Offensive Grace!

 

Sunday 20^th September – Trinity 15 – Proper 20

Jonah 3:10 – 4:11. Jonah is angry with God because he shows mercy to the people of Nineveh when they repent. Nineveh was the capital city of the hated Assyrian empire who had conquered Israel in 722BC and sent the people into exile. This exposes an all too human trait towards exclusivity that expects God to favour only them or their sect while everyone else is Damned. This natural human reaction exposes a basic insecurity, a desire to possess God for one’s own benefit, so anyone outside your “club” becomes an unwelcome competitor.  

Philippians 1: 21-30. Paul is writing this letter from a prison cell and his future fate is uncertain – will he live or die? Paul assures the recipients of this letter that whatever happens, neither option does he see as failure or loss because “living is Christ and dying is gain”. But whatever happens, he wants them “to live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ”. The gospel is freely given to human beings and this is our appropriate response.  

Matthew 20: 1-16. The jealousy, nay anger, of people at the extent of God’s generosity exhibited by Jonah (see above) is in some sense natural but ultimately groundless. This sense of natural justice is exhibited in this parable of Jesus by the labourers who had worked all day for their wages and got no more for their efforts that those who had just worked an hour. The point is that we all get the same – boundless love, mercy, and redemption – no matter when we respond.   

 

This week the theme of God’s generosity and Mercy continues by underlining two further elements that have always bothered people, then and now.

Jonah is so angry with God because he shows mercy to the people of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. The Assyrians had conquered Israel in 722BC and so of course were hardly in the good books of the Hebrew people.

The natural enmity that Jonah felt for them, he naturally thought God should show for them too – but in a little acted parable God demonstrates that Jonah in fact has more care for a shady bush shielding him from the hot sun than he does for a large city full of people.

God himself of course is Lord of all people, whether he is recognised and acknowledged or not.

The same natural instinct is true for us. We find it very hard to recognise that God could care just as much for our enemies and rivals as he is for us.

Whether that be Germans in the second world war, Russians in the cold war, Chinese in a trade war or on a much more personal level, our adversary in court, the person who robbed our house, or just given us a parking ticket.

Surely God must prefer us and be completely on our side, mustn’t he?

I’m the good guy here. But all sides think the same. During WW11 the belt buckles of German soldiers carried the slogan “Gott mit uns” – God is with us.

God cares for all creation.

Sure, he cares about me but he also cares about all other living things as well because nothing in creation exists beyond his orbit of love and mercy.

The gospel story highlights another aspect that bothers us about God’s mercy.

We can be fervent and observant Christians all our lives but apparently, according to this parable, we get nothing more than a rogue who lives a dissolute life and who makes a deathbed conversion.

Our sense of human Justice kicks in and thinks we must deserve much more than them?

But you can’t get more than everything – that is what God gifts to all people that turn to him no matter when that happens.

As the parable says “Are you envious because I am generous?

An important point to mention is that this parable wasn’t told to the crowds but to the Disciples themselves and so was a warning to people who were already insiders about the reality of Divine Grace.

Grace doesn’t rest on the merit system and because of that we insiders can grumble, inwardly if not openly,

“Doesn’t grace undermine the whole reason for being good, for having standards, for keeping rules, and living justly?”

We romanticize the notion of Grace without taking seriously how it undercuts our entire system of merit and justice, which Grace offends against.

We are not against Grace as such. We are against Grace being shown to others.

It’s an old story. From Jonah resenting Mercy being shown to the people of Nineveh, the elder brother resenting the love shown to the prodigal son, the pharisee thanking God he is not like the sinful publican.

When we have invested so much in the merit system and want to see a reward for our labours, Grace shown to others we consider less deserving cuts deep.

Grace no longer seems to be so sentimental. It has a hard edge we can find offensive.

But as God affirms in Isaiah 55: 8-9

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Forgiveness

 

Sunday 13^th September – Trinity 14 – Proper 19

Genesis 50: 15-21. After detailing various family tensions throughout this first book of the Bible, the last chapter ends in reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers. Unfortunately, our lection does not include the very last words which are words of promise to the Hebrew people – of a new beginning in the promised land. This speaks into a wider spiritual truth that reconciliation always changes a situation for the better and creates new possibilities.

