Proper 19, Yr A

September 11, 2011

Grace Episcopal Church

Where were you on September 11, 2001? What were you doing when you heard the news of the airplanes flying into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? What has been going through your mind these past weeks as the 10^th anniversary has edged ever closer, and now is here?

Well, I remember precisely what I was doing. September 11, 2001 was the first day of classes for the year at Furman University, and I was finishing up final touches on my syllabi and checking my email when I heard about the first plane. Like many others, I quickly turned to CNN and saw raw video of the second plane flying into the second tower.

Thinking back, what surprises me most is that knowing what happened, I went about my daily routine. I finished things up at home, got in the car and drove to school. What I don’t remember is whether I did anything different that day than I did the other twenty times I taught Intro to the Bible, whether I acknowledged what was happening in DC and in lower Manhattan, or whether I went through the motions of dealing with all of the details that typically mark the first day of class.

It may only have been when a student came to see me between classes that the magnitude of the events that day began to become clear. He had been in my class the previous term, and it was clear he was seeking me out for help, advice, and comfort. I remember that he was worrying about a friend who was a student at NYU, that he wasn’t able to contact her. I tried to reassure him that NYU was quite some distance from the WTC, that she was probably fine, and that the phone system was probably overwhelmed by all the calls going back and forth from Manhattan. But it was his concern that taught me something much bigger was going on.

By the time I got home at the end of the day, by the next day, the extent of the devastation was becoming evident, and the trauma to our national, and individual psyches, was also unfolding. But still, in South Carolina, we were somewhat insulated from events in DC and NYC, although as the days went by we came to know about acquaintances and relatives who were more deeply affected. Teaching religious studies in that context was exciting and challenging. My colleagues and I were called on to give public lectures, talks, and interviews in which we were asked to speak about Islam and to talk about the relationship between religion and violence.

Each one of us who can remember 9-11 and the days and weeks that followed it has our own story to tell; even now the memories might be raw. It’s important for us as individuals and as communities of faith to remember and reflect on those stories. It is important, too, to reflect on everything else that has happened since then—the fears, the wars. It was often said that everything changed on 9-11; perhaps everything did, but it is also true that many things did not change.

In the days and weeks that followed, and certainly in the past days as we have approached the tenth anniversary of those horrific events, we as a culture and yes, as a world, have sought to make meaning out of the attacks and what happened afterwards. It’s a natural, human response to tragedy, whether that tragedy is natural, as in the case of earthquake or hurricane, or of human origin as in the terrorist attacks ten years ago.

Our lessons today offer a stark contrast. They also provide material for helping us think about those events ten years ago, about the ongoing work of processing those events, but more importantly for thinking about how we deal with evil and suffering in our personal lives.

Our reading from Exodus has brought us to the Red Sea. The Israelites are fleeing Egypt and are caught between the army chasing them and the sea in front of them. A miracle brings them across the sea and destroys their enemy. As they watch the destruction, the Israelites sing praises to their God:

“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, horse and rider has he thrown into the sea.”

Sentiment like this may be difficult to express, to rejoice in the destruction of one’s enemies; it is also a natural, human response to such an event, as we saw earlier this year when crowds were seen rejoicing in New York City and DC after the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death. Somehow, we sense that responses like this, no matter how natural, do not seem appropriate for Christians—

Or for Jews, there is an old rabbinic story, going back nearly two thousand years that tries to address the difficulties of this rejoicing at the defeat and destruction of the Egyptians:

“Having reached safety on the other side, and seeing the Egyptians perishing in the sea, the Israelites began to sing in dance.

“In heaven, the angels saw the Israelites singing and dancing, and they too began to sing and dance. But God rebuked them: ‘Those Egyptians perishing in the sea are my people also, and you want to sing and dance?'”

The parable we read in today’s gospel challenges us to think about forgiveness. It is set in the context of Peter’s question to Jesus, How often should I forgive someone who has wronged me? Jesus’ answer to Peter is over-the-top. Jesus says, “As many as 7  times 70—490 times. But the parable, if it is meant to make Jesus’ meaning clear, is even more extreme. We are given the story of a rich man who takes pity on someone who owes him 10000 talents. The slave goes off and demands the repayment of 100 talent debt from someone else; when the debt isn’t repaid, he has him thrown in prison. Learning of that action, the king, denounces and imprisons the first slave.

The math: a talent was roughly 130 lb a measure used of gold and silver; one estimate is that it equaled about 15 yrs of wages for the typical worker; so the king, being owed 10000 talents, is owed 150,000 years of wages. A denarius was a coin worth about a day’s wages; the slave is owed 100 denarii, so that’s quite a bit of money as well.

The parable leaves us with questions, even though its meaning is quite clear. We should forgive those who owe us, just as God forgives us. But the questions—why does the king not forgive the slave a second time? After all, Jesus has told Peter to forgive not seven but seventy seven times. The parable invites us to think of forgiveness as a calculus—there exists, somewhere a finite number of times, beyond which it is not necessary to forgive. But that’s precisely the wrong way of thinking about things.

To think about forgiveness as a debt suggests that we understand it in terms we comprehend—mathematics or economics, and given all the talk of debt in our culture, we are sorely tempted to go down that route. That’s overlooking something that is crucial in understanding Peter’s question: “How often should I forgive my brother? For that question implies there is relationship between the one forgiving and the one owed. Including that in the equation changes everything.

We ask God to forgive us and we experience God’s forgiveness, rich, unbounded, unmerited. As we experience that forgiveness we also experience God’s love. That love and that experience should shape our own forgiveness. That is the point both of Jesus’ answer to Peter and the parable itself.

I have lived long enough and served as a pastor long enough to know that pain and anger from hurt can last a very long time. We process things quite differently; in different ways and at different speeds. Even the same hurt inflicted on two different people can linger in very different ways in those who have been affected. That’s true not only in our personal lives, but also when we think about events like those we commemorate today. Forgiving others may be difficult, even, at times, impossible. Yet our God, who has forgiven us so deeply and so completely, invites us, not only to be forgiven, but to forgive in the same way, richly, unboundedly, and totally. Thanks be to God!