Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Texts: Genesis 50:15-21, Psalm 103:1-13; Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:21-35

Dear Friends in Christ, God’s grace and peace be with you. Amen.

In 2009, Stacy Bannerman’s husband returned from the Iraq war with severe PTSD[i]. His behavior over the next several months grew increasingly bizarre, sliding into drug use, chaotic actions, and violence. Even when he began to assault her, Stacy tried to love and care for him, but after years of abuse and terror, she finally moved out and filed for divorce.

Almost immediately, her ex allowed another meth user to move into their home with him, who quickly stole Stacy’s identity, and cleared out her bank accounts. In a series of days, Stacy lost her marriage, her home, her lifesavings, her pets, her healthcare, her identity, and her dignity.

She was furious. Much of the anger was directed toward the woman who had stolen her identity, but it was complicated with anger toward her ex-husband. Even more so, she was angry with the 99% of the American people whom she felt ignored the cost of this war, and never felt its consequences. “I cloaked myself in moral outrage and the power of the persecuted,” she says. “I wanted everyone who supported that war, (and all of those who had sacrificed nothing for it,) to suffer.”

Jesus inviting Stacy Bannerman to forgive 77 times[ii], wouldn’t have even begun to heal all the pain. There were way more than 77 million people whom Stacy was unable to forgive, and she felt no reason to do so.

This week marked the 60^th anniversary of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and the deaths of four children inside. Most of us would be uncomfortable asking the families and friends of those girls to forgive the racism, violence, and hatred that encouraged that horrific act. We would understand if they carried the resentment of those murders for more than 77 years.

In fact, even after 60 years, we’re not sure things have changed much. The massacre of the Emanuel 9, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the Pulse Nightclub attack in Orlando*, the murder of George Floyd and so many others remind us over and over again of the power of intolerance, bigotry, White Supremacy, and hatred.

We wonder if it’s even right to forgive when there has been no remorse, no acceptance of responsibility, no repentance. We also fear that some of the blame could land on our own conscience, as we live with privilege and relative obliviousness[iii] to the power of systemic racism.

Jesus offers us a parable to try to help our confusion, but it’s one of those parables that sometimes leads us to more questions.

It begins with mercy. An incredible debt is forgiven with no strings attached. How wonderful! However, the generosity ends there. The servant doesn’t extend the clemency he has received, even for a much smaller offense. The consequences for him, and therefore, for all of us who resist forgiving as we have been forgiven, are monumental.

Is this the judgement we all face? If God will punish those of us who still hold grudges against people who have harmed us, we’re in trouble. And for those of us who would hesitate to ask victims to forgive horrific acts (the Iraq war, or the Birmingham church bombing, for instance), we’re left with more questions than answers.

Forgiveness is hard. It’s always messy and complicated, and most of us are not very good at it. Forgiveness is rarely a single event, but an ongoing process, which takes intentionality, commitment, and grace. We may find ourselves forgiving the same offense repeatedly, even 77 times. But we’re empowered to continue the process, Jesus says, because we have been forgiven so graciously.

We can still trust in God’s immeasurable, endless forgiveness. We claim the God of the psalms, full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

But Jesus’ parable reminds us that in the reign of God, justice matters too. Accountability is expected for harmful actions and abuses of power[iv]. Repairing the breaches in our civil life requires us to begin making reparations for the effects of systemic bias, reforming discriminatory practices, and holding responsible those who encourage or perpetuate hatred.

What ultimately changed for Stacy Bannerman was coming to grips with her own anger. She realized that if you felt you were all alone in the world, as she was after her life had fallen apart, you could imagine doing anything to stop the pain. As Bryan Stevenson says, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done[v],” and Stacy began to sense that. She started having sympathy for her former spouse, and even for the person who had stolen her identity.

She admits that forgiving the American people was harder. But she recognized that she didn’t want to live the rest of her life controlled by rage and the desire for retribution. “Being reconciled to what had happened was more important than being right about why it never should have occurred[vi].”

Slowly Stacy began to share her story and her anger with others. She sensed how uncomfortable those listening were with her message, but they listened, and then apologized. She writes, “They saw me in all of my aching humanity, and I saw them in theirs. I knew that I could have been them, and they me and there was nothing left to forgive[vii].”

This is what Joseph knows. He recognizes his offenders as his own siblings. The servant in Jesus’s parable never manages to see it. He doesn’t understand that he and his coworker are part of one fabric, and that the pain he wants to inflict upon another, is ultimately pain he will live with himself.

When Jesus invites us to forgive 77 times, he reminds us that we need to stop counting. There is no amount of forgiveness that is too much. We live in a pool of  grace. It surrounds us. It fills us. It turns life into celebration.

The parable also reminds us that we who have received unending compassion don’t owe a debt to God, but to our neighbor. Receiving forgiveness calls us to pay it forward, to extend grace outwards to others, to live in the goodness of healing, and to work that others know that joy as well.

Receiving forgiveness empowers us to work for justice in our interactions with others, to abolish abusive social structures, to respect the dignity of all and to care for the most vulnerable.

God’s mercy is extravagant beyond measure, beyond calculation. When we see that we swim in the ocean of its goodness, we can’t help but splash it over those around us. We see everyone as our lost sibling, begging and receiving forgiveness, and sharing the joy of reconciliation, over and over again.

Thanks be to God. Amen

 

 

*Not “Miami” as I spoke in the sermon. My mistake.

[i] Bannerman, Stacy, The Forgiveness Project: Stacy Bannerman. https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories-library/stacy-bannerman/

[ii] Matthew 18:21-35

[iii] Kruse, Kevin M., “Who’s Really Guilty?”, Campaign Trails,  September 15, 2023, on Substack, kevinmkruse@substack.com

[iv] Carroll, John T. “Commentary on Matthew 18:21-35,” Working Preacher: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-24/commentary-on-matthew-1821-35-6

[v] Stevenson, Bryan, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. One World, 2014.

[vi] op. cit. Bannerman.

[vii] ibid, Bannerman.