Proper 19A 2005 Ecclesiasticus 27:30--28:7 Psalm 103 Romans 14:5-12 Matthew 18:21-35 September 11, 2005 The Rev. J. Brian Ponder Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. In his book, No Future without Forgiveness, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu describes a phenomenon that, if we're living into what we're meant for as human beings and creatures of God's own making, can undergird all humanity--a spirit, if you will, that encapsulates the essence of what we mean when we talk about a life together. He says: Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we say, "Yu, u nobuntu"; "Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu." Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life. We say, "A person is a person through other persons." It is not, "I think therefore I am." It says rather: "I am human because I belong. I participate, I share." A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming to others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are. (31) If you would indulge me a bit, Archbishop Tutu sheds much light on today's Gospel. I'd like to share with you some of the insights he has gained through his experiences and has recounted in No Future without Forgiveness--particularly some of what he has learned through his participation in the process of peace and reconciliation in South Africa as apartheid was ending and afterwards, having lived some 62 years of his life in racial oppression. The Peace and Reconciliation Committee Tutu participated in has overseen a waging of peace and forgiveness, resulting in a movement towards wholeness--especially important in a world that all too often retreats into the cracks of its brokenness by: retaliating with war and more destruction when threatened or assaulted; or making the news of scapegoat-ed, unqualified officials, more important than the chaos and destruction and loss of humanity raging around; or tiptoeing around words such as "racism" and "genocide," rather than naming a truth for what it is; or not delving into the depths of understanding or even being able to acknowledge fully the reality of national or cultural polarization in the midst of world or group domination; or even operating in a mode of "business as usual," rather than taking note of what's happening next door, let alone on the other side of this increasingly, smaller world of ours. Where is ubuntu in the midst of it all? I continue now, reading from his book: It is and has always been God's intention that we should live in friendship and harmony. That was the point of the story of the Garden of Eden, where there was no bloodshed, not even for religious sacrifice. The lion and the lamb gamboled together and all were vegetarian. Then the primordial harmony that was God's intention for all God's creation was shattered and a fundamental brokenness infected the entire creation. Human beings came to be at loggerheads, blaming one another and being at one another's throats. They were alienated from their Maker. Now they sought to hide from the God who used to stroll with them in the garden. Creation was not "red in tooth and claw." Where there had been friendship, now we experienced enmity. Humans would crush the serpent's head before it bruised their heels. This story is the Bible's way of telling a profound existential truth in the form of highly imaginative poetry. Prosaic, literal-minded spirits who cannot soar in the realms of the muse will be dismissive of this highly imaginative storytelling. And yet even if we doubt that there has ever been such harmony in a mythical Garden of Eden, none but the most obtuse can doubt that we are experiencing a radical brokenness in all of existence. Times are out of joint. Alienation and disharmony, conflict and turmoil, enmity and hatred characterize so much of life. Ours has been the bloodiest century known to human history. There would be no call for ecological campaigning had nature not been exploited and abused. We experience the ground now bringing forth thistles as soil erosion devastates formerly arable land and deserts overtake fertile farms. Rivers and the atmosphere are polluted thoughtlessly and we are fearful of the consequences of a depleted ozone layer and the devastation of the greenhouse effect. We are not quite at home in our world, and somewhere in each of us there is a nostalgia for a paradise that has been lost. Believers say that we might describe most of human history as a quest for that harmony, friendship, and peace for which we appear to have been created. The Bible depicts it all as a God-directed campaign to recover that primordial harmony when the lion will again lie with the lamb and they will learn war no more because swords will have been beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Somewhere deep inside us we seem to know that we are destined for something better. Now and again we catch a glimpse of the better thing for which we are meant--for example, when we work together to counter the effects of natural disasters and the world is galvanized by a spirit of compassion and an amazing outpouring of generosity; when for a little while we are bound together by bonds of a caring humanity, a universal sense of ubuntu, when victorious powers set up a Marshall Plan to help in the reconstruction of their devastated former adversaries; when we establish a