October 4th, 1998 (St. George s URC, Hartlepool)
Proper 23 (RCL - year ‘C )
Readings:
Lamentations 1:1-6,
3:19-26
Psalm 137
Luke
17:5-10
2 Timothy
1:1-14
THE police officer in charge of the Serb security operation in Kosovo yesterday denied that his officers had been involved in massacres of ethnic Albanians, as his superiors in the Belgrade regime again faced accusations of genocide.
"All the units active in this area were under the direct control of their superiors, and I am completely sure the police were not involved," said Colonel Bozidar Filic. He added that an investigation had begun into the Gornje Obrinje atrocities, involving the point-blank shooting of refugees, many of them women and children. In the aftermath of an operation that again raises questions about President Milosevic's ability to protect basic human rights in his country, the Serbian media have denounced Western journalists and diplomatic observers, whom they accuse of twisting the Kosovo story by quoting unreliable Albanian sources.
But the existence of mutilated bodies is hard to deny and if Colonel Filic's men were not behind the massacres, it raises the question of just who was.
At the beginning of the conflict in February, diplomats and Albanians pointed the finger at fighters of Serbia's SAJ anti-terrorist unit. The black-uniformed forces, under the command of Frenki Simatovic, one of Mr Milosevic's shadowiest henchmen, were regularly seen in the thick of the action and had a history of involvement in some of the ugliest chapters of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Croatia.
Serb security sources yesterday ruled out the SAJ as the perpetrators of massacres. "They are professionals, men who want to get from A to B with the minimum of fuss," said a former paratrooper.
He said it was far more likely that rogue elements within the normal police, crazed by their experiences in the Bosnian war, were responsible for atrocities that could prove the turning point in the West's attitude towards military intervention in Kosovo.
A diplomat who has had extensive experience as an observer in the Balkan conflicts agreed that the atrocities were probably the work of police reinforcements. "They're angry and often schizophrenic," he said. "War here is a ruthless game, there's nothing glorious about it."
The Serbs always deny that their forces would ever kill women and children; the Albanian side claims likewise.
Yet the cycle of Balkan violence over the ages shows a depressing repetition of cruelty every bit as bloody as anything practised in medieval times by warriors such as Vlad the Impaler, the Romanian leader who killed thousands of Turks.
This Kosovo war has been no different - victims on both sides have had their throats slit and their eyes gouged out. In many of the Orthodox monasteries that dot Kosovo, frescos show saints with their eyes missing - the result of atrocities committed by invading Turks 900 years ago. Echoes of previous conflicts are everywhere around the Kosovo landscape, in which are buried the bodies of countless men, women and children who suffered miserable, tortured deaths over the centuries of conquest and reconquest.
How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the cities has become a vassal.
She weeps bitterly in the night, tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.
Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the appointed feasts; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her maidens have been dragged away, and she herself suffers bitterly.
Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, 'I repent,' you must forgive him." The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
The Albanian nationals in Kosovo have witnessed appalling atrocity, ferocious brutality, and Jesus says, "Forgive".
The citizens of Jerusalem, witnesses all the horror of a seige and then of defeat. They saw a brutal massacre of men, women and children, and Jesus says, "Forgive."
You and I cannot believe that it could be that easy, can we? You and I have heard the question a thousand times - "How can I possible forgive? Have you seen what they have done to me?"
Neither did Jesus' disciples believe that it could be that easy. "If you want us to forgive like that, then you'll have to give us more faith," they say.
And I want us to look at Jesus' reply for a moment, because his words are so often lost when the question is asked. Jesus talks about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree, and then he talks about a servant coming in from a hard day's work and then having to wait at table for his master, and the little thanks he gets for it.
But it seems to me that Jesus has grasped something precious and true about forgiveness, and if we can dig it out of the text this morning, the we might be ready to move on in some of our relationships, we might be ready to practise forgiveness in our own lives.
So what is it that Jesus has to say? First he points them to the smallest thing he could think of - a mustard seed. Jesus would probably think of something different today - an atom, a nano-second... and he says that faith has nothing to do with quantity. To ask how much faith a person has is the wrong question. To say that a person has great faith is meaningless. The important thing about faith is not quantity or even quality - both of those ideas are meaningless when we are talking about faith. The important thing about faith is in whom our faith rests.
