Forgiveness Back to Zero: Darcy, Vader, and Jubilee

Over the past 200 years, Pride and Prejudice has never been out of print.  And has sold over 20 million copies around the globe. Early in the classic novel, Mr. Darcy outlines his own character Mr. Darcy who is the “king” of the county where he lives, admits that his temper: 

• is too little yielding. 
• that he does not easily forgive others, snd,
• his good opinion once lost is lost forever. 

Yet by the end of the novel (and I apologize for the spoilers) Mr. Darcy eliminates the debts of the man who has hurt him the most and in so doing - is bound to him, through marriages - forever. I imagine what lays ahead for Mr. Darcy beyond the novel is a lifetime of learning to forgive again and again. 

I recall going to see a more recent blockbuster - Return of the Jedi with my family when I was young and once again, forgive me for the spoiler, but at the end of the movie, Darth Vader has acted for the

light side and against the dark side. an act which cost him his life. Then a few scenes later in the triumphal finale - Anakin - Vaders given name - appears in his glowy ghosty Jedi self the way that all good Jedis appear after death. I was not an attentively religious young person, but I remember thinking something like - really so fast? Why wasn’t there some sort of penitential purgatory? A lifetime of cruelty and enslavement and exploitation and whatever the word would be in the Starwars Universe for dehumanization, Vader’s was a reign of terror and a masterclass in casual murder.. The nearly instant eternal forgiveness, it rubbed my weakly forgiving Darcy like temper the wrong way. 

This chapter of the gospel of Matthew has been focused on how a community of disciples of Jesus lives together in faithfulness, not in an imagined universe but in the harsh, complex, and contradictory reality of this one. Jesus has welcomed back the one sheep who did you wrong. Once was hard enough, so you get up the nerve to ask Jesus the question: Um, there's a limit to how many times I have to do this right? 

Jesus replies with a parable about the reign of God that is so straightforward it might be more accurate to call it a fable. The 'king of the county' goes about forgiving all the debts of slaves. Sometimes I notice it's hard for me to really listen when the word slave is used by Jesus, and it is not as an example of sin. Here in the USA, we have never done the truth and reconciliation work we need to do regarding how much of our long term prosperity is built on the cruel enslavement of black and brown people. So the word slave makes me react more than lean in. 

Yet slavery in the Mediterranean in Jesus's lifetime was a different thing. It was not racially assigned or something that was generation after generation. The parable could have said tenants but it says slaves, and when thinking about forgiveness, it's an important detail. It should remind us of the ancient biblical ideal of Jubilee. where every 49 to 50 years all the debts that have been piled up between peoples are zeroed out, and all slaves are set free. How completely this was truly ever practiced is an open question. But that it is the desire of God for what perfected human life together is to be like: this is clearer.  

Jubilee takes everything back to zero. Jubilee is connected with Jesus's response about how much are we to forgive. In the idiom Jesus's day - that number play - it means infinitesimally. The Divine inaccessibility of absolute zero and absolute Infinity are so beyond us, that they're two sides of the same coin. The directive of Jesus to forgive until everything is back to zero: it is a difficult command because most of the time even wholehearted forgiveness, it doesn't eliminate the wound. The terror of Vader's reign didn't evaporate from the universe at his turning. 

Forgiveness it is a skill of community one that should:

• preserve truth, 
• enable balance, 
• and compel generosity.  

Forgiveness is an unbinding of ourselves from all that weighs us down and keeps us stuck in the past. Reconciliation is freedom for holiness that isn't a fictional novel or otherworldy movie plot. Sacred forgiveness compels generosity through responsible action against all forms of enslavement, against all forms of everything in this world of sin and spin that is against the Jubilee of God. 

So what are the skills of forgiveness: 

• Trust: sometimes that's easy and sometimes that's hard. 
• Healing speech. it's not enough to just let it go in our minds. And the last skill of forgiveness is
• Silence.

The silence in which we can listen. Listen for truth,  listen for healing speech. Which of those skills are you best at - Which ones need practice? 

The Star Wars universe doesn’t pretend to be based in the worldview of Christian discipleship,but the answer Jesus offers to my childhood (and continuing) discomfort with the instant forgiveness for Darth Vader is that the forgiveness is God’s to give - and it is already given. We are promised that the God of steadfast love and mercy is ready and waiting infinitely for when we are ready to make amends. 

Our task as disciples of Jesus, and as humans in life together, is much like my imagined post novel life of Mr. Darcy One that can still trace the scars, yet called to live in peace as people commanded to forgive again and again and again. Forgiveness is the start of a journey wherein at the end, we discover ourselves to have become free enough to receive God's endless reconciliation. How many times do we who walk with Christ put it back to zero - Infinitesimally. 

May the Lord be with me - cause I am sure gonna need it.

Proper 19 RCL: A

Christ Church, Ridley Park

Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania

find us on facebook and Instagram and at our web-page: christchurchridleypark.org 

ps: if you want to see the best modern adaptation of PnP search for the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.  A 100 episode interpretation for this era - it is amazing.  

