God wants us to find peace in the presence of pain and difficulty

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

Sunday September 17, 2023

Peter went to Jesus, and asked him: If someone sin against me, how often do I need to forgive them? Seven times?

And Jesus said: Not seven times, but I tell you seventy-seven times.

Seventy-seven times. I don’t know about you, but that is number I struggled to reconcile. And yet, as I thought about it this week, I realized that this number is actually pretty reasonable. When I see relationships break down, or fall apart, it is never because someone forgave only once. It is because they forgave what they saw as slights or mistakes or inconsideration or hurts to their person, again and again and again. No one ends up estranged from family or departed from a good friend without feeling pain; and in some cases the work that goes into it amounts to seventy-seven times of going back and trying again.

But perhaps the number distracts us: what we really need to tackle is what it means to forgive.

I will speak today about my own journey with forgiveness. I know many of you are struggling with your own efforts to forgive. We spend a lot of time hashing out what went wrong and who did what, and much less time figuring out what healthy forgiveness looks like.

Even if I had that answer perfectly clear, I doubt I could achieve it. I have been an imperfect forgiver, and when I read the gospel, I am forced to dwell on that reality. Indeed, I have spent my own fair share praying on the subject of forgiveness. What did I pray? Sometimes, I focused on my feelings of hurt and injustice, my own perception of wrongdoing on the person who I felt, as Peter does, had sinned against me. At other times, I spent a lot of energy beating myself up for not being able to easily reach a place of forgiveness, for not being able to fully repair the relationships and return to the love and acceptance I once had for the person involved. I prayed on my own thirst for justice. I lamented my failure as a person of grace to forgive. I look inward with recrimination and outward with finger-pointing. And none of that got me very far.

I have previously described my idea of forgiveness as a triangle. We often get stuck at the base the triangle. In one corner, there’s the one we need to forgive; in the other, there we are, trying to be forgiving. But at the peak of that triangle is grace – grace and God. That is where healing and understanding lie. That is where I found it.

Martin Luther talks about the grace within and the grace without. There is the grace that we achieve as individuals doing our best, the grace we aspire to, the grace we demonstrate that inspires others. And then there is the grace of God, which surpasses all understanding. The grace of God which carries every burden and somehow never falters. The grace of God which celebrates imperfection. The grace of God which understands when we falter. The grace of God which says: you have done your best; let me carry the rest for you.

How does that relate to forgiveness? First of all, what do we mean by forgiveness? In the parable in our gospel, we hear the Reign of God compared to a king who forgives a man his debt, but then condemns the same man when he does not forgive the debt owed to him. Just as God forgives us, we are told, we are meant to forgive others. But God represents perfect love, and perfect forgiveness. And we are not perfect. We can never forgive as God does.

The base of our triangle suggests that to find forgiveness we need to change, or we need the person who wronged us to do the changing. But what if we seek out the third point, and ask what does God want? Do I think God wants us to live in painful relationships for the sake of forgiveness? I do not. Do I think God wants us to fight with the one who wronged us until they, somehow, see reason? I do not. Does God want us to stew in hate, or wallow in sorrow for the years remaining? Why would a loving God want such a thing?

God wants us to find peace and kindness and acceptance. To forgive, we don’t need to forget. We don’t need to restore things as they were. Often, we should not. Forgiveness is the acceptance of situations and people we cannot change. It is about showing kindness to the people around us, and equally, to ourselves. It is about finding peace in the presence of pain and difficulty. We do that by knowing ourselves, by being honest with God, and practicing kindness. Forgiveness is sometimes about leaving the debt on the ledger but not asking it to be paid, and not expecting it to be wiped away. Just leaving it there for God to manage. Because time and grace often take care of our life’s accounts in unexpected ways.

I think the hardest part about the struggle to forgive is what else it steals from us. It taints our time with those we most love. We can become so focused on the pain we feel that we overlook the people who really care about us. We behave in ways that break other things and fix nothing.

Now, I see that forgiveness is like a hike up a mountain. We have no control over the weather or the terrain or any other hikers on the trail. We control only the steps we take for ourselves. For those, we look to God, and we ask ourselves: Are we being kind to others and to ourselves? Are we being present to those who need us and love us? Are we serving where we are able? If we can answer those questions with a yes most of the time, we leave the rest with God. Forgiveness can be messy work that requires trust in God. May we know ourselves, be honest with God, and practice kindness, trusting that time and Grace often take care of our life’s accounts in unexpected ways. Amen.

Relationships are about mutual care, mutual consideration, and mutual compassion.

