11^th Sunday after Pentecost – Realized Discipleship

Reformation, Media

Larry V. Smoose

A man goes to the hospital to visit his dying business partner who had been taken suddenly ill with a strange, unknown ailment.  Unexpectedly, the dying man grasped the arm of his partner and whispered, “John, before I go I have to confess some things to you and get your forgiveness.  I want you to know that I was the one who sold our secret formula to the competition, costing you millions, and I was the one who supplied your wife with the evidence that got her the divorce and cost you a small fortune.  Will you forgive me?”

John murmured – “That’s okay, Sam I’m the one who gave you the poison.” 

The bumper sticker said, “To err is human, to forgive divine.  Neither is marine corps policy.”

We live in a balance sheet world.  A surgeon makes a mistake – sue his socks off.  Kidnap our soldiers, we’ll bomb you and your families and friends. 

Arabs won’t forgive Jews and Jews Arabs.  In Bosnia another mass grave was uncovered near the border with Serbia.  But it is not just international issues, for most of us it is much more personal.  We experience it when children can’t forgive their parents or parents can’t forgive their children.  Some husbands can’t forgive their wives, and wives cannot forgive their husbands.  Brothers and sisters will feud and be estranged.  We live in a balance sheet world that demands justice and says, “don’t get made, get even.”

Yet, each week we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

This discipleship is not easy.  I commend you for coming here to worship each week, to placing yourselves under God’s Word and for wanting to learn how to live out that Word in your lives, for discipleship is not easy.  But what good is our faith in following God if it can’t make a difference in our lives?

And forgiveness seems to be the litmus test.  The deepest secret of the love which characterizes realized discipleship is learning how to forgive. 

The issue was as volatile two thousand years ago as it is today.  Peter’s question to Jesus was a good one – “Lord, how often am I to forgive . . . seven times?”    Rabbinic law suggested three times, so by any measure, Peter was being generous.   Then Jesus said, “Not seven, but seventy seven times”   The answer was not mathematical, Jesus meant there was no limit.

And then comes our parable of the Unmerciful Servant.  A “King’s servant” actually meant a high official, a cabinet member or key advisor, or one is charge of one of the king’s provinces and responsible for collecting all the taxes and revenues.  At any rate, the amount owed would be equivalent of $100 billion – not repayable by any stretch of the imagination – but it is forgiven!  And the same servant won’t even give an underling more time to pay back $1000 dollars! 

But it is the ending that is disconcerting.  For when the King hears how unmerciful the servant was, he rescinds his forgiveness and throws him into prison.  And, Jesus says, “So my heavenly Father will also do to everyone of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”  Scary!

So why does Jesus make such a big thing of forgiveness?  Not only here, but in the Lord’s Prayer – “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  But if we don’t forgive, does that mean God won’t forgive us?  And then at the commissioning of the disciples – remember, the risen Lord breathes on the disciples and says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”   But retained for whom – only for the transgressor, or also for those who won’t forgive?

Jesus makes a big thing of forgiveness because it is a big thing.  Jesus knew it is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.  It is the only thing in the world that actually has the power to change the past.  And, Jesus wants us to be able to appreciate and use this power. 

Think about it.  Forgiveness is a decision about how to deal with what is supposedly beyond our reach – history.  One choice we can make about the wrongs we have suffered is to get revenge:  poison your partner . . . don’t get mad, get even. . . sue their socks off . . . But as Martin Luther King said, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence – adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

Forgiveness is power.  It is the power to renew and to be renewed, to clean and to feel cleansed.  Forgiveness is the power to restore to favor.  It is the most positive power in the world and was used by our Lord at his own crucifixion to take a hateful, spiteful death and turn it into the power of salvation.  To use a painful, smoldering moment that could have sparked a revolution and with words of forgiveness turn his followers into agents of love and world change rather than militant zealots of revenge. 

It is this forgiving love of Jesus that inspired Martin Luther King to encourage his followers to “develop the capacity to forgive.  He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.  There is something good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.  When we discover that, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” 

To choose forgiveness is to give up the balance sheet mentality.  It is a decision to turn what was meant for evil into good and to allow the power of resurrection to breath new life into your scarred and beaten memory.  It is taking control of how we feel about the past and how that past will affect us.  It is admitting we were hurt, but it is also remembering hurt and pain were likely the cause of whatever action hurt us.

I’ll never forget the movie Gandhi.  The transfixing scene was when a Hindu man came into Gandhi’s home and said, “The Muslims killed my son and I can’t get rid of the hate and anger that I have.  What can I do?  And Gandhi said, Go to one of the orphanages where so many children have lost their parents to the violence in our country.  Find a boy about the age of your own son, take him and raise him as you would your son – only be sure that it is a Muslim boy.” 

That’s one key – realizing the hurt and pain of those who hurt you so that they also become human.  Trying to separate the terrible action of hurt from the person who did it, which is what we ask God to do when we ask for our own forgiveness, or how we separate our children from the actions that they sometimes take which we do not condone.

But it is not easy.  Lisa Beamer she may some day be able to forgive the hijackers who were responsible for the deaths of her husband Todd  and the other 39 passengers and crew members lost their lives on Flight 93.  She says she works at keeping debilitating emotions like resentment to a minimum as she strives to create a normal home life for her three children.

“Forgiveness is a process,” she says.  “It’s not something where all of a sudden you wake up one day and say: ‘OK, I forgive them.  But its something that over the course of time I feel confident will be resolved.  I can say I don’t hold a lot of bitterness or anger.  Those things would be detrimental to me and my family, and the terrorists have already taken enough from us.  I’m not going to let them take any more.” 

Good for you Lisa.  Good for you.  Keep working on the power of forgiveness.

You see, discipleship is not knowing what is right – it is putting what is right into action, making it part of how we live.  For me, Forgiveness is one of the greatest challenges, maybe that is true for you – especially if you have suffered some great hurt.  How do we start?  Maybe in a simple way suggested by this past Tuesday’s devotional in the Daily Word.  Picture a person with whom your relationship is tense or in need of forgiveness.  As you hold the image in your mind, ask God to help you see the good in that person.  Remind yourself that this person is also loved and cherished by God.  Say a prayer of blessing for them, and ask for help to be able to forgive, reminding yourself that you too are loved and cherished by God.

Nothing can rebuild a life the way forgiveness can.  Nothing else can change an individual the way forgiveness can.  Nothing else can change the relationship between nations and peoples the way forgiveness can.  When you pull it off, you unleash the power to change the past.  The grace to do it is from God.  The decision to do it is our own. 

Let’s join Lisa Beamer in working on the power of forgiveness.

Amen.