Take Us By the Hand: God and Robots

Wall-E is the last functioning junk compacting robot on Earth. Perhaps you remember the lead character in the Pixar animated film of the same name. Humanity has trashed the planet, those that survive have flown away on an infinite interstellar cruise. That space pod of humanity has sent a robot back to Earth to search for signs of life. EVE is the slick advanced technology life detective Who arrives on Earth, And clunky, dirty, duct-taped together Wall-E is immediately entranced, even though she is distant, tightly-wound, and frustrated. Wall-E’s fascination with EVE is perhaps an illustration of the way some of us ordinary people feel when we meet someone of significant famousness or attractiveness or polish.

There are many ways in which our lessons today could connect to that film Wall-E, which if you haven't seen it you really should. What truly brought it to mind however is the full meaning of the word that we heard translated as welcome. We heard it seven times in three sentences. It can mean learning, to grant access, to not refuse friendship, and it can also mean to take with the hand. Wall-E has no other instinct than to receive this stranger, to show her his home to offer her his treasures.  And time and time again he tries to take her ‘hand’. She doesn’t understand the gesture, her arms and hands are held tightly, but again and again, Wall-E never gives up on welcoming EVE by taking her hand. 

Many of the Gospel stories that we know the outline of by heart are variances on the command of these few sentences. Most of the times that Jesus is at table are an embodied expression of just such an open invitation. The wonders of the loaves and fishes, the Samaritan woman at the well, the children in the courtyard. Just as Jesus tells us today seven times to accept him, this call to grant full access to his life and death and Resurrection - is repeated and repeated all over the New Testament, like it is God’s favorite movie. He's not just asking us to welcome the smooth and slick or the carbon copies of ourselves, but also the prophets those who speak truth to power, those who cast visions of who we need to embody God's Reign.  Jesus calls us to welcome, receive, to take by the hand the prophets of moral revival. 

We've been through the first three months of learning to extend our hands to one another in less literal ways. In the name of Jesus we've been practicing our discipleship #togetherapart. And for the most part, we will keep doing that. And yet this week for the first time in as many months we have the chance to take with our hands the sacrament of unity with each other, and unity with God in Christ. To take the bread that is a recommitment to our baptismal promises into our very selves. Those of us who gather will be receiving not only for ourselves but for all who for their own well being are choosing not to gather in person. We are together in the mystery of the sacraments, together in the mission of healing and reconciliation, and the commitment to be the concrete shape of Jesus in our neighborhoods in welcoming ways. 

Our Gospel lesson today even though it is prevalent, it has not always been the dominant practice of the whole church. If you have ever felt left behind on a trashed planet, if you've ever been treated like you are grime-y or outdated or too other, I am sorry and on behalf of the church in which I am a priest, I declare that we are sorry, that God loves you, wants to take all of us by the hand, and show us his true way. Jesus shows us over and over that we are to welcome you, just as God made you. 

One of the meanings of the Greek word that is translated today as welcome is learn. Interesting to think of how welcome and learn are connected. What we are learning and welcoming in this era of figuring out what it means that church is more than a building or a club? Church is a people-on-a-mission word. The church is a duty and a responsibility to welcome and learn the best practices for the common good … at the minimum. And in the middle of the curve is to welcome into our lives the life changing vulnerability Of letting Jesus take us by the hand. God is smitten with all of us, and like Wall-E is trying over and over to take us by the hand. 

Stay safe as possible, and at the same time, trust in God's mercy, love, and act on his command to welcome the last and the first, the slick and the clunky, the expected and the revelation. Welcome, learn, embody Jesus, he is trying to take us all by the hand.

June 23 and 28 2020

Christ Church, Ridley Park

Proper 8, RCL-A Track 1, Psalm and Gospel

Let's Rumble - Fresh Fruits of the Spirit for Pentecost

I received a message this week from a friend. It was a note of gratefulness and optimism in what for my friend is a time of uncertainty and commotion. One of the things that she said was 'I don't care much for the idea of a puppeteer God', but she is also wondering with awe at some of the unplannable assistance she has recently encountered. I replied that I also didn't care much for the idea of a puppet master God, but I trust deeply in the Spirit of God who is at times luring us forward and other times that same Spirit of God is nudging us from behind, almost always surprising us. 

We invoke the Holy Spirit all the time, but you may have noticed if you've ever bothered to count the lines for each subject in the Nicene Creed, the Spirit of God which is Co-Eternal and co-equal and One with God and Jesus The Holy Spirit gets only one line to itself. In our Gospel lesson today we hear Jesus naming his relationship with the Holy Spirit, which is sometimes translated as Paraclete, and here today in our lesson Advocate. Referring to the Spirit of God in this way is describing the divine activity that is shared with Jesus. Jesus is encouragement and comfort and enlightenment. Both are a companion in times of need but also a radical shaker up of the status quo. The Spirit turns over tables and parties with the ill repute too. 

