Scripture passages: Matthew 5: 43-48; 2 Corinthians 5: 16-20

We’ve been making room these Sundays for our reflection on this statement… giving ourselves time to try it on for a while … to hear what it is saying to us, what it is saying about us … what it is asking of us. What do we hear when we bring it into conversation with scripture? We’ve asking ‘does it put into words who we are and who, by God’s grace, we are becoming?’

So here we are at week 5 … having lingered briefly with all but the last stanza. And really we’ve only begun to open it up these Sundays. So today won’t be the last, by any means, that we attend to it … there’ll be other ways that we go on to engage with it and with each other about it. But today we zero in on this phrase: “whoever you are, and wherever your journey has taken you, rest assured you will find a welcome here.” Of all the phrases that were offered to us on those sheets back at the beginning of May, of all the individual phrases within each of those 5 statements, this phrase was the most cherished … this is the one that received the most votes for “don’t loose this one, whatever happens … it’s a keeper.”

Whoever you are, and wherever your journey has taken you, rest assured you will find a welcome here.

It has a wonderful ring to it, doesn’t it. Generous. All embracing. Understanding. Compassionate. Reassuring. In very few words it communicates ‘there is a place for you here --no matter what.’ [haaaaa --- big sigh!] No wonder it got so many hits … not just because it speaks to that experience of acceptance so many people long for, but it actually describes what a whole number of you have felt when you happened upon this congregation. “Whoever you are, wherever your journey has taken you, rest assured you will find a welcome here.” There’s room here for people coming from all kinds of backgrounds, life experience, church experience, no church experience. There’s not just room, there’s space to breathe, to wonder, to question to grow, to give, to receive, to fall apart, to heal … and so there’s not just space but love. Many of us have discovered that … been part of fostering that. “Whoever you are, wherever your journey has taken you, rest assured you will find a welcome here.”

For all its rightness, it’s probably the most troublesome piece of the whole statement. Which is not to say there aren’t some other really challenging bits. But a number of us have already run into some situations that cause us to say ‘wait a minute … it’s not entirely true.’ When the dumpster is set on fire, or gets ripped apart and the garbage is strewn all over the parking lot by somebody out there, “whoever you are,” we’re inclined to say, “go away! you are not welcome here.” Or when some person is yelling all kinds of obscenities, or threatening harm, fuelled by whatever they’ve put in their arm or up their nose … am I a voice for our statement? Did it even occur to me that he or she is welcome here … no! Or when I hear about the abuse of power, where someone has been the source of deep and lasting hurt and disfigurement of someone in this community … is that person welcome here? Forget it!

“Whoever you are, wherever your journey has taken you, rest assured you will find a welcome here.”    Oh oh! So now what? What do we do with that part of our statement? Well, one of the things we might do, because we belong by our baptism to this particular, distinctive Way embodied in Jesus, one of the things we might do is go to the bible -- not to be told, as in “the bible says it and that settles it” but in a way that takes seriously our questions, our dilemmas, our fears and failures, and to let something of Jesus’ spirit touch us, work in us in some way.

So what do we have in the passages we’ve heard this morning? We hear “love your enemies” which is what those people we despise or find difficult so easily become … our enemies. “If you love only those who love you, welcome only those who welcome you,” Jesus says, “there’s nothing extra-ordinary about that. Even the gentiles do that!” Jesus says, meaning there’s another way that’s beyond the usual, the expected, the status quo. And then one more zinger before the end of that passage. We hear Jesus say, “be perfect therefore as your heavenly father is perfect.” The word perfect would be better translated mature. So he’s not talking about not failing, but growth … growing up … growing up into the full stature of our made-in-God’s-image selves. You get the sense he sees that more is possible in us … more capacity for relationship … more generosity, more mercy, perhaps.

From there, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus goes on to teach about prayer … so it’s only a few verses later that we hear “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” That’s part of it isn’t it … it’s the “trespassing” that gets us … the violation of our space. And what does Jesus pray? Forgive. Forgive?! Before we decide that he would have been unable to anticipate the complexities of our context, or the horrors of last night in Florida, listen to this piece from Mary Luti:*

"A man driving drunk ran a red light, killing the driver of another car, a young mother of twin toddlers. At the man's sentencing, the woman's relatives delivered enraged witness impact statements. Faces contorted with grief, they screamed at him in open court. The kindest thing they said was, 'Rot in hell!'

Watching the news, I thought, I don't blame them one bit. How else should they feel about a careless man who caused them this terrible loss?

