So here we are, facing another week with our lives much
different then they were a week ago. Last Sunday, like many of my clergy
colleagues across the country, I fired up Facebook Live for a church service.
The interesting thing about this week was that it was my first Sunday in the
new Church.
I started as Interim Pastor at Second Congregational Church
in Beverly, and my introduction to the congregation was via Facebook Live. I mention
this because we are all doing what we must do during these unprecedented times
in our lives. But I also mention it because of something I saw recently on
Facebook. With Church, doors closed, it reminds us that being Church was never
about the building it was and is about helping our neighbor and those less
fortunate and on the margins. Being Church is about loving one another just as
Jesus has loved us. Sometimes we need those gentle reminders.
I will confess to you that I was reluctant to close the Church
and suspend worship services. My feeling is, in these times, people need the
Church the most and that the physical manifestation of the Church is the
building. People need to be able to support one another, and we do that with
the weekly gathering as Church. Then it all started to make sense to me; the
very thing I was advocating for could make people sick—the very act of
gathering as a community could make things worse. So, we suspended worship and
had to find other ways to be a community.
As I already mentioned, we fired up Facebook Live, which has
been tremendous is helping to create community these last days. I sat in my
home study, just me and my notes on the service, while my parishioners gathered
in their homes in their pajamas and coffee, and we worshipped together. I
opened the stream a few minutes before the scheduled time so folks could check
in with each other in the chat room, and they did. We worshipped together, read
scripture, asked for prayer requests, and held each other, albeit from a
distance during this trying time. We were Church without the building!
Right now, we are in the “honeymoon” phase, and the prospect
of not being able to gather in person for Easter has some folks depressed. Yes,
Easter is the day when we should all gather together and worship our risen
Savior. Still, whether we are on a beach at sunrise, in a church with great
fanfare, or sitting on our couch watching a computer screen, Jesus is still
Jesus, and the promise of the resurrection is still valid.
In a recent conversation, we were talking about that first
Easter. Those closest to Jesus were in hiding. They were locked in a room
because of real danger on the other side of the door. Sure, what they were
experiencing is much different than our situation, but the point is, on that
first Easter morning, people were locked up for their safety, and Jesus came to
them with words of peace. He entered among them and bid them peace.
In my sermon last week, I preached from the story of Jesus
calming the waves during a storm. For those of you unfamiliar with the story:
Jesus and his disciples were in a boat, a great storm arose. Jesus was sleeping
and, as usual his disciples were going crazy, so they woke him. He calmed the
storm and rebuked them a little by asking if they had no faith. They point of
the story is, if we are taking all the precautions, if we have prepared our
families and us, then all will be well. Jesus will bring us the peace that
passes all understanding and will help us settle our minds and our hearts.
None of us can predict how long we will be hunkered down,
and no one can predict what life will be like after all of this has blown over,
and my faith tells me it will. But I have hope. Hope is the promise of Jesus
when he appeared after his resurrection to those locked in the house, peace.
My prayer in the weeks ahead for all of us is that we can
find that sense of peace.
How many of you feel overwhelmed right now? How many of you
feel like the disciples in the story we just heard, holding on to something,
anything as the waves of life crash all around us. Things might be out of
control in your life right now; you might feel that things are as bad as they
can get. Maybe you have decided that you are not going to go outside for the
next few days or weeks or months. The world seems to be spinning out of
control, and along comes Jesus and reminds us that all will be well. He places
his hand on our shoulder and says to us, fear not for I am with you.
This passage has brought me great comfort this week, and I
think it might be the passage that we adopt for the remainder of Lent. Jesus
never promised us that our lives would be easy, Jesus never promised us
anything other than he would never abandon us and that he would love us no
matter what and I find great comfort in these words this morning. Things are
out of our control, we cannot change what is going to happen, but we can
prepare ourselves mentally, physically, and spiritually.
This was undoubtedly not the sermon I was going to preach
this morning. I can tell you that the
one I had written for today was one of my best, but I guess we will never know.
