The Amish Way

We have been talking this July about radical forgiveness. This is the third in a series of four sermons on the topic. First, we explored the idea that forgiving is not forgetting and used the wisdom of the Truth and Reconciliation Council from South Africa to guide us. Last week, we looked at the difficult and repetitive nature of forgiveness using the life long quest for healing of Simon Wiesenthal through the book The Sunflower. This week, we take a look at another group who has modelled forgiveness, the Amish after the Nickels Mine shooting in October 2006. Next week, we will take all of the wisdom and apply it to ourselves as we take our turn to forgive. All of this chips away at the radical forgiveness that Jesus modeled for us and that we are called to live out.

Back in the spring, when Marie Monville came to speak here, I heard our congregation and our community eager to know more about this radical forgiveness that was offered. Radical forgiveness that came from the Marie’s family and from the Amish families. From the book, Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, we hear “the Amish commitment to forgive is not a small patch tacked onto their fabric of faithfulness. Rather, their commitment to forgive is intricately woven into their lives and their communities.”1

Is forgiveness central to our faith? Or is it something that a few saintly people do and the rest of our ordinary people might as well give up on? This is the question that Peter asked Jesus. Can’t you relate to Peter? So, Jesus, this forgiveness thing is hard, if I try it once, that’s okay right? And certainly, I do not have to keep trying with the same person, right? What! You want me to keep on forgiving? Time after time after time? So many times that I lose count of who is ahead? From this very passage, our Amish brothers and sisters embrace the seriousness of our faith. Forgiveness is more than just a good thing to do. It is a central part of their faith (and I would say, our faith!). Our forgiveness is tied up with the forgiveness of others. Perhaps, this means in a cosmic judgement sense. But it also means in an immediate sense. We are not able to know the tender hearted forgiveness of others when we are focused only on vengeance and retaliation. We miss the forgiving actions of others when we are planning their downfall.

And forgiveness is more than a mental relinquishment of the desire to harm another, although that is important. Forgiveness is not just understood in beliefs and thoughts, but is tested through actions. So, the emotions of the families whose daughters were murdered were not nearly as central as the actions of reconciliation and care offered to Marie’s family. The concrete actions of care showed the world and the community that the way to follow Jesus is to choose suffering over vengeance and forgiveness over resentment.

This radical forgiveness did not deny that a wrong has taken place, five girls died that day as one many tried to work out his own version of pain, heartbreak, and vengeance, but forgiveness does give up the right to hurt the wrongdoer in return. Even though Charles Roberts was dead, opportunities to exact vengeance upon his family remained. Rather than pursuing revenge, however, the Amish showed empathy for his wife and three children, even by attending his burial. In other words, the Amish of Nickel Mines chose not to vilify the killer, but to treat him and his family as members of the human community.

Each morning, these Amish families wake up without their beloved daughter, I can imagine they have to forgive again. They have to choose not to wish revenge or violence for the one who caused their suffering. They have to choose to pray for Marie and her family as they remember in their own families. Forgiving and remembering again each morning allows us each time to make decisions about how we remember what we cannot forget.

I am not suggesting that you and I need to embrace an Amish way of living. I am encouraging us to look at the way in which our Amish brothers and sisters have lead the charge to understand forgiveness as Jesus taught us. I believe they are embodying this call to live out forgiveness. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, giving them some concrete instructions about what it looks like to be a follower of Christ. Paul is concerned how the church acted out their new faith. “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” He did not say, banish from your minds the difficult times that you have experienced and suppress the ways in which others have persecuted and harm you. Remove the vengeance, the anger, the bitterness, and tearing others down. Act like one who values first the humanity of another and second the actions they have taken.

The parable of the unforgiving servant can be boiled down to a story to inspire fear and retribution – do this OR this will happen to you. But I believe that Jesus is saying more than that, here in Matthew. The act of forgiving – both receiving forgiveness and offering it – changes us. As we are forgiven, we are not changed until the moment when someone sins against us and we respond not with vengeance, but with tenderness. We are not changed when we respond in anger. We are changed when our actions of forgiveness offer God’s forgiveness to another who also does not deserve it.

We are changed by action. We release the need and attachment to vengeance when our actions forgive. Each time, a friend or a coworker hurts us again and we think, “just wait, they will get what is coming to them”, we hold onto vengeance. Each time, we hope justice is retributive, instead of restorative, we hold onto vengeance. Each time, our first reaction is gritting our teeth and imagine pain to another, we hold onto vengeance. We are not called to be a people of vengeance. We are called to a people declaring forgiveness and seeking restorative justice.

We are called to be a people who follow the way of Christ. We follow Jesus who said there are not too many times to forgive someone. We follow Jesus who said I lived concrete actions of forgiveness, so that you might forgive one another. We follow Jesus who forgives us, even when we act with vengeance and anger, even when we push away from God. We follow Jesus who stretched his arms in love and forgiveness by living and giving his life for us.

This is the forgiveness that God calls us to offer. Concrete actions of forgiveness and reconciliation. How is God calling you to live out forgiveness today? Who do you need to forgive and need to do in undeniable actions and concrete images of love? Where do you need to live out love and make it known, so that your life might point to God?

Forgiveness is not about you and is not about me. Forgiveness is about community and about relationships. Forgiveness is about reminding one another who God is and how God’s image is in each of us. Forgiveness is ushering in the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. How is God calling you to forgive?

This is the Gospel of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
1 Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy By Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, David L. Weaver-Zerche

Old Testament Lesson: Ephesians 4:31-32
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Gospel Lesson: Matthew 18:21-35
Forgiveness

Then Peter came 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.

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

“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 would 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 would 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.”