October 6, 2019

October 6, 2019                Luke 17:3-10       Psalm 37:1-9       2 Timothy 1:1-14

                I remember being a youngster and my mom and grandma making me sit and try to tie my shoes until I succeeded.  I remember the frustration.  I remember it felt like it took forever.  I remember the feeling of success when I stood up to show them I had finally done it.  And I remember the disappointment when I realized that I had tried so many ways to tie my shoe, I didn’t remember which one got me the results I wanted.

            My son Sterling learned to tie his shoes two Sundays ago.  I don’t think Velcro shoes were invented until I was in 3^rd grade, so we all had to learn to tie our shoes at a much younger age.  As it is, Sterling has Velcro shoes, but the Velcro broke and he was forced to wear his backup shoes which have laces.  It took about 4 days of wearing those until he learned to tie them.  He likes to make triple knots, by the way, and 2 weeks of practice have made him quite an expert.

            Jesus’ friends, too, are trying to learn a new skill.  Not tying shoes—I think they were all buckles back then—but what they are trying to learn is forgiveness.  Jesus is telling them if someone sins against them, hurts them, injures them, bothers them, even seven times a day, it’s ok to correct that person, to let them know they violated a boundary.  If that person repents, apologizes, says they are sorry, then Jesus instructs his friends to forgive, even seven times a day.  And not just Jesus’ friends back thousands of years ago, but we know this instruction is meant for us.  Jesus asks us to forgive, to forgive a lot.  Jesus’ friends and followers are commanded to be generous with their forgiveness.

            Jesus’ friends then say to him, “Increase our faith!”  “Give us more faith,” they demand, because they know that faith is what they are going to need if they are going to forgive that much.  But Jesus tells them a story about a mustard seed, a very tiny seed, and says if they even have that much faith it will be enough.  Why does he choose a seed?  He could have chosen a grain of sand, or an eyelash to illustrate his point about something small.  But he chooses a tiny seed because a seed has power and possibility in it.  It starts out small, but it has all the information it needs to grow into something more.  In the right conditions, with water and soil and sun, it can go from something very small and insignificant, to a vibrant plant with branches and leaves and flowers and fruit and not just that but with relationships to other plants and providing food and cover for people and animals.

            It only takes a tiny bit of faith.  Jesus’ friends have enough faith to get started on their forgiveness project.  It is like tying your shoes.  No amount of watching other people tying their shoes or watching Youtube videos, or reading instructions is going to teach you to tie your shoes.  It is in practicing it that we develop those muscles, those techniques, and we develop confidence, and we find out what works for us, and pretty soon we tie our shoes.  The same is true of forgiving.  People can tell you how to forgive and you can read books about it, but you won’t develop that muscle unless you try it and try it again and try it again, even seven times a day.  There are some people we really get to thank for helping us exercise our forgiveness muscle, aren’t there!  Thank you God, for all that practice!

           

            Jesus says, just do it, just forgive, just take a step in the process, and you’ll learn a lot, you’ll find yourself improving in the forgiveness department, you’ll find yourself growing.  Once we start learning more about forgiveness, we usually begin to notice that we aren’t the only ones forgiving.  We start to notice how much we’ve been forgiven.

            And that’s where our pets come in.  There is a quote, “I want to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.”  Our pets see us at our best and at our worst, and they are full of kindness and forgiveness when we mess up.  We may leave them at home all day, blame them for messes they didn’t cause, even take our anger out on them, and they come back to us with love.  They are examples to us of forgiveness.  When I think of the animals I have loved, I am inspired to be more forgiving and to practice using that muscle more with people around me and even with myself.

            They are examples of trust, relying on us for everything they need.  How can we learn from them to trust God, who we rely on for everything we need?  They are examples of obedience, some times more than others.  How can we learn from them to practice obedience, listening to God, trusting God’s commands?  They are examples of forgiveness to us.  How can we learn from them to take that step in forgiveness, believing the best of people around us, giving them another chance to be in relationship with us?  They are examples of joy to us, reveling in small pleasures, expressing enjoyment, giving thanks.  How can we learn from them to experience joy and express it, to express thanks and praise to God for all our blessings?  I think this is one of the reasons we have pets and enjoy animals in the outdoors, they teach us how to live in relationship with God and one another and especially this world God made.

            Really, this reading is about Jesus.  He came to live among us as a baby who grew into a child and then a man.  He came into this world with nothing.  That must have taken a lot of faith!  He was uprooted from his place in the Heavens and he was planted in the sea, a dangerous, chaotic place where storms could come up at any time.  He could have hardly felt much like he belonged, like a mulberry tree planted in the sea.  He was chased off by king Herod into Egypt as a little child.  He had no place to lay his head.  He was rejected in his hometown.  He was arrested and stripped and killed.  He came to us for relationship and was vulnerable, and we took him down, we took his life.

            Through it all, he somehow stayed obedient.  He was a slave to God’s mission and will.  He was absolutely obedient to God’s purpose to let all of Creation know how close God is and how much God loves us.  Jesus came to show us that we are forgiven more than seven times a day, even though we often repeat the same mistakes over and over again.  Yet, still, God wants to be in relationship with us and form us into community.

            Forgiveness is an essential in community.  When we are near to each other, we are bound to step on each other’s toes.  We are bound to see sides of each other that we wish weren’t there.  But practicing forgiveness is also good for us, because there are things in life we get to learn to let go of.  Sometimes we hold on to things so tightly, it’s almost as if we worship them, that we need to hurt people who hurt us, or we need to be right.  But forgiveness is a letting go that puts God at the center and all the other things in their rightful place where they don’t continue to hurt us or make us bitter or control our lives anymore. Jesus doesn’t tell us to forgive to shame us for when we don’t.  Jesus tells us to forgive because our grudges and our anger keep us in bondage.  They make us sick.  They tie us to people who’ve hurt us and hold us captive.  Jesus invites us to try forgiveness to release us, and to build a community, to help us relate to those around us.

            My cat died this year, in May.  We had her 15 years of her life.  A year ago when we took a road trip to Yellowstone National Park, I told my friend he only needed to come feed her wet food every other day.  I left her a big bowl of dry food.  He travelled exclusively by bicycle and I didn’t want him to be inconvenienced.  And when we got back, I saw that my cat had lost weight, and not in a good way.  When she died this May, I wondered how much I contributed to that.  I have had trouble forgiving myself that I might have caused her suffering.  It has weighed on my mind a lot.  I have agonized about whether I brought an earlier death to my cat.  I will take it as a lesson to remember going forward.  I take comfort in these words about forgiveness and about my cat’s loving attitude toward me.  I know that all things will be united in the Kingdom of God in the life to come.  I don’t know if I will recognize my cat, but I know we are one in God’s good Creation, and she has freed me to forgive myself.  But of course it is a process, not all at once, something I get to keep practicing.

            The good news this morning is that we are forgiven and that we are invited into forgiveness, to be freed from our fear and our shame so that we can be the creatures God made us to be.  Let’s exercise that muscle with each other often, and I have already begun to experience it here with you,  thank you for the forgiveness you’ve already extended to me, and let ourselves be uprooted and challenged in freeing ourselves and others through the gift of forgiveness and grace.