{"id":2826,"date":"2020-09-13T11:00:10","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T16:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2021-02-22T14:22:39","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T19:22:39","slug":"liberal-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2020\/09\/13\/liberal-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew 18: 21-35<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

Please forgive the intrusive nature of this sermon.\u00a0\u00a0 For I want to begin by taking a walk with you into the attic of your soul.\u00a0 Though we are friends, it is not my right to initiate such a visit.\u00a0 Though we are pastors and parishioners, it is not our right to force such a trek back up through the mist of time.\u00a0 You would need to make an invitation, yourself.\u00a0 Even to suggest the climb, without any initiative on your part, is rude of me.\u00a0 I apologize.<\/p>\n

The Gospel, however, intrudes upon our very souls, whether the preacher has a right or not.\u00a0 As kingfishers catch fire, and dragonflies draw flame, so truth\u2014that liberal grace, that light in which we see light\u2014advances upon us.\u00a0 So we go ahead.\u00a0 We walk together upstairs to the landing.\u00a0 You kindly have turned on the hall light.\u00a0 Thank you.\u00a0 I wonder if this is a sign from you that you will welcome this joint venture?\u00a0 We pull down on the chain that loosens the attic portal.\u00a0 You know how that little door in the ceiling falls open, and slowly a flank of wooden stairs comes down, and down, and down, and touches our feet.\u00a0 We are ready to climb up into the darkness.<\/p>\n

Watch your step.\u00a0 You have not been up into the cobwebs and the dust of memory, the mothballs and the coverlets of history, the grime and the darkness of the past.\u00a0\u00a0 It is a little slow going.\u00a0\u00a0 This is your attic, though.\u00a0 You know it as well as you know your own past.\u00a0 In fact, it is your past, box by box, and crate by crate.\u00a0 I have no right to be here, and if you ask me, I will leave.\u00a0 A man has a right to his own regrets.\u00a0 A woman has a right to her own regrets.\u00a0 They are not common property.\u00a0 They are yours, these boxes and labels and shoes and hangers and records and amulets and souvenirs from the dusty past.\u00a0\u00a0 One of you is looking over at an old service uniform from the great war\u2014brown and rumpled.\u00a0 Another sees bobby sox and a political poster\u2014I LIKE IKE.\u00a0 She has stumbled past three old Beatles albums\u2014greatest hits, Abbey Road, the White album.\u00a0 I notice a Jim Croce tape.\u00a0 I wonder if it still plays?\u00a0 He thumbs through a pile of other newer albums. \u00a0She has a 2004 World Series Fenway ticket.\u00a0 He has a ball marked deflate-gate.\u00a0 Of course there are lots of photographs.\u00a0 What kind of an attic would it be without boxes and records and photographs?<\/p>\n

This is the attic of memory.\u00a0 No, we won\u2019t stop at the wardrobe<\/p>\n

Today. The wardrobe is for another day, a day of hope and imagination.\u00a0 Lions and witches come from wardrobes.\u00a0 Today we are looking back, though.\u00a0 We are going to stumble and claw our way over into the back corner.\u00a0 There is not much light here.\u00a0 It is a long time since anyone came back in, all this way.\u00a0 Dust, cobwebs\u2014it makes you sneeze.<\/p>\n

Over in the corner there is a small, low box, carefully closed, and tied around with a little bailer\u2019s twine.\u00a0 This is yours.\u00a0 No one else knows it is here, or if they do, they have forgotten or never understood or just don\u2019t care.\u00a0 But you know and remember and understand and care.\u00a0 I really do not want to be here, and you probably don\u2019t want to either.\u00a0 I\u2014for it is not my business.\u00a0 You\u2014because in black ink, now dusty, is penned across the top of the box a single, awful, hellish word\u2014regret.\u00a0 Regret is a short synonym for hell.\u00a0\u00a0 And up here in the attic of memory, off in the corner, sits this stupid box, which means nothing to anyone, except to you.\u00a0 There it is\u2014a single box labeled \u201cregret\u201d.<\/p>\n

Open it.<\/p>\n

Go ahead.\u00a0 Try it.\u00a0 If you want.\u00a0 I think you have wanted to come up here, but just never had 20 minutes of quiet to do so.\u00a0 Remember last summer when you thought about the box?\u00a0 And remember that early morning dream?\u00a0 That was a strange thing.\u00a0 I want to encourage you to open it.\u00a0 Hold it in both hands.\u00a0 Untie the twine.\u00a0 Loosen the top.\u00a0 Turn it over, and let it all fall out.<\/p>\n