Romans 14: 1-12. What is remarkable in this passage is that Paul does not adjudicate between different points of view of how Christians should observe food laws or feast days. Instead he says that we are all servants of God and this is the most important thing and in recognizing this reality we are led towards reconciliation. So, the health of the believing community takes precedence over “right” belief or “right” observance. True there are limits of course, but as long as our belief and practice are held with integrity, we should not pass judgement on those whose attitude to faith and worship differ from ours. 

Matthew 18: 21-35.  The central point of this passage is the incredible Mercy of God. Jesus makes clear to Peter in his response “not seven but seventy-seven times” that forgiveness is not a commodity that can be measured out or have limits. That same point is made in the parable where the man is forgiven by the king (God) the debt of ten thousand talents – which represents the wages of a day labourer for 150,000 years! There is simply no way of measuring the extent of God’s generosity when it comes to his forgiveness. When examining our own personal capacity or incapacity to forgive others, this is our starting point!

 

 We all know that we are supposed to forgive people.

It is fundamental to Christianity and one of the few things people outside the church know about the faith if they know anything at all.

We pray in the Lord’s prayer “Forgive us our trespasses or sins and we forgive those who trespass against us”

Readings like today’s offering instructs us to forgive seventy times seven ties and Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek in another part,

Forgiveness is commanded and expected.

None of that makes any allowance for the fact that forgiveness is one of the hardest things in the world to do.

We know we are supposed to and intellectually we probably also see that there will be a psychological benefit to us doing so, and yet..and yet..I’m sure this congregation is full of people who find or have found it nigh on impossible to do in some circumstances.

Being cheated on by your husband or wife, or double-crossed by someone you thought was a friend, intentionally hurt or abused by a relative, are things that produce shame and rage, and leaves us feeling diminished, defective and defeated.

To be told, on top of that that you really ought to forgive someone doesn’t effect any change. In fact sometimes, all that does is heap guilt on top of an already shamed and hurting person.

So let’s look deeper at these two exchanges in the gospel. In the first one between Jesus and Peter, Jesus uses the expression “seventy times seven” which is a way of conveying the fact that forgiveness is not a commodity that can be calculated but is limitless, because the language of numbers is inappropriate when one contemplates forgiveness.

The parable that follows, about a king who forgives a slave his huge debt, who in turn holds to account a man whose tiny debt to him is vivid.

The king, hearing about this then reacts furiously and tortures and imprisons the man.

Does verse 35 mean that God won’t forgive us if we can’t forgive?

Is divine forgiveness conditional on whether I can let go of all my grudges and hurts? Let’s look again at the parable.

The most obvious point is that human forgiveness is rooted in divine forgiveness and God’s forgiveness is limitless. Ten thousand talents is the equivalent of a day labourers wages for 150,000 years – an infinite capacity for forgiveness is what is being conveyed. Seventy times seven or ten thousand talents can’t begin to express the extent of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

But there is a gap in the parable. Note that after the first slave had been forgiven his enormous debt, the servant shows no appropriate response – no rejoicing, no gratitude, no celebrating with wife and children. We hear only of the way he then refuses to forgive the debt of another servant.

The gap is explained by the fact that although forgiven he has not “discovered” forgiveness – not allowed the enormity of what has been done for him to seep into his very soul.

It is clear that he thinks he is dealing with the king on the basis of Justice and even says in his initial exchange with the king that he will repay everything that he owes – 150,000 years of his wages don’t forget.

He is not dealing with the king based on Justice but of Mercy. Forgiveness is very different from Justice. Because the first slave still thinks of forgiveness as purely a spread sheet issue he never views himself as being a truly “gifted”  person, one who received Mercy, so he is unable to show mercy to the second slave. What verse 35 makes clear is that forgiveness is a matter of the heart. We need to be transformed by the knowledge of how much we have been forgiven and the first servant hasn’t discovered that.

How does this help seriously wronged people to forgive?

It presents us with a picture of the incredible kindness of God, who doesn’t deal with us on the scale of Justice, even though we all seek that but by showing mercy, which we find hard to accept and fathom.

It invites all of us to see ourselves as forgiven sinners in community with other forgiven sinners – as good a description of the church as I know.

 

 

Justice tempered by Mercy

Sunday 6^th September – Trinity 13 – Proper 18

Ezekiel 33:7-11. A sentinel is the gender-neutral way the NRSV translates the more familiar “Watchman” who would warn a city of an enemy coming to kill them. If he failed in this task the watchman would be held responsible. This is Ezekiel’s explanation of what a prophet is for, but is it right to hold a prophet responsible for the evil actions of others? A form of answer in the text is that God gains no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Verse 11) for he is a God of compassion as well as justice and He wants as many people as possible to turn and live and sharing in that mission is a huge responsibility.

