I listen to MSNBC on my half hour drive to and from the
office. I don’t enjoy listening to the
news because too much of it is violent—the violence is more than the shootings
on campuses, the bombings on Syria, the killings in Israel and the West Bank,
the violence includes the rhetoric of name calling and candidate bashing that
is currently a part of our presidential candidate weeding out process.
In the midst of ALL this, I feel as like a very small person,
as if I have little or no power to change the massive violence in the
world. Yet, I am Christian which means I
have to believe that the power of God in Christ is greater than any violence in
this world. I am Christian which means
every day I must get up and remind myself that I live in Christ and Christ lives
in me.
Every Gospel, and there are four of them, ends with
commissioning words. In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, “Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have
commanded you.” “Go into all the world
and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.”
The harder one, the other great commission is found in the
gospels of Luke and John there is this shift in the commissioning message. In
Luke Jesus tells his disciples, “. . .
repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in my name to all
nations beginning from Jerusalem. In
John’s gospel the words of commissioning, which are hidden a little, are “Peace
be with you. As the Father has sent me,
so I send you. Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any
they are forgiven them; if you retained the sins of any, they are retained.”
I read these words and I realize that Jesus commissioned the
disciples to continue the work of forgiving.
And I believe that we too are commissioned to this same work. Forgiveness
has power to change the world, not just change our personal lives, but change the
world.
In the most critical moments in Jesus’ life the subject of
forgiveness comes up: “Lord, teach us to
pray . . .” and Jesus then says these words, “forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us . . .” Peter’s question, “If someone sins against
me, how many times should I forgive, seven?”
And from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they
are doing.” We believe in the forgiveness of sins.
Before I continue with this message, I highly recommend the
book, Unconditional? The Call of
Jesus to Radical Forgiveness. The
outline of this sermon is borrowed from the author, Brian Zahnd. I share this with you so as not to be guilty
of plagiarism and then need forgiveness for such a sin.
Zanhd writes, “Forgiveness is that which alone has the
capacity to achieve peace and reconciliation within relationships whether
personal or global. Whatever else may be
said about Christian people, it must be said of us that we are a people who
believe in forgiveness of sins as much as we believe in the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Did you hear that? We must believe in the forgiveness of sins as
much as we believe in the resurrection of Christ. Jesus pushes us to the extreme when he teaches
on forgiveness.”
Indeed Jesus pushes us to the extreme. In Matthew 18, “Peter came and said to Jesus,
‘Lord, if another sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” As many as seven times? In his answering his own question, Peter
believed that seven times was a generous amount of times to forgive someone who consistently sins against
us. Let’s be honest, many of us might
forgive twice, three times, perhaps, (many of us struggle to forgive even
once.) So seven times is gracious. But Jesus responded to Peter saying, “Not
seven times, but I tell you, seventy times seven.” For many of us, it’s hard to get to three or
even one.
Brian Zahnd writes that Jesus challenges our limited idea regarding the extent of
forgiveness. In this conversation
between Jesus and Peter, Jesus is suggesting the possibility of endless
forgiveness and it goes beyond what we think is reasonable. Christian forgiveness is to be
limitless. To follow Jesus is to become
a practitioner of radical forgiveness.
Oh, I know, we immediately begin to think about all the
exceptions to this.
·
Isn’t
there a point at which to forgive so many times becomes acceptance of what the
person is doing? Such as, how often are
we to forgive the serial liar, murder or rapist?
·
Aren’t
there some crimes that go beyond the capacity of forgiveness? Such as all the murderous killing that Isis
is doing every day?
·
At
what point is it justifiable to retaliate against our enemies?
·
This
kind of forgiveness is not humanly possible.
True, but that’s why Jesus said receive the Holy Spirit.
We justify our anger and hatred of those who hurt us,
especially those who hurt us deeply or repeatedly. We point out that they intended harm, are not
remorseful and they will continue to harm. “Why should we forgive these?”
When our anger seethes out of us and we feel justified in
returning hurt for hurt all we are doing is continuing the cycle of revenge. That is not the way of Christ. Our personal conflicts are nothing more than
a microcosm of the larger world conflicts, a microcosm of the MSNBC daily news,
if we are honest. We can stop the cycle
of harm, the cycle of conflict when we
choose to forgive. Hear those words, it is a choice. And it is a choice.
But forgiveness is the hardest thing for us to choose! When I was nine my parents made a decision to
loan my uncle $3000. In 1967 that was a
lot of money. An equivalent loan today
would be slightly over $21,000. My uncle
was to make monthly payments over three years of time. The first three checks bounced. Within six months, my mother and my uncle had
this horrible argument and stopped talking to one another—a silence that lasted
11 years, until the death of my grandfather.
My uncle never paid back the money.