United Nations Organization where the peoples of the earth can parley as they endeavor to avoid war; when we sign charters on the rights of children and of women; when we seek to ban the use of antipersonnel land mines; when we agree as one to outlaw torture and racism. Then we experience fleetingly that we are made for togetherness, for friendship, for community, for family, that we are created to live in a delicate network of interdependence. There is a movement, not easily discernable, at the heart of things to reverse the awful centrifugal force of alienation, brokenness, division, hostility, and disharmony. God has set in motion a centripetal process, a moving toward the center, toward unity, harmony, goodness, peace, and justice, a process that removes barriers. Jesus says, "And when I am lifted up from the earth I shall draw everyone to myself" as he hangs from His cross with outflung arms, thrown out to clasp all, everyone and everything, in a cosmic embrace, so that all, everyone, everything, belongs. None is an outsider, all are insiders, all belong. There are no aliens, all belong in the one family, God's family, the human family. There is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free--instead of separation and division, all distinctions make for a rich diversity to be celebrated for the sake of the unity that underlies them. We are different so that we can know our need of one another, for no one is ultimately self sufficient. The completely self-sufficient person would be subhuman. It was God's intention to bring all things in heaven and on earth to a unity in Christ, and each of us participates in the grand movement. … (pp. 263-265) Bishop Tutu continues by stating, however, that we have not yet fully realized this unity in Christ. He warns: What each of us does can retard or promote, can hinder or advance, the process at the heart of the universe. Christians would say the outcome is not in question. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ puts the issue beyond doubt: ultimately goodness and laughter and peace and compassion and gentleness and forgiveness and reconciliation will have the last word and prevail over their ghastly counterparts. (267) Folks, this is powerful stuff! … What would it look like for this vision to be realized? What would it mean for us to live in a world undivided? Or participate in a Church undivided? What would it be like? … Part of it would surely involve our going together into all places of darkness and sorrow and hurting, where a spirit of ubuntu could undergird rather than have fear and unknowing undermine. What would it take for you, for me, to budge ourselves from complacency and comfort--to work for a proactive ubuntu, rather than wait for it to happen? What would it mean to see one another face to face … always … everyday? I think this is where forgiveness, and reconciliation and participating in the redeeming work of Christ enters the scene. This is where our Gospel comes into play, my friends. And it all takes a leap of faith. And it's this leap of faith--this process of movement--to which Bishop Tutu give us "little ones" a refresher course. He states: … [W]hen you embark on the business of asking for and granting forgiveness, you are taking a risk. In relations between individuals, if you ask another person for forgiveness you may be spurned; the one you have injured may refuse to forgive you. The risk is even greater if you are the injured party, wanting to offer forgiveness. The culprit may be arrogant, obdurate, or blind; not ready or willing to apologize or to ask for forgiveness. He or she thus cannot appropriate the forgiveness that is offered. Such rejection can jeopardize the whole enterprise. (268-269) … It is crucial, when a relationship has been damaged or when a potential relationship has been made impossible, that the perpetrator should acknowledge the truth and be ready and willing to apologize. It helps the process of forgiveness and reconciliation immensely. It is never easy. We all know just how difficult it is for most of us to admit that we have been wrong. It is perhaps the most difficult thing in the world--in almost every language the most difficult words are, "I am sorry." (269) … We do not usually rush to expose our vulnerability and our sinfulness. But if the process of forgiveness and healing is to succeed, ultimately acknowledgement by the culprit is indispensable--not completely so but nearly so. Acknowledgment of the truth and of having wronged someone is important in getting to the root of the breach. If a husband and wife have quarreled without the wrongdoer acknowledging his or her fault by confessing, so exposing the cause of the rift; if a husband in this situation comes home with a bund of flowers and the couple pretends all is in order, then they will be in for a rude shock. They have not dealt with their immediate past adequately. They have glossed over their differences, for they have failed to state truth in the face for fear of a possible bruising confrontation. They will have done what the prophet calls healing the hurt lightly by crying, "Peace, peace where there is no peace." They will have only papered over the cracks and not worked out why they fell out in the first place. All that will happen is that, despite the beautiful flowers, the hurt will fester. One day there will be an