Circumstances have changed how we are being church this morning, and the vital
thing to remember is that we are indeed the church. Nothing has stopped us from
gathering and worshiping God in the midst of the storm. The waves might be
crashing over the side of your boat, but here comes Jesus to calm your fears
and bring some peace to your life.
So here we are, my first Sunday with you. I bet none of us will forget this Sunday. I
know I won’t. I have had a lot of first Sundays with congregations, but this is
a first for me. But we make do, and we do the best we can. I am encouraged by
the number of church communities around the world that are gathering today in
this virtual way. I am thankful that we have the capacity and the technology to
be able to have this time to spend together. Next week we hope to be able to
have some music along with our service if the technology cooperates.
You have been through a lot in these last months, and I am
happy to be with all of you. We will spend time over the next months getting to
know each other better. I want to listen to your stories and find out where you
have come from and your desires for the future. I know there is the desire to
“just get on with it,” but we need to slow down a little and take some time for
holy rest. We have been busy with the business of the church, and now it is
time for us to be the church for a while. I am certainly not equating myself
with Jesus, but I am here to calm the winds of change and to settle to waters
that might be crashing over the sides of your boat.
Although it might seem a bit chaotic at the moment, things
will calm down if we take the time to calm ourselves first. These days when
nothing is going on, are good days for us to center on our spirituality.
Perhaps we can use the time we might typically set aside for the hockey or
basketball game to read and study Scripture. Maybe we can use this time for
some reflective prayer, writing, or reading. If you feel safe, go outside and
go for a walk in nature, and explore the beauty of creation and listen to God,
speak to you through his created world. Watch the wind blow through the barren
trees that are just starting to show signs of new life. Nature is a reminder
that after the storm, after the darkest days, life springs up again, and soon
the earth will send for that life from its slumber.
Here is a radical idea: take time to talk to each other. I
would encourage you to check in with each other young and old. Call people that maybe you have not spoken to
in some time. Send an email or Facebook message to see how they are. Check on
your neighbors to see if they need anything who knows; you might be the one
that calms the storm in someone’s life.
One of the ancient practices of the church is what is called
Lectio Divinia; it comes to us from the tremendous monastic St. Benedict.
Lectio Divina or Divine Reading is a way of letting the words of Scripture wash
over us and allows us to drill down deep into the passage. I want to ask that
we spend some time this week with this passage from Mark that I read this
morning.
Find a quiet place. Sit in a comfortable chair. Open your
bible or print out the passage and place it on your lap. Read the passage
through one time. If you can, read it out loud Scripture was meant to be heard
not read. Then close your eyes and try to shut out all distractions around you.
Sit with the word of God for a few moments. Then open your eyes and reread it,
slowly, stopping on any words that might speak to you and listen to what they
are saying. Don’t worry if you hear nothing, primarily if you are not used to
this type of contemplative reading. Just let the words wash over you, and you
read them, pausing, listening, asking God to speak to you.
Try this for 10 minutes or so at first and build up.
You can use any passage from Scripture you like, but I would
like us to use this passage this week and read and pray together.
I want to end the sermon today with this prayer that I found just this morning. It was written by Michael Kurth, and Episcopal priest from New York and is called A Litany Amidst the COVID-19 Outbreak.
For the last several weeks, the news has been filled with
information about the Coronavirus or COVID-19 as it is now being called.
Recently, the World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 a Pandemic. This
week President Trump suspended air travel from most of Europe, the NBA has
suspended its season, colleges and universities in Massachusetts are going to
online classes and sending the students home, and Governor Charlie Baker has
declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts.
All reasonable steps, I would say, in the face of what we
are looking at.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House Coronavirus
Task Force testified before the House Oversight Committee this past week that
we need to take this outbreak seriously. When asked about the comparison
between COVID-19 and the seasonal flu, Dr. Fauci responded, citing data
gathered from the outbreak in China and South Korea, “Though 80% of the people
infected would get sick but recover, about 15% would experience a significantly
higher mortality rate.” Fauci continued,
“The mortality for seasonal flu is 0.1 [percent]. The mortality for this is
about 2, 2½ percent. It’s probably lower than that; it’s probably closer to 1.
