13 Pentecost A – September 11, 2011

13 Pentecost A – September 11, 2011

Genesis 50: 15-21         Psalm 103: 8-13

Romans 14: 1-12           Matthew 18: 21-35

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today people across America will recall where they were ten years ago.  They will share stories….where were you? What were you doing?  How did you hear?  Many of us will gather in worship and hear the Scripture readings that are always appointed for this Sunday in our three year Lectionary cycle, Scripture readings that address forgiveness.  And we will wonder how it is we can forgive the unforgiveable.  And we will ponder what it is we are to learn from Scripture and we will pray for peace in our nation and in the world.

September 11, 2001 was my second day of seminary.  At the time of the attacks, I was in class, and from there went to our daily chapel service.  The President of the Seminary told us that details were sketchy and that we would pray for what was unfolding.  We left there and headed, en masse, to the televisions in the rec room, where we watched the towers fall.  Stunned, we went to our small chapel, where we sat on the floor and cried and prayed and sang and realized that the ministry for which we were preparing would be forever impacted by the events of the day.

I have visited Ground Zero two times, once in 2006 and again this past December.  Both times I also visited St. Paul’s Chapel, an Episcopal chapel that sits just across the street from the site of the World Trade Center towers.  When they fell, St. Paul’s Chapel was unharmed, although the grounds and cemetery that surround it were filled with debris and dust.  In the days that followed the attacks, St. Paul’s opened its doors to firefighters, recovery workers, clergy, construction workers, therapists, grief counselors, police officers and offered a place of respite. In this house of worship medical personnel, massage therapists,, chiropractors, podiatrists and musicians offered their services to those who were spending countless hours and energy in the work at Ground Zero.  The chapel became a place of peace.

Today, the chapel, while still a place of worship, is a memorial to what happened there in those days after this terrible act of violence.  Cards, letters, drawings from children, flowers, from across the country grace the walls.  There is a chausable worn by a priest that is literally covered by badges from police and firefighters from across the country who came to help.  To be in that place is a testament to the power of goodness to overcome evil.  Like the good that came from the terrible acts of betrayal by Joseph’s brothers, there was redemption through the hands and hearts of the people of God.  Make no mistake, God did not plan these attacks.  God wept as we wept.

Today’s Gospel lesson is particularly striking in the context of this day.  In it, Jesus leaves no room for doubt as to what is the only faithful Christian response to settle moral debts.  Jesus tells Peter that we must forgive an uncountable number of times.  He was not being literal; he did not mean that when we get to 491 we can stop forgiving.  In his day, seventy times seven was a euphemism for infinity.  We are to forgive, to quote Buzz Lightyear, to infinity and beyond.  Jesus commands us, in no uncertain terms, that we are to forgive  without counting the number of times.  Forgiveness is to be our default as followers of Christ.  It is to be our way of being in the world.  The power of the Gospel is not found in vengeance, but in forgiveness.  The power of Christ lies not in bloodshed of any kind, but in love of every person.

In many congregations, this first Sunday after Labor Day is also Rally Sunday…that Sunday when we gather back in from our summer’s activities.  It is the first Sunday of Sunday School.  We have chosen for our theme today “Blessed Are the Peacemakers”.  We have learned about peace-making in our homes, and schools, and cities, and country, and world.  We have sung about peace being like a river, flowing freely, unbound by revenge and retribution.  I think as much as anything, our theme of peacemaking is also a prayer.  A prayer that these children of ours, some of whom were not yet born ten years ago, will live a world where the first response is not retaliation.  That they will bear in their spirits and in their minds and in their lives the Christian virtue that Jesus teaches us in today’s Gospel, that of forgiveness.  That they will carry into the world an attitude of love and grace and mercy, a reflection of the love and grace and mercy of God.

There is an organization that was created by some of the families affected profoundly by the September 11th attacks.  The September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows formed quickly around one simple idea:  that they did not want other families to feel the way they were feeling.  Whether those families were in Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan, these families, still raw in grief and pain, knew that there would be nothing to be gained by retaliation.  This group speaks out against all violence, especially the violence of September 11th.  But we must acknowledge that throughout history violent retribution has existed in far too many forms.

As the recovery efforts following September 11th entered the first spring season, the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows invited a delegation of survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to St. Paul’s.  These people, so profoundly affected by the attacks on their own country, stood in that chapel and offered their messages of condolence, saying how sorry they were for the losses suffered by families not so very different from their own.

Not seven times, but seventy times seven.

Friends in Christ, beloved sisters and brothers…judgment is a heavy burden and it is not ours to bear.  Forgiveness is required of us, and is often not an easy task.  But in Jesus’ parable from Matthew’s Gospel, we are the slave in the story.  Our debt before God is such that we could never even begin to pay it.  And in great mercy and love, we have been forgiven.  In the words of an old spiritual, Jesus paid it all.  And so, when we have been forgiven much, our task is to forgive likewise.  It is complicated, to be sure.  Easier said, or preached, than done.  But it is what Jesus tells us we are to be about.

And so on this day, we hold in our hearts and minds and prayers those whose lives were impacted in immeasurable ways that sunny September morning.  We acknowledge their pain and their sorrow and their loss.  But there is no act of retaliation that has managed to bring one of their loved ones back.  And so we mend the world the best way we can, one act of mercy, one act of forgiveness at a time, and we do not keep  count of them.  To infinity and beyond, seventy times seven as we create a future that embodies the kingdom of God.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

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