Epistle: Romans 14:1-12
Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35
Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, Amen
Texas is the second largest state in these United States, and when people mention cities in Texas, I admittedly have only a vague idea of where they are. After the last couple weeks, I now know that Houston is the fourth most populous city in all of the United States, and is on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. We continue to pray for the victims of all the hurricanes to rock the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and pray for the recovery that will stretch for many years to come.
With Texas being so large, I’ve only been to one of the major cities in Texas, and that is El Paso. I visited El Paso with New Wine the summer after my senior year of high school. El Paso is on the border of Mexico, separated by the Rio Grande, with Ciudad Juarez on the other side of the river. On the United States side, large high rise apartments line the river bank. On the Mexican side, there are small houses and dirt roads. Escaping poverty, famine, war, genocide, lack of employment in hopes of a better life - thousands of people from many countries south of that border - cross it every year. They risk life and limb, going beyond themselves and their semblance of a normal life - in hopes of a better life for themselves, and in many cases, their children.
These children - and many others from other areas of the world - who were brought here by their parents or other adults, or arrived without - and because of a legal action known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals - these children may yet have their illegal immigration status forgiven, to become full citizens.
In today’s Gospel - Peter, that old rock, asks Jesus a question. “If somebody sins against me, how often should I forgive that person?” Jesus responds, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Or in other versions, 70 times 7. Otherwise, it’s a lot of times… Forgive, and forgive again. Forgive so many times you forget how many times you forgive people. Go above and beyond the complex idea of forgiving for when they sin against you, and forgive them again. Then Jesus tells a complicated parable about the unrepentant slave who is forgiven his debt, but fails to forgive the debt he is owed. Then the lord catches wind of this, and throws him in prison until he repays his entire debt.
It takes a lot of courage and respect for yourself and for the other person - to forgive.
You have to go above and beyond the casual forgetting about it - but total forgiveness takes effort beyond the norm. Forgiveness is a huge concept that is multi-faceted and we could take an entire sermon series on some aspects of forgiveness. So rather than try to tackle a large chunk of it in one sermon, I’ll leave it here - saying that God calls us to forgive one another, and to do so we must go beyond ourselves to do it. And when forgiving is too painful, when we’ve already pushed ourselves beyond what we are capable of, then we have to rely on the truth that God is the ultimate source of forgiveness. Sometimes, as the saying goes, we have to let go, and let God.
The Apostle Paul writes, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” (Romans 14:7-9) Paul points out, that all of us are of God, and whether we forgive or not, we are all God’s children. In our reading from Romans today, Paul starts off by saying that we shouldn’t judge one another. How does he do this? By calling the people who eat only vegetables weak. What was that about judging? We are all God’s children and we shouldn’t judge one another. Simple enough, we learn that when we’re young.
By maintaining a culture of non-judgement, we might not say rude things to one another, but then we might not say anything at all. What if we took the concept of going beyond forgiving and forgetting - to forgiving so often that we lose count - What if we took that concept of going beyond ourselves to not judging - to embracing? Embracing our differences for who we are as beloved children of God? “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s”, Paul writes.
This past year, members of Living Waters went beyond themselves and fed their neighbors through programs such as the Yes Network, Feed My Starving Children, Kids Against Hunger, Meals on Wheels, and at the Place of Hope and our own wonderful food shelf. What if we went further? What if we didn’t only feed them for individual meals, but were able to enact lasting change in the community by advocating for better wages, and better access to food and housing? Thinking beyond the temporary, to something more permanent?
On the sign by the driveway, the worship times are listed with “All Are Welcome” below them. Our mission statement aspires to build a welcoming and inclusive community. What if we went beyond writing these words, and became active in proclaiming it? Wrote a statement of welcome that was specific in its invitation… So that we had words and actions to back up our statements.
This weekend in Saint Cloud was the local Pride festival, where people from across greater Minnesota came to Lake George to celebrate their identities of going beyond the closet where society placed them. Going beyond the barriers that kept them in the closet, so that the people who openly identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and more - can celebrate and come together in community.
For community is what this is all about. What we define as community, who is allowed in that community, and where we find that community - that’s why we’re here. Yesterday, the other end of the church was full of our community’s discarded items, for other members of our community to buy or have. Games and activities, the 5k and fellowship, the vendors and coffee… Fall Fest was community, our community coming together.
Attending worship is forming community, becoming active in the goings on at church, signing up for serving communion, ushering, singing in the choir, serving in the nursery, teaching Sunday School and Confirmation… Serving your community - Being in community - Forming Community… In a little bit we will celebrate communion, God’s Grace made flesh, poured out for us all - we celebrate as a community. The binding of that community is found in the living waters of baptism, where we are called and named beloved children of God.
We open our doors every week to members of our community, so that we worship together, as community. When a member of the community sins against us, Jesus tells us to forgive and we go beyond ourselves and forgive until we forget how often we’ve forgiven. Paul the Apostle calls on us to not judge our neighbors, the members of our community. God is calling on us to go beyond ourselves and serve our community by opening our definitions of community. Extending our community outward, and allowing more lasting change for our community.
We are called, summoned by God to live into that community, expand our definitions of that community, and bring hope and love to those outside of it. For we are all members of the community of God, and saved from ourselves by the Grace, Love and Mercy of God, our Creator, Savior and Spirit. We live in, serve, and engage many forms of community, yet all are one in God’s community. “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s”. God calls each and every one of us to love and serve one another, to forgive one another, to go beyond ourselves and our bounds of community for one another. You are a beloved child of God.
Amen.
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