But even if it’s 1, it’s ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu. You’ve
got to make sure that people understand that.”
Now armed with all that information, there is still no need
to panic and start hoarding toilet paper. Being prepared is a good thing, and
the recommendations are to be prepared for up to 15 days if you get sick, but
we still do not need to panic. Sure, older folks and those with preexisting
conditions are at a higher risk and therefore, should limit their exposure to
large crowds. However, the advice is still that handwashing, coughing, and
sneezing into a tissue or your elbow, and practicing social distancing is still
the best way to combat the spread.
As a faith leader, I believe it is my responsibility to
provide the facts, as I know them, and to bring a sense of calm in the storm.
There is a story from the Gospel of Mark of Jesus and his disciples in a boat
on the Sea of Galilee. While they were sleeping, a furious storm blew up and
threatened to sink the boat. The disciples woke Jesus, and Jesus brought calm
to the storm and to the others with him in the boat. He asked those with him,
“do you not have faith?” I have faith,
but my faith requires me to use my brain and to pay attention to those with the
medical knowledge that will guide us through the storm.
I will go back to my comment earlier about preparation. We
need to take the time to prepare, do not need to go crazy, but we need to
prepare. The leadership of my congregation has met and discussed a plan that we
have put in place. At this point, we will not close the church or suspend
church services, but we will be altering how we worship. These are all measures
that we are taking to protect those around us. There is so much we do not know
about this virus that it is better to practice good safety measures.
(Update: Since writing this commentary for the program,
Church Leadership and I have decided to suspend church services for at least
the next two weeks.)
But what of our spiritual and mental health. I would
suggest, and I am going to practice these things myself, is that we unplug even
for a short period of time. Turn off the news, watch a gardening show, or a
home improvement show. Go outside and
rake your lawn and dig in the dirt. Go for a walk around the neighborhood and
wave to your neighbors. Listen to music, read a book, meditate, pray, do yoga,
just get away even if it is for a half-hour or an hour a day. Get plenty of
rest, eat the right foods, drink enough fluids to stay hydrated, and continue
with life as best you can.
Look, we are hearty New Englanders who have faced blizzards,
nor Easters, hurricanes, tornadoes, losing baseball seasons, the possibility of
Tom Brady leaving the Patriots, and we have gotten through all of it. We know
how to prepare for things, and this outbreak should be no different. This could
be a long duration event, so we need to pace ourselves and try not to get
caught up in all the hype. Listen to accurate information from reputable
sources. The critical thing to remember in all of this, do not panic, do not
get stressed as stress affects us physically and drains us emotionally. Get
yourself prepared and practice trying to stay calm in the midst of the storm.
We have all heard the advice from the medical folks, wash
your hands, cough or sneeze into your elbow, keep your distance from others,
stay home if you feel sick, etc. All the health advice is great, but what of
our spiritual health during times of high stress?
Deborah Ringen, Transitional Minister of Health and Wellness
for the Southern New England Conference, UCC has written a beautiful essay on
spiritual health and stress release during this time. Here is a bit of what Ringen
has to say:
“Spiritual, as well as physical and emotional self-care requires deliberate energy and time spent engaged in activities required for well-being and good health, including rest and relaxation. The first step toward self-care is recognizing our physical, emotional stress and anxiety. Feeling tension and stress in our bodies as headaches, backaches, joint pain and high blood pressure, in our minds with worrying, depression, and low self-esteem, and in our spirit as a feeling of emptiness, or distance from God tells us we need to respond with care. Our overall health depends on getting some exercise every day, making sure we eat lots of fruits and vegetables, drinking plenty of water, sleeping 7-9 hours each night, keeping up to date with our vaccines and taking our medications as prescribed. Physical, mental and spiritual health go hand in hand.
As activities and events are canceled you might find yourself with extra time. What will you do with it? Maybe this is an opportunity to care more for our emotional and spiritual needs. We can learn to slow down to focus on those we love, maybe even spend some time learning a new spiritual practice. We can lean on God who will sustain us!”
