Readings: Lam 1.1-6; Lam 3.19-26; 2 Tim 1.1-14; Luke 17.5-10
May I speak in the name of God; always creating, redeeming, and sanctifying. Amen.
I feel like for the past few weeks I’ve begun each sermon with, “Well, that’s a tricky reading!” Today is no exception.
We’re going to look at two gifts of the church:
The gift of lament, and
The necessity of forgiveness.
We begin with Lamentations: we had two readings from this book, which is unusual, but important at this time, I think.
We did have the choice to respond to the first reading with Ps 137 which you’d be familiar with: “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.” However, I chose the response from Lamentations to illustrate the movement from lament to hope.
Lament is a gift of our Jewish heritage. It is something we can all take away with us today.
When have things gone so very wrong for you?
When have you cried out to God to smite those who’ve hurt you?
When have you felt the weight of responsibility for the consequences of some action or other?
Crying out to God in these moments is natural and just!
Where are you?
Why has this happened?
I’m sorry I did such wrong!
I’m so angry with you!
Why have you forsaken me?
We cannot truthfully praise God, or have the hope in God’s enduring goodness that we find in Lamentations chapter 3, if we haven’t honoured the pain we feel and purged it. Those of us who have had an exceptional pastoral visit, or seen a counsellor or psychologist can attest to the catharsis and clarity that can come from such honouring. This can then lead us into a different space: one of calm prayer, confident in God’s goodness and intent in our lives, allowing us to sit in the discomfort, and to discern next steps with hope.
Without the knowledge that “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases” (Lam 3.22), I don’t know whether any one of us could endure such difficulties as the Israelites faced when Babylon sacked of Jerusalem and took them into exile.
I’m sure we can bring to mind plenty of more modern examples…
The colonial practices engaged in all over the world which deprived indigenous peoples of their land, culture, language, and identity.
What about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine? Peoples who live in lands which have been in dispute for decades and are now being bombarded and for Gazans, starved out of existence.
In this Season of Creation, how is Creation lamenting? Can we hear her lament and join in with her? How might that change our response to things like climate justice?
With hope in God’s enduring goodness and intent for creation’s flourishing, we can have the ability to endure our hardships and take action to right wrongs.
So, this leads me to our gospel passage.
We have the mustard seed and then a short story about a master and a slave which sounds like it’s telling us that we are all “worthless slaves” to God. So, we need to back up a bit!
This chapter begins in verses 1 – 4, with a warning to the disciples about sin and forgiveness. Jesus states that temptations are always going to come, but should temptation come through one of us, that is a terrible thing, and it would be better for us to drown. That is a heavy warning, is it not?
So “Pay attention to yourselves!” If our brother or sister sins, we are to rebuke them, to correct them, and to forgive them. And verse 4 says, if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
In the face of this the disciples say: “Lord! Increase our faith!”
How much faith do you think you would need to forgive the person sitting in front of you, or behind you, if they sinned against you seven times a day and came to you each of those times begging your forgiveness? I don’t know a many people who could do that wholeheartedly. I’m sure they exist; we call them saints.
I definitely need help to live up to that standard!
What is Jesus’ response to the disciples’ request? No more faith is needed, only a little is necessary. Only that as small as a mustard seed. Something you can’t even feel the weight of when it sits in your hand. And that is because faith is not from us. It is not ‘our’ faith; faith is a gift from God. It is God’s faith! No wonder we don’t need much to transform our lives.
Jesus moves on to the parable about the master and slave and tells us that we don’t get special treatment for doing the bare minimum that has been asked of us, which is to forgive. But we also know that we don’t do this on our own, we do with the faith of God within us.
St Francis was big on forgiveness. There are two famous stories which illustrate this.
The first story is of The Wolf of Gubbio, who is terrorising the townsfolk by continually snatching people from the village. The people become fearful of leaving the village and only do so in armed groups in case they came upon him. St Francis seeks the wolf out and offers peace. He strikes a bargain between the wolf and the townsfolk. You stop terrorising them; they will feed you daily: you will become part of the life of the village. [1]
Hunger was the root cause of the issue. When are we like a wolf, hungry for connection? Who is like a hungry wolf to us, and can we reach out to them with nourishing community?
The second story is about some thieves who came to the hermitage looking for food. The guardian scolded them and sent them on their way saying they didn’t deserve even the ground upon which they walked. When St Francis returned to the hermitage and heard of this, he sent the guardian out after them with the bread and wine they had just begged for.
St Francis notices that the guardian’s actions are like those of the stumbling block at the beginning of chapter 17. He tells the guardian to pursue the thieves, offer them the food, kneel at their feet, and beg their forgiveness and repentance of their own thieving past. If they did repent, Francis promised to care for their daily needs (just like the wolf).
It is said this one act of humility, repentance, and forgiveness (along with the prayer Francis was offering in the meantime) caused such a shift in these three men that they joined the Order.[2]
The thieves were like hungry wolves and joined a community. The guardian was like a hungry wolf protecting his resources, and was joined in community by these three and St Francis.
In a blog on Franciscan spirituality, Pat McCloskey writes, “forgiveness does not require that people lie to themselves, for example, to deny that certain painful things have happened. But no one’s pain is the whole truth about any situation. The more honest people are, the less inflated their egos are and the less territory they feel they must defend.”[3]
So, two gifts of the church we remind ourselves of today:
It is right and just to lament. It is human to shake our fist at God and demand an answer. We must acknowledge our feelings of sadness, dread, terror, and sorrow. If we don’t, they will eventually lead us to being like a hungry wolf; savagely attacking those around us. When we have acknowledged our feelings and remembered God’s nature is to bring us to fullness of life, we can live in hope.
Remember: over a third of the psalms are laments. These are the prayers Jesus prayed in synagogue every Sabbath. He laments even upon the cross, and that lament ends in hope and praise.It is necessary for our own wellbeing to forgive. We can’t do it on our own, but we can do it with God when we accept the gift of faith that is offered to us all. We need not a large portion; the tiniest amount will suffice and then we can live out the life which we are made for.
Jesus too calls on God to forgive those who sin against him, upon the cross. The humanity of Jesus can’t do it on his own… he needs God.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22; Mt 27.46; Mk 15.34)
“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk 23.34)
When we are a people of hope, after we honour our feelings with lament, we can then also be people of forgiveness, and therefore co-creators of peace and joy for all Creation.
Amen.
[1] https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lff/lff024.htm
[2] https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lff/lff029.htm
[3] https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/saint-francis-novena-day-two-forgiveness