EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Sept. 8, 2020. This was the 22nd digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.
Well, Faith Family ... welcome to what would have been Rally Week. ... As you can see, I got all dressed up for the occasion, and there's only a few people here to be able to celebrate with me tonight.
But as you know, Rally Week also kind of marks the new cultural year for our churches, as we come back to our programming, both on the Sunday school level, as well as confirmation classes, and adult education. This Rally has come to symbolize the new year in our church calendar. And it most certainly will be unlike any other Rally Week that we can remember.
In fact, I don't know about you, but for me, it doesn't feel much like a Rally Week, or Rally Sunday, if you are watching us on Rally Sunday. It's even hard to distinguish this time of year from where we've been this past six months. And so I find it interesting that in tonight's texts, this Sunday's texts for this week, they are so focused -- almost hyper-focused -- on forgiveness.
Read the texts, and you just can't escape it. As followers of Jesus, we are expected to forgive. To forgive our neighbors. To forgive those in our church. ... Just a couple of examples; you heard them not that long ago. But in our first reading in Genesis tonight: "But Joseph said to them, 'Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do me harm god intended it for good in order to preserve a numerous people as he is doing today. So have no fear. I myself will provide for you and your little ones.' In this way, he reassured them, speaking kindly to them." ... I don't know about you, but I find it hard to believe that if I were in Joseph's place that I could have said such words.
Tonight's theme of forgiveness continues in our second reading. I read from the end of the Romans passage: "Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgement seat before God. For it is written, 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'Every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.' So then each of us will be accountable to god."
And finally, very succinctly in our gospel tonight, Jesus lays out for us the incredible weight that is on our shoulders as followers of Christ: "Peter came and said to Jesus, 'Lord, if another member of our church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?' And Jesus said to him, 'Not seven times, but I tell you seventy-seven times.'"
That is a pretty powerful collection of scripture reading there that reinforces this theme that runs through the readings this week.
And so in this new start to our church year, on what would be our Rally Week, our Rally Sunday, this new start to our cultural church year that we've grown accustomed to, I can't think of a better message this particular year for all of us than forgiveness.
Faith Family, you don't have to look far around you to know, or to understand that, we live in contentious and divisive times. In the past week, you may know that we, as a Digital Services Team, had a week off, and I took the time to check out from reading the news. Because my heart and my soul needed that break. And last night as I was preparing on that Labor Day to come back to this shortened week, and I was getting ready to re-engage in the world, I found out very quickly that things hadn't changed in the past week.
The news headlines are just as dire. The divisiveness that has grown around issues surrounding the pandemic and the economy and social unrest are just as contentious as they were eight days when I checked out of the news. And so as we come back into our cultural year, as we come back into this realm that kind of symbolizes our renewed church year, I found it very interesting that God in our texts this week gives us a way through the chaos. ... And that is forgiveness.
We know from our readings this week too, that this may not be an easy process. This may require you, as it did Joseph, to forgive some very, very hard sins that were committed against you. This forgiveness might be a very long, ongoing process that takes dozens of times. ... In fact, maybe seventy-seven times for you to forgive someone who has sinned against you.
But we know, as God tells us in these texts, that forgiveness is the No. 1 practice that holds us together as a community, that holds us together as faith community, that holds us together as a civic community, and that holds us together as one greater family of God. In fact, I find it so interesting that forgiveness matters so much in holding a community together, that two of the aspects that we've built into our traditional Lutheran church services were built around forgiveness. And I think it's easy to forget that at times.
But as we started service tonight, and as we do almost every time that we gather, we started it with our "Confession and Forgiveness." And during more recent "normal" times, we regularly shared the peace, a practice that we even gleefully got into here at Faith Lutheran. Both of these activities that were built into our Lutheran services are about building community, and about giving forgiveness.
So today, on what would have been this Rally Week, or possibly if you are listening on Sunday, Rally Sunday, it seems like a good time for each of to focus on forgiveness as we begin this new church year. Faith Family, I'm inviting you to come with me. I'm inviting each of us as a community of faithful people to bring this focus on forgiveness into our church year. Let's be a community that brings people together, not only here in our Faith community, but in our larger community in the region, and even in our nation. Let's be a light, Faith Family, that leads others. Because that is God's No. 1 plan for us, to hold a community together.
And that is that is the Good News for us, on this Tuesday, Sept. 8, and Sunday, Sept. 13, a Rally Week in 2020 that we will never forget. ... Amen.
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