So, it's no small thing, it seems to me, to be able to uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea: particularly in the way that Jesus describes today --- with no effort at all. I know this for while there is no mulberry tree in my back yard in Chattanooga there is a stand of bamboo. It started out as a spiffy idea to my neighbor. She'd just plant a little bamboo, and it would remind her of when her husband was stationed in Japan and the whole family moved there for a few years. She eventually died. . . but the bamboo certainly did not.
There are two types of bamboo. One grows in clumps, kinda like day lilies. Occasionally you have to go thin out the herd, but generally it's pretty manageable. The other kind sends out runners, under the ground. Often these runners will travel yards and yards before they pop up again. The bamboo she planted turned out to include this variety.
And y'all, it's hard to uproot. It's hard, period. Bamboo is strange. Lush and green, but hard as a rock. And some of this was easily over 50 feet high. And there it is, now trying to establish itself in my yard.
There is no way I can uproot it without a major yard remodel and without involving the neighbors so season after season I find myself cutting the shoots off close to the ground, just trying to contain it. And yet, Jesus seems to be saying that it wouldn't take much for me to be able to set aside my trusty loppers. Only a little faith is required.
And yet I found myself wondering this week about why anyone would want to waste that gift of faith on uprooting a plant. It seems that if I were given the power to do that, such unexpected power might be put to better use. I'd use my faith to heal people, to sow seeds of love and respect and dignity. Jesus, dude, why are you turning your disciples into magic landscapers?
But I went back a couple of verses. Jesus is being even harder on the disciples than he is right here. What Jesus says there is this:
"And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, 'I repent,' you must forgive."
OK, Now that is something I do need serious faith-help doing. That may, in fact, be something worth using up that "faith the size of a mustard seed" on. Because forgiving can seem a whole lot like pulling up a stubborn plant, roots and all, and tossing it into the sea. It can be that hard. So when the disciples hear Jesus' command to forgive the same person seven times over in a given day, they find themselves begging for help.
Because as you well know, forgiveness can be difficult. For all the rewards that forgiveness promises, it is no small thing to let go, to work at restoration, to begin again. Forgiving can feel like giving in, like giving up, like forfeiting principle or pride.
Sometimes the pain just feels too overwhelming, the offense to heinous, that forgiving can seem out of the question. Almost as if cutting out the pain will cause too big of a hole in our lives. As if the pain had become something that was sustaining us, letting us feel...something, anything. As if the roots of the pain were too deep, pulling them up to hard, so better to just adjust to it and make it part of daily life.
And sometimes forgiving can mean admitting I was wrong, too. And if I'm honest? I haven't done nearly enough of it. No, thing to do is to distance myself from the one who done me wrong. Or I at least build up my defenses enough so as to ensure I won't be hurt again.
Some of you have heard this; some of you have not: Several weeks ago, a federal marshal contacted the national church regarding the garnishment of wages (or rather the lack of garnishment of wages) of a priest here in the diocese. As the folks at the diocesan office were trying to piece together what must have happened to cause the church to not pay that garnishment, they began to uncover other things. The long and the short of it was that the priest had stolen thousands and thousands of dollars. When it's over and done with, I expect it to be well over $100,000. It isn't over yet, but the bishop is on top of it and has been transparent with what's been going on.
If you want to know more, you can go to the blog on the diocese's website. It's all there. It's painful, but it's all there.
It's painful for me for a number of reasons. First as treasurer of the diocese, I am involved tangentially. And that is taking time away for other work, and I resent that. Second, I'm responsible for the diocesan budget, and there is no telling what the fallout will do regarding that, and I am angry about that. And third, aside from Fr. Brooks, this priest was the first one in the diocese to reach out to me, to welcome me, to support me. She took me into her confidence and even trusted me enough to be her on-call priest when she was away, even though there were others closer to her. And I am heart-broken over all that.
I am having a hard time being forgiving. I am having a hard time being loving. And y'all Jesus commands me to forgive. Over and over, not just on some probationary basis. Not forgiving isn't just a fault of mine – it's a sin against God. And that's tough. Jesus doesn't say, “Look, start out trying to forgive that person. But, you know, if it's too hard, well, come back, and we'll see if there's some other workaround we can come up with.” No, he sticks with forgiveness in all circumstances.
Punishment? Consequences? Those will be there. But that's generally going to be someone else's job. That's why we have laws and others to enforce them. That's why victims aren't on juries. No, he doesn't say, ignore, or let 'em get away with it. He's not asking us to be pushovers. But he is asking us to be Christians. And our focus is always to tend toward forgiveness.
But it's still hard, isn't it. And thinking about this whole thing with the priest that I thought I knew as a friend, but maybe I didn't know at all? Something occurred to me.
When we pray the Lord's prayer, we pray for the faith to forgive others who have sinned against us. But before we do that, we pray for our own forgiveness. And we express the faith, that tiny mustard seed of faith, that God will be forgiving.
Maybe in those situations when we don't want to forgive, we should remember how it feels to know that we, too, are forgiven. And maybe our job is not to share our suffering and pain with that other person. Maybe our job is to share the relief and joy that comes from God's forgiveness, from understanding that God's grace will be there for them as much as for us.
Does this mean that the pain in your life will go away? No...at least maybe not yet. But it means that you have shared something ultimately more valuable. You've given a person, even THAT person, a tremendous gift. Forgiveness.
It's not giving up or giving in. It's simply giving. I'm going to think about that as we resolve these issues with the priest. I hope you'll think about it too.
Amen.