Go in Love

April 6, 2008
Matthew 18:10-22, Leviticus 19:13-18
Sermon by Torin Eikler
Eastertide 3

The 18th chapter of Matthew is an incredibly rich section of the gospel, and there are many sermons that could come from it. I probably wouldn’t be wrong to say that most of us have heard several on each one of the sections read today. And, it’s pretty unusual for us to hear them all together – partly because the lectionary guide that many pastors use separates them onto different weeks and partly because there is just so much to say about each of them. I think that is unfortunate, though, because when we read them together we find that they each inform each other. Looking at the whole, we can learn more about ourselves and about the way of loving relationship that is so important. Jesus taught this way of forgiveness and modeled it even as he died on the cross. And, as Children of God brought together in Christ, we are called to struggle toward that vision of caring unity even in the face of the disagreement and pain that grows out of our lives together.


Forgiveness …. That’s at the heart of it. We all know Jesus’ response to Peter’s question. How many times should we forgive another who sins against us? Seventy times seven. If you are a person who likes to have solid figures and clear goals – or if you just happen to be someone who likes to play with numbers, you will probably have done the math on this already. I’m sure that Mike Eisenstatt has already rechecked the work of earlier years as he listened to my conversation with the young people and could tell you that it always comes out the same – 490.

That’s the answer we first look for. When we are youngsters and first begin to listen to the scripture reading in church and pay attention to the sermon, it seems almost inevitable that we will figure that out. We pull out a pencil from the back of the pew in front of us and write the numbers on our bulletin or maybe the visitors’ card if we’ve already used our bulletins for something else. Let’s see, drop the zero down … now what was 7 x 7? 49. Wow… 490 times! I have to forgive my brother or sister 490 times. Let’s see…, how many times have I used up? There was that time last week … and there was yesterday … and this morning he teased me about my hair … and there was just a few minutes ago when she elbowed me when we came back to the pews. If we could actually remember all those little slights that we forgive, we would probably work through all 490 times pretty quickly even though it seems like such a big number. But that’s not really the point is it?

We know enough about the way Jesus lived and taught to know that he was not such a black-and-white person. He didn’t stick to the letter of the law and while he might have been a math person, his was an arithmetic of abundance – five loaves and two fishes in his mind was more than enough to feed thousands with a feast left over. No, when Jesus heard the youngster in Peter thinking in black and white and asking for permission to set up running totals for each of his brothers and sisters, he said, “No, Peter. Forgiveness is not about the numbers. It goes deeper than that.”

Forgiveness, of course, does go deeper than the numbers. It even goes deeper than accepting an apology or looking past all the little slights, the impoliteness, the lack of consideration. Those acts aren’t really forgiveness, or perhaps they are in some small way and they’re practice for the really big and really difficult times. Forgiveness goes all the way down to the pain and the brokenness of sin. It reaches for reconciliation and wholeness both between people and within each of us. And it’s work, hard work.

It’s a struggle to bridge the gap we create between and within ourselves when we are hurt by the sin of another or by our own. What do we do when we have been hurt so deeply? I can’t speak for any of you, but I run away. I curl up around the pain and hide. I wait … I wait behind the hard spines of the strongest defenses I can muster until that other person comes under a white flag to apologize. Sometimes I wait even longer because how can I trust that this is a genuine truce and not some trick.

But that is not the way of Christ. It makes sense. It makes sense with everything that I have been taught by history, by war movies, by games like Risk where only one person can win and my enemy is only my friend until our common enemy is beaten. It makes sense with everything I learned from life with my brothers and playground machinations. It makes sense strategically and it makes sense viscerally. But it is not the way of Christ.

Haven’t we just heard that? Isn’t that what sparks Peter’s question? Doesn’t the gospel writer tell us that Jesus teaches that when another sins against us, we should go to them – not wait for them to come to us. We should go to them and point out the fault. And we should do that by ourselves. There is no waiting until the other comes to us. Jesus teaches a different way – a way of vulnerability. And to follow that way, we have to leave behind the protective walls we have thrown up. We have to put away the weapons we have sharpened so that we can return the favor when next we see the offender. We have to go, despite our injury, and seek out the friend, the lover, the brother or sister who seems now to be the enemy. We have to find them and lay open our pain before them in the hope that they will listen to us, that they will see the wound – see it and recognize that it is also their wound and their pain.