My mother forgave him the loan, forgave the hurtful words and they were
reconciled.
Forgiveness always comes with a cost. First, they lost 11 years of relationship, 11
years is a terrible price to pay. For my
parents, there was the cost of a huge amount of money, money they needed to
raise their children. My parents were
not wealthy, just frugal and loving. In
forgiving, my parents had to let go of ever seeing this loan repaid had to let
go of the anger, the disappointment, the pain, the betrayal, the loss of what
would have been a half year of income.
Forgiveness is costly.
This is similar to the gospel story in Matthew that follows
right after Jesus told Peter that we are called to forgive 70 times 7. The story is of the king who wished to settle
accounts with his slaves. When the king
began the reckoning, one who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him. This slave could not pay and the king ordered
him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions so
that payment could be made. The slave
fell on his knees and begged the king to have patience, he would pay the king
everything. Out of pity for him, out of
grace, the king released the slave and forgave him the debt.
The king released
him, that is the root of the word forgiveness, this is what forgiveness does;
it releases the other person from a personal debt. Forgive us our sins, our debts. We let go of what the other has done to
us. It came with a cost, 10,000 talents,
and EXORBITANT amount of lost income, exorbitant, about 2000 years of lost
income. The point is this, when the king
forgave he was willing to suffer an incredible financial loss, to let it go. He released the slave from his past! Forgiving the slave came with a cost.
We often incorrectly spout off that we only forgive when we
are able to forget, which is far from the truth. Christ does not expect us to have spiritual
amnesia.
Again, Brian Zahnd writes, “Forgetting is not the same as
forgiving. Amnesia is not the answer to
a world stuck in the endless cycle of revenge.
Memory is an essential part of forming our identity and if certain
events were forgotten entirely, we would not be fully ourselves. We can forgive while the scar of memory
remains—not as a memory that causes the pain to be relived but as a memory that
forms identity and has healing and has defined us.” Hear that again, forgiving
is not amnesia. Memory is a part of
identity. Memory to be used not as a
source of pain, but forms our identity and as healing and definition.
To use the example of my family again, my mother has never
forgotten the default on the loan, or the 11 years of no communication with her
brother. She has not forgotten that
history. The healing that happened formed
a new relationship; one based upon an understanding of who they each are, one
that redefined their relationship. Years
after, my mother began to send monthly financial assistance to her brother as a
gift, as a gift. She still does. She knows of their need. She wants to help. She has forgiven, not forgotten the events from
1967 to 1978. The experience and the
forgiveness redefined their relationship.
We can forgive those who have wounded us, but we never forget
the wounding. Hear this: To forgive means that the power of pain that
was caused no longer holds power over us.
To forgive means that we are no longer stuck in the past allowing the
hurt and pain to debilitate our lives in the present. To forgive means that we have let go of the
hurt and the pain of the brokenness in the past and become aware of how all of
it has shaped our identity today.
Zahnd then gets personal with questions: What is your story? Who has been cruel to you? Perhaps bitterly cruel. What injustices have you suffered? How have you been mistreated? Perhaps miserably so. Who has cheated you? Abused you?
Lied to you or lied about you?
Maybe it was last week, maybe it was 20 years ago. How does it impact you right now? And then he shifts the questioning; how does this
mistreatment you/we have been holding onto affect our view of the future? Or let me put it another way: What are we waiting for? A chance to get even? A chance for payback? Revenge?
If so, when we harbor these feelings, we become prisoners to
the old event, prisoners to the emotions. We become enslaved to thoughts of
retribution, and this leads us to having no future. No future beyond how to get back at another
from our past.
The past too often can hold us back and too often powerfully
shapes us in a negative way. When we
haven’t decided and taken steps to let go of a deep past wound, when the
emotions continue to easily upset us, we are in danger of forming an identity
around our brokenness. Holding onto the
wound will begin to shape and change our personality and it will shape our
future.
When we allow cruelty or bitterness to overtake our identity,
lifestyle and character, we will become the thing, the person we don’t want to
be. When we are cruel to the one who was
cruel to us, we become the cruel person.
Such behaviors are not justice, instead they are our own mini-wars. Zahnd writes, “This is how evil takes over,
moves from person to person until . . .
too much of the world lies in the power of the evil one. Forgiveness puts a stop to such evil! Forgiveness is not weakness. Forgiveness is not acquiescence to injustice.
Forgiveness is giving ourselves to the
power of God.” And I would add forgiveness
conquers all Good Fridays and ushers in many Easter mornings.
Consider with me the last conversation between Jesus and
Peter. It happened on the beach at the
Sea of Galilee. Jesus needed to take
care of some “forgiving business” with Peter who on a night ten days earlier denied
knowing Jesus. That was a horrific night
for both Peter and Jesus. Peter had
turned his back on Jesus. If any of our
friends had done this to us, we would be mad, hurt and would probably disown
them in return. We would spout off, “I’m
done, finished with that relationship!”