She goes on to say:
“Time for personal prayer, bible study, learning a new prayer practice such as Lectio Divina or meditation or relaxation breathing may help us hear God more clearly. We can use our time wisely and invite God in to bring healing to ourselves, our families, our neighbors and the world.”
This commentary was written as the opening segment of my new radio show Faith in America.
I recently came across this profound saying:
“By being taught to avoid talking about politics and
religion has led to a misunderstanding of politics and religion. What we should
have been taught was how to have civil conversations about a difficult
topic.”
By not having these conversations, we have forgotten how to
have civil conversations about difficult topics. There was a time, in the not
so distant past, when a conversation could be had about an issue, and it would
remain on the subject. Sure, it might get heated, and maybe tempers would flare
a bit, but the conversation or debate usually stayed on track. It was thought
disrespectful and uncouth if you will, to make the discussion personal. Now I
don’t mean not talking about yourself and how the issue being discussed affects
you on a personal level. I mean attacking the speaker on a personal level to
try and discredit them not on the facts of the issue or the weakness of their
argument, but attacking the speaker to discredit them personally. Debates used
to be won and lost based on the facts of the argument and not the personality
of the speaker.
It seems today that if we cannot defend our position or
worse have no interest in defending our position, we go on the attack
personally. Recently this happened to me. I was discussing an issue and the
person on the other side, obviously did not like something I said, so they went
on the attack. They attacked my profession and me as a person but did not try,
in the slightest, to defeat my position with facts, just personal attacks.
People on both sides of the theological and political spectrum are guilty of
this; this is certainly not a one-sided issue.
We need to get back to the time when we focused on the
position, the facts of the argument, and not the person taking a particular
position.
The other part of this is the misguided notion that we can
agree to disagree. I will admit that on some issues, this can be the case, but
not every position is valid or equal. For example, there are not two sides to
racism, white supremacy, or white nationalism. There are not “good people
on both sides” there is only one side to these issues. I will not buy into
the fallacy that because we have freedom of speech in America, the statement
everyone is making is valid. I am not willing to surrender the moral high
ground on issues whatever that issue might be. Agreeing to disagree is not a
solution, walking away or not engaging is a solution, but agreeing to disagree
is not. Who is the arbiter of this, I am, you are, society is. Society
determines what is acceptable and what is not. And society has determined that
there is no room for some opinions. You have every right to hold your opinion,
and I have every right to disagree with you. By the way, if I disagree with
you, if I fight against everything you stand for, I am not oppressing you; that
is a weak response.
The final point is learning how to listen. Sure, we listen
to each other, but are we hearing them. Most of the time and I am guilty of
this as anyone; we are only listening to find a spot where we can jump in and
push our point. Active listening is a
technique that is used in counseling, training, and solving disputes or
conflicts. It requires that the listener fully concentrate, understand,
respond, and then remember what is being said. Active and attentive listening
requires that we not only hear what the other person is saying but that we
listen to them, really listen to them with an openness to understanding and
learning.
You cannot force someone to comprehend a message they are
not ready to receive. Still, you must never underestimate the power of planting
the seed.
That is what I hope to do here on Faith in
America is plant seeds, get us all to think a little more about things, grow a
little more, and yes, make this world, or this part of it anyway a kinder
gentler place. We may not always agree, but if we disagree, I hope it is with
dignity and respect.
To quote the late, great Frank Sinatra, “And now, the
end is near, and so I face the final curtain.” Although my time here is
coming to a close, this is not an ending but a beginning. Nicky and I are
embarking on a new ministry, and soon, you will start a new ministry with a new
Settled Pastor. I know that God has already chosen the person that will come
here and minister with you, and I also know that whoever that person is, they
will be very lucky.
My being here was actually a fluke, or some might say the
work of the Holy Spirit. I was in search of a new position, and, on a whim, I
sent an email to the New Hampshire Conference and asked if they had an interim
position open within driving distance of Boston. I received a rather quick
response with only one Church, First Congregational Church of Salem.
