For the past several Sundays Jesus has been telling us about the dangers mammon poses to someone’s spiritual life (the word “mammon” meaning those things that we acquire for their own sake, such as wealth . . . or a good snit . . . or a grudge that simply goes on forever).  Jesus has said to us, “No servant can serve two masters . . . You cannot serve God and mammon.”  And then, last Sunday, Jesus very pointedly likens a preference for mammon to adultery, and illustrates His point with a parable about a rich man whose contempt in this life for the mercy which the Law and the Prophets require; . . . whose contempt results in an impassable chasm between himself and the eternally divine mercy of Heaven.  For, indeed, what are the Commandments but an articulation of the divine Nature in Whose Image we are created.  . . . And the Seventh Commandment declares, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”  The Church (and Her members), wed to God by Water and the Holy Spirit, . . . the Church shall love the mercy of Her Husband . . . and do it.  . . . Hence, the sayings of Jesus which follow His parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

    Oddly enough, the Lectionary omits them, and so I must read to you the missing verses.  Jesus finishes His parable of the rich man and Lazarus, looks at us, and says,

Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!  It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.  [So] 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.

Do you see what Jesus is getting at?  It’s very important that you do.  Jesus calls having a double heart toward God and mammon; . . . Jesus calls divided (and, hence, disordered) affections toward mammon and God; . . . Jesus calls it the thing that it is; . . . He calls it “sin”.  But Jesus says to us that sin is not the problem we think it is.  Sin doesn’t surprise Jesus, . . . and it doesn’t surprise the Father:  the causes of sin are bound to arise by virtue of human frailty which both the Father and the Son comprehend intimately.  Such frailty tempts some to be deaf to the Commandments from time to time, and it tempts others to be blind to grace.  Moreover, human frailty is bound to give rise to incredulity, so that even if some one should rise from the dead, Jesus tells us in last Sunday’s parable; . . . even if someone should rise from the dead, we’d be tempted not to believe what the Commandments require and what Jesus has taught us!  The problem isn’t sin or being tempted, Jesus says, . . . the problem that arises from sin is when we cooperate with it . . . when we make it our friend and pal around with it, . . . and when we prey upon human frailty; . . . when we use temptations to sin to our advantage.  Jesus says we have a big problem when human predatory cooperation with sin brings sin into the reach of the innocent -- into the reach of the Lord’s “little ones”; . . . when human predatory cooperation with sin causes sin . . . and teaches the innocent to be predators as well.

    And so, Jesus says, “Keep watch on yourselves”; . . . if someone sins, then the rest of us can’t just become embarrassed and look the other way and say, “Well that’s her business, as long as it doesn’t interfere with how well she does her job.”  . . . Oh, no.  Jesus says we must identify the sin for the sake of the other’s repentance . . . and for the sake of God’s little ones.  The object of what Jesus calls a “rebuke”; the object of acknowledging the presence of a sin is unity . . . in order that we might not cooperate with sin, and, by not cooperating with sin, our brother or our sister might be convinced to turn from sin’s seductive allure and return to the grace of our faith by which we are united one to another in communion with the eternal felicity of God our Father and of our Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and ascended to the Throne of Grace.  . . . And all this for the sake of Christ’s “little ones”; . . . all this for the sake of those whom Christ was sent to save and who have or who are about to encounter Him in the person of you, His Body, . . . the Church.  . . . And so, Jesus goes on to say, our forgiveness (when there is repentance) . . . our forgiveness must be constant.  Even if each of us must welcome the same sinner seven times in the same day, sin must not defeat us!

    By now most of you have seen (and some of you may even remember) my little rope illustration; . . . you know, the one where there is a big ugly knot in the middle of an otherwise lovely piece of rope . . . and I pull on either end of the rope and the knot . . . which illustrates sin . . . the knot of sin disappears so that (I say) … so that the sin does not exist . . . and never has.  And I go on to tell you that this is what the Lord God Almighty did with your sin upon the Cross.  If you are repentant, your sin isn’t just crossed out of God’s big book of offenses; . . . if you are repentant, your sin is obliterated(!); . . . it does not exist; . . . it never has.  . . . Jesus tells us this because it is the Church’s duty, being the Bride of Christ; . . . it is the Church’s duty to mirror God in how we deal with sin.  Each of us, Jesus says; … each of us must be ready to surrender our legitimate claim against not only someone who has done us an injury (either a particular injury or has done some general harm); . . . each of us must be ready to surrender not only our legitimate claim against someone, but we must also be ready to surrender our claim upon the injury as well, . . . because injuries can become mammon:  they can become things we keep for their own sake.  . . . And that’s why sin is sometimes very difficult to deal with:   because we value the injury; we cling to it and frequently examine it to be sure it’s still there, . . . and we savor how much it hurts and how righteous our indignation is.  But the Christian Community must not become a society of victims, Jesus says.  . . . Sin must not defeat us.  So, if, for example, I should preach something offensive to you and in an orgy of rage you blacken my eye, and then, after awhile, tell me you’re sorry for such malicious behavior, . . . I must forgive you, . . . which means that not only do I surrender the right to see your eye blackened, but I even surrender ownership of the injury!  I surrender the privilege of self-pity at the injury received; I surrender the right of righteous indignation for the injustice done to me; . . . I surrender the right to a sense of superiority as a consequence my innocence.  I even surrender the prerogative to take personal notice of the physical or psychological pain the injury caused me.  Why?  Because to do any of that is to cooperate with sin(!) . . . and prey upon one another.

    Now, this is a tremendous thing to contemplate . . . and frightening.  And so, Luke tells us that when Jesus says “if [your brother] sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him;” . . . when Jesus says this, the disciples all look at one another, . . . and knowing that Peter annoys Thomas, and Thomas annoys Philip, and Judas Iscariot … well, Judas annoys everyone; . . . the disciples, knowing that such heroic forgiveness is beyond them, . . . the apostles say to Jesus, “Increase our faith!”  Knowing that we are not equal to Christ’s demand, . . . the disciples ask that God assume responsibility for our obedience by increasing our faith.  . . . Just like the rich man in last Sunday’s parable, . . . the apostles insist that God do something extraordinary in order to make forgiveness easier than it is.

    It’s a silly thing to ask for.  . . . And Jesus shows us just how silly it is by making the outrageous claim that,

If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

In other words, a mere speck of faith is sufficient to command the impossible.  . . . And God has given each of us at least a mere speck of faith, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.  . . . But it’s not the impossible that God is asking us to do!  God has given each of us at least a mere speck of faith so that we might simply do what’s necessary; . . . God simply asks us to do our duty.

    And what is our duty?  . . . Well, the sum of it is contained in the other two sayings of Jesus, which the Lectionary has appointed to be read to us today.  Jesus tells us that, clinging tightly to the mere speck of faith God’s grace has given us . . . clinging tightly to this faith, our duty is not to tell sycamine trees what to do; . . . our duty is to take charge of ourselves.  Our duty is to take charge of ourselves and not be overcome by sin . . . but overcome sin by opposing it . . . and by forgiving one another.  . . . Our duty is to surrender ourselves and all our hurts to God; . . . our duty is to look to the Cross and die with Christ to sin, . . . so that, in faith, we might live the life that God has breathed into us:  . . . a life which treasures God’s love and mercy and which communicates both to simply everyone.