Then it was the husband's turn. He faced the man and said, "I'm a Christian. Jesus commanded us to forgive. So I forgive you." At that, the man let out a wail and slumped over in his seat as if struck by a mighty blow. I felt struck too. How could the husband forgive him? Was he in denial? Didn't he need more time, more therapy, more something, before offering forgiveness? Wasn't the pardon too easy, too cheap?

Then I wondered why it felt less alien to me to be enraged and vengeful than it did to say, "I forgive you."

Sometimes I'm asked to name Christianity's most distinctive practice. I always say forgiveness. Some people object. Not love? Doesn't Paul say love is the greatest of all? Won't it be the last thing standing when all is ended? Yes, I say, but I am certain that on the day of love's triumph, it will appear in the shape of a bewildered enemy inexplicably absolved."

So then she prays … Merciful Jesus, when I pray The Lord's Prayer and ask you to forgive me my trespasses, show me my enemy. Don't let me slide over the "as."

Let’s be clear: by forgiveness, we are not talking about no accountability. We’re not talking about sweeping under the carpet. It’s about stepping out on the path of healing; it’s about opening up the possibility of recovering a fuller measure of our humanity. Not for a moment do I hear or would I suggest the path of forgiveness is easy. It’s just that because it is at the heart of this Way of Jesus that we belong to, with it’s world healing power, we can’t dismiss it … and so it is there for us to wrestle with it and ultimately let God’s healing forgiveness flow through us.

I believe that asks of us hard work … deep intentional work … as much work on our part as grace on God’s part. The easier route of course would be to build walls, to shut people out, but the path of forgiveness involves a move toward. It would have us begin to ask ourselves how do we support one another in being faithful? How do we work out ways to be faithful, doing our best to make sure this is as safe a place as possible?

Last week I had a conversation with someone in our congregation who’s been wrestling with all of this for sometime … people are living in our church yard … how do we deal with the mess they are making and the threat they pose? and all of that in light of this statement?  And then she said, “maybe it’s for the churches to get behind the initiative for supportive housing.” There it is … you can hear it, can’t you? … the move toward … the move to be part of the healing, the move toward reconciliation.

“From now on we regard no one from a human point of view” we hear in the letter from St Paul. The human point of view that would separate us, divide us, make enemies out of us. Instead, in Jesus we see God’s reconciling love powerfully at work … no separation. And so we are given to see who we truly are … all of us God’s beloved … all of us made of the same stuff … we are, all of us, one. That’s the deeper truth … the truth beneath our surface differences. We all need a place … we all need to safe … we all need the basics for life … food, love, respect, access to health care. No separation. That’s the thing about Jesus …he doesn’t separate the inseparables. Which is what I hear this statement trying to say to us and for us: “Whoever you are, wherever your journey has taken you, rest assured you will find a welcome here.”

So here we are asking ourselves how can we truthfully hold onto that. How can we claim it without disappointing ourselves and others? Short answer: we can’t! But remember … this whole journey is not about perfection … it’s about maturity … growing … growing up into the full stature of our made-in-God’s-image selves … growing through the gift of God’s grace, that is poured out to forgive all of us.

Here’s one other way, for this morning, that we might think about this. Today, in just a few minutes we will be standing with Bev and Duncan as they renew their marriage vows. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of their wedding. It’s not by any good planning on my part that this should happen on the day we wrestle with our statement of intention. But is seems to me there’s something of the Spirit at work here in the coinciding of these things.

I’ve been recalling my experience of meeting with couples planning their wedding service. It’s quite common that people choose to write their own vows. And so the time comes when we sit down together to look at the vows they have prepared. Without exception they promise more than is humanly possible. But I have yet to say to any one of these couples, “have you looked in the mirror lately. Don’t you think you should scale those back a little, to something more doable?” Instead I urge them “go ahead and make your outrageous vows to each other, so long as not for a moment, you presume that you alone can do it. I encourage you to make your vows trusting utterly in the flow of God’s love that upholds you, and in the grace of Christ that dwells within you, and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who is as close as breath to you.”

What if we understood, what if embraced our statement in a similar fashion … knowing it expresses something of our highest intent, yet knowing we alone cannot do it. And so we hear in it the call, the need, to turn again and again, to lean into the grace, and the wisdom, and the companionship of Christ, through whom we can do infinitely more than we can imagine. 　

 

*reflection by Mary Luti is posted on Still Speaking Daily Devotional, February 20, 2016; an on-line ministry of the United Church of Christ.　 　

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