Just previously in John, Jesus has uttered that sacred poetry speaking of himself as the Way the Truth and the Life. The work of the Spirit of God is to keep the truth of Jesus the Christ present in the community of the believer, and of the barely curious. The Spirit works to make the Good News tangible in ways that might feel like soft rain, or like a bolt of lightning, or occasionally both at the same time. The Spirit is pushing and pulling us, supporting and whispering to us. It is the drive beyond ourselves to become one with the way, truth, and life; and doing so just how Jesus said: love God and your neighbor as much as God loves you. 

I love love love Pentecost and have been thinking lately about Paul’s wonderful lists of fruits and gifts of the Spirit - healing, teaching, speaking... Those are good lists but they are also the quick notes of an author who was often on the run.  There is of course much more that could be said about the multidimensional experiences of the Spirit in community, and voices that were once not as free to speak as they are now about such gifts. So I wondered aloud online: what are some fresh gifts of the Spirit? Through those responses, and some other theological and scriptural and social science exploring, I compiled a list of 100 Fresh Fruits of the Spirit. (It could have been gifts but I serve at the church of the blueberry and close to cranberry bogs - so fruit).  A list of 100 is just a tiny fraction of all the tastes of all the fruits of the Spirit of God. I printed out the list of a hundred and they're on the back table and they're also online on our Facebook page... 

I want to draw your attention to three words in particular. The first is making-space If this is a fruit of the Spirit, it is how the love of God expands in our hearts and in our lives and how it creates a feeling of expansive freedom. The kind of letting go that helps us to release our clutch and grab anxieties, it the clears out the noise that we use to protect ourselves from the challenge of change. Making-space is to flip the channel and to listen to the sighs to deep for words. 

I don't think that the big deal wonder in the episode we heard about Pentecost today is that different languages are spoken. I think the startling thing is that strangers and folks with whom we totally disagree with are heard. When I ponder the gift of making-space I think of this Pentecost wonder, and of the hospitality of Abraham who made space for the three strangers. He welcomed them with the best of the best he had, invited them into his tent and heard a blessing and a message completely unexpected and possibly unreasonable. The Spirit of God is a space maker, and is not contained by our rules and assumptions. 

The second of the 100 I want to raise up is rumbling. Rumbling with the middle of our stories, wrestling with the hard parts of our lives where God is moving and it is uncomfortable. In the Book of Ezekiel there's a vision of a valley of dry bones and the Spirit of God moves over these dry bones and puts on muscle and sinews and flesh.  While this is a mystical metaphorical sketch if you've ever gone through the process of regrowing skin or bone: you know that this is not a painless process. I have experienced that one of the gifts of the Spirit is rumbling. It is keeping on keeping on and being candid in the harshness of life and death and remaining in God’s way in that disorientation. 

The 3rd of the fresh fruits of the Spirit list that I want to draw your attention to is one that caused the most conversation online: transgression. Of course, when you hear transgression you may hear buried within it echoes of the word aggression, and therefore violence. You also hear an echo of the older English translation of the Lord's Prayer where trespasses and transgression and sin are the same. However, when I say transgression I mean something else. 

Here I mean a type of divinely empowered righteousness of stepping over the line. Whatever line it is in pursuit of Justice. I'm thinking of people who sat at lunch counters and were beaten. I'm thinking of people who dare to live the full colors and truths of themselves and are bullied and hated for it. Scripturally I'm thinking of Moses. Because everything in the story of the Exodus is this kind of Spirit supported and led transgression of imperial power. The Spirit of God was an encourager with Moses, not as puppetmaster, but empowering him, filling him with valor, and providing the human and spiritual support that he needed to lead the people of God into a space of freedom. A desert space that is hard and took rumbling, and many years of trial and error that we are still working through. The Spirit is still calling you and me to make space and to rumble and at times to transgress because the kingdom hasn’t come yet and there is still so much grief across the earth.

So I wonder how has the Spirit of God been an agent in your life and agent of energy or nerve or deep listening? Is the Spirit of God something that you acknowledge and listen to? Or do you cover your ears and lock the doors? 

One of those words in the Old Testament that could be translated as Spirit of God is the word Hebrew word ruach. Ruach means wind and breath and energy, and so I send you out today asking you to choose a pinwheel. A pinwheel is an active symbol of wind and breath creating energy. They each have their own various gifts of the Spirit on stickers on them. I want you to take one with you today, but don't go around looking for the word you really want. Approach it a little bit more like a fortune cookie and discover the gift that the Spirit the God could be making space in you for this Pentecost. 

Take it home and put it in a place where you will see it and/or if you are a traveler this summer if you have the room take it with you and dare to take a photo of it and send the image out into the world in celebration of the fruits of the Spirit that have nudged or lured or comforted you. Whatever gift you carry, may it make space for God in our hearts and neighborhood so that we may rumble with injustice and act up for the common good through the way the truth and the life of Jesus Christ. 

So let us pray. 

Healing Sovereign God Overmatch our resistant ears with your transforming speech infiltrate our jadedness and our fatigue. Touch our yearning by your words and through your out loudness draw us closer to you. We are ready to listen. in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayer adapted from Walter Bruggeman.

Pentecost RCL C 

Grace Episcopal Church

Pemberton, New Jersey

June 9, 2019