Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, 13 September 2020
Trinity 14 (Year A)
·
Genesis 50:15-21
·
Matthew 18:21-35
I wonder how much you identify as British, and how much as
Church of England? I am not asking if you are British or a member of Church of
England (that would be an impertinence), but how strongly you would identify
with those labels. If it is important to you that you are British, or Church of
England, you may well – had you been paying attention – you may well
have been discomforted by this morning’s First Reading. For, in that reading,
from the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), someone weeps.
Weeping is not really a British thing, is it? It is not
really a Church of England thing, either. It’s hard to imagine this
conversation has ever taken place, in a Church-of-England household:
“How was the
service this morning, dear?”
“It was great. Because
of something that happened, I cried and cried.”
But today, in the Bible, we read of someone weeping.
Worse than that, here is a grown man weeping.
Worse even than that, here are twelve grown men crying,
and crying in each other’s company.
And no football is involved.
Perhaps you might console yourself by saying that this
account of so many adult, male, hot tears is the exception? I can give
you no comfort. It’s a striking, if underdiscussed, thing, just how much crying
there is in the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis. Are you ready?
1.
Hagar weeps as Ishmael’s life is threatened (21.16)
2.
Abraham weeps at the death of Sarah (23.2)
3.
Esau weeps when deprived of his father’s blessing (27.38)
4.
Jacob weeps as he meets and kisses Rachel (29.11)
5.
Esau and Jacob meet after estrangement, they embrace and
weep (33.4)
6.
Jacob weeps when he thinks Joseph is dead (37.35)
7.
Joseph weeps secretly for the first time, when his brothers
come to him (42.24)
8.
Joseph weeps secretly away from his brothers for the second
time (43.30)
9.
Joseph weeps in front of his brothers, and does so so
loudly as to be heard throughout Pharaoh’s court (45.2)
10.
Joseph and Benjamin embrace and weep, then Joseph weeps
with all his brothers (45.14f)
11.
Joseph embraces Jacob on being reunited, and weeps, and
that for “a good while” (46.29)
12.
The Egyptians weep for seventy days at the death of Jacob
(50.3).
Then, and only then, do we come to Joseph and his brothers
engaged in the mutual weeping that we have heard and you can read in today’s
first reading (50.17f).
A lot of weeping. (A lot of kissing too, by the way – but that’s another
sermon.) Not British. Not C of E.
The family of Jacob – who is Israel, remember – weep readily.
The family of Jacob-Israel is not a model family. In no sense are they an
idealised family. They play games with one another. Manipulative games. They
deceive one another. They push one of their number – Joseph – right out of the
family and into dire straits. This is not a family shining bright with
the evident glory of unadulterated holiness. This is, very clearly, a family
muddling through, given to favouritism, impulsiveness, and worse.
But another way of saying all of this is that this is a
family who can be brought – whom Gd brings – out of their estrangements into
reconciliation. And, in their reconciliation, they weep. Of course
they weep.
*
I don’t know if this is actually uncomfortable for us. You
may be untroubled by tears, but you may still think I am deflecting from
today’s proper theological theme: forgiveness! In the Gospel, after all,
Jesus tells us we must forgive others seventy-seven times, meaning without
counting. And he reinforces this point by telling us the story of one whose
debts were forgiven, who yet refused to forgive others their debts to him.
If we don’t forgive others, we learn, we are being ungrateful to Gd.
What have tears to do with forgiveness?
*
I am often struck how wrong people get the Christian
doctrine of forgiveness, and by people I mean both those who call themselves
Christian and those who oppose Christianity too. Often people, inside and
outside the Church, somehow pick up this line of thought:
·
When Gd forgives us, Gd pardons us. Gd says:
“You are guilty of sin, and worthy of punishment, but I choose not to punish
you. You are reprieved. Sin no more.”
·
However, when Gd tells us we must forgive those who
harm us, Gd means we must love them, and (the crucial point) we think “love”
means we must show sympathy for them, wish them well, help them as they want to
be helped, and feel warm and at least spiritually cuddly about them.
Sound familiar? I’ve pushed things to extremes, admittedly, but
such notions do abound. And I say this is 180 degrees the wrong way round.
Rather,
·
Christianity does indeed teach that we must forgive
others who harm us. But the base-line forgiveness we are obliged to offer –
that is pardon. It is precisely pardon. We must forgo vengeance, and, at
least if the other shows sorrow, regret and remorse, we must not act in a
spirit of punishment. But we do not have to like those we must forgive. No.
·
But when Gd forgives us, that is always more
than a word of pardon. You see, when people (ourselves including) ask: “Why
did Jesus have to die? Why can Gd not just forgive sins?”, they are at
heart thinking of Gd’s forgiveness as pardon. And of course Gd can pardon just
by pardoning. If Gd says: “You are pardoned”, you are pardoned. No need
for any sacrifice, or indeed any complication of any nature. But the weight of
Gd’s forgiveness of us lies so much deeper than any word of pardon.
*
Jesus, as a mother
you gather your people to you:
You are gentle with
us as a mother with her children;
often you weep over
our sins and our pride:
tenderly you draw us
from hatred and judgment.
You comfort us in
sorrow and bind up our wounds:
in sickness you
nurse us,
and with pure milk
you feed us.
You may think these are the words of some modern liberal
revisionist. You are wrong. They are words of St Anselm, 11th-century
Archbishop of Canterbury. Today, I am wondering if we can make them our own.
Jesus as a mother
you gather your people..
often you weep over
our sins…
in sickness you
nurse us...
What have tears to do with forgiveness?
Here’s what I invite us to reflect upon.
Gd in Christ forgives, not as a judge saying: “I declare there
is no punishment.”
Gd in Christ forgives, not even as a wise therapist, nodding
and writing things down concerning your case.
Gd in Christ forgives through a nursing carer’s touch,
and through tears.
Because Gd in Christ longs for our company,
and for us to get a lively and strong sense that we are made
for the company of each other within the company of Gd.
So all our sins simply get in the way of our own way to
our own vocation - our own fulfilment and joy.
And that pains Gd.
In that it pains Gd, it doesn’t make Gd less Gd.
It doesn’t change who Gd is.
We cannot wound Gd so as to disable Gd.
But!
But the Christian claim
– and I’d want to say it’s a claim of the whole Bible
–
is that Gd, who is free, has freely chosen so to order things
that we, in our frailty, are partners with Gd,
and, when we fail,
Gd both
·
freely and generously and lovingly offers us the
fulness of reconciliation and spiritual healing
and,
·
all the time, Gd weeps,
weeps at the pain of the messes we put ourselves and
others in.
What have tears to do with forgiveness?
If we can sense this connection,
if we can get just the hint of a glimpse of the spark of the light
of this,
our forgiving others will not be difficult.
As people bathed in such forgiveness,
we will want to forgive others.
As for when we don’t manage it,
we needn’t beat ourselves up.
This is a lifetime’s work.
But, make no doubt about it,
we are called
to enter into that virtuous circle of forgiving
reconciliation,
starting now,
even if…
through tears.
Amen.
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