Part Two of Three
Click here to read part one.

In the early part of the week, Foy kept picturing Jesus standing with Peter. He ran the scene a number of ways in his mind.

“So how many times are we supposed to forgive? I mean, you have to admit there must be an ending point. So, I don’t know, some people say like four times maybe? Seems like you want a little more than that. Maybe seven times?”

“No no. Putting a number on it is not…that’s not the way of…okay, you want a number? All right. How about seventy times seven. There you go, there’s a number for you.”

“What? That’s like…” Peter’s lips moved and he touched the fingertips of his left hand with his right index finger, one after the other. “That’s like…way… a lot. Hundreds. Like more than 400.”

***

“How about seventy times seven? Like that? There’s a number for you, Peter.”

“What? That’s, that’s, that’s….that’s a lot of them. A lot of times. Let’s see, seven times…49, uh…”

“It’s 490 times,” said Matthew, stepping forward. “Four. Hundred. Ninety. Times. You know what that would be like? Guy punches you in the nose one morning. You say, ‘Ouch, dammit that hurt.’ He says, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ You say, ‘S’okay, I forgive you.’ The next day he does the same thing. ‘Bam, ouch, sorry, I forgive you.’ Next day, ‘Bam, ouch, sorry, it’s okay.’

“It’s like 18 months - every day. Guy hits you the first time in early summer. Every day for a year until it’s summer again, and then on into late fall. Getting hit every day. What’s that going to do for anyone?”

***

On Wednesday Foy looked up a couple of articles on the Internet. One was about a black woman who had thrown her body over a KKK marcher to protect him from an angry mob. The other was about a boy who was kidnapped and shot in the eye. He barely survived. As an adult he became a minister, and he found out the man who shot him was in a local prison. He started visiting the man. They eventually became friends, and he visited him in prison until the man died. Then he did the funeral.

He carried these things around inside of him, letting them percolate.

And then it was Thursday. Foy had arranged that on Thursdays he was not to be disturbed apart from emergencies. He came in with a cup of coffee and a doughnut for Judy, as had become their Thursday tradition. He got his messages and said, “I’m off to see if I can find a sermon.”

There was a desk in Foy’s office, but he had pushed it against the wall because he didn’t like sitting behind it. The desk became a kind of credenza. There was a plant in the open space where a chair would go. Books and other things were piled messily upon the desk. In the center of the room was a round table with a few chairs around it. Foy cleared everything off the table. He got a coffee mug filled with pencils and highlighters and sat it in the center of the table. He grabbed 4 or 5 sheets of thick, 11x17 inch paper and put them on the table as well. Then he stood in front of his bookshelves. The books were arranged by basic subject. General scriptures and hermeneutics, Old Testament, New Testament, Church History, Ethics and Theology, Pastoral Care, Liturgical & Worship Resources, Contemplative Spirituality, World religions, and then a large collection of dictionaries, Bibles, lexicons, and other language and subject helps.

Let’s see…Bruner. He pulled the second volume of a 2-volume commentary on Matthew from the shelves. Gundry, yes. Barclay of course. Um…He ran his hands down the spines of books. Turning to his collection of parable resources, he took Bernard Brandon Scott, Capon, Jeremias, and an old book by George Buttrick that he loved. He grabbed his Greek New Testament and a parsing guide, because his vocabulary had gone all to hell over the years.

Foy stacked these books on the table and returned to the shelves. He spoke to himself out loud.

“The problem with this passage is we don’t know what forgiveness even means. We don’t even know what it means in English. That’s going to be key. What is Matthew saying that Jesus said we should do?”

He had to move a fossil, a GI Joe, and a Rosie the Riveter action figure to get to his big Greek lexicon, the Arndt and Gingrich. He pulled it and laid it on the table with the other books.

Oh, what’s that word?

Foy opened his Greek New Testament to Matthew 18:21.

Then came the Peter…no coming. Then coming, Peter said to him, Lord…Posakis? What’s Posakis?

He checked his parsing guide.

Only occurs 3 times in the New Testament. No wonder. Posakis - How many times.

Then coming, Peter said to him, Lord, how many times harmartesei…uh, hamar…what’s that word - oh yeah, sin. How many times sin unto me…into me… AGAINST me the brother of me and apheso. There you are - apheso, aphiemi, forgive.

Foy leaned over and grabbed the first volume of Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. He had saved money for a year to buy the whole set by mail order, and he was proud of them. Ten volumes in their classic blue covers. Foy flipped to the article on aphiemi and began reading.

“To send off, richly attested in Greek from an early period…”

Whatever, just what does it mean?

“To hurl…” Hurl! He chuckled.

“To release, to let go, to let it be.”

