Let Forgiveness Roll Down
Jan. 14, 2007
Most years this is my absolute favorite Sunday for preaching: the Sunday of the Martin Luther King holiday. Not only is King my theological hero, but also his work is an embarrassment of riches for preaching. From “the dream” to “the mountaintop,” the images he employed and cadences of his speech are the highest form of the homiletic art.
Frankly, there’s just not much more fun for a preacher than taking on the prophetic voice and calling for justice to roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream; to remind listeners that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere;” or to proclaim that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
But this year, I confess, I approached this Sunday with something less than enthusiasm. For one thing, following session’s wisdom, we’ve framed worship this month around the themes of forgiveness and reconciliation. On top of that, having reconciled myself to that theme, we gather to worship today a short four days after the president has announced an escalation of the occupation, a surge in the war in Iraq.
How to be faithful to each of these insistent yet seemingly disparate callings: the text at hand; King Day; a theme of reconciliation; the war in Iraq?
The text demands our first attention. In it, Jesus offers both a concrete plan for the practice of truth telling but also a standard of forgiveness that raises the bar past all reason and tradition. It is one thing to confront someone with the pain they have caused you, it is another to hold on to the practice of forgiveness “not seven times, but seventy times seven times.” In other words, do not surrender to the anger and hate that flow from pain and injustice, but practice forgiveness far beyond any cultural expectation of kindness or charity.
This is the heart of what it means to be a disciple – to be a follower of Jesus. Follow Jesus – the one who brings new life; follow Jesus – the one who forgives; follow Jesus – the one who says offer forgiveness seven times seventy times; follow Jesus – the one who says love one another just as I have loved you.
This is also the heart of Christian nonviolence. Following this way of transformative love was, it seems to me, all that Martin Luther King’s life was ever about; it is the heart of forgiveness and reconciliation; and it is the only ultimate way out of the mess of Iraq. So, upon these second thoughts, I recalled what King said in Strength to Love:
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of any enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.
You see, when love and justice come together, as they always did in King’s prophetic voice, repentance, redemption and reconciliation result. When love acts out the demands of justice, we are held accountable to our highest ideals and aspirations. When we fall short, the prophetic call to justice reminds us, and the voice of love enables us to repent and seek reconciliation.
Sadly, in our lives, most of us witness more of the destruction of hate than we do of the reconstruction of love. I think of a good friend, who, as a young adolescent, was the victim of clergy sexual abuse. The pain of that violence continues to ricochet through several families causing collateral damage from events that took place more than 30 years ago. I’m certain that each of you can think of similar circumstances of trust abused, relationships violated, human beings wounded and broken, and of the cycles of anger, pain and recrimination that ensue. Indeed, the present international crisis in the Middle East traces its roots back generations, and its cycles grow ever more violent.
Institutional amnesia and individual denial build barriers to love’s work. Where there is no accountability, no confrontation, no truth-telling, there is no repentance; without repentance there can be no forgiveness, no redemption, no restoration and no reconciliation. Without these, there is no justice; and where there is no justice, there is no peace.
Jesus’ teaching calls forth an echoing plea: stop! Repent! Turn from this circular path and step out into a new way of relationship. Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness points out the steps: “if a member of the community hurts you, confront that person with the truth of your suffering – one on one if possible, or with the support of the community.” Interpersonally in our individual lives; politically in our social lives. In both spheres, as he said elsewhere, “the truth will make you free.”
Without these stepping stones for redeemed life, no such life can be experienced. Without these foundations stones for restored relationships, no such relationships can be built. Without these keystones for the beloved community, no such community can be constructed.
The difficulty, of course, lies in taking the steps and laying the stones. Truth-telling, accountability, repentance, forgiveness, redemption, restoration, reconciliation: these are beautiful words and powerful ideas. But, at rock-bottom, they are often immensely difficult human choices and practices. They require often anguished decisions and difficult, uncomfortable actions.