I read over your profile and asked that mine be sent to the
search committee. I drove up here in March a little less than a month after my
mother had died, not knowing what to expect, but from the moment I walked in, I
felt at home and welcome here. If memory serves, I called Nicky from the car
and told her that I hoped I would hear from the search committee with an offer,
and well, I got one.
I first stood in this spot on the first Sunday in June 2018,
not all that long ago. I had come here after a not so pleasant experience in my
previous Interim, and so I was tired and a little disheartened with this thing
called Pastoral Ministry. Pastoral ministry is not easy. There are a lot of
demands placed on pastors these days, and we have to be Jack’s and Jill’s of
all trades. One moment we are working on a sermon or a bulletin, and the next,
we are at the bedside of someone who is taking their last breath. Pastoral
ministry under ideal circumstances takes a toll on the minister, and my
previous position was not ideal.
I had all but given up on the idea of staying in ministry. I
had started looking at teaching again or going back to school to finish my
clinical time for counseling, but apparently, God was not finished with me yet.
I’ve mentioned my struggle with depression and PTSD. Both come from a
combination of things, one of which is past church work. But I resolved to give
it one more shot. I told God that if he wanted me in Salem, I would go, but my
expectations were not high.
So I came and met all of you, and things started to
brighten. Then July came, and I had Sunday’s off! For the first time in close
to 20 years, I had weekends off again! I have told a few of you that the Wednesday
services during the summer were indeed the tipping point for my coming here. I
was considering another position, but it indeed was the Wednesday services that
decided for me. It is a great respite during the summer months to have those
weekends, and I have told the search committee to play that up when
interviewing candidates.
I am not sure how many of you have ever heard of the Barna
Group, but they are a group that studies trends in society as they relate to
the Church. They have launched a study called The State of the Church 2020, and
although it looks at the Church today and the future, the research has been
ongoing for about ten years. The first part of the study had to do with pastors
and what is on their minds concerning the state of the Church. 51% said that
reaching a younger audience was top on their list of concerns. The pastors were
then asked about the challenges facing the Church today, and 71% said that
watering down the message of the Gospel was of great concern as it is with me.
Although I believe that God is still speaking and that it is our responsibility
to listen to that still small voice continually, we cannot water down the
message of the Gospel which is for me the very passage that we heard this
morning, love God with all you have and love your neighbor, your black, brown,
gay, straight, Muslim, Jew, poor, rich, hungry, Palestinian, Iranian, legal,
illegal, short, fat, tall, skinny, young, old, transgender, binary, democrat,
republican, whatever they are and
whoever they are we are commanded to love them. I hope that I have made that
point abundantly clear during my time here.
St. Paul said it best; if I do not have love, I am nothing
more than a clanging symbol or a crashing gong. Without love, we are nothing
but cranky, hate-filled people who would instead build walls than longer
tables. We would rather honor statutes of old white men than human beings
created in the image of God. We would rather separate families at our borders
than work towards a sensible solution that keeps people together and obeys the
law at the same time. We would rather rant online, and call people names and
bully people, then really listen to what others have to say and truly
understand them. But if we have love, all of those barriers have to be broken down
because that is what love does. Hate is what crucified Jesus Christ, but love
is why he did it!
I do not care what your theological or political philosophy
is, but if it does not begin and end with love, it has nothing to do with
Christianity because, as we heard this morning, on these two hang all the law
and all the prophets. Love God and Love Neighbor is what it means to be a
Christian that is it! And those are not my words but the words of the Word of
God!
I have walked with some of you as you buried loved ones and
walked alongside me on the day my father died. I have baptized some of you, and
you celebrated with Nicky and me when we announced that we are expecting our
baby in April. I have, or soon will, marry some of you, and those of you who
have been married for a long time have witnessed to me about the power of love
between two people. I have fed you spiritually through my teaching and
preaching, and you have fed me with your presence, your questions, your
disagreements, and your love. I have stood at this table in that sacred moment
of communion when we enter into the presence of the Savior, and we have fed
each other’s souls. I have driven hundreds of miles and sat thousands of hours
in traffic, but I do not regret any of them, and I would gladly do it all
again, just not too soon, okay?
