Dear People of Christ Church,
Peter came and said to Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
77 times.
Peter, here, in the Gospel we’ll read this Sunday, thinks he is going after the gold star. He knows Jesus is a big fan of forgiveness—so, he thinks, I’ll just suggest some wild number of times to forgive, and he’ll be impressed with me. As usual, Jesus blows him out of the water—not 7, but 77.
How many times do I have to forgive. How many times do I have to feel the tightening in my throat, the stinging in my eyes, the sense of exposure. How many times, again and again. 13 years later, now, and probably 23, 10 years from now.
Today, the thirteenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, how many times do I have to tell the story. My first day of seminary. Living 2 ½ miles from the World Trade Center, the chapel bells ringing and ringing. How many times remember the blue of the sky, how many times grieve war without end, today as President Obama commits the US more deeply into strikes against militants in Syria and Iraq. How many times forgive. Not just terrorists, not just politicians starting wars, not just myself, for feeling like I’m not doing enough to work for peace. How many times. How many Saturdays will Sue and Jose and Norm and friends stand on Waltham Common keeping vigil for peace, as wars turn into other wars.
Yes. I am tired of remembering and tired of forgiving.
Forgetting, of course, is not an option. Last year in this space I complained about the “Never Forget” slogans about 9/11/01—nobody’s forgetting that it happened. Maybe, though, we are forgetting about the long work of mourning and forgiving, and the way that forgiveness means living differently. Maybe we’re forgetting about that initial drive not to be defined by the attacks themselves. My seminary classmates and I were all gallows humor in 2001—you HAVE to have another piece of pie, because otherwise “the terrorists win”—you have to go to the movies, buy some beer, finish your ten page paper— or “the terrorists win.” There were many examples. President Bush at the time said we should go shopping—unfortunately he wasn’t kidding.
“The terrorists” is not a moral category. Violence, however, is. The “powers of evil that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God” (as the Baptismal Covenant puts it) is a moral category, too. And violence does win when we respond to violence with violence. That’s the whole point of the cross—it becomes the way of life because Jesus lived, and died, in peace and love. Only the full, self-emptying love of God can overcome death. Difficult to translate into foreign policy, for sure, but what’s the alternative? More death? Today President Obama said Americans never give into fear. But it is not fearless to march into another war.
The call to peace is complicated. It’s messy. The way is not always clear. In our own lives and in the world, we have to tell the story again and again. We forgive again and again. We get angry again and again. But in the labyrinthine ways of the will of God, our spirits do come closer. We can live into the power of Christ that transforms the world through love. As Martin Luther King Jr said, “hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Blessings,
Sara+