Sermon 18 Pentecost - Proper 19A Sept 14, 2008

18 Pentecost - 14 September 2008 - Proper 19A
Exodus 14:19-31; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35
James V. Stockton

‘What goes around comes around.’ It’s a phrase familiar to many. The theory holds that whatever a person puts out there into the general conversation, perhaps a rumor, a bit of gossip, whatever someone puts out there starts going around, passing from person to person, people to people, changing, growing, and eventually it comes back around and perhaps penalizes whoever put it out there in the first place. People who have lived long enough to learn some lessons from the school of experience will generally agree that this bit of common wisdom is remarkably true. Better watch out: What goes around, comes around.

Here’s a true story: a young man, Charlie, about 12 years old, is at home with his sister Carol and their mother. Mom has asked Carol to baby sit for a friend of hers. Four year old Buddy has been over to the house before, and Charlie always finds the little boy annoying. So, Charlie tries just to stay away from Buddy whenever he comes over. And just a little, not much, Charlie wonders if he should behave differently toward Buddy.

Better be careful: ‘What goes around comes around.’ It’s one of those sayings that sounds like it comes from Scripture. And in a sense it does. In an important sense, we hear this common wisdom spoken between the lines in the story that we hear today from the book of the Exodus. ‘Exodus’ literally means the ‘way out,’ and the Israelites are taking God’s way out from their slavery in Egypt. God has led the people into the wilderness. The Egyptians are in hot pursuit, and at the shore of the Red Sea, the Israelites are trapped with no more way out. Then God parts the waters of the Sea which allows the people to escape to the other side. When the Egyptians follow, God allows the waters to tumble back into place, costing many Egyptian lives and securing for God’s people their way out of slavery.

It’s a miracle, by the way. People may try to find an explanation for it, and that’s a fine exercise of the gift of curiosity. But it’s good also to recognize that the parting of the Red Sea is intentionally presented as a miracle. I heard of a professor teaching about this one day. He describes a very credible theory that holds that the Red Sea was, at the time of the Exodus, actually just a swamp. Thus the Israelites needed only to wade through two or three inches of water and so there was really no miracle involved. After his lecture, a student raises his hand. “If the Red Sea was only two inches deep,” he observes, “wouldn’t it have to be a miracle that the whole Egyptian army drowned in it?” I like what a rabbi once said about miracles. “The Jewish perspective,” he says, “is that a miracle is a coincidence.” “But,” he goes on, “the question is: why did that coincidence happen then?”

Sometimes a miracle is just a miracle. Whatever. The Israelites are free. And in a sense, they are free because the abuse that the Egyptians have inflicted upon the Israelites, and have allowed to be inflicted, now comes back around. By their action and by their word the Egyptians have spread the false belief that the Israelites somehow deserve their abuse, because, after all, ‘they aren’t like the rest of us, they are merely Hebrews.’ It’s such lies as this that they have told themselves that enable the Egyptian to sleep at night, knowing full well that tomorrow he will rise again to take advantage of the suffering of the slaves. It’s lies like this that enable the Egyptian to go untroubled through her day knowing full well that her comfort and leisure are paid for by the suffering of the slaves. It’s lies like this that move people, generation after generation, further and further away from that necessarily gentle sensitivity to the grace and Love of God; until one day they find that there is nothing left to come back around but the consequences of the hardness of their lies. In effect, the story tell us, ‘Better be careful: What goes around comes around.’

Charlie is doing his best to avoid Buddy. Charlie’s mom calls to him, “Do you want to go with me to the store?” Great! A chance to get out of the house. “Yeah, let’s go,” Charlie calls. Outside, they are getting into the car and Buddy appears. He is smiling broadly through the chain link fence of the backyard gate. “Do you want to take Buddy?” Mom asks Charlie. Charlie doesn’t think about it for even a second. “No way!” he shouts. Instantly, Buddy bursts into tears.

Better watch out. ‘What goes around comes around.’ It’s Jesus’ message to his disciples. “I know that I should be forgiving of other people” says Peter; “so, since I want to be really, really righteous just how forgiving do I have to be?” “If I forgive somebody as many as seven times,” he says, ”that’s got to be really good, right?” And Jesus as much as tells him, “Peter, you can’t count high enough to reach the number of times you would need to forgive others in order to make yourself righteous.” To be sure, wanting to be righteous is a good goal. But forgiveness is not forgiveness until it is offered from the heart. I didn’t make it up; Jesus says it within our hearing today. The desire to be forgiven is too fragile and precious a thing for someone to use simply as a tool. The hope for forgiveness is too personal, too vulnerable a thing for someone to abuse it, and then think that they could lie about it to themselves or to God.

Buddy is crying on the other side of the gate. “Are you sure you don’t want to let Buddy come with us?” ask Mom trying to give Charlie a chance to change his mind, to change his heart. Charlie glances again at Buddy, his sister Carol is trying now to comfort him. “I’m sure,” says Charlie. At the store, Charlie thinks that maybe when they return home he can make it up to Buddy. But, when they get home Buddy’s mom has retrieved him. Over the next several weeks Buddy comes over for babysitting again. But the time never seems right. Charlie never takes the chance to see if he could change the hurt that he caused Buddy. He never takes the chance to know the gift of somehow asking for and then receiving Buddy’s forgiveness.

And I know this because the story is mine. I don’t tell you this because I toss and turn about it every night, because I don’t. I tell you this because, while as a twelve year old I never humbled myself enough to apologize to Buddy, I did learn from him the wisdom in the saying: ‘What goes around comes around.’ I learned the wisdom of seeking forgiveness from others as soon as I possibly can whenever I wrong them. I learned the wisdom of Jesus’ teaching that God does hold us accountable. And I learned that God does this largely by laying bare what we already know to be the good we could have done, and should have done, but didn’t; the wrong that we’ve done, and could have changed, the wrong that we’ve ignored around us, and should have changed, but didn’t. I’ve learned that God does see to it that ‘What goes around comes around.’

And so now, please rise and let’s each of us take just a moment to think about it in our hearts, and then go to those nearby and tell them from our heart: “You are forgiven by God. Please forgive me, too" I've learned that God does see to it that ‘What goes around comes around.’ And I’ve learned that this is not only a warning, it is a also a promise from God. Jesus says that God will hold us accountable, and so, yes, he says, ‘Be careful.’ But in between the lines he also says, “Be encouraged.”

For, whenever we grab that chance today, tomorrow, whenever we put it out there into the world around us, whenever we give it to a heart near us, whenever we offer it someone who maybe too afraid to ask, then we find God’s goodness, God’s Love, God’s forgiveness and our own, going around; and then today, tomorrow, someday, we find them coming back around, and then one day, we find that they have come around to stay forever. And now, please rise again. Think about it in your heart, as I do in mine, and let’s go to those around us and tell them from our heart: “God is glad you’re here, and so am I."

God is glad you’re here, and so am I.” And so may Almighty God, by whose grace alone we are redeemed, ignite within us that same love which burned in the heart of Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2008, James V. Stockton