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The Sting of Forgiveness - The Rev. Barbara Ballenger
Sermon from the Rev. Barbara Ballenger for the Third Sunday of Advent.
Today's readings are:
Zephaniah 3:14-20 Philippians 4:4-7 Luke 3:7-18 Canticle 9
Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv3_...
Let us pray. Lord Christ, help us to endure the sting of forgiveness, that we may become for you your brain in the world.
Jarrett and I are part of a Zoom-based lectionary bible study for diocesan priests. We're on it each week and a group of us read the Sunday lections and talk about what we might preach about. So if you wonder where my sermons come from, I get them from other people. Or at least, they can really focus me on what I need to pay attention to in these readings, and so this week, I want to give credit where credit is due.
Because I've been thinking a lot about a story that one of the clergy, Robin, told about forgiveness. When her daughter was young, Robin shared, she attended a home daycare that taught the children that when someone apologized to them - as preschoolers are routinely made to do - they were not to say, "it's ok." They were encouraged to say "I forgive you."
Because when someone harms another person it's not ok, and their apology doesn't make what they did ok, and sometimes the feelings that you're feeling are still not ok. So if you want to accept their apology, they children were taught, say "I forgive you." Now, for things like cutting in line or hoarding the best markers, that can be a pretty quick process. For the bigger things we grow into, getting to I forgive you can take a little longer. As they say, little kid little problems, big kids big problems. But that's a different sermon.
One day, Robin said, she apologized to her daughter for something she did, like you do when you're a parent, and her three year old said "I forgive you." That comment startled her. And Robin said it made her a little angry. Who was this preschooler to say if Robin was forgiven or not? Who was she to forgive me?
And here was revealed to Robin the power that is contained in the I of I forgive you. Because it acknowledges that there's a relationship involved there, and the one who was hurt has some agency in determining what happens next, whether things are really, indeed, ok.
Robin's story made me realize that I'm like this. Very often when I apologize, I want the person I'm addressing to tell me that what I did didn't hurt, it wasn't a big deal, it wasn't my fault, it's ok. Often that means what I really want is to be released from my feelings of imperfection, to get rid of the gnaw of guilt, rather than really wanting the person I've hurt to be healed.
So it stings to hear "I forgive you." It stings to hear "Yes you hurt me, and I appreciate that you are taking responsibility for it, and I accept that, and I want to stay in relationship with you." "I forgive you" is a little more truthful than "it's ok." It's judgement without condemnation. Judgement that's graceful and merciful. And that sting just might prompt me to wonder what the path is to things really being okay.
And now we're in the territory of the gospel, though at first glance it seems a bit harsh. I think it's the brood of vipers language that gives it away. That is the tell that this isn't a healing ritual. Because John has stepped into the waters of the old time prophet, of one called by God to help Israel face the truth of who it is and to get ready for what's coming next. Because it's going to demand the full strength of their covenant with God.
John's baptism didn't make the impure clean, it didn't remove sin. It ritually acknowledged that the life had already been cleaned up, that the change had been made, the heart re-turned to God. So unless you've done that work, don't get in John's baptism line.
So what then does John's baptism with water do, and what does Jesus's baptism with fire do? John's baptism invites Israel to return to right relationship with God; it proclaims that Israel has repented and is ready for the life that God will initiate through Jesus.
"What are we to do, John, to show that we are ready for your baptism?," ask the crowd and the tax collectors and the soldiers?
"Stop sinning", says John. "Stop invoking your privilege, and hoarding resources, and keeping aid back from those who need it. Stop misusing your power, and extorting people."
"I'm a prophet," John would have said, "don't tell me this is the first time you're hearing this. Stop sinning. Get your covenant with God firmly in place. Because when Jesus comes baptizing, look out."
"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire," John says of Jesus. "His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Luke calls that "good news." Threshings, pitchforks, unquenchable fire - that sounds like judgement to me. And I think this is where we often go in our imagination of what God's judgement of us is. It sounds like brutal, terrifying condemnation. But what if that threshing, and chaff removal and sifting is actually what an encounter with God's love looks like? What if that's the refining process that happens when God says "I forgive you?"
"From our perspective it looks like judgment. From God's perspective it looks like love." Jarrett observed in our lectionary group. That is because God tells us the truth about ourselves. Sure it stings. Because truth stings. What if God's judgement invites us to see ourselves as God sees us, as we truly are. What if that involves freeing the core of us that God rejoices in and delights in? What if on the other side of God's judgement, we see ourselves as beloved as God saw us from the beginning, and still sees us?
