Natality
Sermon on Sunday 18 October 2020
at the Church of the Holy Trinity and St Tudno’s Church, in the Ministry Area of Llandudno
The Ministry Area is following a teaching lectionary, with passages drawn from the Gospel according to St Matthew, during the Sundays of September, October and November. The readings, and the order of service as used at Holy Trinity, can be found here.
Listen to the Gospel of Christ according to Saint Matthew.
Glory be to you, O Lord.At that time: Peter came to Jesus and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow-slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay what you owe.” Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow-slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
The mystery of salvation is the mystery of a child. [Paul Tillich]
Even though it has a bit of comic-book colour to it, the parable we’ve just heard is an effort by the author the Gospel of Matthew to share Jesus’s teaching about how a community of adults should behave.
It’s a two-step guide.
Like the unmerciful servant, you should admit your failings, your shortcomings, and you should hope, yearn for mercy.
But, unlike the unmerciful servant, you should also forgive, and forgive, and forgive. The mercy you receive you must also show.
And you should do all of this, you should act like this, because this is how we understand the God to be, how we understand God to work — “so my Heavenly Father will also do,” says Jesus.
The Gospel passage today is guidance for us adults — we who fail, we who hurt others, we who refuse to admit it; guidance for us who hold grudges, and who dredge things up, and who cling on to our bitterness.
And it’s good advice — it’s a good way of being for us and for a community — know your weaknesses, confess, seek forgiveness from those you’ve hurt; be quick to show mercy, forgive others, become a community freed from the prison of condemnation and guilt.
The mystery of salvation is the mystery of a child.
It’s good advice for us adults. Yet, I was talking about this parable with a colleague this past week. She has two little children, and she’s leading a service for young families this morning in the south of the diocese based on this same Gospel passage. We were talking about what she might say in the service. The psychology of young children is not my strong point… so it was one of those conversations when I was very much listening to her.
And I was struck when she said that her son and daughter — 3 and 5 years old — just wouldn’t understand what it meant to hold a grudge, or to dredge up a past bitterness. And, though they know to say sorry, they wouldn’t really know what it was to be weighed down by guilt or by the fear of condemnation. Not for them, yet, the need to be forgiven and to forgive. Life for them is not, yet, this complicated adult world that brings in its wake, for all of us in some measure, broken relationships, and damaging behaviour, and a lurking, fearful anxiety.
The mystery of salvation is the mystery of a child.
We’re about half way through our three months’ worth of readings from the Gospel according to St Matthew. And you could almost, almost be forgiven for wanting to change the channel.
How many more stories about wandering sheep and wasteful sowers and foolish builders and unmerciful servants can we take? Are there five more weeks of this? This way of telling something significant through these short little stories drawn from the stuff of everyday isn’t everybody’s… cup of tea.
We might also get a bit weary of stories whose messages can seem to be focused on telling us how to behave, how to think, how to conduct our spiritual lives. And it is true that much of Matthew’s Gospel is focused on how to live and think together as a community, as the Church.
And that, in turn, must be in part because Matthew, as he was writing, was focused on the needs, the challenges, the dynamics of the community of which he was a part, and for whose members he was writing his Gospel account. Much as they are words of truth for us today, our readings over these few weeks are sayings of Jesus gathered for a particular community, in a particular place, at a particular time in the past. You can almost hear, over the gap of centuries, somebody from within Matthew’s community, in Matthew’s church, asking him in exasperation at the behaviour of another member — “how many times must I forgive her?” And Matthew answering, “Well, let me tell you what Jesus said about that;” and, when he came to work on his book that evening, those words, to meet that need, becoming a part of the written work, part of his Gospel.
The mystery of salvation is the mystery of a child.
When I got home one evening this past week, on that day I’d had that conversation with my colleague about her children, I found myself reading some words by Hannah Arendt.
Arendt was an astonishing woman. Born to a Jewish family in Germany, she was a young woman when she was first detained by the Gestapo, but she managed to escape to France, where she helped other young people of Jewish descent escape Germany before that became impossible. She is of that generation whose early experiences remind me that, however bleak things can feel at the moment, here was such suffering and inhumanity.
And one of her ideas, one of the things that sustained her, was a concept she called “natality” — a word that comes from nativity, a birth. It’s the opposite of fatality, of being fatalistic, of being helpless in the face of fate, of the things that life throws at you. But it’s more than that. It’s about saying that, no matter how bleak or confusing or anxious things are, there is always birth, new life, all around us, and that new life is always so full of potential, of action, of good. “A child has been born to us” — those are words at the heart of our faith; but, even more than that, God’s very existence is the hope of new birth, of new beginnings, so full of potential, of action, of good.
So if you weary of Matthew’s story telling over the next few weeks, or if you feel overwhelmed by all of what is happening at the moment, the restrictions, the anxiety, the being cut off from so many normal things that used to bring joy, look into those Gospel stories, and you will always see there the shadow of God who promises new birth, new beginnings, beyond any one of us, at the depth of things, sustaining all creation, come what may. The seed that is always planted, the yeast forever being kneaded, the shepherd who never gives up looking, the forgiveness and mercy always, always flowing.
The mystery of salvation, even for us adults, especially for us adults, is always the mystery of a child.
