The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Fr.
David Curry
Christ Church
Hall, Windsor, NS February 5
AD
2006
“Forbearing one another and forgiving one another”
Paul’s words go
to the heart of our life together in the body of Christ. What he is talking
about is our mutual forbearance and forgiveness of one another. That such an
exhortation comes from one who, to say the least, was hardly the easiest
person to get along with, only adds to the power of its eloquence.
Paul knows only
too well how hard we can all be to get along with. He knows as well how
difficult he himself can be for others. And perhaps, just perhaps, there is
that extra dimension of self-awareness in knowing, too, how hard we can be
on ourselves. There is not only the tyranny of our self-righteous judgments
against one another; there is also the harshness of our judgments against
ourselves. We are, after all, our own worst enemies. “An enemy has done
this”, as the gospel puts it; the enemy is ourselves.
Epiphany runs
out in the themes of mercy and judgment. Today’s epistle complements and
illustrates the gospel. Wheat and tares grow together in the field of the
world. Wheat and weeds are there together, both the good and the bad. But
who can be sure which is which? What is weed and what is wheat? This is to
recognize the limitations of our judgments. “Let them both grow together
until harvest”, says the sower. God is the gardener and God is the
judge. Not you and not me. That is itself a great mercy.
This doesn’t
simply mean the suspension of our judgment in the abdication of
responsibilities. We have the obligation and the ability to discern right
from wrong and, and by God’s grace, to act accordingly. We are bidden to be
God’s good wheat in the world of wheat and tares. But it does mean a check
upon our judgmentalism. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another is
the counter to our judgmentalism. Our judgmentalism is our presumption to
know what we cannot and do not know about others and even about ourselves.
We would put ourselves in the place of God as judge. We would presume to
have a total and absolute view when, in fact, our viewpoint is altogether
restricted and limited. We see, at best, “through a glass darkly”. To
know this is to be aware of the limits of our knowing. It is the beginning
of wisdom. It frees us from the tyranny of ourselves.
The epiphany
here is the light of Christ made manifest in us. It is our self-awareness of
the limits of human judgment both with respect to ourselves and to one
another. But is all this simply a cautionary tale? Are we exhorted here
merely to a posture of skepticism? to a suspension of belief about the
possibilities of knowing anything and therefore about doing anything? No.
Quite the opposite. What we are presented with counters the cynical and
false skepticism of our age which would deny any objective view about what
is good and true while asserting as absolute its own relativism. And what we
are presented with equally counters the religion of sentimentalism and
self-righteousness which makes the church such a parody of itself.
At the heart of
Paul’s exhortation are these strong, strong words about forbearing and
forgiving. They impart an active quality to the virtues of “mercy and
compassion, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering” -
virtues which belong to our identity in Christ as “elect”, “holy and
beloved”. We are reminded of who we are in the sight of God. That is no
occasion for self-righteousness but for the deepening of our lives in faith,
“put[ting] on charity, let[ting] the peace of God rule in [y]our hearts,
let[ting] the word of Christ dwell in [us] more richly”. In every way we
are drawn more fully into the light of Christ, the one who has come into the
midst of the world of wheat and tares, the one who illumines the darkness of
our hearts. We are at once convicted and comforted by the light of Christ.
There is a
vision here. There is an epiphany of our lives in the light of Christ. We
are given to see and to act out of what we are given to see. We are given to
see something of the forbearance and the forgiveness of God
towards us which compels us to forbear and forgive one another. “Even as
the Lord forgave you, so also do ye”. It is always what we pray. Our
lives are lived in the sight of God “from whom no secrets are hid”.
What we are given to see is the picture of his love for us. It counters all
our pretensions and all the presumptions of our judgmentalism. Equally, it
challenges our all-too-willing subservience to tyranny and bullying by
institutional authorities, whether it be Bishops or Synods or whatever, who
have betrayed the principles that govern their authority. Why?
Because it
opens us out to the greater mercy of God in Jesus Christ. “Love bade me
welcome”, George Herbert’s last poem begins, “yet my soul drew back,
/ Guiltie of dust and sinne”. There is the awareness of our sinfulness,
Contrition that leads to Confession. The soul in
confession says to God, personified as Love, that “I cannot look on thee”
to which Love replies wonderfully, “Who made the eyes but I?” But the
soul in the deep awareness of its separation from God can only seek for
truth as justice, “Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame/ Go
where it doth deserve”. “And know you not, says Love, who bore the
blame?” Our judgments upon ourselves would continue to separate us from
the one “who bore the blame” and whose mercy bids us “sit down and
taste my meat.” He is our Satisfaction. It means “forbearing
one another and forgiving one another”. It means, of course,
“put[ting] on charity.” It means “let[ting] the word of Christ dwell
in you richly in all wisdom.” It is, we might say, “all for Jesus.”
For “whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