awful eruption and they will realize that they had tried to obtain reconciliation on the cheap. True reconciliation is not cheap. It cost God the death of His only begotten Son. Forgiving and being reconciled are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the pain, the degradation, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end dealing with the real situation helps to bring real healing. Spurious reconciliation can bring only spurious healing. If the wrongdoer has come to the point of realizing his wrong, then one hopes there will be remorse, or at least some contrition or sorrow. This should lead him to confess the wrong he has done and ask for forgiveness. It obviously requires a fair measure of humility … (270-271) … The victim, we hope, would be moved to respond to an apology by forgiving the culprit. … (270) In forgiving, people are not being asked to forget. On the contrary, it is important to remember, so that we should not let such [offenses] happen again. Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence. It involves trying to understand the perpetrators and so have empathy, to try to stand in their shoes and appreciate the sort of pressures and influences that might have conditioned them. (270) Forgiveness is not being sentimental. … (271) Forgiving means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin, but it is a loss that liberates the victim. … (272) Does the victim depend on the culprit's contrition and confession as the precondition for being able to forgive? There is no question that, of course, such a confession is a very great help to the one who wants to forgive, but it is not absolutely indispensable. Jesus did not wait until those who were nailing him to the cross had asked for forgiveness. He was ready, as they drove the nails, to pray to this Father to forgive them and he even provided an excuse for what they were doing. If the victim could forgive only when the culprit confessed, then the victim would be locked into the culprit's whim, locked into victimhood, whatever her own attitude or intention. That would be palpably unjust. (272) … … The victim may be ready to forgive and make the gift of her forgiveness available, but it is up to the wrongdoer to appropriate the gift … (273) … In the act of forgiveness we are declaring our faith in the future of a relationship and in the capacity of the wrongdoer to make a new beginning on a course that will be different from the one that caused us the wrong. We are saying here is a chance to make a new beginning. It is an act of faith that the wrongdoer can change. According to Jesus, we should be ready to do this not just once, not just seven times, but seventy times seven, without limit--provided, it seems Jesus says, your brother or sister who has wronged you is ready to come and confess the wrong they have committed yet again. That is difficult, but because we are not infallible, because we will hurt, especially the ones we love by some wrong, we will always need a process of forgiveness and reconciliation to deal with those unfortunate yet all too human breaches in relationship. They are an inescapable characteristic of the human condition. Once the wrongdoer has confessed and the victim has forgiven, it does not mean that is the end of the process. Most frequently, the wrong has affected the victim in tangible, material ways. … Confession, forgiveness, and reparation, wherever feasible, form part of a continuum. (273) Bishop Tutu outlines for us here nothing that we do not already yet know in our heart of hearts as people of faith … as children of God. But sometimes we need the reminding. We need the prophet to remind us. My brothers and sisters, today we stand on the brink of a new and better day. How will we respond? How will we act? On this day when our nation remembers the tragic events of humankind acting, or reacting, in their worst capacities some four years ago now, whether from places of fear and frustration, anger and deep-seeded enmity, or perhaps even in retaliation to ignorance and arrogance, may we search for ubuntu in how we proceed from here … and from this place. On this day when our coastland and surrounding areas are devastated by destruction and loss of life, when so many are displaced and searching for food or shelter, medicine or comfort, may the spirit of ubuntu guide and guard us all, that we may seek ways to share in each other's burdens in the days ahead. On this day, when we do not yet know what tragedy, what surprise, awaits us next, may the essence of ubuntu fill us through the life-giving and sustaining Spirit of God, empowering us in the meantime to face whatever may be in store, whatever it may be, that it not be of our own making or deserving or imposed upon humankind by one another. On this day, when we rejoice in hopefulness, may we ever find God as our strength, our companion and our source of generosity, compassion and love. May we ever be able to forgive as we have been forgiven. In Christ's most holy name. Amen   iTutu, Desmond Mpilo. No Future Without Forgiveness. New York: Doubleday, 1999. Quotes from this book have been cited with page numbers in parentheses in the text above. Larger portions of the book read during the sermon have been bracketed, cited with page numbers in parentheses above. iiMy substitution for the word "atrocities" from Tutu's original text.