“For if you forgive other people their failures, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you will not forgive other people, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your failures” (Matthew 6:14) Philips translation
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is the home of a traditional sect of Amish. They are of German heritage. They lead simple, plain, reclusive lives. Many know about them; few know them intimately. A motion picture, Witness, filmed about a decade ago, brought them to the attention of the outside world by featuring their lives and locale. An Amish lad, on a visit with an adult female to New England, waiting in Grand Central Station, New York City, for his train, was in a men’s room stall. Shots blasted the stillness. A rogue policeman killed another man, realized the boy saw what had happened, but fled before killing the child. The pair returned home. Harrison Ford [“Indiana Jones”] played a good cop sent to protect the boy by living in the Amish community.
Now another witness to the Amish way of life has happened—this time real and not one the community would wish had occurred. A local milk man with a family of his own planned and carried out the killings of five grade school girls, injuring at least another five. He entered the one-room schoolhouse, sent away all the boys, and then proceeded to tie up, abuse and shoot the girl pupils. What didn’t occur makes the horrid scenario worth learning about and imitating.
We would expect a gaggle of reporters interviewing heartbroken parents crying out in anguish, “Where was God in all this? How did He allow it to happen?” Yet there is no call for grief counselors, psychologists or skilled professionals to assuage the distress. Rather, we hear the tale of a local man, not part of the community—“English,” as they term us outsiders—given the privilege of being in the home of the grandfather of a slain child. She, on the table before him, still having the marks of blood and suffering on her body, while he, bending over her corpse, tells the family that “We must forgive the man who did this.” Another journalist interviewing one who is familiar with the Amish way asked, “Why?” Why is this reaction to such a horrid tragedy so different from all others? The answer is that these are Bible-believing Christians. They take the word of our loving Lord at His word. They live by it. And it is not easy, neither for them nor for us.
I am embarrassed by the comparison with so many of our beloved Orthodox Christians. People who come to confession and “confess” that they hold thoughts of revenge and bitterness against neighbors, family and members of their spiritual community. They receive the Holy Eucharist, ignoring Christ’s precondition: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled—and then offer your gifts” (Matthew 5:23). I reflect on the people I know, even among the clergy, who presume they are among God’s children, yet who bear in their hearts anger and remembrance of injury inflicted on them, and they cling to the memory for years. They ignore the admonition of Christ: “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:44). We sing liturgically: “Let us love one another, that with one accord we may confess Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” but at times of stress we act like Taliban to each other.
We are commanded to be humble, and here is a practical application. Few of us would choose to live among the Amish, but now we have them as witnesses to the gospel given to them and us in order that we put into practice the fundamentals of the Lord Jesus as He offered the world in the Sermon on the Mount.