We might even find a way to hurt them back. And to consider forgiveness . . . . mmmgrrhh!
Don’t believe for a moment that Jesus’ heart wasn’t hurting
when Peter disowned him. That night could have been the final exchange between
Peter and Jesus and if it had been, the growing guilt within Peter would have
left him a broken disciple, impacting his life forever. And so we come to that moment on the beach. The conversation could have gone like
this: “Peter, I told you that you would
deny me three times. I knew you weren’t
as strong as you said you were. I’m hurt
by what you did. You are exactly as I
thought you to be, a weak coward. I’m
disappointed and I don’t know if I can trust you ever again.” A conversation like this one, similar to many
that we have when we are angry and upset, would have continued the humiliation
and shame Peter already felt. Jesus knew this.
Jesus wanted healing for Peter, and that healing would come only through
forgiveness and reconciliation.
And so the cadence of the story, “When they had finished
eating, Jesus took Peter aside and said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you
love me?” Jesus offers Peter a way to
affirm his love for him. He doesn’t beat
him up with a rehashing of the past. He
knows that Peter is struggling with his own personal defeat of having let
himself and Jesus down when it really mattered.
“Peter, do you love me?” “Yes,
Lord. You know that I love you.” And
Jesus responds with a word of trust. “Feed my lambs.”
Two more times a similar exchange happens between them each
time Peter speaking of his love for Jesus.
In forgiving Peter, Jesus released
Peter from his sin and opened to him the future. This was/is reconciliation, not payback, not
retribution for having been hurt by Peter.
This was grace, restoration, and this is the way of Jesus.
I want to share one more personal story. When I was 8 my oldest sister had been to the
county fair and bought each of the three younger of us a little plastic toy
dog. I played with mine and then I lost
it somewhere. One afternoon my sister,
Kathy was playing with hers and I took it from her. She chased me around the house yelling “Give
it back. Give it back!” I didn’t want
her to have it because I didn’t have mine.
So, I put it on the floor and jumped on it and crushed it and in the
same moment I crushed her heart.
Not my finest moment in childhood, even hard to admit to all
of you yet today. It was a violent and
selfish act and I knew it was wrong. My
sister cried and cried. When my mom
discovered what had been going on and what I had done she quickly and very
firmly began my punishment. I was sent
to bed, not just to my room, but to bed.
I was not to come out of my room, and she would be up to deal with me later. And so, shaking with fear, I went to my room,
put on my pajamas and waited. . . . waited.
An hour later she came in and the lecture began. Like an angry judge delivering the sentence
on a hardened callous criminal she lectured me for over an hour. I was shamed and humiliated. Once the lecture was over the sentence was
given. I would stay in bed the rest of
the day, receive no dinner, be grounded for a week, would not go outside to
play with friends for that week, she would have chores for me to do, and I was
to talk with no one, not even the family unless spoken to first. Then she said she was going to bring in my
sister, Kathy and I was to apologize to her and pay her one dollar for the toy
dog.
By this time I was exhausted by tears and believed my relationship
with my family was over. She brought in
my sister, I apologized and I gave her the dollar. My sister and I both cried. My sister tried to give the dollar back, my mother
said, “No.” They left and I sat broken
in my bed. It could have ended there.
About an hour later, my sister Kathy snuck into my room. I had great fear in my heart because I knew
we would both be in trouble if mom knew that she was in my room. She came in and sat on my bed and hugged me, held
me and cried with me. She should have
been angry at me. She should have wanted
payback, revenge. She should have
reveled in my punishment, I was getting what I deserved, but she came into my
room, my eleven year old sister, eleven, came into my room and she hugged me
and cried with me and said these words to me, “I forgive you and I love
you.” And then she handed the dollar
back to me. I refused to take the
dollar. I just couldn’t.
That day, my sister
Kathy was Jesus to me. She gave me back
my future, a healed place in the family.
Without forgiveness there is no future.
I believe in my heart that what happened that day when my sister snuck
in to see me profoundly shaped me for the rest of my life. When she came in and
forgave me, God’s grace through her turned me into a forgiven forgiver. My sister was Jesus to me.
Forgiveness is how God saves the sinner. The practice of forgiveness is how God heals
the world. Forgiveness is an act
obedience, an act of the Holy Spirit working through us and we make a choice about
allowing this work to happen through us.
I realize this leaves us with many questions and many
emotions. Where do we each need to pursue healing, forgiveness and
reconciliation in our own lives? Who has
been Jesus to you and to whom do you need to be Jesus? Christ’s way is the road of loving and
forgiving. And we can begin to embrace
it again in this act of Holy Communion.
Amen.
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