September 17--Practicing What We Preach

Here comes our good friend Peter, rocking the boat as usual. We’ve met him three times before in the gospel texts over the past six weeks, but we just can’t seem to get enough of him. So far Peter has progressed from an aborted attempt at walking on water to a dramatic confession of Jesus as the Christ . . . only to turn around and chastise his Messiah for telling the truth about his pending death and resurrection.

Our friend Peter just couldn’t leave well enough alone, even after all that. He had to follow it up with a question to Jesus about forgiveness.

“Lord, when my fellow believer sins against me, how many times must I forgive him?” Peter wonders. “Should I forgive him as many as seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, you must forgive him more than seven times. You must forgive him even if he wrongs you seventy times seven” (Mt 18:21-22).

I think it might be easier to walk on water.

Forgiveness is one of those thorny theological concepts for those of us who claim to pursue God’s justice in the world and who have been appalled by the misuse of this powerful spiritual discipline. We know far to well that the immediate call to forgive an abuser, or those who commit genocide, or even an older sibling who ceaselessly taunts a younger one can trivialize the deep suffering and legitimate anger on the part of those who have been wronged. As L. Gregory Jones points out in Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis, “Christians have too often supported forgiveness, love, and forbearance while failing to acknowledge the moral force of anger, hatred, and vengeance” (244). To the contrary, anger can actually serve a moral purpose, as a protest against injustice and as a commitment to our inherent human value in the face of dehumanizing acts. And when our efforts at forgiveness suppress bitterness, rather than restore right relationships, we can inadvertently strengthen the hand of those who do harm but do not seek to change their ways.

But as I re-read Matthew's text for this week, I'm starting to think Jesus had some of this complexity in mind when he offered his parable in response to Peter’s question. A modern day version of that parable might go something like this:

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a loan officer who decided to demand payment in the midst of a sub-prime mortgage crisis. A homeowner who simply could not pay the debt was brought before the loan officer, who ordered foreclosure. So the homeowner begged the loan officer, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of compassion, the loan officer decided not only to stop the foreclosure but to cancel the entire loan altogether!

But that same homeowner went straight to his brother, who owed him a thousand dollars, and demanded repayment. His brother pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But the homeowner refused and garnished his wages until he could pay the debt. When the homeowner’s family members saw what had happened, they were angry. They told the loan officer what had happened. The loan officer said, “You selfish jerk! I forgave you an entire home loan because you pleaded with me, but you couldn’t forgive a thousand dollars from your brother?” And in anger, the loan officer placed the house on auction the very next day.

Forgiveness in this parable is all bound up in power and fear, rejection and hypocrisy. What might have become a reconciliation and new life for the homeowner and his brother instead turned to disaster for them both. What might have led to a more compassionate lending practice on the part of the mortgage company turned into anger and retrenchment. All because the homeowner couldn’t share the wealth. All because he couldn’t forgive even one time.

Perhaps Jesus tells us to forgive one another seventy times seven times because he knows we won’t get it right the first time, or the second time, or the seventh time. I think Jesus knows that there is no “forgiveness light switch” that we can simply flip up or down. It’s a lifelong journey of naming and confronting evil and suffering, both that which is done to us and that which is done by us. In the meantime, we participate in an ongoing community of confession and repentance and reconciliation, sharing the truth of our lives with others who help us always turn toward healing and wholeness. And our family of faith holds us accountable when we are not able to give even a small portion of the grace we have received. And our God remains faithful even until the end of the age.

So I hold out hope that we can keep trying to walk on water, that we can keep trying to forgive one another, that we can keep trying to ask for forgiveness ourselves. Not as a particular moment in time but as a daily discipline and a divine gift. Not as a way to pacify pain or to overlook injustice, but as a way to transform it into a new reality. This is our Christian walk. May we move forward with courage and faith. Amen.

Gusti Newquist

P.S. Kelsey Rice Bogdan is on vacation this week.

August 10-- True Leadership

Passages: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33

Of all the great stories of the Hebrew Scriptures—some inspiring, some troubling, some just plain bizarre (Lot and his daughters, anyone?)— the Joseph story ranks up there as one of my all-time favorites. One reason for this stems from the fact that my little sister sang in our high school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat… which means I saw the musical six times in two weeks. Although I am therefore forever cursed to read the story with a chorus line singing, “Go, go, go Jo!” in my head, it also means that I know the story pretty well.

