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Sermon for Sunday, April 20, 2008
A Higher Call: Forgiveness
Matthew 18:21-35
The visit of Pope Benedict XVI reminded me of his predecessor, John Paul. He was in a picture shaking hands with another man. They were two very different men from two radically different worlds. One man was young; the other older; one was a Muslim, the other a Catholic; one was in a white robe; the other in prison garb; one was beloved and revered, the other a convicted criminal. Two years before one of these men had tried kill the other. The picture was on the cover of Time magazine, January 9, 1984. The inside story told the story:
In a bare white walled cell in Rome’s Rebibbia prison, John Paul held the hand that had held the gun that was meant to kill him. For 21 minutes, the Pope sat with his would be assassin. The two talked softly….The Pope forgave him for the shooting.
What Pope John Paul did there in Rebibbia prison was profoundly Christian. He sought out the enemy and forgave him. The caption read, “Does forgiveness have a place in an age of violence and vengeance.” The answer to that is indeed a resounding YES. And that was the message that was trying to be sent to the world. I’m sure that as Pope he did many good things but nothing could be more Christlike.
Surely what had happened to the Pope could have justified almost any human response – animosity, hate, anger, revenge. Would you have found yourself with a pope like response? Who do you hate? Who popped into your mind when I even ask the question? Whose lingering face appeared when thinking about it?
When I was growing up, hate was a four letter word. I was not allowed to use it. It is still difficult for me to use the word in practically any context.
Often our first response is to recoil from even thinking about hating for we know what hatred and negativity can generate in the minds of people. It is not good for people to live with festering thoughts.
And yet I can ask the question, “who do you hate?” and you may have an answer. We resent other members of our families for the way they have treated us. We are resentful of classmates, colleagues, competitors. We even resent our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ for things far less than a shooting. Our hearts are warehouses of unsorted wounds, grudges, and disappointments, many of them still capable of bringing fire to our eyes and color to our cheeks. Some of us nurse a spirit of anger and bitterness all the days of our lives. I suppose there really are people who love to hate.
And yet God did not give us the precious gift of life to squander on feelings of negativity. Today I am talking to believers. And if today you happen to not be a believer, I would still invite you to listen because this applies to you as well. As Christians we are to live a higher call. There really is to be something different about how we approach life.
Last week I ask you to read Romans 12:1-2 as a part of our thinking. Romans 12 a reminder us that we are to be more than just like the world. Hear it;
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present you bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what the will of God is ---what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
I want to talk to you about the higher calling that you and I have as Christians.
Peter asks a good question of Jesus in Matthew 18, and I don’t think I had ever noticed it quite like I did. “Lord if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy times seven.”
Now what follows that question was certainly characteristic of the Jesus of the gospels. He didn’t let it hang there, he told a story, perhaps the last thing Peter wanted to hear. What he wanted to hear was confirmation of what he already said to Jesus. That is familiar to most of us. We do it all the time in our praying. We usually want God to confirm what we want, not to do and be who He wants us to be.
Jesus told the story as a way of explaining himself. Like many of the stories Jesus told, it was more like a snowball with a rock in the middle of it. Peter came wanting to know the outer limits of love and Jesus pushed him back into the depths of God’s unlimited grace. Peter wanted to know where love stopped forgiving. Jesus told him a story designed to help him see that his question was at its’ heart a disfigured form of God’s love. It was like sin, a human form of unforgiveness. It was a love that was nothing at all like God’s grace.
The limits of God’s forgiveness become the boundaries of God’s love. When we seek to know where those limits are, we are seeking to know when it is permissible to stop loving. And there are no boundaries to God’s love.
Isn’t it tragic the amount of time and energy we spend in anger and revenge and unforgiveness? And it is never sweet. Hate poisons the soul and is a hindrance to being who God created you and me to be. I can assure you that no matter how angry and unforgiving you may be toward another, it is doing you more harm than the person with whom you are harboring anger.
Barbara Brown Taylor writes that the harboring of anger and resentment has the power to deform us because unforgiveness is like a boomerang. She says, “We use it to protect ourselves…to hurt back before we can be hurt again…but it has a sinister way of circling right back at us so that we become victims of our own ill will.” (Gospel Medicine, pg. 10-11)
There is a story about a man who was in terrible physical condition. He was tired, weak. He said to his doctor, “Tell me what to do. I feel drained and exhausted and I am worn out all the time. What is the best thing I can do? The doctor, knowing the man’s wild life style said, “I’ll tell you exactly what to do. Each day after work, go home and get a good night’s reset. Stop drinking, stop carousing and stop running around all night. That’s the best thing you can do.”
The man was silent a moment. Then he asked, “What’s the next best thing?”
We might as well admit it. Broken relationships, anger and revenge blight our world. They can also blight the community called church if we are not careful. They reduce the meaning of life. Forgiveness becomes the answer. As believers, as Christians, we know that is the answer and yet we continue ask, “What’s the next best thing?
And that is why so much of Jesus’ teachings center on forgiveness. He knew that no love, no marriage, no friendship, no family, no church, no society, no world can live to its fullest without it.
Peter asks, “How often should I forgive?” He knew the Jewish law: forgive a first offense, forgive a second and a third but punish the forth --- forgive three times and then get even! He thought he was being incredibly generous when he said seven times. What he learns is that forgiveness is not a matter of math. It is not a matter of revenge. It is not a matter of score keeping.
It is a matter of letting God do what God can do and wants to do in the lives of those who have chosen to follow Him and call Him Lord. It is a call to holy living.
You and I must remember that we are people who are forgiven by a loving God. There is nothing that you and I can do that will prevent Him from forgiving us. His forgiveness is always available for us.
But it is not only with God that we need forgiveness. It is with other human beings as well. It is with each other. Just as we are not whole when there is distance between us and God, we are not whole when there is distance between us and other persons.
Jesus says it best: “If you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23
You get the God picture don’t you? You get the idea of the higher call to which you and I are to live, don’t you?
When it was discovered that an employee had embezzled company funds, the man’s boss asked to meet with his subordinate. Both men were confessing Christians and personal friends. The employee had succumbed to financial pressures at home and had stolen company funds as a solution to his personal problems.
The boss invited the employee to his home for the meeting where they sat in the kitchen for coffee and the inevitable discussion over the consequences of the man’s actions.
“We both know that what you did was wrong.” The boss began, “and that there will be legal consequences for your actions. Whatever unfolds now will happen as it happens, but I just wanted to ask you one question.” “What’s that?” said the man. “Did you go to communion yesterday?” “As a matter of fact, I did.” Good. So did I. so it is clear that we are both just a couple of forgiven sinners. Now, let’s talk about your future.”
We all have something to confess; none of us stands outside the experience of sin and all have the need of God’s grace and forgiveness. We are all sinners. And each and every one of us is a recipient of the love of God through Christ. Whenever you gather in this place for worship, I want you to know that God’s forgiveness is available and real for you.
What will you do with the forgiveness that you need to offer or need to receive? Will you sit with it and on it and let it stew or will you claim a higher call. There is power in forgiveness. It is the power to be renewed, to feel cleansed, to know we can be restored to God’s favor and to wholeness in the community God wants to build.
Forgiveness and unforgiveness are both boomerangs of habit. Which do you want coming back your direction?
Prayer:
Lord, You have given us a gift…the best gift is Your Son, Jesus. Through Him we have forgiveness of all that prevents us from being who you created us to be. Through Him we have a higher call, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Oh God, grant that our lives may be a reflection of that call, in Jesus name, Amen.
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