Foy leaned back in his chair. So the idea behind Matthew’s word is letting go. That’s got promise. I can work with that.

He flipped a few pages over in Kittel. How are other people using aphiemi in the New Testament?

***

After lunch Foy got a pen and several nice pencils and started writing on the 11x17 sheets of paper. He wrote down the moves of the text and made bullet points of ideas and thoughts. He got his copy of “Draw Squad” by Mark Kistler and spent 15 minutes drawing buildings and coke cans and corked bottles floating in water. Shading was what he loved. Cross-hatch shading, shading with the side of the pencil, smudging the graphite with his finger.

He moved back and forth between drawing and writing, becoming fully engrossed in the text. At 3 pm he left the church to make a couple of visits, one to an elderly man in the hospital. Then he had a cup of coffee with a guy who had visited the church. Over coffee it was revealed that he was worried that Foy’s church didn’t believe the Bible enough. He felt the church should believe the Bible a little more before he could become a part of the community.

***

Friday was Judy’s day off, and there was no one at the church but Foy. He walked down a darkened hall toward the sanctuary. No other kind of alone feels like being alone at church. Dark, empty churches scared Foy as a boy, and he still had a bit of that mysterious feeling in him when he was alone at church. Foy parted the emptiness with his body like a ship breaking ice. He moved through the foyer and into the sanctuary. He had his notebook computer, his sermon notes, and a Nerf football. He moved behind the pulpit, opening his computer and laying it in the center of the pulpit. He spread his notes out around it. Then he bent over, holding the football in his hands like he was behind the center on a line of scrimmage. He made a “hup” sound and dropped back behind the communion table like a quarterback moving into the pocket. He bounced on his toes a couple of times and fired a pass at the clock on the back wall above the center aisle. The Nerf football flew in a tight spiral and hit the wall a few feet to the right of the clock. Foy liked to throw things. Anything, really. Rocks, balls, frisbees, knives. He was quite adept with the Nerf football and was proud of that. He often looked for an excuse to play catch with children in the church.

“Oh yeah, Brett Favre.”

He ran down the aisle and picked up the football.

He turned quickly around and lofted a pass high into the air. His hands dropped to his sides and he stared at the ball in flight, amazed and charmed by its sudden presence in the sanctuary. The ball arched gracefull toward the rafters, reached it’s pinnacle, and dropped behind the pulpit area into the place where the choir sat. There was a muffled series of bumps as it bounced around the chair legs for a couple of moments. And then all was still and silent again.

Foy put his hands in his pockets and slowly walked down the aisle toward the front. The pews seemed filled with the souls of the departed saints from St. Alban’s past, and the aisle was much like the one he had walked down as a boy in the Baptist church, when he gave his heart to Jesus. He knew no other world but this world. Knew it and hated it and feared it and loved it.

Foy moved behind the pulpit and looked at his notes. He typed a few things into the computer, then moved from behind the pulpit and paced the stage like a stand-up comedian.

“The thing about forgiveness is, we don’t know what the hell it means. We never define it. People are always saying, “Forgive me,” or “I forgive you,” but we don’t define it. That’s a problem. And it’s one of two problems facing us in today’s text.”

Foy stopped walking and looked at the clock on the wall. He stood still, thinking.

“That’s a problem. That is a problem. That is the problem.”

He moved back behind the pulpit and spent a few minutes typing on his computer. Then he looked up and spoke to the empty sanctuary.

“The other problem is, no sane person would ever forgive someone 490 times. And that’s what 70 times 7 would be. That would be like someone doing something awful to you, say punching you in the nose, and then asking for forgiveness. And of course you would forgive him, for we are commanded by Christ to do so. Then that person punches you in the nose every day from now until…”

Foy checked his calendar and did some math. An astonished and pleased look came on his face.

Oh, that is so cool.

“Every day from now until the year 2000. And you would have to forgive him every single time.”

Foy left the pulpit again. He went to the choir area and retrieved his football. He flipped it, spiraling, into the air as he walked back to the pulpit. He turned quickly and threw the ball out into the pews. It hit the top of one pew, bounced sideways, hit another pew, then dropped to the floor.

“No one would do that. Not you and not me. No human can forgive someone 490 times. And you know what? I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant. I think he was trying to make a point for Peter and the others. There is something wrong when you think of forgiveness that way, when you think of forgiveness as something hard you have to do, and you only want to forgive for as long as you have to. What you’re really wanting to know is how many times before you can deck the guy who has been punching you.”

Foy stopped.

Ooh. Yes.

He ran to the pulpit and began typing furiously on the keyboard.

rlp

Part three coming...I don't know when. Soon.

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