More importantly, though, I’ve always liked the Joseph story because, as Madeleine L’Engle put it in Sold into Egypt, it “is the journey of a spoiled and selfish young man finally becoming, through betrayal, anger, abandonment, unfairness, and pain, a full and complex human being” (15). Joseph’s tale strikes me as a paradigmatic story of growing up and, through that process, growing into leadership. Many throughout history have been born into leadership, whether or not they actually made good leaders. Great leaders, on the other hand, are those shaped and molded by adversity, those who have experienced being the abandoned and dispossessed. Great leaders are the ones who, in spite of it all, ground their call in something wider and deeper than their circumstances. Ultimately, this is the story of Joseph.

The lectionary gives us two pieces of the Joseph narrative in the next two weeks, this section in chapter 37 and then the climax of the story in chapter 45. So I’m going to bear with the “Go, go, go Jo!” on auto-repeat in my head and stick with this story for a bit. For this week, we’ll look at Joseph in the beginning of his tale.

Chapter 37 signals a change in tone from much of the Abraham/Issac/Jacob sequence, which really focuses on Israel’s chosenness—God promises to make of the descendents of Abraham a great nation. With the beginning of the Joseph story, God’s overt presence recedes into the background. But the theme of being chosen is still there. This time the human parent, Jacob, chooses Joseph over his other eleven sons. Not, we find out, a good way to promote familial harmony.

The symbol of Joseph’s privilege is the infamous “coat of many colors” Jacob makes for Joseph, which is more accurately translated as a “a long robe with sleeves” (Gen. 37:3)—it doesn’t give nearly as much scope for the imagination, but in either case the point is that this robe wouldn’t make it easy for Joseph to get down and dirty tending flocks. It sends a clear message that Joseph, apparently through no merit of his own, has been born into power and privilege. He’s the ancient equivalent of a trust-fund baby, of a Paris Hilton.

Now if you, like me, find yourself filled with annoyance at the mention of Paris Hilton’s name, you might be able to tap into some of the animosity Joseph’s brothers felt toward him. For naïve Joseph used his power primarily to perpetuate his own privileged lifestyle. As verse 2 tells us, Joseph was a snitch. Worse, he was a snitch on the children of Bilhah and Zilpah—because their mothers were the slaves of Rachel and Leah respectively, they were Jacob’s least favored children (cf. Genesis 33:1-2, where Jacob places them on the front lines for an anticipated attack). Very easy targets, then, if you want to make yourself look good. Thus the first four verses of this chapter tell us some very important things about this young inheritor of privilege—he is chosen simply by birth, he has power over others, and he abuses that power to his own gain. It sounds like a template for any number of leaders throughout history, and for several in the corridors of power today.

But as the text later tells us, God has also chosen Joseph. In reading the lectionary passage again this time, I was struck by Joseph’s words to his father when told to go find his brothers: “Here I am” (v. 13). Joseph’s response echoes the words of the prophets when they were called by God, including Samuel (1 Samuel 3:2-10) and Isaiah (Isaiah 6:8). And indeed, this episode of being sent marks the beginning of Joseph’s call as a leader. Joseph accepts the task, without a clue of the difficulties that lie ahead.

Finally, we come to that climatic scene, in which Joseph’s world of privilege turns upside down. His brothers ambush him and throw him into a pit, eventually selling him to some slave-trading Ishmaelites. God seems to have intentionally called Joseph down a path on which he will be degraded and dehumanized, a path on which he will become the most vulnerable on the social ladder. Yet it is through this path of marginalization that Joseph ultimately blossoms into the leader of Egypt.

In our own world, privilege and power surround us. We were born into some of it—perhaps through the wealth of our parents, or the color of our skin, or the nationality stamped on our passport. But Joseph’s story seems to suggest that when God calls us, it often means the loss of some power we take for granted. When Joseph said, “Here I am,” the result was the loss of all the comfort, all the power, he had enjoyed throughout his life. We, too, by answering Christ’s call, risk losing the luxuries those around us claim that we need to be complete in life.

Yet as Christ says, in losing one life we find another (Matthew 16:25). And in losing everything, Joseph begins to follow his call as a leader for others.