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 the back yard of my grandparents house in Chattanooga, there is a stand of bamboo. It started out as a spiffy idea to their 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 be that 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 other people's yards.
There is no way I can uproot it without a major yard remodel and without involving the neighbors so season after season my brother finds himself 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 us to be able to set aside those trusty loppers and yank it. 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, we'd be better off resowing trust – 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 in our passage. 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 probably 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, and forgiving can seem out of the question. 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 that. No, thing to do is to distance myself from the one who done me wrong. Or 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: Last week, in Chicago, a group of masked, unidentified men, under the color of law, invaded an apartment complex, terrorizing the residents there, all with the intent of disappearing them to some concentration camp located on American soil. Several children were removed. Well, that's putting it lightly. The children were zip-tied together and dragged out, naked...separated from their mothers. They are gone. Given the past few months, it's a safe bet that they will never be seen in this country again.
Little kids.
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.
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. To not forgive 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.
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, to lean into repentance, to try to reconcile those who have offended back into the fold.
But it's still hard, isn't it. And thinking about this whole thing in Chicago, 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. Maybe our job is to tell the story of our own forgiveness to those who need forgiving.
Maybe, but it's still hard. And sometimes I wonder why we even try this. And sometimes I still don't want to do it. But then I look at a child – or an adult – being baptized.
Part of me is drawn to the vows WE as the people of the church take every time someone else is baptized. We vow to respect the dignity of every human being...EVERY human being. And that includes those masked agents. And I guess I think, “Well, I can love you and work to forgive you, but I may not like you right now, and I need to see some effort on your part.” Reconciling takes two to tango. And it's hard.
But the other part of me is the part that deeply cherishes the part where I get to actually pour the waters of baptism on that child, and to “seal and mark as Christ's own...forever.”
That means that somewhere in this world, there is a brand new Christian, stretching his or her wings. Or rather, maybe, like that bamboo, sending out runners that they don't even know about yet. Runners of love and respect, of dignity and courage, of righteousness and faith. And one day that newly baptized Christian will change this rotten world, will lead this country back to ITS roots, will show us older generations, who've done so much harm in Christ's name, how Christianity is meant to be done.
Maybe that day is today. I pray to God that day is today.
[Michael James Murling, we're all counting on you, kid. For God's sake, we're all counting on you.]
Amen.