move to an eldercare facility. In these COVID times, we may feel stripped of our belonging, like Joseph. Our communities like church, our social and neighborhood groups, many of our workplaces, have shifted from real, tangible places to online platforms. Paul’s letter reminds us, though, that we, you and I who are gathered in this virtual space, are fortunate. We have made that transition. As we hear our fellow church members speak, or we see one another on the screen, we are reminded that we still have one another. We have our community, the church. Whether we live or we die, we belong to God. We are challenged, not only to make a place of belonging for ourselves, but to enlarge that place of belonging to include anyone who might be looking to belong. Paul’s letter talks about division between those who observe certain dietary practices and those who don’t; divisions between those who make one day holy and those who don’t. These are not issues for our times. Instead we might think about those who wear masks and anti-maskers, those who support vaccines and anti-vaxxers. Can both those groups co-exist in a church community? And what about those who insist on worship in person, in the face of the pandemic, calling us to rely on God for miraculous protection? What about those who are tired of staying away from in person gathering, and want to re-gather in spite of the risk? And then there are those who are opposed until we have been declared safe, vaccinated and protected from this terrible plague. Then there are religious practices. We are called to welcome those who have not found a place of belonging elsewhere. Can we welcome those who have different religious practices, enjoy different types of music and use different styles of prayer, and draw on beliefs that are different from our own? We recall that Paul exhorts the Christians in Rome to accept the differences between groups, and reminds them that when it comes to belonging – whether we live or we die – we all belong to God. Paul prefers inclusiveness in belonging over exclusiveness. Exclusiveness is easier. We make a set of beliefs that belong-ers must adhere to. We create a set of religious practices that define us: type of music, styles of prayer. We ask those who “join” us to declare that they are “in” with these beliefs and practices. Inclusiveness is much harder. It means that the existing belong-ers must be willing to grow and change. It means they must be willing to give up their sense of belonging shaped in their early life, for a more mature and inclusive sense of belonging. It means accepting beliefs and practices that are associated with other groups. The Franciscan author, Fr. Richard Rohr, invites us to move beyond the idea that our belonging means if we are the “in group” and others are on the outside. In the book Falling Upward, he writes “It is fine for teenagers to really think that there is some moral or ‘supernatural’ superiority to their chosen baseball team, their army, their ethnic group, or even their religion; but one hopes they learn that such polarity thinking is recognized as just an agreed-upon game by the second half of life.” [2] Exclusive religious communities promote disdain of others, whether they are people of other faiths, atheists, or even those of the same faith but a different perspective. Author Brené Brown writes that “It doesn’t matter if the group is a church or a gang or a sewing circle …, asking members to dislike, disown, or distance themselves from another group of people as a condition of ‘belonging’ is always about control and power … disdain toward other people as a membership requirement … may be disguised as belonging, but real belonging doesn’t necessitate disdain.” [3] And so, friends, whether we belong to Wollaston Congregational Church or other community of faith, as we re-gather, virtually for now, may we know a deep and true inclusive sense of belonging. To quote another of Paul’s letters to the church in Ephesus, a belonging that is as broad, long, high and deep as is the love of Christ. May we know that whether we live or we die, we belong to God. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (pp. 11-12). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [2] Rohr, Richard. AARP Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (p. 147). Wiley. Kindle Edition [3] Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (p. 109). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. |
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