As I stand here today, I genuinely believe that I am leaving
you in a better place than I found you, and I know that I am leaving in a
better place than you found me. I am not sure how effective I ministered to you,
but I can honestly say you have ministered to me in ways that you will never
know. You have restored my faith and passion for pastoral ministry, and you
have refreshed my soul, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.
Before I go, and at the risk of leaving someone out, there
are a number of people I need to thank, these come in no particular order. For
starters, the search committee that brought me here. I know we had a picture
taken a few weeks ago but if any of you are here please stand and be recognized.
It is their fault I am here.
Merri, you have been a friend and a colleague and I wish I
could take you with me. I hope you all know what a wonderful gift you have in
the ministry that Merri brings here.
Mark and Laura, you have been my constant guides through
these days and have made worship planning easy, thank you for your constant
attention that you pay to ensure that all of our worship services are
worshipful. And thanks for the glass of water!
David, for your gift of music that enables us to be
transformed and that brings a great sense of meditation to worship, and some
fun.
To the choir, it has been said that those who sing pray
twice. You are a wonderful gift. Keep on sharing that gift with the community.
Alan, who I know is basking in the sun on Hilton Head, Thank
you for the times you filled in and share your gift with all of us. And to
Norma, who knows everything about this place. If you have any questions about
anything, just ask Norma.
To Karen in the office and Edie before her, they are the
backbone of this place and working with me is not easy but they made it look
easy.
To the VLT, thank you for your constant leadership and your
desire to serve God and to serve this local Church.
And to all of you who came here week in and week out and put
up with me, thank you.
And now, the end is truly near, but my final curtain will
not be until after the Ash Wednesday Service on Wednesday night. But the time
has come for me to go to another place where I hope I might be of some service.
I ask that you pray for me as I begin a new ministry with the folks at the
Second Congregational Church in Beverly and pray for them as well. They have
gone through a lot in the last year, and they are in need of prayers. Know that
I will continue to pray for all of you, and I know that God has great things in
store for you if you just keep listening to his voice.
The Season of Lent can and should be a time of deepening
your spiritual practice. Part of that practice should include daily reading
from Scripture. As I did during the Advent Season, I am starting a Scripture
Journey for Lent.
Starting on Ash Wednesday and for the days following, I will
send a daily email that includes prayer as well as a passage of Scripture to
assist you along the path of Lent. I hope that these days of Lent will help you
increase your spiritual practice and deepen your love of Scripture.
If you wish to participate, send me an email, and I will add you to the list and look for the first email on Ash Wednesday, February 26, 2020
This daily email will make the process of the journey that
much easier to participate in since it will be there in your mailbox each morning.
I promise I won’t spam you and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Please join me on this Scripture Journey for Lent and let us
reclaim Lent as a time of Spiritual Preparation.
A lot is going on this Gospel passage that we heard from
Matthew this morning. This passage comes at the tail end of the Sermon on the
Mount and is often overlooked. Jesus
speaks about confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation, but he also speaks of
adultery, divorce, and swearing oaths. These are all challenging passages in
our 21st-century lives under the best of circumstances, let alone the worst. We
can overlook so much as long as we can get what we want. Justification is not a
spiritual virtue.
But this morning, I want us to consider this idea of
confession, reconciliation, and forgiveness.
One of the greatest joys of my pastoral ministry has been
helping people reconcile with others. Bringing people together who, for
whatever reason, have been estranged some of them for years. It takes a certain
amount of boldness on the part of both people to be reconciled to one another,
and there needs to be a certain amount of forgiveness on both sides.
Just as I believe that love is at the center of our
spiritual lives as Christians, this idea of forgiveness needs to be right there
alongside love.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar
and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave
your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them;
then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)
“If you are offering your gift at the altar.” You
have heard me mention before about the Jewish law concerning forgiveness and
reconciliation. People were required to bring an offering for sacrifice; the
size depended on the size of the sin. The more sins, the more offerings one had
to bring. Jesus ended all of that by offering himself as a sacrifice, in a
spiritual sense for all that we have or will do. Jesus is the ultimate
sacrifice, the lamb that was slain for us, but that does not mean it ends
there.
