MEDITATION: What is your number... At forgiving? The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: September 14, 2014 By The Reverend Nathanael Saint-Pierre We invite you to worship and be in communion with us during our 10:30AM Service of Holy Eucharist to hear the full sermon. +++++++ What is your number... At forgiving? One thing that I have learned in North America is the sense of measure. When we go to see the doctor, we better know our numbers. “What is your weight? What is your height? How much is your sugar level?” One should also be prepared to learn and record new numbers: blood pressure, cholesterol, and all kinds of other numbers that doctors believe one is going to remember, such as how many pills we have to take and how many times a day. Our society is all about numbers; every day we hear about the temperature and the humidity factor; every day we listen to economic news, how much stocks have increased or decreased. We are surrounded by numbers. Todays gospel deals with numbers, but in ways that only Jesus has the magic to deal with. Jesus has the gift of throwing people off chart. The fact is that every time someone came to Jesus with a question, expecting a sensible answer, Jesus would come up with a seemingly non-sensible response. Every time a person would come to Jesus with a limitation, he would listen, then respond with “Godspeed”. Jesus was never the judge imposing a fine, a penalty, a sentence or punishment. Instead, he acknowledged everyone as a human being starting a journey with God, and in need of more than expected provision to achieve it. Jesus always extended a helping hand to whoever knocked or invited him in. History is wonderful; it reminds us of the glory of the past, where we have been at our best and when we have been at our worst. But it is risky, even dangerous, to let our past define who we are and whom God wants us to be. The patron saint of our church, St. Augustine, was not born Christian. He did not really have contact with the church during his early years. Actually, he refused to have contact with the church, feeling that he was too well educated, had too much to respond to God’s call. He is the patron of brewers because of his conversion from a former life of loose living, which included parties, entertainment, and worldly ambitions. His complete turnaround and conversion have been an inspiration to many who struggle with a particular vice or habit they long to break. People do not realize that Augustine’s pride blinded him from becoming Christian before the age of 33, until he realized that Unlearned people (idiots) are taking Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of our sins! He became a priest at 36, and a Bishop at 41. St. Augustine is the model of a sinner turned saint, a manifestation of Gods ability to forgive without limitation or with a limitation that goes beyond numbers established by humans. My hope is that with the numbers (seventy times seven or seventy-seven times, depending on the translation) provided today by the Gospel we: 1.Realize that numbers do not matter for God; limitations matter. Let us not put a cap on the many times we are offended and need to forgive. God is the perfect example in Jesus Christ. He continually extends to us a chance to make it right. He even gave Godself on the cross so that sin does not have its damnation effect on us. In Christ we are redeemed and saved. Death is not a punishment, but an encounter leading to an unexpected grace and place. 2.Need to increase our numbers when it comes to good and reduce them when it comes to sin. St. Augustine of Hippo regretted the time wasted at running after worldly things. He wrote the following prayer that I want to share with you. Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient, O Beauty so new. Too late have I loved you! You were within me but I was outside myself, and there I sought you! In my weakness I ran after the beauty of the things you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The things you have made kept me from you - the things which would have no being unless they existed in you! You have called, you have cried, and you have pierced my deafness. You have radiated forth, you have shined out brightly, and you have dispelled my blindness. You have sent forth your fragrance, and I have breathed it in, and I long for you. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst for you. You have touched me, and I ardently desire your peace. Amen. We have the privilege to inherit a great experience. Let us count our blessings and increase our numbers in positive outreach and accomplishments. It is possible to find Gods forgiveness and it is NEVER too late. Our goal is not to increase the number in attendance and sacrifice our quality of worship. Should we grow in number it’ll be because of the blessing of God. 3.Come to accept that there is no limit to Gods forgiveness, so there should not be one to ours. Yes, no matter what youve heard from the prosperity prophets who want you to believe God is only about success or the pastor bully who wants you to be afraid of God, the Bible is about a forgiving and redeeming God. His forgiveness toward us has no limit. Let me rephrase that, only he knows the limit of his forgiveness. Let us stay open to forgive our offender. Let us leave the retribution to Gods mighty hands. We can do so little, but God can do infinitely more than what we can think or imagine. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu wrote the book on forgiveness. And earlier this year they launched a parallel initiative: the Tutu Global Forgiveness Challenge. During the initial three-month signup period, 20,000 people from every time zone in the world invited forgiveness into their lives, delivered via a daily email. Over the course of the challenge, Mpho and Desmond walked subscribers through the four stages of forgiveness: telling the story, naming the hurt, granting forgiveness, and renewing or releasing the relationship. 186 years is a huge number in our lives. It is not easy to survive that long as a church in the Lower East Side. None of us were there when slaves used to attend worship, hidden behind walls and isolated up in these two small rooms. It is now time for our past to stop having the power to trouble our souls. These rooms have to stop being closets for nightmares or bad souvenirs to become an active living room, galleries that tell the stories, name the hurt by carrying artifacts of justice that help us go through effective healing. It is possible for the son of an enslaved to live peacefully with the son of a slave master and have mutual love and respect for each other. Our church, because of its location within the Diocese of New York, has received the mandate to make a difference in the community. It is time now to act upon whatever our prejudices were, to renew or release our relationships. Let us give each other the love and peace of God; making sure that we bring the message of God, unlimited and unrestricted forgiveness, to all by being the very concrete expression of Gods forgiveness within ourselves. Amen. + + + + + + + St Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church 286-290 Henry Street New York NY 10002
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 17:28:01 +0000
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