Consider how John the Baptist describes the baptism offered by Jesus. The threshing floor, the winnowing fork, the fire that burns the chaff -- these are all means of removing the extraneous material from that valuable, useful grain. If we are talking about people who have already repented and emerged from John's baptismal water, then it looks to me like Jesus is processing the grain for its actual use.
This is the process of God's love in us - removing that which is not love, which is not necessary, which is perhaps not true about us and carefully gathering up and preserving what is true, beloved, essential to us and to God.
You can call this process judgement. You can call it love. To those of us who do not want to let go of any of it, it sounds terrifying. Because I'd rather things be ok, than to admit that I need to be forgiven of all that does not flow from love. I think sometimes I'd rather bring all my sins to God with a little apology for packing so much, coming with so much baggage and just have God say, "it's ok, it's fine, come as you are."
But real reconciliation with God means bringing all the stuff we can't manage to put down and allowing God to remove it for us. When God says "I forgive you," I think it means, "I see your sin, I acknowledge that you have done harm to yourself and others and me, and I remove its power over you and your attachment to it, and we are in relationship". That includes things like our shame, our fear, our perfectionism, our tendency to dominate, our inability to forgive ourselves and be merciful to others. And God calls upon the wind of God's spirit to drive it away from us and the fire of the spirit to consume it entirely.
In stories of God's judgement I think we forget what remains, that there is something in us that is also wonderful, beautiful, useful, effective, necessary to the work of God. The grain of wheat in us that is seed and food remains. That is what God's truthful gaze, God's fiery love, frees in us. Consider that when you say amen to the communion bread today. You are not just consuming the wheat, you are becoming the wheat. And that act of threshing and winnowing and sifting is the powerful work of our transformation into Christ's body.
This puts a new shine on the rose candle of Gaudete Sunday, in this third week of Advent, on this day where we are waiting to make special room to rejoice. It is a lovely light in a darkened room. But put your finger in that flame, and it burns. Because it's fire. "The Lord is near," says the heat of that flame. "Do not worry about anything, it says. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
And that as Luke says, is indeed good news.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org
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By St. Martin-in-the-FieldsSermon from the Rev. Barbara Ballenger for the Third Sunday of Advent.
Today's readings are:
Zephaniah 3:14-20 Philippians 4:4-7 Luke 3:7-18 Canticle 9
Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv3_...
Let us pray. Lord Christ, help us to endure the sting of forgiveness, that we may become for you your brain in the world.
Jarrett and I are part of a Zoom-based lectionary bible study for diocesan priests. We're on it each week and a group of us read the Sunday lections and talk about what we might preach about. So if you wonder where my sermons come from, I get them from other people. Or at least, they can really focus me on what I need to pay attention to in these readings, and so this week, I want to give credit where credit is due.
Because I've been thinking a lot about a story that one of the clergy, Robin, told about forgiveness. When her daughter was young, Robin shared, she attended a home daycare that taught the children that when someone apologized to them - as preschoolers are routinely made to do - they were not to say, "it's ok." They were encouraged to say "I forgive you."
Because when someone harms another person it's not ok, and their apology doesn't make what they did ok, and sometimes the feelings that you're feeling are still not ok. So if you want to accept their apology, they children were taught, say "I forgive you." Now, for things like cutting in line or hoarding the best markers, that can be a pretty quick process. For the bigger things we grow into, getting to I forgive you can take a little longer. As they say, little kid little problems, big kids big problems. But that's a different sermon.
One day, Robin said, she apologized to her daughter for something she did, like you do when you're a parent, and her three year old said "I forgive you." That comment startled her. And Robin said it made her a little angry. Who was this preschooler to say if Robin was forgiven or not? Who was she to forgive me?
And here was revealed to Robin the power that is contained in the I of I forgive you. Because it acknowledges that there's a relationship involved there, and the one who was hurt has some agency in determining what happens next, whether things are really, indeed, ok.
Robin's story made me realize that I'm like this. Very often when I apologize, I want the person I'm addressing to tell me that what I did didn't hurt, it wasn't a big deal, it wasn't my fault, it's ok. Often that means what I really want is to be released from my feelings of imperfection, to get rid of the gnaw of guilt, rather than really wanting the person I've hurt to be healed.
