February 1 -- Treasure in Heaven

Grace to you and peace from God...

It was a couple of weeks ago now that the front page of the Union Tribune featured a story about Tamika Brown, whose 19-year-old son Richi was stabbed in a park in the Kearny Mesa area and died a few days later in the hospital.  The suspect was apprehended and tried.  Ian Ellis, also 19, was sentenced to 21 years in prison.  Sadly, proceedings like this are nothing new -- nothing new to us as consumers of U.S. news, and certainly nothing new to our justice system.  Judges hear cases like this every day across our land.  Violence, greed, gangs, bullying, retaliation, guns, knives, anger, ignorance -- nothing new.  Same ol‘, same ol’.  It’s the way of our world.  These are our children and our communities.  And we’ve seen it before.

But here’s why this story made the front page:  The victim’s mother, Tamika Brown, in her statement after Ellis had received his sentence, Tamika Brown stood up and forgave her son’s murderer right there in the courtroom.  Now that’s new!  She stood up, with her prepared statement in hand, a statement much like you’d hear at any number of these types of tragic trials.  But then suddenly, the article said, something came over her, and she felt compelled to share a different statement, she looked right into the eyes of the teenager who had killed her son and told him that he is a child of God too, and that she had forgiven him.  “Only God knows why I’m not angry or why I don’t hate you,” she said.  “Would it shock you to hear that I love you?”  “Don’t lock him up,” she thought.  “Sentence him to my home.  Let him be my son...”  And then she sang a Gospel song to him: “He Cares”.

The judge reportedly got choked up, tears in his eyes, saying he’s never seen anything like this in all his time in the court system -- a mother singing to her son’s killer.

Tamika Brown is a Christian, regularly attending a church here in San Diego.  Her pastor said he was not surprised, having walked with her on that prayerful journey from anger to love.  

I bet she said the prayer Jesus taught us to say a time or two...  “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  

When I think about ‘evil’ in this story, I think about Tamika’s son’s killer and the evil crime he committed...but I also think about the evil that comes from holding onto the anger.  Who knows what she might have done?  Family members visited Tamika, friends and cousins too, and so many of them, she tells, had just one thing on their mind: revenge.  “Who did this?  We’re gonna get him back!”  “That’s not what I want,” she told them.

What was it that came over her in that courtroom?  Maybe I should have waited until Pentecost to talk about this story, because this is a Holy Spirit story.  And the Holy Spirit, sisters and brothers in Christ, on account of Christ, in and through Christ, because of Christ, the Holy Spirit gives us all strength to do and say forgiveness-things that we didn’t think we ever could.

That’s what’s at the heart of this prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples, this prayer that we say every Sunday, the prayer that your church council has been concluding their meetings with since the beginnings of this congregation.  The prayer that has been passed down from generation to generation.  

When Jesus’ disciples ask him how to pray, he teaches them to pray -- not for everyone else -- but for themselves.  Pray for yourselves.  Pray for your hearts to be well.  Pray for the strength to forgive.  And God will help you from there.  

We start by just saying the prayer.  Even if you don’t believe in the prayer or in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Lots of people nowadays don’t participate with church because they don’t believe in this kind of stuff.  We’ve got brains, we’ve got compassion, we’ve got common sense -- who needs this archaic religion stuff, these rituals of holding hands and saying ancient prayers?  That’s a very real sentiment.  

But there is great power in gathering together to say this prayer.  As one of my worship professors used to say: “Private communion is an oxymoron.”  Do you notice its all in the plural: “Our father.  Forgive us our sins.  As we forgive.  Give us this day our daily bread.”  Martin Luther himself said -- when his dear, little daughter Magdalena died in his arms at age 13 -- Luther actually said that couldn’t believe in God, and that he needed the community’s faith around him to sustain him, to carry him through that terrible time.  He needed to join hands with others and say the Lord’s Prayer.  Your father is your father whether you reject him or not.  Your mother is your mother whether you believe in her or not, right?  God is never going to stop loving you, and calling you beloved.

But we are invited today, to glimpse God’s kingdom through the gift of forgiveness.  Not just God’s forgiveness, poured out for us...in this holy word and supper and font.  We are invited to taste heavenly treasure by forgiving others.  

Jesus talks about treasure in heaven today.  Someone was asking me what heaven is like the other day.  I don’t know, yet :) but I believe that heaven is place where our hearts are finally light and filled with joy and peace, where our souls are no longer divided -- sliced up by bitterness, resentment and anger.  Heaven where we’re whole and healed on the inside.

Forgiveness is such a hard thing -- and btw, forgiveness is much more than just saying, “Oh, that’s OK,” to someone who has really slapped you -- you know, someone who has really wronged you.  Turning the other cheek actually means standing up for yourself, not letting yourself be rolled over, beaten down, pushed around, or walked past.  Forgiveness is not a passive activity for the weak-hearted; it’s a bold and courageous -- and apparently original -- activity for the Spirit-filled.  

Tamika Brown, who stunned that courtroom -- in no way -- was telling Ian Ellis, “That’s OK that you killed my beloved.”  Her forgiveness was act of strength and, even more, of faith!  She gives us a glimpse of heavenly treasure, right here on earth.  Treasure in heaven, Jesus tells us, has got nothing to do with stuff; it’s got everything to do with heart, and community and faith.  She is boldly trusting in the support her community of faith and the Holy Spirit.  Those two are so deeply intertwined.

That’s what’s before us today, sisters and brothers in the faith.  We are called to forgive...and to work on that together.  Not just for the perpetrators sake (although what a gift to offer your forgiveness), but for our own sake.  For our anger will kill us...Even as live and breathe, and walk around through our lives.  The anger and bitterness and resentment will take us down.  

Jesus teaches us to pray for the courage of Tamika Brown.  As we once more say the same prayer we always say, eat the same meal that we always eat, share the same peace that we always share, sing the same songs as we always sing...it might seem that there’s nothing new -- perhaps to some.  

But we know that in this “same ol’, same ol’”, everything becomes new.  AMEN.