Exodus 12:1-14

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.  Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household.  If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it.  Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.  You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.  They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.  Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs.  You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn with fire. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord.  I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.  The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Matthew 18:15-20

“If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If you are listened to, you have regained that one.  But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If that person refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector.  Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Grieving to Forgive

This is a very brief reflection on grief and forgiveness.

 Summer is over

Summer is over. Although by the calendar, we still have a few more weeks of summer, traditionally we can say, summer is over. This is Labor Day weekend, school started last week, and we begin to see the first tints of orange and red on maple leaves. So there is a kind of sadness about the end of summer. There is a sense of loss. We grieve the things we didn’t get to do; we grieve the lost opportunities. We grieve our losses, and we feel the end of the season.

 Seventy times seven.

This morning we have shared communion and heard music and scripture. We have prayed together and sung together. In our first reading we heard the story of the original Passover, the first Passover, so central to both Jewish and Christian traditions. And in the second reading we heard Jesus’ instructions on resolving conflict in the church, followed by the promise that “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matt 18:20) And immediately following this text is the passage in Matthew, so well known, on forgiveness. Peter asked Jesus, “How often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven.” (vs. 21-22)

I don’t need to add anything new here, but I want to bring together a few threads in summary by looking at the text of the Pie Jesu.

The Pie Jesu is a well-known prayer from the Catholic Requiem Mass, that is, the Mass for the Dead or the Funeral Mass. The word “requiem” is Latin for “rest” and is found in the opening words of the traditional Catholic Latin funeral prayer: “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” (“Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord”).

This morning we heard Sue’s beautiful voice singing the Pie Jesu. And this setting of the Pie Jesu is from the Requiem Mass by French composer Gabriel Faure. The Faure Requiem is a beloved work, and I’m sure many of you are familiar with it.

Faure’s Pie Jesu is sweet, imploring, and poignant. And you may be asking, what does this have to with the readings? And my answer is, it has a great deal to do with the readings.

The ancient Israelites escape from Egypt, escape from oppression and slavery, escape from a horrible situation. They leave it behind, and they move forward into their new life.

When we move forward into a new chapter of life, we leave behind the old life, and this is a kind of death. So, we must grieve this death. We grieve this loss, the loss of what we leave behind. Moving forward involves grieving the past.

And similarly, moving forward, moving into a new life requires resolving conflict. Resolving conflict, often our inner conflicts, involves grieving and forgiveness. In Christ’s instructions to the disciples, he emphasized repeated forgiveness. “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” And I think this kind of forgiveness necessarily involves grief. Things happen, things that are beyond our control, and we try to forgive, but at the same time, we mourn our many losses.

And so the prayer, the Pie Jesu, this prayer from the Funeral Mass, speaks to us when we struggle to move forward from a loss, and at the same time we struggle to forgive.

Pie Jesu Domine,

Dona eis requiem.

Pie Jesu Domine,

Dona eis requiem sempiternam.

Blessed Lord Jesus give them rest.

Blessed Lord Jesus give them eternal rest.

 An illustration

I’d like to illustrate what I’m talking about with a story from my own past.

My father died in 2017, and I miss him. When I was a child, my father was my hero. I wanted to be just like him. But later, in my teenage years, my father fell into chronic depression and alcoholism. And when I needed him, he wasn’t there. My parents divorced, and my family of origin fell apart. I struggled to deal with this enormous change.

And so for many years, I was very, very angry at my father. I was so angry. I felt like I had been robbed, that my father let me down, that he did not give me what I needed in my formative years, and so, I started to blame him for all the problems in my life. I was so angry and depressed. And I struggled with that for a long time, until one day, a friend said to me, “You know, Ed, maybe your dad was just doing the best that he could do.” At that moment, I realized that my father was a human being, struggling with the problems of life, just like I was. And he was doing the best that he could. He was a human being, and he gave me many gifts, and he gave me a great deal of sorrow, too.

Grief and forgiveness

I think grief and forgiveness go together. We grieve what we lost. And we grieve what we didn’t get. We grieve the time that was lost, the lost opportunities, the things we didn’t get to do. We mourn the lack of resolution, the lack of justice, the lack of restitution. We mourn all the things that did not happen. And so we try to forgive and move into the next chapter of our life.

Forgiveness, forgiving, is a very complicated process, and it takes long time, and it involves grief. It’s like climbing up a mountain. There are many stages to climbing this mountain. Anger, resentment, rage, revenge, sadness, depression, it’s very complex. Until finally, we get to the top of the mountain, and we look out from the summit, and we can smile. It’s quiet there, at the top of the mountain. It’s quiet. There is rest. Finally, we can smile gently, where we find rest.

Pie Jesu, Domine

Dona eis requiem.

Blessed Jesus, Son of God, grant them rest.

Blessed Jesus, Son of God, grant me rest.

May they all be at peace.

And may I be at peace.

And may I forgive.

And may I be forgiven.

Amen? Amen.