“Radical Hospitality” – sermon on September 14, 2014
Matthew 18: 21-35 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Romans 14: 1-12 Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently. For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume he should only be a vegetarian and eat accordingly. But since both are guests at Christ’s table, wouldn’t it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn’t eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God’s welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.
Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience. What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It’s God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other. That’s why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.
So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother? And where does that leave you when you condescend to a sister? I’d say it leaves you looking pretty silly—or worse. Eventually, we’re all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment, facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren’t going to improve your position there one bit. Read it for yourself in Scripture: “As I live and breathe,” God says, “every knee will bow before me; every tongue will tell the honest truth that I and only I am God.” So tend to your knitting. You’ve got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God.
“Radical Hospitality” – sermon on September 14, 2014 by Rev. Doreen Oughton
This morning’s gospel passages comes right on the heels of the one we read last week – that if another in your community sins, do whatever it takes to bring that person back to the fold, because the Body of Christ is meant to be whole, to have integrity, to have many parts all working together even if they work in different ways. So Peter is listening to this, how important it is to get the one who did wrong to repent, and he asks how many times he should forgive the one who repents. Now the answer most rabbis would give at that time would be three. So Peter really goes overboard in his suggestion of seven – doubling and then adding one more for good measure. Perhaps he hopes Jesus will be amazed at his generosity and call him a rock again. But no, Jesus is not impressed with this, but uses Peter’s seemingly exaggerated response and takes it over the moon – 77 times. And some translations say 7 times 70, which would be 490!
So what is Jesus saying here? I think it might be something about the nature of forgiveness – that it is meant not to be a distinct act, but more like an attitude. Perhaps he is saying that to ask how many times you should forgive someone would be like asking how many times you should love someone. It is not something quantifiable that way. It is a way of being. You are loving or you are unloving. You are forgiving, or you are unforgiving. And which do you think we are called to be?
Jesus is focused here, as he was in last week’s reading, with the way his community of followers should be with each other. Paul’s letter to the Romans continues in that theme. He is writing to a community that is obviously having disagreements about how to live out the faith. Some say that they shouldn’t eat meat, some say they can eat what they like. The vegetarians believe themselves to be more holy because of the sacrifice they make, and the omnivores believe they are more spiritually mature because they understand that it is not what goes into the body that matters in faith. And Paul would agree with them, I believe, as Jesus would. It is what is in your heart, what comes out in your behavior, that indicates growth in faith. And judging or lording your faith practices over anyone is not growth. The point, Paul is saying, is to do what you do without judging others who do differently. It may be spiritually mature to eat meat, but it is not spiritually mature to judge yourself to be so, and to judge another to be less so for avoiding meat.
The reading from Romans opens with the encouragement to welcome into the community people who see things differently than you do. Make room for people to find Jesus, to discover the good news of God’s love and mercy. It won’t happen by arguing, or by judging, but by doing whatever you do for God’s glory, not to be right or better than anyone else. There is something here about making room in the community for all who would come. And I think the teaching about forgiveness is about making room in your heart for all of God’s children. You may set boundaries for their behavior, but I think Jesus wants us always to remember who and whose all people are – God’s own children, valuable and beloved in God’s eyes. We may distance ourselves from people who would repeatedly do us wrong, but I think we are not to show contempt, or seek to harm them. I think this is what Jesus is trying to teach here, though I don’t think his parable is all that great the way it ends. The king only forgives once, then throws the servant into prison to be tortured. I’m hoping that was something Matthew added for dramatic effect, but I’m not sure.
I offer you another parable to consider. The monastery had fallen upon hard times. Once it was a great order, but between the persecution of previous centuries and the rise of secularism in the recent one, well, there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.
In the woods surrounding the monastery there was a little cabin that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used as a retreat. The old monks could always sense when the rabbi was visiting the cabin. The abbot decided to visit the rabbi and ask for any advice that might save the monastery.
The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of this visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. “Yes. I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read the bible and quietly spoke of deep things. When the time came for the abbot to leave, they embraced one another. The abbot said. “Really, is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?” “I have no advice to give you,” said the rabbi, “but there is one thing I have to tell you: one in your community is the Messiah. Yes, he lives right there in one of you.”
When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him and asked, “Well, what did the rabbi say?” “He had no advice,” the abbot answered, but just as I was leaving he said that one of us was the Messiah! Maybe it’s something from Jewish mysticism. I don’t know what he meant.”
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks began to think about this and wondered whether the rabbi’s words could actually be true? The Messiah is in one of us? If that’s the case, who is it? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant that Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he couldn’t have meant Brother Jonathan! Jonathan gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it, Jonathan is virtually always right, often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Jonathan, but surely not Brother Philip. Philip is so passive, a real nobody. But then almost mysteriously he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Could Philip be the Messiah? Of course, the rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? Oh God, me?
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one of them might actually be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
Because the monastery was situated in a beautiful forest, it so happened that people occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. And as they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, people began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends. Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. And it happened that within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order.
Couldn’t it be true that the Messiah is here, right in our community, living in one of us? Isn’t it even likely that Jesus lives in more than one of us. Could it be you, or you, or you? What would happen in this place if we treated each other as if he or she were indeed the Messiah? What if we assumed that Jesus lives in your very self, would that change how you act? How you treat others? How you treat yourself? Can you see how this would move so far beyond keeping track of how many times a person has to forgive or be forgiven, how it moves us beyond what hymns to sing and what prayers to pray and what days to keep holy? I don’t know if it would draw more people in, and I don’t suggest this because we need a growth strategy. I suggest it because I suspect it is true that the Messiah is here, and that we would be so blessed if we did not overlook that. More people may or may not come in, but imagine what an extraordinary place this would be for those who are here. May it be so.
