Gospel: Matthew 6:14-21<\/p>\r\n
Today, we are in a familiar place. Once again, we are about to begin the great forty days of Lent. We describe these forty days in many ways. Lent. The holy fast. The journey to Pascha. Bright sadness. In the last weeks, we have heard about desire (Zaccheus), humility (Publican and Pharisee), repentance (Prodigal Son), and judgment (taking care of the least of our Lord\u2019s brethren).<\/span><\/p>\r\n Today, we hear a fundamental teaching that comes from none but God himself, spoken by the only-begotten Son of God, Light of light and true God of true God, from the mountain. Instead of inscribing this law on a stone tablet and giving it to Moses to show the people, he tells us the law in his own words, himself. We must <\/em>forgive others their trespasses. It is a sine qua non<\/em> for receiving God\u2019s forgiveness. There is no loophole, no special session to change the divine law. We must forgive.<\/p>\r\n The Lord presents us with a difficult image today. The difficulty is not in forsaking cheese on this Sunday (unless, of course, you\u2019re a Packers\u2019 fan), but in seeing and hearing our human ancestor, Adam. Today is also the Sunday of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Adam sits outside of Paradise \u2013 he laments, and he weeps. Adam cries, \u201cwoe is me!\u201d The hymns appointed to this day have Adam crying out, woe is me, over and over again. The hymns say that Adam\u2019s recognition of his own sin is the source of his woe. He refused to obey God, and now he is in exile.<\/p>\r\n Look at Adam as a child. Paradise \u2013 the garden of Eden \u2013 was given to Adam and Eve to enjoy. They played there. They lived with God, in a kind of shared living that allows one to hear the other people walking in the house, as they could hear God walking in the garden. Adam is no longer permitted to play in God\u2019s garden. His loneliness, his alienation from God is the source of his woe. He cannot get back in because an angel (cherubim) with a flaming sword guards the entrance to paradise.<\/p>\r\n This picture of exile from paradise and a closed door \u2013 that is really a contrast to our experience of Pascha, is it not? On Pascha, we open<\/em> the doors of the iconostasis, and we leave them open during Bright Week. We experience joy, and not woe. God has reminded us that all will be well<\/em>, no matter what.<\/p>\r\n Many of us yearn for Pascha even more now, because we have had a taste of Adam\u2019s exile, his alienation, his bitterness, and his woe during this pandemic. Nothing is more beautiful than the metaphor of the open door, the brightness of the light, and the childlike joy of being together on Pascha. Our journey to Pascha begins today. To get there, we must begin to practice forgiveness.<\/p>\r\n Now, let\u2019s make something really clear about the business of forgiveness. This is not a switch we can just turn on and off. The Church has been trying to equip us to begin the course of learning how to forgive for a while now. We learned about Zaccheus\u2019s desire<\/em>. \u00a0He wanted to see Christ. What about us? Do we want<\/em> to be with God for eternity? Do we want to share life with all of God\u2019s children for eternity \u2013 including those who, for whatever reason, we would rather avoid altogether?<\/p>\r\n What happens if you fuse desire with humility? Last week, I got upset with someone I thought was being selfish. I wanted to cut that person off. I thought they were being unreasonable and indifferent to me. What part did I play in this? Is it possible that I was being selfish? And even if I wasn\u2019t being selfish, did I need to hang on to that emotion? What good would come from me cutting that person off? What if I focused on my own transgressions and no longer dwelled on that person\u2019s sin?<\/p>\r\n We are now making a soup of desire, humility, and repentance. The Church will tell us repeatedly that we need to be like the prodigal, recognize our sins, and seek God\u2019s forgiveness. If someone comes to us and asks for our forgiveness, should we withhold it? What would happen if we set them free from the burden of guilt caused by their sin against me?<\/p>\r\n What about people we really despise, whom we see approaching the Church and asking for forgiveness? Should we become envious and angry that God forgives and then restores them? Shouldn\u2019t they have Adam\u2019s fate and continue to cry \u201cwoe is me,\u201d instead of receiving God\u2019s amnesty? Shouldn\u2019t God throw a party for the righteous? Or should we rejoice when the one who messed up recognizes it and seeks restoration?<\/p>\r\n The Church gives us these lessons to prepare us to have the self-honesty to ask for forgiveness, the humility to grant it, the courage and guts to receive it, and the desire to live in a community with others who have also received forgiveness. We cannot gloss over the reality that some instances of forgiveness are much more complex, and even dangerous, than others. Let us not confuse forgiveness with enabling. Let us not extend the vulnerability that empowers forgiveness to allow perpetrators to exploit the one doing the forgiving.<\/p>\r\n We live in communities of many, many hurt people \u2013 physically, emotionally, sexually abused, through no fault of their own. Again, forgiveness is not the flip of a switch \u2013 it does not give a green light to the one who is forgiven to hurt others. \u00a0As Christian communities, we have a sacred duty to make our churches safe spaces for those who have been hurt, to demonstrate to them that it is possible to forgive without returning to the same hell that one came from. Our Lord has charged us with making the widow and the orphan our priority \u2013 we just heard the lesson about the Sunday of the last judgment that sternly reminds us of our need to love<\/em> \u2013 this is a verb<\/em> \u2013 the least of our Lord\u2019s brethren.<\/p>\r\n God delegates the responsibility of protecting the wounded and healing to us. It is absolutely essential to forgive those who ask for it \u2013 it is a twofold liberation from a burden, for both them and also for us. When we forgive those who have hurt us, though, we are not required to return to the exact same terms of the relationship. Sometimes, the terms have to change for the health of both parties, and we must be confident that God will bless the new terms that contributes to the healing of all involved.<\/p>\r\n We also ask for forgiveness of our involuntary sins \u2013 when our words hurt without malicious intent, when our action \u2013 or lack of action \u2013 is complicit in hurting others. May God give us the humility to confess these sins \u2013 even if we didn\u2019t mean it \u2013 and the grace to grant forgiveness to those who ask for it.<\/p>\r\n Brothers and sisters, sometimes human relations are the cause of our woes, at all levels. These woes create barriers of alienation and separation, and the woeful condition is filled with bitterness that eats away at our hearts, souls, and bodies. More than anything else, we want to be healed of these woes. Today, our Lord shows us the inner meaning of Lent \u2013 through forgiveness. Our courage and guts in asking forgiveness, and our humility in receiving it begins the healing of woes and the transformation of our lives from alienation \u2013 in exile, outside of Paradise \u2013 to communion, life lived together in peace and joy with no bitterness, no tears, and without the sting of having inflicted or been afflicted by hurt.<\/p>\r\n Let us begin this Lent in the peace given us by the divine grace of the Lover of humankind \u2013 our Father who is without beginning, together with his only-begotten Son and all-Holy and lifegiving Spirit, now and forever, and to the ages of ages. Amen. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nothing is more beautiful than the metaphor of the open door, the brightness of the light, and the childlike joy of being together on Pascha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":54901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eastern-liturgy","category-liturgical-year"],"yoast_head":"\n