The theme of the Church of Scotland’s lectionary this week was forgiveness. The Old Testament reading was Genesis Chapter 50, verses 15 – 21, in which Joseph forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery; and the New Testament reading was Matthew Chapter 18, verses 21 – 35, in which Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive his brother for sinning against him. Seven times? No, says Our Lord, but seventy times seven times. One could imagine a literalist might store up a grudge 490 times and, on the 491st episode of enduring harm, letting rip with a vengeance. But, you may say, surely our Lord meant that our capacity to forgive should be unending. But does the illustrative parable Jesus went on to tell back up such an interpretation?
A certain servant owed his king a vast sum of money – 10,000 talents. He begged the king to give him time to repay the debt. The king took pity on him, and cancelled the debt. But then the servant went out and confronted his servant, who owed him a far smaller debt, 100 pence. The wretched man begged for time to repay the debt but no! He was flung into debtor’s prison. Well! When the king came to hear about it, he was absolutely furious. He summoned the man who had owed him 10,000 talents, tore a strip off him, reneged on his promise to cancel the debt, flung the man into prison, and had him tortured.
Of such is the kingdom of heaven.
But wait a minute. Far from enduring a wrong 490 times, the king only forgave once. Two strikes and you’re out. How does Jesus’ parable reinforce his doctrine of forgiveness? Ah but, I hear you say. The king in the parable is God, and God is perfectly entitled to act by a different set of rules. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. In fact, far from forgiving the servant this time round, he tortures him. Lurking anonymously like Nicodemus in the rear pews of Dunblane Cathedral on Sunday I couldn’t help noticing that the reader chose to skip the bit about torture. It is the way of the modern world. There might have been a rider in the order of service: “This parable was written 2,000 years ago, when no Declaration of Human Rights existed, and torture was widely regarded as an appropriate corrective procedure…” No change there, then.
I could imagine Richard Dawkins, who is single-handedly waging a personal crusade against God, might add this parable to a very long list of incidences in which God is not portrayed in a very favourable light. There was an extensive piece about Richard Dawkins (The Sunday Interview) in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph. I think he must be mellowing. He professes to vaguely enjoying Anglicanism. “I suppose I’m a cultural Anglican and I see evensong in a country church through much the same eyes as I see a village cricket match on the village green.” You can take the man out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the man. I dare say he would have thought more kindly of Joseph in the Old Testament, who forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery. In fact, Prof Dawkins has views on the modern predicament in which the UK finds itself, having historically made vast sums of money out of slavery. You can’t, he says, apologise to people who are dead, on behalf of other people who are dead. That reminded me of a remark overheard by a neighbour of mine, when he recently attended a conference of Freemasons in the unlikely location of Beirut, when an Indian gentleman remarked to a Black American, “Listen friend. I don’t own any slaves, and you don’t pick any cotton.”
But it’s never as simple as that. My fellow Americans, said Abe Lincoln, who after all abolished slavery, we cannot escape history. You only need to go to places which have notable pasts, either recent or remote, and you feel history all around you. I think of Belfast; I think of Gibraltar – two remarkably similar places. No surrender!
Not surprisingly, Prof Dawkins has trenchant views on gender reform. “I shall continue to use every one of the prohibited words.” Interestingly, on the front page of the same Sunday Telegraph, there is the headline, “GMC removes word mother from staff maternity guidance”.
In today’s culture wars, forgiveness is not much in evidence, but rather its diametric opposite, cancellation. Yet we are taught to pray for forgiveness. The Church of Scotland uses two versions of the Lord’s Prayer. One, which is working class, says “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”, and the other, which is middle class, says “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” There is no upper class version. The upper classes cannot trespass, they can only be trespassed upon. The working class doesn’t give a hoot about trespass; in Scotland there is after all a right to roam. But they are very scared of landing in debt. Sometimes in C of S Orders of Service you see “The Lord’s Prayer (debts).” It has a parsimonious ring.
I have to admit I’m something of an outsider in Dunblane Cathedral. I slip in, I maybe have a brief chat with some acquaintances, and I slip out. A couple of years back the minister asked me to join the cathedral’s music committee (there is a lively music scene in Dunblane Cathedral) to represent the congregation, and I did so. I confess I lasted two hours. I felt like a fish out of water. I guess I’m not a committee man. I resigned. Then, quite recently, the minister was giving a sermon on Doors of Opportunity. “Remember,” he said, “that when a minister, or a church member, asks you to do something, it may not be the minister or the church member who is posing you the question” – and at this point, so it seemed to me, the minister was looking directly at me, “It may be God.”
Probably just my imagination.
The pews in Dunblane, as with many other Churches of Scotland, are getting very scant. And there are very few children. What are they all doing? Staring at their tablets? No wonder there is so little forgiveness in our society. No-one is being taught its value. At this rate, once my generation is gone, the pews will be empty, and Richard Dawkins will have fulfilled his Great Ministry. Yet, apparently, for one reason or another, he is going to miss choral evensong.
jamescalumcampbell 