Sermon for September 14

per a request. This is unedited (which means I think faster than I type and what was in my head and what came through my fingers may not always match, be spelled correctly or make grammatical sense).

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In a few minutes, after the sermon and after the Nicene Creed and after the Prayers of the People, the Confession, and Absolution, we’ll exchange the peace.

Friday morning I had a delightful conversation with some friends and this thing we do – the passing of the peace – came up. And this isn’t the first time that I’ve been asked about the passing of the peace so let me share a little bit about what we are doing and why.

First of all, if this is your first time with us at St Timothy’s and especially if this is your first time in an Episcopal Church, after we have come together and heard the readings and listened to the sermon and said the creed and prayed for the people in the church and the world, and after we have confessed our sins and received absolution, I will say “The Peace of the Lord be always with you,” to which you will say, “And also with you.”

It’s a lot like watching a Stars Wars movie, except we are not saying, “May the Force be with you,” but “the peace of the Lord.”

And then a lot of different things happen. Some folks will turn and face those around them and say “Peace be with you” or “the Peace of the Lord be with you” or simply “Peace.” Some other folks will go up and down the aisles greeting everyone, and typically I stand in the middle and say “Good morning, peace be with you!” which is my nice priestly way of saying, “sit down!”

When I was in the Methodist Church we had fellowship time. I would say “let us greet one another in the name of Christ,” and for five minutes we’d smile and slap people on the backs and glad hand and talk about the football game the day before or the potluck dinner that’s coming as soon as church is over. I know they have this in Baptist and Pentecostal Churches too.

Too many times we are running late to church and we have places to go as soon as it’s over, we’ve got company coming in or there’s a ballgame our kids have to go to, and it’s sometimes impossible to greet people in our church family. But that’s not what the passing of the peace is for.

Nor is the passing of the peace one of those things on our liturgical check list that we have to do. It’s not designed to be cold or informal and it’s really not designed to be a time of catching up either.

The passing of the peace used to be a kiss. In the early church newly baptized members were greeted by everyone by a kiss, not unlike the new baby that is passed around to aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving. Everyone gets to hold the baby and before they pass him down, that little kid gets a kiss on the forehead. The newly baptized, whether they are 6 months old or 60 years old, were passed down to all the spiritual aunts and uncles and before he was passed down, that little kid or very grown up person, received a kiss.

Over time the kiss of peace was exchanged by everyone all the time. It even had a hierarchy. The priest would kiss the altar, the place were Christ’s Body and Blood reside and would then kiss the deacon and the deacon would kiss the sub-deacon, and the sub-deacon would kiss the acolyte, and the acolyte would kiss the first person in the pew and so on until it was all passed down.

Nowadays we don’t typically kiss, we shake hands or nod or make a slight bow, but the point is still the same.
Now that we have come together as the Body of Christ, and we’ve heard the readings that proclaim the good news and the reconciliation and peace in Christ, and we’ve heard sermons sharing the application of this peace and we’ve confessed our faith in Christ, prayed for each other and received forgiveness of our sins, we are now called to put all that we’ve heard and proclaimed in action!

It goes back to what Jesus said in the 5th chapter of Matthew’s gospel: “If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first to be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

If there is anyone here that we are at odds with, fighting with, or holding something against, we are called to make peace. Before we go to the altar, we are called to make things right.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Sunday before Lent begins, the church gathers together for evening prayer. On this night something incredible happens. Everyone there, including the clergy, goes to everyone in the church – everyone gathered that night – and asks for their forgiveness.

One person stands in front of another and says “Forgive me, a sinner.” The person responds, “God forgives.”

I tried this one time. It wasn’t the Sunday before Lent but it was on Ash Wednesday. After everyone had received the imposition of ashes we all snaked around the church and went to every single person and asked for their forgiveness. Husbands and wives were crying, having the opportunity to say things to each other that their pride would not allow them to do behind closed doors – here in the midst of a Church, forgiveness was taking place, ice was melting and hard feelings and bitterness and resentment was slowly, but surely, being replaced…by peace.

There was one person in that room that did not stand up. No one had to stand up and ask for forgiveness, this was a new and strange thing we were doing on Ash Wednesday and I didn’t expect everyone to participate. But there was just one. I think he thought no one else would stand up either, but when everyone else did, and people were being honest and real and sincere just by saying, “forgive me, a sinner” this one person was so overwhelmed with the need for forgiveness and the need to forgive that he left.

Of all the diseases that Jesus encountered, the one that he addressed the most was the cancer of a hard heart.

Jesus tells a parable about a king who wanted to settle his accounts. There was a slave that owed the king 10,000 talents. The slave could not pay. 10,000 talents was the equivalent of 100 million denarii. The average worker made ONE denarii per DAY! It would take him 100 million years to pay off the debt. The slave pleads with the king and the king forgives him his debt.

When that same slave, the one just forgiven 10,000 talents or 100 million denarii, sees another slave that owes HIM just 100 denarii or a little over 3 months of wages, the slave grabs him by the throat and demands that he pay up.

But the slave could not pay. He didn’t have the money. So he begs for forgiveness and mercy JUST LIKE THE OTHER SLAVE DID TO THE KING. But he would not have mercy and he would not forgive his debt and he threw the debtor into prison.

When the king heard about this he was furious. He seized the slave and asked him, “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” And the king had the slave tortured until he could pay his debt.

Now first of all, it would be impossible for a slave to have borrowed 100 million denarii, but Jesus wants to get our attention. He is comparing what God has forgiven us to what we are called to forgive others. God has forgiven us 100 million denarii and we are called to forgive 100 denarii.

God has mercifully restored us to new life and we could never even begin to work off our debts, but we are so many times reluctant to forgive the smallest infraction done to us.

If we do not forgive then we are stuck in one place, one time, and with one person. If we refuse to forgive we can never move forward. We are always thinking about, steaming about, complaining about things that happened back then and when we do that we can never fully enjoy and experience the here and now and we cannot look forward to the future.

How can we enjoy a life that has been forgiven when we do not forgive?

Forgiveness is a process. God can forgive and forget in an instant, but we are not God. It takes us time. It takes us time to work through it and gain perspective and to let go. If we refuse to forgive we are refusing to let go. If we refuse to forgive we are allowing other people and other events to have control over our thoughts and feelings, and if someone or something has control over our thoughts and feelings – then we are not free. And if we are not free – we do not have peace.

In a few minutes we’ll pass that peace. In other words, done right and with sincerity, we’ll pass forgiveness. We’ll pass freedom.

And the hope is that we’ll take the peace, the freedom, the forgiveness and spread it beyond the people in the pews in front of us, beside us and behind us. The hope is, and the call from Christ is, that we’ll take it to our homes and to our jobs and to our friends and to strangers. The hope is that we’ll always remember the unpayable debt that has been forgiven us – and that we’ll not pay it back – but pay it forward.

And pass the peace. Amen.