Good.\u00a0 That was a gutsy thing to do.\u00a0 Good for you.<\/p>\n

The reason the box was marked \u201cregret\u201d is that this is one thing you regret.\u00a0 You have a regret.\u00a0 That is part of being human.\u00a0 Can you live with being human?\u00a0 Can you live with being a little lower than the angels?\u00a0 How do I know all this?\u00a0 As my great aunt would say, \u201cIf you\u2019re so smart how come you aren\u2019t rich?\u201d\u00a0 A real good question.\u00a0 I know because I have boxes in my attic too.\u00a0 They too are covered with cobwebs.\u00a0 I too make my visits, my attic climbs, very seldom.\u00a0 And, yes, I know about regret.\u00a0 Not just vicariously, either.\u00a0 There is nothing quite as bitter.\u00a0 If only\u2026If only\u2026If only\u2026<\/p>\n

I asked to come up here with you for a reason.\u00a0 Up in the attic here, with that swinging bare light bulb and the Johnny Mathis record, and the 2018 election lawn sign, \u00a0and all this dust, we may feel God.<\/p>\n

Look at the box again, and all its contents spread across the floor.\u00a0 In the dark I cannot see the floor, but after 44 years and 10 pulpits I truly doubt if any of it would surprise me.\u00a0 After reading the Bible and Shakespeare and a few decades worth of the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, there is not much that surprises.\u00a0 But it is different for you.\u00a0 This is your attic, your memory, your box, your regret.\u00a0 It is YOURS.\u00a0 In a way, this box is more yours than any of the others.<\/p>\n

In this box are the articles of impeachment brought by life against us. \u00a0They are multiple and they are damning and unlike civil and criminal law, the laws of the soul do not give way to lawyerly cunning.\u00a0 And there is no vote, no 2\/3 majority needed.\u00a0 And the impeachment may not have led to conviction, except in the heart.\u00a0 Yours.<\/p>\n

What is that you say?\u00a0 Not you?\u00a0 Never a cutting word?\u00a0 Never a selfish deed?\u00a0 Never an unhealthy habit?\u00a0 Never a compulsive trend?\u00a0 Never a myopic judgment?\u00a0 Never a temptation accepted?\u00a0 Never an ungenerous year? Never a vote you wish, truly wish, you had not made?\u00a0 You meant one thing, it meant another.\u00a0 \u00a0Never a non-giving decade?\u00a0\u00a0 Not you?\u00a0 Never a misspent dollar or day or dream?\u00a0 You don\u2019t go to enough funerals.<\/p>\n

But the box doesn\u2019t lie.\u00a0 Nor does the conscience.\u00a0 Nor does the memory.\u00a0 Nor does life.<\/p>\n

It simply spells \u201cregret\u201d.\u00a0 That, I regret.<\/p>\n

There is something that both can and must be said, as we pack up the regret box. Read about it sometime in Matthew 18: 21-35. \u00a0It is not a human thing to say, though we are the only saying beings around so we do the best we can.\u00a0 It is a God word.\u00a0 And only God speaks God words.<\/p>\n

First, looking down at the dusty cardboard of past regret\u2014something that if not removed can fester and infect and cripple\u2014first there is this.\u00a0 God forgives you.\u00a0 It is, according to the Scripture, the divine promise and intention to forgive and to forgive.\u00a0 It is the first and last and only unreplaceable word of faith.\u00a0 Abraham felt it.\u00a0 Miriam sang it with all her might.\u00a0 Joseph practiced it.\u00a0 Hosea proclaimed it.\u00a0 Jesus taught us to pray for it.\u00a0 And for 2000 years the church has tried to exemplify, embody this one word.\u00a0 God forgives.\u00a0 John Wesley asked his preachers one initial question.\u00a0 \u201cDo you know God to be a pardoning God?\u201d\u00a0 Now that, in the face of a box marked \u201cregret\u201d, that is good news.\u00a0 In the face of the worst rejection and the most regrettable misjudgment on earth, God practices a powerful forgiveness.<\/p>\n

You know in the midst of all the harshness of the religious right and the flightiness of the religious left, it can be hard to hear the central truth about God and about us.\u00a0 God forgives.<\/p>\n

God forgives before we are up in the attic at all.\u00a0 God forgives when we realize what we have to regret.\u00a0 God forgives as we carry the regret around. \u00a0God forgives when we hear and when we do not and it does not depend on our hearing.<\/p>\n

Do you know God to be a pardoning God?\u00a0 If so, you know God, the God of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

