Proper 19A:  Matthew 18:21-35.  Forgiveness.  “Don’t Keep Score”

            My friend Lelia Guilbert from Mitchell, SD, was here last week to visit her family.  I was fortunate to have a few hours with this dear friend.  At one point in the conversation we laughed and shuddered and remembered a day a few years back when, while visiting her, I dropped an 8 pound can of beans on my foot.  I was wearing the sandals:  No steel toes, but some protection.  The can managed to land on the second toe, I guess, because only it was injured.  It was split open at the end.  Lelia took me to the Emergency Room after I ascertained that stitches would be necessary.  Once there, my whole body seemed in protection mode for that poor little wounded second toe.  The nurse tried to wash it.  I twitched and withdrew.  The doctor tried to inject numbing agents.  I twitched and jumped.  We are all wired with a nervous system which reflexively tries to protect us when we are hurt.

            Today’s scripture lesson is about that.  When someone hurts us or cheats us or attacks us we most often reflexively strike back.  We want justice, we want to put up a wall, we want them to hurt like we hurt.  I have never heard a Buddhist try to speak about Matthew 18:21-35, but it occurred to me as I prepared this message that a Buddhist might have a lot to say that could help us.  Peter wants to know how many times he has to forgive.  Jesus says “throw away the score card and practice compassion.  And do it for as long as it takes.” 

            As I look lovingly yet critically at my own Christian faith, I see that there is much less emphasis on the concept of “practice” than there is in Buddhism.  Yes, I practice daily through Centering Prayer to calm my mind and make it more receptive to the Holy Spirit, but I do not often take the experiences of my day and turn them into opportunities for transformation.  If the tendency to lash out at others is indeed as reflexive as my foot twitching after injury, can I not see that I must practice forgiveness many, many, many times before I can even approach the grace of God, who always calls me back to reconciliation, who always calls me to this table to be part of creation, loved and forgiven? 

            A number of us from the congregation had the privilege to hear Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Vietnamese Buddhist holy man in Denver a few years ago.  I dug out my notes and my journal entries to review the experience in my mind and heart.  I recall that he sat completely still, on a cushion on the floor, and addressed us without notes in a soft voice for perhaps 90 minutes.  He told us that there is no “self”, that we are all a community of cells in one organism.  There is no inferiority and no superiority.  He taught us about the wisdom of non-discrimination.  He gave the example of taking a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other to hang a picture.  The right hand slips and hits the left hand instead of the nail in the left hand.  Does the left hand begin attacking the right hand?  Of course not.  If only we could consider all of humanity in the same way.  “With the practice of calm, people will suffer less.”

            He asked that we Americans might consider deep listening so that we can understand ourselves as a people.  He said that “wrong perceptions” cannot be removed by an army.  He noted that we have increased fear, anger, and anxiety after September 11, 2001, now some seven years ago last Thursday.  He said that after that, life somehow got stuck.  We could not process our feelings.  Thousands of people turned to drugs and addictions to calm themselves.  He told us, “We have to practice in order not to be victims of fear and anxiety.  Guns and violence do not remove our fear.  We must remove our own wrong perceptions and become free of anger and anxiety and hate.”

            He told us that every year, Israelis and Palestinians are invited to his home-in-exile in Plum Village, France.  They are first taught the practice of mindful breathing.  Then they are taught how to allow the body to relax.  Then one can move into the realm of feelings.  People are taught to soothe their feelings, just a mother would place a cool hand on the face of a feverish child.  We can learn to embrace our feelings with tenderness, with mindfulness.  Even painful feelings can be embraced.

            After all of this is practiced many times, the groups from the warring factions are given opportunities for compassionate listening.  One learns to breathe through the reflexive desire to blame or judge.  The other is allowed to empty his heart.  All of this is protected by the energy of compassion.  The listener comes to understand that his foe has suffered, too.  The listener comes to see with the eyes of compassion.  Transformation happens.  We can bring back communication.  Perhaps there have been wrong perceptions.  They can be corrected later.  Now we see what can happen when we bring out the best in each other.  Now we see that peace is possible.  Now we are on the path of emancipation.

            When I was in labor with our daughter Stephanie, I felt a lot of pain.  But I had been taught to breathe in a certain way so that I would not increase the pain through anxiety and panic.  There was a beautiful vision in my mind of holding this precious child in my arms after the labor was finished.  I stared at a tiny hole in the ceiling tiles and breathed to this mantra:  “I’ll do this for as long as it takes.”  I don’t know where that phrase came from, perhaps the Holy Spirit gave it to me.  I have utilized this technique through 19 spinal decompression treatments in the past few weeks and it somehow transported me to a zone without time.  By the end of last week, the 20 minute sessions seemed like five minutes.   I want to learn also to breathe through my anger when I think someone has hurt me, or hurt my loved ones or my country.  I have a beautiful vision of peace, of holding the Child of Peace in my arms when my practice is finished.  I want to know the path of emancipation.

            Will you join me in a meditation on forgiveness?  Will you take a step towards seeing that we can forgive ourselves and others as readily as God forgives us if we will practice compassion for ourselves and others?  Anger causes suffering, and the Spirit will guide us to cool those flames if we can learn to breathe, and to relax, and to feel our feelings.  Then we will embrace those feelings like mother holding a crying child.  And we can share the peace we will find there.