Who do you say that I am? This question has challenged us these past weeks as we have, along with Jesus’ disciples, wrestled with Jesus’ identity: who he is, what he is, and what it all means in the larger scheme of things. We have struggled with this question, because often times both within ourselves and within the wider church, we have been trapped by answering the question too narrowly. We have made Jesus into a “small god,” one that reflects our own ideology, opinions, and prejudices and have lost sight of Jesus as one who loves all people regardless of creed, color, ideology, behavior, or anything else we define to separate from one another.

We’ve already touched a bit on what means to live our lives in accordance with a God so grand and loving as to seek to save all people. I spoke last week of the sort of opposition we might face if we dare to proclaim Christ crucified and risen for and to those that some people in this world would rather leave damned. I said last week, and I’ll repeat again, there’s nothing a hatemonger can stand less than a god of mercy. We saw this in Jesus’ own life as he embraced the lepers and tax collectors. We heard examples of groups in our day and age that would oppose our efforts to do likewise with today’s outcasts. And I’m sure each of us can think of more personal examples of people who simply cannot accept God’s immense mercy and love for all people.

But it is easy for us to talk about such people in the abstract, as relics of history or simply as folks over there, distant and remote. But it is far harder for us to acknowledge that sometimes we are the hatemongers. And it is we who want to shrink God down so that he loves only those we love and more importantly hates those we hate. We want God to save us and damn our enemies.

I have in some ways shocked myself with cynicism that has come out of my own mouth as Emily has begun school this past week. Cynicism born out of my own experiences of being the target from kindergarten on through senior year of every insult, every snide comment, and every bully in school. It is hard for me to imagine that my stepdaughter will have a different experience because even now, almost 20 years since I graduated high school, those wounds are still very raw for me.

I have often wondered what I would do now, as a pastor who carries this anger, if one of those old bullies were to walk in the door, sit down in one of these pews, hear the Scriptures read, listen to my sermon, pray with us in the prayers of the church, come forward for sacrament, and then greet me at the door at the end of worship. What would I do? It’s not as unlikely a scenario as you might think, since the biggest bully I had to deal with in high school was Lutheran by church tradition.

In my rational mind, of course, I understand that things have changed. I’ve grown up. He’s grown up. And those things he did to me were a very long time ago. But anger isn’t rational. Hate isn’t rational. And I’m ashamed to say that if he came here, it would likely be a moment when I would forget that God is greater than I can imagine, that is more loving than I can comprehend, and that Jesus died on a cross and rose again on the third day for him as well as for me. I wish it were otherwise; I truly do, but I just don’t know if better nature would win out or not.

We often want God to be small and reflect ourselves, rather than letting him be big and have ourselves reflect him.

It is to speak to this very idea that Jesus presents to us this body of Scripture texts. As you can see, I have once more modified the standard lectionary reading for the day by including material that both precedes and succeeds the appointed text. They all share a common theme: How do we, as followers and disciples of Jesus Christ, reflect his great and abundant mercy?

The first text is fairly well known to us, Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep, reminding us of the value God places upon those who return to his fold, regardless of what we might think of them or what they may or may not have done that we might reject them for. God welcomes them and reminds us to do likewise.

The second text is what I tend to call the “discipline text.” In the Lutheran church and several others, this is the text upon which our actions of discipline against those who break the rules are based. It is an interesting process that Jesus presents to us through Matthew, and the particular evangelist who presents this teaching is not coincidental either. Three step process, first a personal one-on-one meeting, second, a meeting now with 2 witnesses (very Jewish, I might add, considering the rules for a Jewish court of law in the Torah), and then lastly a meeting before the entire community. Each time, the malefactor is given an opportunity to repent their fault and if they fail to do so, Jesus instructs the community to treat such a person as a “Gentile and tax collector.”

Remember what I said about who presents this story to us? What does Jesus do with tax collectors? Remember Matthew himself? As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” While on the surface, it may seem that Jesus is instructing the community to reject this malefactor who refuses to repent, but that’s not true. The community is not being told to hit the reject button, they’re being told to hit the reset button. They’re being told to start over, because something didn’t take the first time around. They’re being told to evangelize this one once more, to start over from the beginning. Let me tell you about this guy named Jesus…

The final text today is Peter’s question about the limits of forgiveness. How often must I forgive? As many as seven times? (He says that as if that’s a lot.) Jesus turns the question completely on its head. Not seven, but seventy-seven (or in some translations seventy-times-seven.) He’s telling Peter to stop thinking about mercy as having limitations.

If we take seriously the reality of the “big God,” if we take seriously the truth that God is all-loving and all-forgiving, then this is what Christian community looks like. These are truths that we should strive to hardwire into ourselves, to make mercy and forgiveness almost reflexive, automatic. I know it’s not always easy; My own story should give evidence of how hard it can be at times.

But God truly is a God of mercy and love unbounded. We have all been recipients of that mercy. We have been rejoiced over when we returned to the fold after wandering. We have been offered forgiveness for countless faults, far more even than 70-times-7. And if we wish for our lives to truly reflect God and not have God reflect us, mercy is the way to do it. For if we reflect God, then we also proclaim him. May our lives always serve as a witness to a God of unending mercy and love for all the world, a love that sent Jesus to live, die, and then rise again for all people. Amen.