by Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
“I needed to forgive him,” Mary Johnson said of the man who had murdered her 20 year old son at a late-night party in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1993. “I needed to forgive him,” Mary said, “so I could help other mothers in pain.”
Ten years after enduring the worst pain a mother can experience, ten years after describing the man who murdered her son as “an animal . . . [who] deserved to be caged,” Mary contacted Oshea Israel in prison to see if he would receive a visit from her. After an initial refusal, Oshea finally said yes. “I had to be a man,” Oshea said to himself when Mary made the first move. “[I had to] communicate with his mother.”
It was not an easy reunion. Although she had asked for the meeting, Mary’s anger and hurt were still strong, even ten years later. She had thought Oshea should have a stronger sentence. She had thought parole should not ever be an option. She had become reclusive and unable to look at her son’s photos. The pain was visceral, even then. But she was a Christian woman who believed it was her duty to forgive, seventy times seven, if need be. And so she prayed and fasted for twenty-one days before meeting with Oshea to clarify her intentions and to focus on forgiveness.
Oshea, for his part, had spent the past ten years blaming Mary’s son for the crime. Oshea claimed he had been provoked in the heat of the moment and that Mary should have raised her son better than she did. But when Mary made the first move toward reconciliation, Oshea knew it was time to take stock of his life over the past ten years, to take responsibility for his actions. He realized, upon reflection, that he had changed and grown in ways he had not anticipated. He had found the courage to walk away from the gang that had stoked the violence in the first place. He had pursued a GED and was ready for a fresh start. So he prepared to meet the mother of the man he had murdered ten years earlier with a spirit of repentance and respect, unsure of what to expect in return.
Ten years after the crime, ten years after the trial, ten years after the sentencing and imprisonment, Mary and Oshea met once again. They spoke for two hours, both of them praying for an attitude of grace. And as they talked, Mary realized Oshea’s life was very similar to her son’s. They had both liked the same sports, they had both experienced the same difficulties in school, they had both been seduced by the gangs that had escalated the violence that fateful night. In the honest sharing of their lives, Oshea felt a strong connection to Mary, almost as if she were his second mother. “I caused her pain,” he realized. “But we are loving each other through it.”
As their reunion drew to a close, Mary said to Oshea, “I forgive you. I let you go,” and he hugged her tight in response. Mary cried and started to fall with the weakness of relief, but Oshea held her up, supporting her with his strength. And as they stood there, hugging and crying, ten years after he had murdered her son, Mary literally felt hatred and bitterness leave her body. She literally broke free of the chains around her soul the murder of her son had become. And so did Oshea, even though he was still technically in prison. Both of them were freed by forgiveness.
By the time Oshea was finally released on parole, Mary was able to welcome him wholeheartedly back into society. He moved in next door to her, and they began to look out for one another, like mother and child. Mary now wears a locket with a picture of her son on one side and a picture of Oshea on the other. And Mary’s dream of forgiving Oshea in order to be able to help other mothers in pain has become a reality. She formed a non-profit organization to help others who have lost children to violence. Mary and Oshea speak together throughout their community about forgiveness and healing. And their story was the feature article this week for the “Heroes Among Us” department of People Magazine. Truly Mary and Oshea are both heroes among us, an inspiration to all who would heed the gospel call to forgiveness and hope that is our Scripture lesson this morning.
In any other week, the story of Mary and Oshea would have made it to the front cover of the magazine and we would have heralded their courage as a hallmark of hope. But this week, of course, the cover story is about September 11th, ten years later. This week, the locket hanging around the neck of the 9-year old Lauren McIntyre on the cover of People Magazine holds a photo of her father, Donald, a Port Authority Police Officer who was killed in the Second Tower of the World Trade Center. And in honor of her and all the children whose fathers died on that day before they were born, this week of remembering and re-telling the stories of September 11, 2001 takes precedence over all else, as it should.
What does the call to forgive “seventy times seven” really mean for us on the 10th anniversary of September 11th? Are we supposed to forgive the hijackers the way Mary forgave Oshea? Are we supposed to forgive Osama bin Laden, himself? Or is it our own government giving in to the temptation to torture we are called to forgive? Do we just “let go” of the worst day in the history of our country as a moment in time to hand over to God without question or comment? Or is something else going on with the forgiving king and the unforgiving servant of that might encourage us and challenge us and strengthen us as a community for the gospel ministry that is ours today, ten years later?
Biblical scholar William Herzog reminds us in his analysis of the Parables [of Jesus] as Subversive Speech that we do well to remember the true nature of kingship in the time of Jesus. When we, who live in a democracy, hear the parable today, we automatically assume the king is parallel to God. And we assume the king is benevolent. But kings in the time of Jesus are not to be confused with God! The kings who ruled in the time of Jesus had a pact with the Roman Emperor to “keep the peace” by squelching the masses. It was a cycle of violence so vast and so excessive and so insidious that it made the gang violence in Minneapolis that ended the life of Mary’s son look like child’s play.
The kings of the first century Roman Empire exacted severe taxes from the peasant population to enhance their material wealth and expand their influence and power. Most peasants were radically in debt for their entire lives. The kings employed a servant class of bureaucrats to prop up their authority and claim their taxes by any means necessary. And the kings kept a standing guard of merciless thugs ever at the ready to enforce this system of exploitation through torture. The king, the servants, and the thugs were a closed system of powerful elitism that propped up about 2% of the population at the expense of the other 98%. All of them were corrupt, all of them were ruthless, all of them were beyond the scope of the true reign of God.
The disciples listening to Jesus talking about a king, his servants, and the thugs who implemented torture on a far-too-often basis would have had a visceral negative reaction. They would not naturally have associated either themselves or God with any of the characters of this parable. They would not have believed it possible to compare a king, his servants, and his thugs to what Jesus calls “the kingdom of God.”