When it works, it is wonderful. We find the wound healing in a way that strengthens both of us and the love that hold us together. But what about when it doesn’t work? What if they refuse to listen – refuse to see? Then we get to run and hide, right? Nope. You know the process. You’ve heard it many times before and if you haven’t, you heard it once today already. If they don’t listen to you, you take two or three people who witnessed the sin. Not to take your side or to protect you, mind. But to witness. To tell what they saw, to watch what happens, and perhaps to bring a greater level of awareness and restraint by their presence. If that doesn’t work, you bring the whole church. And, if that doesn’t work, you treat them as you would a tax collector or a gentile.

Finally, we get a break. Finally, we are allowed to shun the offender. To let go of them. We have done our best – gone beyond what anyone would say is the call of duty. It’s time to kick them out so that they don’t become a bad influence or a stumbling block to those who would follow the way of Christ. They have well and truly made themselves the enemies of the faithful.

Now you all probably know what’s coming, right? Let me just confirm your suspicions with a few questions. How did Jesus treat gentiles and tax collectors? Wasn’t Matthew, himself, a tax collector? For whom did Christ ask forgiveness on the cross?


Forgiveness goes beyond the numbers, remember?


Some of you may know the name of Suezann Bosler and perhaps even know her story, but it is worth repeating.

Suezann’s father Billy was a Church of the Brethren pastor serving in the Miami First Church. In 1986, he and Suezann were in the church parsonage when a 20-year old man came rang the doorbell. Billy answered the door and without any conversation, the man – James Campbell – began to stab him repeatedly – 24 times in all. During the attack, Suezann came to the door and was also stabbed six times in the head and in the back before leaving them both for dead.

Billy died of his injuries, but Suezann survived. With her help, the man was convicted and sentenced to death. But that was not what Suezann wanted. Despite the pain of her own injuries and the greater suffering she felt at the loss of her father, she chose the path of peace, forgiving Mr. Campbell and working to have the death sentence overturned.

Ten years later, she finally had the chance to testify before a jury that would decide the ultimate fate of the man who had killed her father, and she shared her belief in the sanctity of life and her desire that the cycle of violence end with that day in 1986. The jury decided - largely on the strength of her testimony and the power of her story of forgiveness – to commute the death sentence, giving James a third life sentence instead.

Suezann has spoken many times about the joy, peace, and freedom she felt both when she was able to forgive James Campbell and when his life was spared. She has gone on to found an organization called Journey of Hope that supports others who struggle to find the way of forgiveness in the wake of similar experiences.


I hope that none of us will ever find ourselves in a position as difficult and painful as that. But, I think we all have faced or will face situations in which there seems to be no hope of reconciliation. When a brother or sister will not hear us despite our very best efforts, what are we to do? Perhaps this is what forgiveness is really about. Perhaps, it is about finding a way to create wholeness and reconciliation in the face of callousness or even in the face of continued hostility. That is hard to do. It may be the hardest thing to do that I know of. How can we hold ourselves open to others so deeply when it promises so much pain?


I think the answer – the only thing that I can think of that can give us the strength and the desire to struggle with forgiveness on that level – is love. And it's love that respects and cherishes the other person for who and what they are, for the potential they hold in the very uniqueness that may have led the pain and brokenness we have experienced.

When that one lamb is lost and the shepherd leaves the others behind to find it and restore it to the flock, she goes because she cherishes that lamb. And, she doesn’t try to force it to become just like the others because she knows and loves each one in all its particularity. If that sheep wandered off the next day, she would search for it again. She would bring it back to the flock so that the flock would be whole again, for without each one of the hundred, something is missing. And she would not change it because on with the unique presence of each of those particular sheep can the flock be complete and whole.

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin….
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people,
but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

That is the commandment. It’s not about the numbers. It’s not about bringing everyone else around to our point of view – or even getting one person to agree with the rest of the congregation. It’s about love. Forgiveness and reconciliation are about loving our neighbors – all our brothers and sisters in the family of God – for who and what they are. And that love prompts us to go to the other when we feel pain and brokenness and seek reconciliation. It compels us to reach out to the one we are separated from with the weakness and the power of forgiveness. We must go because without reconciliation we cannot be whole and without forgiveness we cannot find peace.

We must go, and we must go in love.