Lectionary Link
13 Pentecost, Cycle A proper 19, September 11, 2011
On this tenth anniversary of the 9/11
attacks, it may be very difficult for us to ponder the notion of endless
forgiveness and this is implied when Jesus told his disciples not to set a
limit on the numbers of times that one should forgive. It may be hard for us to ponder the command
of Jesus to “love our enemies and to love those who hate us.”
Does
God forgive endlessly or is there a point when human willfulness can no longer
access divine forgiveness? Recently a Baptist preacher got himself into
trouble with some of his base when he published a book entitled Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell and the
Fate of Every Person Who Has Lived. Heaven
and Hell has been a prime motivator for Christian religious communities for
years. How could a Baptist preacher, of
all people, put such imaginations of heaven and hell into question? How could he view such imaginations as but
temporary states for people to learn ultimately the lesson of God’s unconditional
love which in the end becomes convincing to everyone? It is almost like Heaven and Hell are reduced
to imaginations of a purgatory, through which every person works their way in
the afterlife, until they learn to accept the love of God.
How could he give up the finality of heaven
and hell and the incredible motivation that they can be for cleaning up our act
in this life? And how could he give up
the finality of heaven and hell as tools of fundraising in the church? We Episcopalian preachers know that hell,
fire and brimstone do not work for fundraising in the Episcopal Church nor does
guilt. So how do we acknowledge the
seriousness of evil in our world and ponder the ultimate reconciliation of all
people to God’s love? How do we
reconcile the obvious presence of evil, the notion of justice and the final
winsomeness of God’s love? Can we really envision Hitler, Stalin, and the 9/11
terrorists reconciled with God’s love?
Do we even want to envision that?
I think that the controversy of Rob Bell’s
books highlights the questions that are raised in the Bible about some great
mysteries of life: Innocence and disproportionate suffering, Evil, justice, the
limits of love and forgiveness. The
Biblical records provide many images regarding all these great mysteries and
the churches at various times have tried to mold the diverse images of the
Bible into a single and coherent theology.
And I don’t really think that can be done. The questions and the
mysteries are what each of us live each day and we don’t have a silver bullet
answer to any mystery. We look for
biblical insights to help us live with the mysteries.
The Bible is a record of God’s people
dealing with the question of the disproportionate dispensing of the suffering
of this world amongst the people of the earth.
Many times in the history of the people of Israel
In the biblical record and in the Gospel one
can find reflections upon both the global and the local situation of justice,
forgiveness and reconciliation. The
events of 9/11 force us to think about both local and global issues of justice
and forgiveness. Those events which were
painfully local for the people of our country have been both global and local
issues for the last ten years of our lives.
Just think about your most recent trip to any airport.
The Gospel message about forgiveness includes
the words of Jesus that encourage us always to think very locally about
people. We are always to think of people
as our brother and as our sister.
Terrorist attacks occurred because the
terrorists reduced people to be impersonal masks of politics and national
identity. In the 9/11 attacks the
terrorists reduced individual people to images of someone they thought they
hated. If they had been able to meet
John and Mary in their neighborhoods or coffee shops or as someone who gave
them a friendly greeting, they could have behaved as local kind people. But they allowed de-humanization to occur
when they reduced real flesh and blood people to an effigy of their hatred.
I think that the message of Jesus and
forgiveness encourages us to live, love and forgive locally. Do not let anyone become a de-humanized image
or effigy of global hatred or group hatred.
We also know that in our warring response to 9/11, soldiers too have to
de-humanize others to be able to accomplish their mission of retribution. De-humanizing global hatred sets off events
of revenge and retaliation.
The message of Jesus is a preventive message;
practice forgiveness early and often on the local level. Do not let anyone become an effigy of global
or group hate who can be de-humanized in order to make it easier to harm or
injure.
Today, we are at a very local Eucharistic
event, but with global and future aspirations.
We are just a few here at the Lord’s table. We hope that we are practicing love and
forgiveness in our local situation but we also hope that people around the
world know that they are invited to be with us at the Lord’s table where we can
practice God’s great hospitality to everyone.
And oh how we pray that forgiveness and love
can be known as local and global experience.
And how we pray that God’s love can win us all in this life so that we
don’t have to speculate about afterlife outcomes.
And we pray today, may war and hatred cease
in our world, may forgiveness never never end and may the love of Christ win our world, both
locally and globally. Amen.
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