Matthew 18:21-22
Opening Sentences: Where were you on that morning ten years ago? What was the first thing you heard, the first thing you saw? Who did you talk to, where did you go? How has your life changed? Who do you know whose life has been put in danger in the months and years that followed? It’s been ten years, and we’re still trying to figure out the kind of world we live in. What happened and what does it mean? There’s so much to say about it, and the newspapers, radio and television have been filled with analysis and reflection all week long. Nearly everything that could be said has been said. So, instead, we begin our service of worship with silence … remembering September 11, 2011, thinking about the lives lost, knowing the world has changed, and honoring those who were, who are, and who will be ready to respond whenever there is a need.
REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 (responsive reading)
Today is the 10th Anniversary of the terrorist attack that left 2,977 dead in New York City, Arlington, Virginia, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. While this was an attack directed at the United States, people from more than seventy other countries were among the numbers who died. A total of four hundred eleven emergency workers lost their lives.
Today we remember … all those who lost their lives, all who lost loved ones, entire communities in grief, our entire nation in shock, the whole world traumatized.
Today we remember … for in subsequent actions related to September 11th untold thousands more have lost their lives around the world.
Today we remember … how the world changed.
Today we remember … that though our losses are beyond measure we are not defeated. We are committed to living peaceful, hopeful lives.
Today we honor the commitment of our friends and neighbors who are “first responders” in our community, who are ready to respond for any reason, on any day, in any place, whenever we need help. You have our heartfelt thanks, and our most soulful prayers. Amen.
Today’s Worship Theme: “The Mathematics of Jesus”
Let’s pretend that you are a guest on Jeopardy, the TV quiz show. The category is “Bible Math”. “I’ll take Bible Math for $100, Alex”. “The answer is ‘7’”. You press the button, you think fast and provide the question: “How many days of creation were there?” Right! “I’ll take Bible Math for $200, Alex.” “And the answer is ‘10’”. Once again, you press the button first: “How many commandments did God give to Moses on Mt. Sinai? Correct! And then we take a short break as Alex interviews each participant. “Alex, I’m from Byron NY, and I’m going to dedicate all my winnings to my church. The TV audience applauds, and then on with the game: “I’ll take Bible Math for $500, Alex”. “And the answer is ‘40’”. Thinking fast, you respond, “How many days and nights did Jesus contend with the Devil in the desert?” Yes! “I’ll take Bible Math for $1000, Alex”. “And the answer is ‘490’”. 490? Oh no, you’re stumped! Where is that in the Bible?
Is 490 the length in feet of Noah’s ark? Is 490 the number of fish the disciples caught in the net that day on the Sea of Galilee? Is 490 the number of people who came forward to be baptized on the day of Pentecost?
Here’s where it’s from. Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive a person who has wronged him. Perhaps wanting to appear especially forgiving, Peter suggests that seven times should be the standard for forgiveness. But then Jesus says that we should forgive those who wrong us “seventy times seven times”, which is 490 times. And there’s your answer for the $1000 clue in Jeopardy. 490 times is the number of times to forgive.
You can remember this number by thinking of that highway we take into Rochester, Interstate 490. 490 times seems like a lot of times to forgive. Most of the time it’s difficult to forgive even once. If 490 seems too big a number, try this – every time you travel on I-490, try to think of one person you could forgive. And if that doesn’t work, try remembering a time when someone forgave you!
Message: “How Many Times?”
One of the things I’ve learned about the Bible over the years is that it catches me when I think I’ve got it all figured out. When I think I know exactly what the Bible says and when I think I’ve learned how to live my life in a way that pleases God, out of the blue it throws me a curve ball, and I have to rethink almost everything. For example, Jesus says “love your neighbor”. Where I grew up as a kid that was pretty easy to live by because all of my neighbors were friendly and nice. I would visit the homes of my friends and their moms would serve me cookies and lemonade. It’s easy to love neighbors like that!
But then I went to college and I had to share a room with a roommate who drove me crazy – and somewhere around that time I re-read that verse about “love your neighbor” and I realized that it wasn’t as easy as I once thought. It’s easy to love nice people, but not at all easy to love my roommate who would read all of his textbooks out loud while studying for hours on end, and then snore all night long. So I had to relearn the lesson – loving your neighbor is never easy, and it’s mostly very difficult, because some neighbors may be obnoxious, inconsiderate, and even violent. For example, one night the guy next door to me in Rochester killed a man in his own living room, about 25 feet from where I was sitting at my desk writing my sermon. Jesus says “love your neighbor”, and my neighbor turned out to be a murderer! So “loving your neighbor” takes some extraordinary effort.