And that is precisely the point!
For one brief moment, in the vision of Jesus of the reign of God, a benevolent, messianic king overcomes the expectations everyone holds of his ruthless, vindictive nature and breaks the cycle of violent exploitation once and for all. For one brief moment, in the vision of Jesus of the reign of God, a benevolent messianic king completely forgives a debt that could never have been repaid in the first place. (10,000 talents is the equivalent of 150,000 years of labor!)
And, most important, in the vision of Jesus of the reign of God, a merciless king finally showing mercy is not just an individual act of forgiveness designed to alleviate the suffering of one individual person. Forgiving such a massive debt was for the good of the whole kingdom. It meant the servant no longer needed to extract the money from the peasants. It meant the thugs no longer needed to beat them all into submission. It meant the gap between the rich and the poor could close just a small bit. It meant a new era of justice and peace could be ushered in. In the vision of Jesus of the reign of God, the king would join the servant in promoting healing and forgiveness throughout the kingdom, ending the cycle of violence once and for all. Just like Mary and Oshea as new mother and new son working together to heal their community through Mary’s non-profit organization in Minneapolis.
That was the hope many of us held in the early days after September 11th, was it not? We lit candles of healing love, we donated blood in droves, we told story after story of the “heroes among us”: of fire department chaplain Father Mychal Judge administering last rites to a dying firefighter just before he died, himself; of the “man in the red bandana” who led people to safety on the 104th floor; of the director of security for Morgan Stanley, who had developed a rigorous evacuation plan prior to September 11th for the 22 floors in the south tower occupied by his company. 2500 employees left the building alive, following the sound of his voice on a bullhorn. He had even begun to break into song in order to lift up their spirits as they escaped.
Story after story lifted all of our spirits in the early days after September 11th, when we pulled together as a nation, when we clung to the best that was in us in order to drown out the worst that had befallen us. And the entire world rallied to our side because the entire world was impacted right along with us. Thirty-three countries lost citizens that day. (And that is only counting the ones who were “documented.”) For me, September 11, 2001 was the final event that propelled me into the ordained ministry. I saw how religion was being used for evil—and not just the religion of Islam—I saw how religion was stoking violence rather than promoting peace, and I wanted my life to be about proclaiming the radical decision to end the cycle of violence once and for all that Jesus describes in the parallel of the forgiving king. Even if we only know it just for a brief moment. Because sometimes the brief moment is all we will ever know.
Some would say we have strayed beyond all measure from the hope and the goodness that emerged from the chasm that was September 11th. Some wonder if we gave in too far to the temptations of anger and fear that we have no hope of reclaiming our souls.
I think the gospel says something different.
It took ten years for Mary to forgive Oshea, but she finally came around to it. The moment of healing could come, though, only after she was honest about her grief, only after she was honest about her pain, only after she was honest about her anger. But when the moment came to forgive, she was ready. She found a way to let go. And her letting go released the one who had wounded her so deeply. And if they can do it, so can we.
It may take a lot longer than ten years to forgive something as traumatic as the terror of September 11th. It may take a lot longer than ten years to resurrect the best that is in us that emerged on that day. It may take a lot longer than ten years for the cycle of violence we have accepted as “just the way things are” will turn into the reign of God ending violence once and for all.
But if we learn anything from the story of Mary and Oshea, if we learn anything from the story of the forgiving king and the unforgiving servant, if we learn anything from the stories of September 11, 2001, what we know for sure is that forgiveness is a process and not a final product. What we know for sure is that good can win over evil in the end. What we know for sure is that all of us—every one of us—stand desperately in need of God’s grace. I have often considered that Jesus tells us to forgive seventy-times-seven times because it takes that long to get it right.
Jesus was, after all, responding to a question from Peter about how to live together as a small community of believers, in the heart of an empire that had not yet grasped the vision of the reign of God, that was still—just like us—caught up in the cycle of unending violence that rendered every one of them helpless to despair.
But with you, Jesus tells Peter, with you, Jesus tells the gathered community that is the church, with you it is different. With you, the reign of God has already taken root. With you, the practice of forgiveness in the small things must be front and center, seventy times seven times: naming the hurt and pain and anger, to be sure, but coming out on the other side as better people, stronger people, more hopeful people. Because once you have practiced forgiving the small things, Jesus implies in this parable, then you just might be able to forgive the big things. And what better place to start practicing than the church?
The church, according to our Presbyterian Constitution, is “the provisional demonstration of the kingdom of God,” the community that has claimed the alternative vision of Christ as its own, the community that has said we want our lives to be about healing and hope and yes, even forgiveness, responding to the grace of the benevolent, messianic king in the parable. Responding to the real-life witness of Mary and Oshea in Minneapolis. Responding to the priest who gave his life tending the immortal soul of another. The church is the place where we say we do not want to be bound up in anger and vengeance and violence and victimization anymore. It is the place where we say we are family—every one of us, God’s family—and God has given us a new lease on life.
In the church, we still dare to believe that forgiveness and healing really are possible. That a new life together really is possible. That whatever pain we have caused, that whatever pain we have endured, God still can make one family of us all. God still work all things together for good. God still can make a resurrection out of any crucifixion!
So let’s be the “provisional demonstration of the kingdom of God” together on this tenth anniversary of September 11th, on this first Sunday of our new ministry together, claiming the grace of God grace as our own, speaking the truth in love to another, praying for a spirit of repentance and respect in our dealings with one another. Because if we do that—when we do that!—I promise you the world around us will start to follow suit. And the radical reign of God that was the vision of Jesus will start to take root beyond our walls. And the violence and the suffering we think is inevitable will one day be no more. And the world will truly, one day, be at peace.
I pray it may be so.
Amen.
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