We are not called to have great faith, we are called to have faith in a great God.
This is our first, and most important lesson! But how often we are led off on the wrong track. How often I have heard christians respond to this question of being able to forgive by telling stories of people who had been horribly wronged, and yet were able to forgive. The stories are OK in themselves, but the conclusion is often so damaging. The conclusion is so often like this:
"There, those are people who had so much more to forgive than you do. They managed it, so can you, if you try hard enough! Have a bit more faith, ask God for a bit more faith!"
We are not called to have great faith, we are called to have faith in a great God.
Then Jesus pointed to a Mulberry tree. "Do you want to know about forgiveness?" he asks, "Look at that Mulberry Tree. The rabbis say its roots will stay in the ground for 600 years. That's what bitterness and hatred are like. They spread roots, strong and deep, and they affect our lives and our families' lives and the life of our communities for generations. Once those roots are spread and established, they cannot be shifted."
"You say you can't forgive as I ask you to. Well, you are right. You cannot forgive, you do not have it in you. Where do you think forgiveness comes from? Can you summon it up from within yourself by sheer effort? No you can't! Where does forgiveness come from if it doesn't come from the Lord your God.
"If you stopped fretting about how much or how little faith you have and instead focussed your mind and your heart and your soul on the one in whom you have faith, then you would realise that you are but a channel for God's forgiveness, you have no forgiveness of your own, in just the same way as you are a channel for God's love, God's joy, God's peace and God's hope - you have no love, joy, peace or hope of your own."
That's two lessons:
You are not called to have great faith, you are called to have faith in a great God.
You are but a channel for God's forgiveness, you have no forgiveness of your own
And there's a third.
'Come on Robin,' said his mother, 'finish your breakfast or you'll be late
for church.'
'I don't want to go to church,' said Robin.
'But you must,' said his mother.
'The Sunday School teachers hate me,' said Robin.
'Even so...' said his mother.
'The children too, they hate me as well.'
You still have to go' said his mother.
'But why must I,' wailed Robin.
'Well,' said his mother, 'for one thing you're 55 years old and for another,
you're the vicar!'
Jesus goes on to talk about the duties of a servant. A servant does not expect special praise for waiting on his master at the end of a long day - he is simply doing his job. A postman does not expect special praise for delivering a letter on Tuesday morning - that is what he is supposed to do, it is his job. A vicar does not expect special praise for turning up on Sunday morning to preach and to lead worship - that is his job, that is what he is supposed to do. We accept that, we understand that.
But how often, in our christian lives, when we do something for God, do we expect special praise as if we had done something extraordinary? As if we had done God some great favour?
When Jesus says that we must forgive all day long, when Jesus says we must forgive seventy times seven, he is saying that forgiveness should be a normal, everyday part of our Christian lives. In other words, forgiveness is not a special effort! Being channels of God's forgiveness is part of what we are as christians. To be a channel of God's forgiveness in the world to a christian is no more remarkable or special than my milkman leaving a couple of bottles of semi-skimmed on my doorstep on a Saturday morning.
All of this is well summed up in a story that Corrie Ten Boom often tells...
She tells how after the war she met a guard who had been her captor in the Ravensbruck concentration camp where her sister had died. He came forward after she spoke at a church in Munich, and (though he did not recognize her) said he had been a guard at Ravensbruck, and reached out his hand to her, asking for her forgiveness. For a moment, says Corrie, she hesitated, recalling his cruelty to her sister and those around her. Then, knowing God's warning to forgive or we cannot be forgiven (Mark 1 1:26) and yet still not feeling the ability to lift her hand towards him, she prayed silently: "Jesus help me!...I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling". And as she woodenly thrust out her hand the current: of God's healing warmth flowed through her and out to the former guard. "I forgive you, brother!" she cried. "With all my heart." Corrie says she never has known God's love so intensely as she did then. But she knew it was not her love, for she had tried and did not have the power. "But it was the power of God's Holy Spirit.
Let us pray...