Here are some Scriptures worth memorizing about God who forgives\u2026.<\/p>\n

If you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.<\/p>\n

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.<\/p>\n

Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?\u00a0 \u2026 I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>But maybe that is not what keeps you awake, not what makes you linger today in the attic.\u00a0 You may well believe and trust that God forgives. \u00a0But what about those you have regrettably hurt?<\/p>\n

This can be particularly hard for those who have grown up around especially hardened parents and other adults.\u00a0\u00a0 If you have not heard an encouraging word much growing up, it can be hard later in life to believe that those other humans around you can practice a liberal grace, that they can be gracious.<\/p>\n

They can be.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, most of the time they are.\u00a0 More than most of the time.\u00a0 People forgive, more than you know and more than you may think you deserve.\u00a0 It really delights me.\u00a0 People have a profound capacity to forgive and forget.\u00a0 It is God given, and it is real and it is good.<\/p>\n

I think of the waiting father and the prodigal son.<\/p>\n

I think of Paul forgiving Peter\u2019s two-faced behavior.<\/p>\n

I think of Augustine\u2019s mother forgiving his selfishness.<\/p>\n

I think of Erasmus forgiving the wayward Popes.<\/p>\n

I think of Grant and Lee at Appomattox.<\/p>\n

I think of Abraham Lincoln walking through Richmond.<\/p>\n

I think of the Marshall Plan and rebuilding of Germany and Japan in the 1940\u2019s.<\/p>\n

I think of women and men, night after day, for millenia.<\/p>\n

You may have to ask sometime for forgiveness.\u00a0 You probably should.\u00a0 Say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d.\u00a0 Like the ancient TV character \u2018The Fonz\u2019, who could never utter the word, \u201cI was wrong..\u201d\u00a0 But my experience is that most people most of the time when confronted with a heartfelt, sincere apology from a person of integrity will simply, directly and kindly say, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about it.\u00a0 I forgive you.\u201d\u00a0 It is one of the greatest things about other people.\u00a0 You may have to give it a little time.\u00a0 You may have to pray about it.\u00a0 You may have to trust a little. You may have to try more than once. \u00a0But\u2014other people will forgive you.<\/p>\n

But that may not be what holds you here in the attic.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, I bet that the box is still up here, wrapped in twine and covered with dirt and marked regret, for another reason.\u00a0 It\u2019s one thing for God to forgive you.\u00a0 It\u2019s one thing to accept another\u2019s kindness.\u00a0 But in the end, that still leaves you a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and a few french fries short of a happy meal.\u00a0 God has forgiven you!\u00a0 Your neighbor has forgiven you!\u00a0 Now comes the hard part.<\/p>\n

You have to forgive yourself.\u00a0 You have to let yourself off the hook.\u00a0 You have to find a way to admit to yourself that you are not 101% perfect.\u00a0 You have to, well, accept your own acceptance.\u00a0 And that can be a lot easier said than done.\u00a0 Because we have a way of holding onto what poisons us.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 We have a way of clinging to that which poisons us. We have a way of just wrapping ourselves in a miserable kind of self-conceited self-condemnation.\u00a0 Up in the attic.<\/p>\n

Sunday is a good time to dump your guilt.\u00a0 God doesn\u2019t want it. No neighbor finally has much use for it.\u00a0 So why is it still in the box?\u00a0\u00a0 What good is it?\u00a0 Get rid of it.\u00a0 When it doubt, throw it out.<\/p>\n

God forgives you.\u00a0 So does your neighbor.\u00a0 Forgive yourself.<\/p>\n

Matter of fact, while we are here, up in the attic\u2014let\u2019s just take that box out of here.\u00a0 I\u2019ll hold the ladder for you while you are coming down.\u00a0 You can carry it, with a little homiletical help.\u00a0 If we hurry we can get out on the curb before noon.\u00a0 The heavenly garbage truck always comes by this part of your mental world Sunday at noon.\u00a0 There, it\u2019s out on the curb, and soon it will be gone for good.\u00a0 Sang<\/p>\n

William Blake:<\/p>\n

And throughout all eternity<\/em><\/p>\n

I forgive you, you forgive me.<\/em><\/p>\n

And throughout all eternity<\/em><\/p>\n

I forgive you, you forgive me.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>And throughout all eternity<\/em><\/p>\n

I forgive you, you forgive me.<\/em><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
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Click here to hear the full service Matthew 18: 21-35 Click here to hear just the sermon Please forgive the intrusive nature of this sermon.\u00a0\u00a0 For I want to begin by taking a walk with you into the attic of your soul.\u00a0 Though we are friends, it is not my right to initiate such a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2828,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions\/2828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}