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Sunday, March 01, 2009
How Many Times Must I Forgive?
9th in a series on Questions from the Bible
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Matthew 18:21-22 and Luke 6:37-38 New Revised Standard Version
Matthew: 21 Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" 22 Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
Luke: 37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back."
I suggest this morning that we put ourselves in the place of the disciple Peter. He asks Jesus a finite question and he gets an infinite answer.
I imagine that Peter is looking for a limited number of times to forgive such as two or three! Maybe he has a relative or a friend who has made a mistake several times and Peter is tired of giving that person a second or third chance. Or maybe he is like the father, David Sheff, who writes in the book, Beautiful Boy, about his son’s drug addiction. He goes through much pain and grief over his son’s destructive behavior. He is betrayed again and again and is tempted to just give up, but he doesn’t give up because this is his son.
Peter wants to set some limits on how tolerant he should be and Jesus, as usual, stretches his limits. Jesus stretches our limits, too. To fully understand Jesus’ answer, you have to know that in ancient times, the number seven was a symbol for infinity. Jesus is saying that we are to practice forgiveness as a posture in life, because we are, all of our lives, in need of grace and forgiveness from each other and from God.
Dr. Martin Luther King said it in these words: “Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.”
Being forgiving and being forgiven are two of the hardest things we can do and two of the most important things we can do, and forgiveness is so often wrongly understood.
We have had copies of three sermons on forgiveness on our sermon racks for over ten years now and they are some of the most popular reprinted sermons ever. I am not going to repeat much of the content in those today but encourage you to pick them up if you have not yet done so.
I do want to summarize one of them because we need to begin by talking about what forgiveness is not. There is a quote sheet in your bulletin by Dr. Lewis Smedes that has a couple of ideas about what forgiveness is not. Dr. Smedes book, The Art of Forgiving, is available for purchase today on our book shelves as well as another book, Why Forgive, by Johann Christoph Arnold.
Being a forgiving person does not make us a doormat, does not leave us open to being hurt again in the same way. We can forgive someone but we can vow to never put ourselves in a position to be hurt by them again. Forgiving someone does not mean they are not held accountable for what they have done. They still have to suffer consequences.
Forgiving is not overlooking or excusing what someone has done. Forgiving is not easy or glib or quick. That has been a mistake that churches have made in urging people to forgive too quickly. We need to feel and claim the hurt and the pain that someone may have caused us and be in touch with that before we can think about forgiveness.
I was visiting with one of the counselors who lead our divorce recovery workshops here last week and she told me she always recommends the forgiveness sermons about halfway through the workshop because, in those, we urge people to take time before they forgive. Don’t forgive too quickly because if we do, we wind up discounting ourselves instead of loving ourselves as Jesus urges us to do when he teaches us to love our neighbor as we LOVE OURSELVES!
Forgiveness does not depend on the repentance or apology of the wrongdoer. Some people who have acted wrongly may never acknowledge or admit that! Our willingness to put the wrong behind us must not depend on their willingness to acknowledge what they have done. To forgive them means that we no longer let them or their action control our lives. It means letting go and living well in spite of what they did.
Here are some other things forgiveness is not. Forgiving is NOT forgetting. Most of the time we may need to forgive and remember so we do not get hurt again. It is OK to remember. It is probably good to forgive and to remember! Forgiveness means letting go of my holding a grudge because, as Mother Theresa is quoted on the bulletin cover, if I forgive, it means admitting that I am like other people; other people who make mistakes and act wrongly and that I, too, am in need of grace and forgiveness.
Forgiveness also does not mean that I am reconciled with the offender! That may be the worst thing, to try and have a reconciled relationship with one who has hurt or injured me! I may need to forgive, let go, and stay away!
And when I forgive another, I probably need to forgive myself. I have met people who tell me, as a pastor, that they know God forgives them and accepts them, but they have not yet forgiven themselves, which means they are more demanding of themselves than God is!