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

Sunday September 10, 2023

This summer, on holidays, I binged a TV show about a hijacked airplane. I want to make it clear: this was a completely ridiculous show based on highly implausible plot points. Shakespeare it was not. Not even its name was original: Hijack. I watched it and forgot it. Until this week, that is, when I sat down with today’s readings on conflict.

In the show, a mediator played by Idris Elba gets trapped on a hijacked plane. Because he is Idris Elba, his character is tough and strong. But he spends most of his time on the plane talking to keep the situation calm. And he accomplishes this over, and over again with one trick: he figures out what other people ultimately want or need, and he keeps an eye on what he ultimately wants, which is to get home safely to his family. With that goal in mind – he is willing to compromise, to walk back an insult, to accept restraints, to save one of the terrorists. Now, of course, in between there is a lot of silly action and drama. But ultimately, his character survives because he listens, and pays attention, and figures out what people need to resolve the conflict. (And in this case, land the plane and walk away.) He is constantly looking for common ground. Intelligent compromise, even when it is painful (quite literally), is his superpower.

Our conflicts are – thank goodness – a little more earthbound. But they are often very destructive. Friendships end. Family members are estranged. Communities break down. These conflicts may not be life or death. But they often hijack our lives. They can be devastating to us. I have met people who truly grieve no longer speaking to once-close members of their family, and yet can hardly articulate what started the fight in the first place. Somewhere along the line, they failed to see what the other person wanted or needed. They even forget what they themselves wanted or needed.

Our second lesson, which is a kind of re-branding of the ten commandments by Jesus, tries to teach us to keep the focus. Yes, Jesus says, the Ten Commandments, as they were traditionally presented, are important: don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t covet. All those classic nuggets. But they are focused on the law; they lead either to a binary world of right or wrong, or a distracting moral debate about context. Jesus says that ultimately, they should be packaged up into one commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love, Jesus says, does no wrong to the neighbor. And therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

It’s important to consider that statement in full: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love is a relationship – between ourselves and another person. It is about mutual care, mutual consideration, and mutual compassion. If we can be compassionate for ourselves and our mistakes, so should we be with the mistakes our neighbor makes against us. If our wants and needs are important to us, the wants and needs of our neighbor are of equal importance. If we value our lives, we must also value the life of our neighbor.

Think of our Idris Elba back on his hijacked airplane. His only goal is to get home safely to his family. But if that is all he values, he will never achieve that goal. He would insist on his way, and conflict would ensue. Instead, he has to consider what his captor wants, and the ways that they might have shared interests. The obvious one, of course is that they also want to land safely and get home to their families. There are all kinds of incremental moments on the show where Idris could get angry and react in the moment – and thus, put his goal at risk. But he holds his focus. What is the best action here, he asks, so we can all get what we need?

We lose sight of this all the time. We choose to stew over a careless phrase made in an argument, even if it means all negotiation stops. We fail to work at seeing the perspective of the other person and jump to conclusions about their meanings without asking for an explanation. We become obsessed with the law: his actions weren’t right; she shouldn’t have said that. We fail to focus on love: what is it we both want? How can this conflict be resolved by meeting or compromising on what we both need?

Jesus surely knew that conflict was a virus that can destroy communities. So in our gospel, he gives very precise instructions for dealing with it. Indeed, those instructions are etched into our justice and governance system. As Jesus describes it, if you have conflict with someone, first seek them out and try to talk it out. If you can’t figure it out between you, bring in someone else to help. If that doesn’t work, seek out the help of your community.

Let’s say our neighbors builds a fence across our property line. We can stomp over to his house, fuming, but to what end? If we end up yelling at each other, is he more likely to move the fence? If we try to understand how this happened, and learn it was an honest mistake, how much closer are we to the goal? If we learn the neighbor had different facts about the property line, we might seek a second opinion together. And so on. But if our entry point is – I like my property, you like your fence, so how can we solve this? – rather than blame and scorn, we might avoid all of that. If we first go with grace – loving our neighbors as ourselves – odds are higher we will get our metaphorical plane landed safely and be enjoying burgers on the BBQ by sunset.

But what if none of that works? What then, Jesus? Well then, Jesus says, treat those people as you would a tax collector. But that’s a trick answer. Because how did Jesus treat tax collectors? He welcomed them; he stayed open to their discipleship. And so what Jesus is saying is not that we cut that person from our lives forever. Jesus is making a case for healthy boundaries. You might not invite that tax collector to your family table. But you would still answer when they are in need. You would still listen to their overtures should they come. You would stay open for the day when an opportunity comes to heal the wound and end the conflict. Just as you would want that grace for yourself, you would extend it to others.