So it stings to hear "I forgive you." It stings to hear "Yes you hurt me, and I appreciate that you are taking responsibility for it, and I accept that, and I want to stay in relationship with you." "I forgive you" is a little more truthful than "it's ok." It's judgement without condemnation. Judgement that's graceful and merciful. And that sting just might prompt me to wonder what the path is to things really being okay.
And now we're in the territory of the gospel, though at first glance it seems a bit harsh. I think it's the brood of vipers language that gives it away. That is the tell that this isn't a healing ritual. Because John has stepped into the waters of the old time prophet, of one called by God to help Israel face the truth of who it is and to get ready for what's coming next. Because it's going to demand the full strength of their covenant with God.
John's baptism didn't make the impure clean, it didn't remove sin. It ritually acknowledged that the life had already been cleaned up, that the change had been made, the heart re-turned to God. So unless you've done that work, don't get in John's baptism line.
So what then does John's baptism with water do, and what does Jesus's baptism with fire do? John's baptism invites Israel to return to right relationship with God; it proclaims that Israel has repented and is ready for the life that God will initiate through Jesus.
"What are we to do, John, to show that we are ready for your baptism?," ask the crowd and the tax collectors and the soldiers?
"Stop sinning", says John. "Stop invoking your privilege, and hoarding resources, and keeping aid back from those who need it. Stop misusing your power, and extorting people."
"I'm a prophet," John would have said, "don't tell me this is the first time you're hearing this. Stop sinning. Get your covenant with God firmly in place. Because when Jesus comes baptizing, look out."
"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire," John says of Jesus. "His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Luke calls that "good news." Threshings, pitchforks, unquenchable fire - that sounds like judgement to me. And I think this is where we often go in our imagination of what God's judgement of us is. It sounds like brutal, terrifying condemnation. But what if that threshing, and chaff removal and sifting is actually what an encounter with God's love looks like? What if that's the refining process that happens when God says "I forgive you?"
"From our perspective it looks like judgment. From God's perspective it looks like love." Jarrett observed in our lectionary group. That is because God tells us the truth about ourselves. Sure it stings. Because truth stings. What if God's judgement invites us to see ourselves as God sees us, as we truly are. What if that involves freeing the core of us that God rejoices in and delights in? What if on the other side of God's judgement, we see ourselves as beloved as God saw us from the beginning, and still sees us?
Consider how John the Baptist describes the baptism offered by Jesus. The threshing floor, the winnowing fork, the fire that burns the chaff -- these are all means of removing the extraneous material from that valuable, useful grain. If we are talking about people who have already repented and emerged from John's baptismal water, then it looks to me like Jesus is processing the grain for its actual use.
This is the process of God's love in us - removing that which is not love, which is not necessary, which is perhaps not true about us and carefully gathering up and preserving what is true, beloved, essential to us and to God.
You can call this process judgement. You can call it love. To those of us who do not want to let go of any of it, it sounds terrifying. Because I'd rather things be ok, than to admit that I need to be forgiven of all that does not flow from love. I think sometimes I'd rather bring all my sins to God with a little apology for packing so much, coming with so much baggage and just have God say, "it's ok, it's fine, come as you are."
But real reconciliation with God means bringing all the stuff we can't manage to put down and allowing God to remove it for us. When God says "I forgive you," I think it means, "I see your sin, I acknowledge that you have done harm to yourself and others and me, and I remove its power over you and your attachment to it, and we are in relationship". That includes things like our shame, our fear, our perfectionism, our tendency to dominate, our inability to forgive ourselves and be merciful to others. And God calls upon the wind of God's spirit to drive it away from us and the fire of the spirit to consume it entirely.
In stories of God's judgement I think we forget what remains, that there is something in us that is also wonderful, beautiful, useful, effective, necessary to the work of God. The grain of wheat in us that is seed and food remains. That is what God's truthful gaze, God's fiery love, frees in us. Consider that when you say amen to the communion bread today. You are not just consuming the wheat, you are becoming the wheat. And that act of threshing and winnowing and sifting is the powerful work of our transformation into Christ's body.
This puts a new shine on the rose candle of Gaudete Sunday, in this third week of Advent, on this day where we are waiting to make special room to rejoice. It is a lovely light in a darkened room. But put your finger in that flame, and it burns. Because it's fire. "The Lord is near," says the heat of that flame. "Do not worry about anything, it says. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
And that as Luke says, is indeed good news.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org