Romans 13: 8-14. For all Paul stresses that you cannot be saved by following the law, he still wants it fulfilled, and it is fulfilled by loving our neighbour as yourself (verse 9). He also stresses that Christians should “put on Jesus Christ” and live for God (having started a new life) rather than living a life enslaved to sin. He does so in the light of the common belief in the early church that the end times (The day of the Lord) was near (verse 11) and this is given as a motivating factor.

Matthew 18: 15-20. This is a formula for limiting the damage to unity in the church, moving from personal confrontation to one where you have two or three witnesses (following Jewish tradition) and finally if no positive outcome is forthcoming, letting the local church community as a whole make a decision. The most surprising thing is the derogatory way the phrase “gentiles and tax collectors” is used. Elsewhere in the gospel, they are characterised as responsive to the word of God. The familiar “where two or three are gathered together in my name” may be a Christianized version of the Jewish saying “If two sit together to discuss the law, the shekinah rests between them”. The shekinah is the glory of the divine presence.

Ezekiel the prophet being held responsible for the actions of the Israelite people seems tough.

But it is an insight into the awesome responsibilities that God lays on his follower’s shoulders.

I recommended a video sermon by Bishop Barron a couple of weeks ago which talked about us being “chosen people”. The deepest insight the Bishop brought to the fore about “being chosen” is the huge responsibility that this brings, for being chosen brings huge gifts but also huge responsibilities.

If we thought that we being held responsible for whether or how the world responds to God I’m sure this would instil in us a greater eagerness and fervour for trying to spread the gospel than we would normally have.

And while I’m sure there would be a hint of resentment at being held responsible for the actions of others, the reason God would lay such a burden on our shoulders is borne of compassion, is that he doesn’t want anybody to die before knowing that they are loved and secure in his embrace.

His justice is always shot through with compassion and mercy.

In Micah (6:8) it says this, “He has showed you O man, what is good. And what does the law require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”

Jesus as the incarnation of God showed this magnificently in the story of the woman caught in adultery – a late addition to John’s gospel.

There is no doubt that the woman was guilty, and the law decreed that death by stoning was the punishment. But what shines through this story is the compassion of God for this woman – this sinner caught in the very act of adultery. Jesus does this first by convicting the angry crowd that they were also sinners, just like this woman and none of them were worthy to cast the first stone. And ultimately she is spared the punishment decreed for the crime but his parting words to the women were “Go and sin no more”.

This attitude to Justice is written about in Paul’s letter to the Romans today as well.

Whilst stressing that you can’t be saved by following the law, nevertheless, paradoxically perhaps Paul is certain that God wants the law to be fulfilled and that love is the fulfilling of that law.

Paul stresses that as Christians we have started a new life, living our lives according to God, what Paul calls, “putting on Christ” as opposed to living our lives as slaves to sin.

Forbearance and tolerance and living together in a workable unity within the church would be an observable sign that the commandment to love others as you love yourself is being adhered to within the community of believers. That is not to say there won’t be dissention and arguments, but they must be worked through with love and compassion being the watchwords.

The pattern in the gospel talks of a gradual escalation from tackling problems in person through to a meeting with witnesses to finally the church as a whole making a judgement if the two warring parties can’t come to an accord.

What the specific difficulties might have been is not spelled out but the general idea is to keep things contained as far as one can without upsetting the church as a whole.

And underpinning all these decisions is we are aiming for justice laced with a healthy dose of compassion just like God exhibits in his dealings with mankind.

How we deal with each other and treat each other is a good way of telling how we will deal with people outside our ranks.

Everything from the small things to the big things should bear the hallmark of the same approach and rationale. Justice shot through with mercy..

It is not easy. We are not God and don’t presume to possess his wisdom  but we do have the Bible, we have communal worship and prayer and we have private prayer where we seek insights into God’s wisdom. That is the best reason to read the scriptures.

A good place to start is the old evangelical acronym WWJD – what would Jesus do? - when we have difficult decisions to make and the way forward looks uncertain. Consult scripture, the traditions of the church, and pray and contemplate upon what you receive.