The gift we have, the gift we bring is our lives. Each time
we come here to the Temple, if you will, we offer ourselves as a gift to God.
“Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.” We come here, with others,
to give of ourselves; time, talent, and treasure for the work of the Kingdom of
God. But before we can do that, we need to be reconciled with others, not just
the ones nearby.
“If you remember that your brother or sister has
something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go
and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” First, go and
be reconciled.
Last week, I spoke about the need to love our enemies for
perfect love demands that we love all. Several of you came to me after and
talked about how difficult it is to love certain people, and I am right there
with you. I will remind you that Jesus commanded we have to love them; he said nothing
about liking them, and there is a difference. We are commanded to love everyone
because we are all created in the image and likeness of God, and we have that
Divine Spark in each of us. We love them because, the wretches that we are, God
loves us.
One of my favorite social justice warriors is Dorothy Day,
the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. Dorothy believed is radical
forgiveness and reconciliation, and she used to tell those working with her,
“If each of us could just remember that we are all created in the image of
God, then we would naturally want to love more.”
But what about forgiveness?
Forgiving someone has nothing to do with the other person. Forgiveness
is all about you. When someone has harmed you in some way until you forgive them,
that person holds a piece of you captive; they control a part of your life. We
cannot move on from a situation or begin to heal until we have forgiven. And
the key thing to remember is it does not matter if the person asks for
forgiveness or even acknowledges that they were wrong. The other person may not
even know you were harmed; it does not matter. Forgiveness is for you. Forgives
us as we forgive others.
But just like love does not equal like, forgiveness does not
mean forgetting. Forgiveness does not mean we do not want to see justice
served; forgiveness releases the hold the other person or the situation has on
you so you can begin to heal. What the other person does with it is up to them,
not to you.
Several years ago, out of the blue, I received a letter from
someone I went to middle and high school with. We were in the same class, but
we were not friends by any definition. This kid was kind of a jerk and bully.
Well, it seems he had an addiction problem and was working through the steps of
recovery. As you know, one of the steps is making amends for everyone he had
harmed in the past. His letter to me, asking forgiveness, was part of that
step.
The funny thing is, I had forgotten all about what a jerk
and bully this kid was until he sent me the letter but, I had no choice but to
accept his forgiveness. I wrote him back and thanked him and told him I forgave
him. I still think he is a jerk, by the way, but I have forgiven him. My only
hope is that my forgiveness paved the way for him to forgive himself; most
people who are bullies are bullies because they do not like themselves and that
he found some comfort from my words.
There are some people that we may never be able to forgive,
and that is fine, none of us are perfect. But the most significant person we
need to forgive is ourselves. We are our own harshest critic, and we need to
fall in love with ourselves again. Forgive us as we forgive others.
I just want to say a few words about anger. From time to
time, people mention to me how angry a particular political figure makes them.
I truly understand the sentiment, but my response to them, and to myself is, no
one makes you mad you let yourself get angry. Anger, my friends, is a sin.
“And if your right-hand causes you to stumble, cut it
off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than
for your whole body to go into hell.” (Matthew 5:30)
If you find yourself getting angry, walk away, change the
channel, sing a rousing verse of Kumbyya, take a walk, do something to calm
yourself because acting out of anger is never good. It’s okay to be upset about
situations and desire change, and most change comes from a place of being upset
about situations. Still, we cannot let that turn to anger because anger, just
like withholding forgiveness, is destructive to the soul. You are the only one
who can control how you let yourself react in situations, and it is no one’s
fault but yours.
In the end, we have Jesus as an example. Hanging on the
cross, we looked down and saw the Roman soldiers casting lots for his garments.
Just a few moments before that, these same men nailed him to that cross and
raised him up. Jesus looked upon them, his executioners, and asked his Father
to forgive them. I am almost certain none of them heard his voice or even cared
what he was saying, but Jesus offered forgiveness before he offered himself as
a gift. Think about that, Jesus forgave the very people that had just killed
him…. That is the example he wants us to follow.
