PAST SERMON 2009 #11
by Reverend Judith Alltree, delivered on Sunday November 1, 2009,
at the Church of the Holy Spirit.
Forgiveness is a Gift of God
Hello, my name is Judith and I am not a saint.
Well, I figured you’d heard it often enough from so many other people, you might as well hear it from me. Yes, it’s true, I am not saint. Sainthood is not actually a job requirement for priests; if it was I certainly wouldn’t be here right now. I am a real person, a very ordinary person, who was nagged by God — yes, God does — and 12 years later I answered His call. I then spent three years studying at seminary including 1000 hours as an intern over two of those years. I was granted the privilege of becoming a postulant, then ordained deacon and not long afterwards, ordained priest. I am, again, privileged to be under holy orders, but by no stretch of the imagination could I be called a saint.
But then, most people have a very exalted idea of what a saint is or should be or act like. I have good news: most saints were/are very real people, and very ordinary people if perhaps living in extraordinary circumstances. Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul, in his many letters, used the word “saints” to refer to the many real yet ordinary people who had chosen to follow the Way of Jesus Christ. Luke wrote of Peter in Acts: “As [he] traveled about the country, he went to visit the saints in Lydda” and a confession of Paul: “On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison…” Paul wrote in his letter to the Roman church: “Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there.” And he addressed his second letter to the Corinthians: “To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia…” The saints that Luke and Paul refer to are ordinary people — like me, like you — who have made the extraordinary decision to follow Jesus Christ.
The earliest Christians were known as people who loved one another. That was how Christians were identified: “how they love one another”, people would say about them. And then wonder why in the midst of such difficulty, such danger, as it was difficult and dangerous to be a Christian in those very early days, they seemed to exude so much love. Could it be said that their common difficulties brought them together? Could it be said that their faith was greater than their enmity; in other words, they felt called to put their belief in the Risen Lord ahead of their personal feelings or grudges against their neighbours — however human? Could they even put their love for Christ and one another above the terrible persecutions they suffered, and love their enemies? Could it be said that simply because they were Christians they had a greater capacity for loving than others? In a society that was burdened by consumer greed, by status and position, governed by human idols, had Christians found a better way to live, and thus could love?
“Love” was not a hallmark of this early first millennial society; instead, fear, distrust, outright hatred in some cases; also it was illegal to love God more than you ‘loved’ the Emperor, if one could be said to love the Emperor. So it was that anyone demonstrating excessive love for one another was suspect, and consequently it was love that often betrayed Christians to the enemies of Christ and his followers, so many of them died at the hands of those who did not understand that love. Or feared that love.
What was surprising was the vast number of people who came to be followers of the Risen Christ because of that love, demonstrated in a willingness to suffer and die for it, and the powerful witness that love became to others. Even Paul, in his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, was changed radically by love. I wonder how would Paul respond to the honour of his elevation to sainthood, as a former murderer of Christians? Or St. Peter, who loved but denied his Lord, yet was so loved by Him in return?
How do we honour that kind of sacrificial love? How is that kind of love honoured in our own parish? Is it honoured by showing love for one another? Is it honoured by the offering of forgiveness instead of bearing grudges? Is it honoured by making the sacrifice of time or energy for someone in need, thereby showing that person love, instead of withholding love, or time, or energy?
Do we consider ourselves as being a part of that long line of saints, as Peter or Paul or Luke referred to the earliest followers of Christ, or have we become so much a part of the secular society that we are surrounded by that our position, our status, our personal needs outweigh those of others with whom we can easily share? Do we put self-righteousness ahead of forgiveness and compassion?
I am not unaware of all the difficulties that this parish has experienced in the months of my leave. I was made aware of those difficulties constantly during the eleven months of my recovery, and have received even more details in the month since my return. And it has saddened me greatly. Does this kind of behaviour honour all those saints of long ago? Does it honour those of us in this room? I would say no.
And so I challenge you all today: the time for grudges is over. The time for forgiveness is here. Now is the time to stand up in the company of the Saints here on earth, and those we know and love who are in heaven with all the saints from all time, and be counted as Christian. Now is the time for reconciliation.
Allow me to begin. I have never deliberately set out to hurt or harm anyone in my entire life. However, if by any of my actions, or by my lack of action, or by words I may have spoken, or left unsaid, I have in any way caused anyone here anguish, or offence, I ask to be forgiven.
And I now ask that if any of you bear the burden of hurt because of the words or actions of anyone else, anyone else, that you now forgive them in your heart. We have the power in this act of forgiveness to unburden ourselves of the bitterness and anger that we have carried in this parish for too long. Forgiveness is a gift of God; reconciliation is the product of forgiveness, and love gives us the power we need to make this transformation. With this kind of power, we can, like Lazarus, shed the covering of despair and negativity that bind us up, and walk into the light of love that is Christ, reborn, to begin anew. Love is like that — if we let it.
But we have to let it. Those in a struggling relationship may seek the advice of a counselor to assist them. Ultimately, however, it is the people themselves who are responsible for rebuilding their relationship, for correcting those things which have caused them to struggle, and to work together to go forward into a new future.
The same is true of us. If we allow ourselves the opportunity of reconciliation, if we allow ourselves the gift of forgiveness, and if we take the power of the Love of God that was given to us, in and demonstrated by Jesus Christ, then there is quite frankly nothing we cannot achieve and we will have harnessed the greatest power the world has ever known: the power of Love.
A church is the community of its people, not the building that houses it. I ask you today to let this church, this community, be founded in and filled with the love of Jesus Christ, and let us take our places proudly in the line of the saints of the church for all time.
AMEN.