So now here’s today’s lectionary reading, on forgiving someone 490 times, on a day like this, ten years after September 11th, 2001. If you don’t know what the lectionary is, it’s a three year schedule of weekly Bible readings that most preachers follow, and the reading for today happens to be Matthew 18:21-22, on forgiving 490 times. Maybe you came expecting to hear a message about honor, loyalty, courage, commitment, patriotism, or vigilance, but, instead, the Gospel reading is all about forgiveness. I thought I had it all figured out, and then this reading pops up.
You know, I’ve done some really stupid, bad things in my life, probably no more or less than most of you, and one of the reasons that I am a Christian is that I’m looking for the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ so that I can move forward in hope. It will probably take at least 490 times for Jesus to forgive me of the countless things I have done to hurt others. Some of them very small and almost unnoticeable, but a few of them so huge they are right off the scale. In fact, I have participated in so much sin, maybe “490 times 490” might begin to cover it. If you’re sitting on the same sinners’ bench with me, you’re probably trying to figure out what the product of 490 x 490 is. For the mathematically challenged, that’s 240,100 times.
Jesus doesn’t just talk about forgiveness as a speculative theory. He actually offers it to many of the people he encounters on the way to Jerusalem. And some of those people are downright despicable. So Jesus forgives thieves, tax collectors, women in prostitution, bullies, and worse. If he had lived in the present day, a doctoral student like our friend Bridgette Yaxley would be working on her thesis by doing a follow-up scholarly study on those whom Jesus forgave. Did their lives take a dramatic turn for the better? Did they live exemplary lives from that moment on? Did they dedicate the rest of their lives to repairing the damage they had done? Unfortunately, in most cases there is no follow-up story in the Gospel about the forgiven. Jesus forgives them and then he moves on. We really don’t know what the long-term results are. We don’t know if forgiveness works, even as Jesus urges us to try it, not just once but 490 times.
2,977 people died as a result of the four hijacked planes on September 11th ten years ago. Since that time 4.474 US personnel and 318 personnel from allied countries have died in Iraq, and approximately 100,000 to 110,000 Iraqi civilians have died. In Afghanistan 1755 US personnel have died, along with 944 allied personnel, and there is no reliable estimate of the number of Afghan civilians who have died. And none of these numbers give the total number of wounded and traumatized. For many of us it’s hard to see how forgiveness can even enter a conversation with numbers like these on the table.
One of my minister colleagues this week remembered a quotation from the Southern writer Flannery O’Connor, “Whenever grace appears, someone will kill it”. It’s hard enough to live a forgiving life on a sunny day in a nice town like Byron, but it seems almost impossible when the hurt that we have seen or felt is beyond measure. This is the worst part about the terror, violence and war that we have seen every day since 2001. It makes all forgiveness seem out of touch, naïve or ineffective. I say 490 times, and you may be having trouble thinking of even one time.
That forgiveness is hard does not erase the need for it. One lesson is very clear from the story that Jesus told: Forgive, forgive many times, not because you are required to live according to an impossible standard. Forgive, forgive many times, because of how you have already been forgiven beyond measure by God. Jesus isn't trying to institute a legal or judicial system in this teaching. He is simply saying that God has forgiven each one of us beyond measure, and that when we become stingy about offering forgiveness to others - something has to change. There’s a spiritual logjam that needs to be broken up.
On first reading, the question appears to be "How often must I forgive the sister or brother who wrongs me?" But here’s the real question: "How often would you want forgiveness from the people around you?” And maybe this is the heart of the matter. Instead of trying to solve the question of how much forgiveness we ought to offer the worst people in the world, maybe we should be asking questions like these: Has anyone forgiven me lately? Have I ever been unforgiveable? When someone forgives me do I know how to receive it? How is my life different when someone has forgiven me? Could I pass it on to someone else?
We won’t ever forget the moment when we first learned about the planes striking the World Trade Center. We won’t forget how we felt. We won’t forget how the world has changed. These terrible things are part of who we are, but they don’t define who we are. When I boil it all down to the essentials of what happened that day, and since, I do pay attention to the terrible loss of life, the worry and the fear, the anger and the desire to retaliate, but I mostly think about people like Wendy, Eric, Laura, Kathy, and Beth, volunteers from this church, along with other first responders in our community, and in all communities, fire, rescue and police, who are ready to respond for any reason, on any day, in any place, whenever we need help. This is the treasure that we have in hand when at first we thought all was lost.
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