What about when I know and can admit to myself that I have wronged another and I need to ask for forgiveness? I can do that by taking responsibility for what I have done. I did wrong, I was wrong, I need to apologize, and then to ask what I can do to recompense and ask myself what I need to do to change so I do not repeat what I have done.
Let me offer some true stories of forgiveness. A few months ago, an aging white man from South Carolina got in touch with Congressman John Lewis of Georgia seeking forgiveness! The man had been one of the white militants attacking a group of the civil rights protestors in a march that John Lewis was involved in as a young man. Lewis was badly injured in one of those marches. The South Carolina man had come to terms with his racism, had been moved by his Christian faith to admit his wrong, and his public and personal confession and apology was covered by some national media. After that he felt at peace. The plea for forgiveness took a long time but it occurred.
Here is another story from an historic event. Bud Welch of Oklahoma City lost his 23 year old daughter Julie in the bombing of the Murrah building in 1995. Bud Welch ran a service station in Oklahoma City for 35 years. His daughter had just graduated from Marquette University and was working as a translator for the Social Security Administration in Oklahoma City. That tragedy put his life in a tailspin. Bud Welch says for the first few weeks after the bombing, he had so much anger and pain, so much hatred and revenge and he realized why, at this time, a person charged with a violent crime is transported in a bullet proof vest. It is because someone like himself would try to kill the person.
He writes that by the end of 1995 he was in really bad shape. He was drinking heavily, smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, and was stuck emotionally on the day of the bombing. He went down to the bombing site to see if he could get unstuck, to see if he could move past his hatred and rage and desire for revenge.
Somehow he began to think about the father of perpetrator, Tim McVeigh. He had seen Bill McVeigh on television a few weeks after the bombing. He was working in his flower bed at his house in Oklahoma City and he looked up at the camera for just a couple of seconds. Bud Welch says that what he saw was another father with deep, deep pain in his eyes. He said he could recognize it because he, too, was living with that pain. And Bud Welch, whose daughter was killed in the bombing, said that he knew he had to go and meet with Bill McVeigh, the father of the bomber, to tell him that he cared about how Bill McVeigh felt.
He went to Mr. McVeigh’s house. They spent time out in the garden getting acquainted, kicking dirt and pulling weeds. They went into the house where Bud Welch met Mr. McVeigh’s 24 year old daughter Jennifer. They talked for another hour and a half. When Bud Welch left the house he had been able to be with the family of the man who killed his daughter and 167 other persons. He had been able to see them as fellow human beings.
Here is what he said at a later time: “It’s a struggle, but it is one I need to wage. In any case forgiving is not something you just wake up one morning and decide to do. You have to work through your anger and your rage as long as its there. You try to live each day better than the one before.” (Quoted in Why Forgive by Johann Christoff Arnold)
How does one get to that place of forgiveness? How does one come to the place of repentance? In another incredible story related in the book, Why Forgive, John Plummer, a Methodist Pastor in Virginia, was a pilot in Viet Nam in 1972. He participated in the napalm bombing of the village that you have seen in the famous photograph of the nine year old girl who was burned and who was running naked and crying from that village.
Plummer had struggled for years with what he did and with seeing that pain personalized in the photograph of the child. Then in 1996, Plummer had a chance to meet the child, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, now grown. They were at the Viet Nam Memorial together and she was speaking. Plummer managed to push through the crowds and catch her attention before she was whisked away. He identified himself as one of the pilots who bombed her village.
“Kim saw my grief, my pain, my sorrow. She held out her arms to me and embraced me. All I could say was, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, over and over again. At the same time she was saying, it’s all right. I forgive you.”
How does one get to that place of repentance and of forgiveness? Sometimes we don’t. And when we do it comes with the help of God as we have prayed for a long time.
On the first Sunday of Lent, we talk with each other about taking up some new spiritual practice, some new discipline of daily reading and prayer, or weekly service to others. And we talk with each other about giving up something. Maybe what we need to give up this Lent is that burden of anger and revenge we have been carrying from the past. Maybe what we need to do is to bring it to this altar table and leave it here after we receive communion. Maybe what we need to take up is a new attitude of forgiveness.