King’s life and work were full of such moments, as was, of course, the entire Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century. When I think back to that struggle, its moments of anguish and of transcendence often involved children, bringing to mind Isaiah’s words, “and a little child shall lead them.”
Last summer during General Assembly, I took a run through downtown Birmingham and wound my way to Kelly Ingram Park – scene of the children’s marches, the water canons and dogs seared into a nation’s conscience through black and white news photos. Across the street stands the 16th Street Baptist Church, where Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carol Robertson and Addie Mae Collins – young girls attending worship – were killed by a Klansman’s bomb in September of 1963.
These were among the most difficult days for the Movement, for King and for the nation. King often said that unmerited suffering can be redemptive, but at that moment such redemption was almost unimaginable because the suffering was unbearable. Nevertheless, in preaching the joint funeral service for three of the girls, King said, “You can bomb our homes, bomb our churches, kill our little children, and we are still going to love you. … At times life is hard, as hard as crucible steel. In spite of the darkness of this hour, we must not lose faith in our white brother.”[1]
Birmingham seemed condemned to remain a city so consumed by hatred that it was known as “Bombingham.” Who, then, could imagine that one day, on the same block as the church, would stand the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute? Who could imagine keeping faith? Who could imagine anything like forgiveness or redemption?
But then I also think of Ruby Bridges, the little girl who braved the screaming, rock-throwing, spitting crowds to integrate the public schools in New Orleans in 1960 – when I was a one-year-old just up the road a piece in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Years later, Bridges recalled those days:
The people I passed every morning as I walked up the schools steps were full of hate. They were white, but so was my teacher, who couldn't have been more different from them. She was one of the most loving people I had ever known. The greatest lesson I learned that year in Mrs. Henry's class was the lesson Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tried to teach us all. Never judge people by the color of their skin. God makes each of us unique in ways that go much deeper. From her window, Mrs. Henry always watched me walk into school. One morning when I got to our classroom, she said she'd been surprised to see me talk to the mob. "I saw your lips moving," she said, "but I couldn't make out what you were saying to those people."
“I wasn't talking to them," I told her. "I was praying for them." Usually I prayed in the car on the way to school, but that day I'd forgotten until I was in the crowd. Please be with me, I'd asked God, and be with those people too. Forgive them because they don't know what they're doing.[2]
Forgive them. Seems like I’ve heard those words somewhere before. Forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing. Words spoken from the cross; words spoken when life is as hard as crucible steel. Forgive them. Hold onto faith. Love beyond all reason and measure. Imagine, always, a future otherwise.
Today Ruby Bridges runs a foundation dedicated to teaching and promoting tolerance and respect. Her work of forgiveness continues in the reconciling work of the Ruby Bridges Foundation.
Obviously, most of us live a good bit less public lives and the conflicts that trouble us don’t get played out across the front pages and nightly news; most of them don’t involve church bombings or hate-filled crowds screaming threats and curses at us, either. But our broken relationships are no less real, nor any less painful for their private and personal nature.
King often said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Part of that bending comes through the practice of forgiveness. For if justice involves the restoration of right relationships between and among peoples – individuals, communities, nations – then the path toward justice is marked by forgiveness and reconciliation.
In our lives, there come times to choose: the path of forgiveness or the broken road of hostility.
Forty years ago, who could have imagined a Civil Rights Institute in Alabama, a Ruby Bridges Foundation in New Orleans, a national holiday to mark the birth and celebrate the life of Martin Luther King? Today, who can imagine a true peace in the Middle East? True marriage equality? A church as generous and just as the God we worship? This morning, can you imagine restoration of the relationships in your own life that are troubled today?
No surge in animosity will lead to such restoration. No surge in violence will produce lasting peace. Nor surge in hatred will give birth to love.
But let forgiveness join hands with love and justice, and together roll down like a mighty water that we might live to see a rising tide of redemption and reconciliation. Let righteousness run on in an ever-flowing stream to a river of peace. I still believe in the promise and the power of nonviolence.
posted by David Ensign at
7:12 AM
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