Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity by Fr Jack

Exodus 14.19-31
St Paul’s Letter to the Romans 14.1-12
St Matthew 18.21-35

If ever we were tempted to say that there’s faith and religion over ‘here’ and real life over ‘here’ then St Paul the Apostle knocks us off that horse today. He is telling us and the early Roman church in an intensely practical, realistic and grounded way that theology is life and life theology.

It is true of Moses today too. The parting of the sea of reeds in today’s first lesson is not a conjuring trick, it is the theological reality of life and death. The Exodus is the story, the lens by which Jews (like Jesus) and Christians (like us) understand ourselves, each other and God. And here, God’s people are journeying from slavery to the Egyptians towards the Promised Land. This story is told and retold every Shabbat. It is also told and retold every time we celebrate the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the compass needle that makes sense of the Christian life, and at the heart of this new Eucharistic Passover is Exodus: ‘food for the journey’ [viaticum] from slavery (not to people, Egyptian or otherwise but slavery) to sin and death itself. In Exodus God parts the water, in Christ’s new covenant it is by the flowing of His blood that we come through the waters of death into the Promised Land; which for us is not a patch of soil but life with God now, and forever in heaven. These resonances of Exodus, Paschal mystery and Eucharist are not over-romantic - they are what we are supposed to be seeing in the words of the Bible and going ‘aha!’.

Again, theology is not over here, and life over here. Instead we find our lives being held, shaped, converted, and nourished by God in these defining realties of Scripture, Eucharist, and all that flows from them. And we see this perspective on theology and life being parts of the same whole in today’s Gospel too.

Today’s portion follows directly on from last week, in which Jesus speaks about what to do with a brother or sister who has gone astray. Today St Peter asks, so how many times must I forgive: ‘seven?’ Seven, of course, is the number of completion in Hebrew. The perfect number that sort of means infinity. That’s why there are seven churches in Revelation - it means the whole church that will ever be. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, because of course the Holy Spirit is God, who is all in all, possessing every gift and grace. Seven baskets full of scraps left over after the feeding of the multitude, because it means loads.

So, must your forgiveness be complete (sevenfold) asks the Prince of the Apostles? (Finally on the right track, for a change!) And Jesus says, ‘not seven, but seventy-seven’. It’s like when children say, not a million-million, but a gerzillion-willion-squillion. Mercy and forgiveness are a direct command from the Lord, and there is no wiggle room here.  So, let’s briefly begin (this will not be the last word on the subject), let’s begin some thoughts about forgiveness.

All that I say to you now is not my own work, but the wisdom of Scripture and sound Christian doctrine passed on and gathered up over the years; and most especially by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Tutu did so much to end the racist Apartheid government of his native South Africa, and to begin the next chapter with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was an amazing man. And (trained by Mirfield Fathers) his life was built on the foundations of daily Eucharist, Morning and Evening Prayer and an extended period of Silent Prayer each day. I say that because Desmond wasn’t a saint automatically, nor was he a magician; he cooperated with grace day by day (theology and life), and thereby God was able to shine through him so wonderfully.

So, forgiveness, seventy-seven times. Often, forgiveness is not a switch you flick, it is a gradual and growing reality. Tutu says that forgiving someone does not mean pretending their transgression was not real or hurtful. It does not mean becoming a doormat, not does it mean becoming invulnerable to the world, or pretending that you are. Instead, forgiveness is to say ‘I am prepared to say that this is not the end of our relationship, you and I. This alone will not define us. I am prepared to make room for another chapter to be written’ (paraphrase Desmond Tutu).

Because, as Tutu so passionately taught, if we do not forgive we are the ones who suffer; we are ones trapped. We have to forgive in order to not perpetuate the wrong done to us. But forgiveness is often a process, as we said. Some people spend years praying for the grace to forgive themselves or another person. Likewise, praying to be forgiven of God and others. I served at the funeral of the old Mirfield monk who had been Desmond’s confessor for decades. The first thing Archbishop Tutu did when he visited Mirfield, before the official welcome, was slip quietly into the monastery by a side door and make his confession to Fr Timothy. Structures like the Sacrament of Reconciliation are gifts from God to help us forgive and be forgiven. Other habits can help too.

I was once advised that if you are trying to forgive someone, develop the habit of each day saying the Lord’s Prayer for them. That doesn’t mean praying ‘Our Father’ in the hope that they will come round to your way of thinking. But praying it truly for them, on their behalf, for their good, and leaving everything else to God. It may be a struggle at first, it may not do anything for a long time, but over the days and weeks (sometimes months and years), things shift and forgiveness can gradually emerge. Such a practice is no small sacrifice, especially when we have been wronged; but it can be life-changing and liberating. And we do this remembering, as Tutu says, that it is the unforgiv-er not then unforgiv-en that suffer most.

So, in life, in Scripture, in Eucharist, in Exodus and in the nitty gritty of our lives, we are on a journey together, in big ways and small ways: from slavery to freedom, from me to us, from the shackles of not forgiving to healing and wholeness, and ultimately - to God be the glory - from death to life.