Not easy. Jesus, after all, spent the bulk of his time negotiating or advising about conflict between strangers, between sisters, between parents and children. There were plenty of times during that TV show when I just wanted Idris to take control and do something daring and definitive, instead of backing down; it would have felt better in the moment. There are times in all our lives when we don’t back down when we should; when we talk when we should listen; and when we find ourselves deep in a conflict having forgotten how we got there.

The gospel has some advice there, as well: it calls us to ask, each and every day, what matters? What matters today, in this moment? What will matter a week, a month, five years from now? Indeed Jesus gives us the answer: Love your neighbor as yourself. Amen.

Are we paying attention to the journey? Or focused too much on the destination?

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

Sunday September3, 2023

In Nova Scotia, we have to boat, mostly on a small inflatable, to complete the labour of the day. We get groceries by boat and water. Every day this summer, Noah would travel the bay by boat to get to work. This isn’t easy. We don’t have a wharf to our camp, so depending on the tide, we often wade through water to make those final steps to shore. Or we have to make the crossing in the pouring rain.

And yet, if we pause, we are reminded that we do these tasks surrounded by beauty. On the boat ride across, if you are paying attention, you might see a porpoise or seal. If you take but a moment, you can look out toward the open ocean. Inhale mindfully, and you smell the sea air. In those moments, you can lose yourself in God’s creation. But only if you forget, for a moment, about the work waiting or left behind. Then you find it. The journey becomes more than the destination.

When I read the gospel this week, I thought about this profound statement from Jesus in the context of my short, often soggy, and yet beautiful journey. Jesus says: “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” It is a timely lesson for us on Labour Day weekend Sunday, in these waning days of summer. A lesson in priorities. Are we paying attention to the journey? Or focused too much on the destination?

It happens easily. After all, we are constantly being reminded to set goals. And so we map out where we want to be 5 years from now, how much money will be enough to buy a house or retire, how we will achieve that promotion at work. It’s good advice: these are worthy goals, in principle. But they are also the “saving life” kind of goals. We start here, and we want to get there. Usually what we need to do to achieve them has little to do with the gospel.

What would be a “losing life” kind of goal? The ones that Jesus would endorse. We already know instinctively– we all likely invested in a form of them this summer by making time to be in nature, to spend days with visiting families, to do fun things with grandchildren not in school. During those times, if we are lucky, we lose ourselves in the presence of others, or in the presence of God’s bounty. We breathe in the world. Now this is the life, we say.

In a way, the difference between saving your life and losing it is the difference between the destination and the journey. A journey must have a destination – otherwise you are just wondering. But it does not exist solely for that destination. And Jesus speaks to us about this too in his conversation with Peter, who is having a hard time thinking about the destination to which Jesus is heading, and tries to talk him out of it.

Jesus is angry: “Get behind me, Satan!” he rages to his dear friend. That is a terrible insult; Satan is the big bad boy in the gospel, after all. But Jesus’s response is also indicative of the bond he feels to Peter: Who else, but his closest counsel could tempt him to take a different path? Jesus is naming that temptation, just as we must name ours. And the story reminds us that often it is our friends and family who tempt us the most – to aim for one destination or another, wanting only the best for us, just as Peter did for Jesus.

And then Jesus says to Peter that losing your life is the way to find it. And here we come to the journey, especially if we use Jesus as our guide. Jesus didn’t march straight to Jerusalem, to his destination. He stopped along the way. He fed the 5,000. He healed the sick. He chatted with the woman at the well. He noticed the outsiders and welcomed them. He preached to crowds. He ate dinner with friends. The gospel was not created in Jerusalem. That destination only meant something because of the journey. The gospel became a powerful, enduring message, because Jesus grew it out of nothing by serving other people, by being kind and open and generous. Jesus did not save his life to lose it on the cross: he lost his life to the gospel so that he might find his life in the end.

We are all on the same human journey. A different version of the same destination. Our lives on this earth eventually end. The living is our choice. Do we put the same energy into our relationships that we do into our work? Do we worry about our treasure, without equally spending our time where it can make a difference? Do we forget too quickly what was so valuable to us this summer, and let it lie fallow until next year’s summer sun?

Are we just saving our life to lose it in the end? Or losing our life to find it?

I don’t know about you, but I will think about this question mindfully, especially in the weeks ahead, as summer’s memory begins to fade.

And I will think, too, about Peter who loved Jesus so much that he didn’t want him to die; and Jesus who needed his friend to help him carry the burden, to temp him away from it. And how they both, in that difficult moment, chose to focus on hope and compassion on their journey. And that journey created the gospel.

May we all lose our lives to such a journey. Amen.