Sermon for Sunday, July 8, 2007BEING FORGIVEN AND BEING FORGIVING4th in a series on Tell Me A Story: The Subversive Parables of Jesus by Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz |
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Scripture: Matthew 18: 21-35 21Then 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?" 22Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. 23"For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' 27And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, "Pay what you owe.' 29Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' 30But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32Then his lord summoned him and said to him, "You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' 34And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart." Martha Beck has written several books. One her most famous is about the birth of her son Adam who has Down syndrome. She was a Ph D student at Harvard when she and her husband learned that the baby she was carrying had an extra 21st chromosome. Her physicians and her academic colleagues at Harvard naturally assumed that she would terminate the pregnancy, but she and her husband rejected that option, and her book “Expecting Adam” tells of the spiritual journey and spiritual experience of parenting her son Adam. She also has a book from her Life Coaching work called Finding Your Own North Star. But her most controversial writing is the book Leaving the Saints, the story of her recovery from being sexually abused as a child by her father who was an extremely important leader in the Mormon Church. It is a painful and revealing chronicle of her recovery of repressed memories. It tells of the denial by her father and her other siblings that anything happened and her rejection by her former church including death threats toward her and other family members who did believe her. She writes of a meeting with her father after she has been through counseling, a meeting in which she asks him to look at what happened to him and what he did and to look at his own post traumatic stress after serving in World War II, and in that meeting she says despite what he has done to her, she finds herself able to forgive him and to see the good in him as well as the evil of what he has done. She defines forgiveness as giving up hope of having had a different past. She said to her father, “I’ll never condone what you did, but for what it’s worth, it just occurred to me that I have forgiven you. I have given up all hope that you didn’t do what you did and I can live with it. On the other hand, I think you are still trying to have had a different past. It won’t work.” Forgiveness. It sometimes seems impossible when the hurt and the betrayal and the pain are so deep. How do people do it in some instances? The Amish families who several months ago forgave the criminal who killed school children. The stories we read, more than one of them, of parents who forgive the drunken driver who kills a son or daughter and even help in the rehabilitation of the murderer. Mother Theresa said that what helped her forgive and to practice compassion is to face the fact that within herself is the capacity to act even like a Hitler in the right circumstances. We don’t get through life without forgiveness, without being forgiven and being forgiving. Abraham Lincoln, right after the Union victory in our nation’s most costly war between the states was advocating some policies that were thought to be too lenient and too merciful toward the defeated southern troops and their leaders. He was confronted by one of his cabinet members who said “Mr. President, don’t you know that we should DESTROY our enemies??” Lincoln quietly replied, “Do I not destroy my enemy when I make him into my friend?” I officiated two weeks ago at the wedding in Vail of St Andrew member Malena Wiggin and the son of former St Andrew member Jameson Jones whose grandmother, 30 years ago was the music director here. I talked about three characteristics of marriage: sacrifice on behalf of each other, faithfulness to our vows in the midst of pressure and stress and temptation, and forgiveness. And I said, those of us in the sanctuary for the wedding who are in a relationship know that we cannot be with each other without being forgiven and being forgiving. Forgiveness is greatly misunderstood. Forgiving is not the same as forgetting. I want people who have been deeply hurt not to forget, not to put themselves in the place to be deeply hurt again by the same person or the same event. Forgiveness does not happen quickly. I was not as comfortable as some were when the Amish families took only a few days to forgive the assailant and murderer of their children. People need to claim their own pain and suffering, be honest about their anger and grief before they can truly forgive-there is a quote about that on your quote sheet. There are copies of a series of sermons on forgiveness on the sermon racks that take more time on forgiveness than we can today and I commend them to you. The point of Jesus’ parable for today is that we cannot live healthy and fruitful and abundant lives unless we realize our own need to be forgiven and our own need to be forgiving of others. Emphasize that: we need to be forgiving of others because after we have worked through our hurt and pain, if we do not forgive-let go of the past-our hateful feelings will corrode our own lives and damage us. I like the quote on the insert that whoever is bent on revenge should dig two graves; revenge corrodes and damages our own hearts. The call to worship said that. When we forgive, we set a prisoner free and we discover that the prisoner was ourselves! The story from Matthew’s gospel says that even in the early Jesus movement the question of forgiveness was important. Matthew says Peter asked about some events in the church. That should raise your eyebrows. In the time of Jesus and the disciples there was no church yet-only after Jesus’ death and resurrection did the church come into being. Matthew is telling us that in the wonderful, idealistic early community of faith that people had quarrels and misunderstandings and arguments and that there were questions of forgiveness. How often should we forgive, Peter asks. Jesus’ answer of some sevens meant that we need to keep forgiving; seven signified infinity in the Bible. Jesus’ point is that if we expect to be forgiven, we need to practice a life of grace and forgiveness ourselves—because none of us gets through life without the need to be forgiven. AND being forgiven and being forgiving are inseparable. The parable Jesus tells with such exaggeration makes that point. We cannot expect grace and mercy and compassion unless we are also willing to practice grace and mercy and compassion. Incidentally, when the first servant in Jesus’ story begs the king to forgive his enormous debt, the verse says that the king had compassion on him. There is that word again from last week. Where was the word “compassion” in the Good Samaritan story? When the Samaritan saw the injured man lying on the road, he was moved inwardly with COMPASSION, so he stopped and helped the man. Jesus tells us elsewhere in the gospels-commands us-we are to be compassionate just as God is compassionate with us!! It’s the same point that he makes in the parable for today. I encourage you to do two things today. Pick a quote or two from the quote sheet that speak to you and share those with a friend or family member and talk about why you picked that quote. You will notice that several of those are from the late Lewis Smedes whose book “The Art of Forgiveness” is one of the best, and we will have copies for you next week. Secondly, we will take some time in silent prayer right now for you to lift up a situation in your life or perhaps the life of a friend or family member where there is a need for forgiveness-perhaps for self forgiveness, perhaps to ask for forgiveness, perhaps to really believe in God’s mercy and forgiveness. We will spend a time in silent prayer; I will close for us, and then I encourage you to bring that need, that concern, to the altar table as we experience again the forgiveness and grace of God in the sacrament of communion. |
