Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Luke 6:37-38 and Colossians 3:12-15
I ran across a cartoon the other day in which a man is talking to a clerk in a card shop. He wants to know if she has a card that stops short of saying “I’m sorry” yet vaguely hints at some wrongdoing.
Have you ever wondered why forgiving—and asking for forgiveness—is so difficult for most of us? How many times have you heard someone say, “I’ll never forgive [him/her] for that”? How often do we find ourselves tied up in knots inside because we feel guilty for hurting someone or because we’re still hanging on to what someone has done to us?
And yet, look how often the bible talks about forgiveness! Jesus included it in the prayer we attribute to him, saying (in whatever words we use) that we should pray to God to forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Uh-oh!
You DO see the problem, right?
What if God really did forgive us in the same way we forgive (or don’t forgive) others? That could be a bit of a dilemma, couldn’t it? We all know that we tend to hang onto things like hurts and slights and wrongs instead of letting them go. But scripture tells us God doesn’t do that. And of course sometimes we have much bigger things we’re hanging onto that we need to forgive. We don’t have to forget, but we should forgive because then we can get on with our lives.
The bible goes pretty far back in talking about forgiveness. God made covenants with God’s people starting way back with the rainbow in the sky when God promised never again to destroy the earth. And God made a covenant with the Israelites to bring them out of slavery in Egypt and to be their God and to bring them to the Promised Land. The people had a difficult time with that one—they had lots of trust issues, even though God was completely reliable.
And now we come to Jeremiah. I think God sounds excited about the NEW covenant God plans to make with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. God promises to put God’s law within the people and “write it on their hearts.” God promises to be their God and they will be God’s people—a binding together in love where God will love ALL the people, from the least to the greatest, no matter who they are. AND God promises to “forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”[1] There’s that forgiveness word again!
And then we hear it also in Luke’s gospel—great words of advice to live by: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 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.”[2]
Forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
And there’s more good advice from the author of Colossians: “…clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”[3]
Here’s the synopsis: God forgives us, and so we are to forgive one another and we will get back what we give and love binds us all together.
If only it were that simple! Wouldn’t you like it to be that simple?
Even though forgiveness is one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves, it’s just not that easy for most of us. But it’s definitely something worth working at because “forgiveness is not something we do for other people. We do it for ourselves, to get well and move on.”[4] And God calls us to forgiveness because it is God’s desire for us to untie our knots and wash away the muck that’s weighing us down and keeping us from moving forward to being healthy and whole.
A few of weeks ago I was at Half Price Books in St. Louis Park and I picked up a copy of The Shack by William Paul Young. Now, I must confess that the first time my brain was penetrated by the awareness that there was a book called “The Shack,” I had no clue whatsoever of the content of this novel. Living where I do, I assumed it was some tale about a bunch of guys hanging out at the hunting shack and I wondered why the book was so popular all over the country! Then I read a clergy colleague’s comments about it on her blog and realized it was probably something I should read one day.
When the book presented itself to me at the store I began to have an inkling that it might tie in to tonight’s sermon. And indeed it did.
This is a story about a man named Mack whose youngest daughter is abducted and murdered during a family vacation. Mack is, of course devastated and terribly angry at God. But God invites Mack to go back to the shack where evidence of his daughter’s murder had been found. There Mack has an encounter with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Sophia/Wisdom and learns the importance of forgiveness.
This isn’t a book that will go down in literary history as a classic, but it has touched many people. I could hardly put it down and read it in a couple of days. And when I updated my status on facebook to say that I was reading it, a number of friends commented on their experience of the book or their desire to read it soon.
I’d like to share with you just a bit of the conversation between Mack and God about forgiveness…
Mack asks God, “how can I ever forgive that [S.O.B.] who killed my Missy. If he were here today, I don’t know what I would do. I know it isn’t right, but I want him to hurt like he hurt me…if I can’t get justice, I still want revenge.”
God tells Mack, “…for you to forgive this man is for you to release him to me and allow me to redeem him.”
“Redeem him?...I don’t want you to redeem him! I want you to hurt him, to punish him, to put him in hell…” his voice trailed off.
And God replies, “Forgiveness is not about forgetting, Mack. It is about letting go of another person’s throat.” Then God explains, “Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly. Do you think this man cares about the pain and torment you have gone through? If anything, he feeds on that knowledge. Don’t you want to cut that off? And in doing so, you’ll release him from a burden that he carries whether knows it or not—acknowledges it or not. When you choose to forgive another, you love him well.”
“I do not love him.”
“Not today, you don’t. But I do, Mack; not for what he’s become, but for the broken child that has been twisted by his pain. I want to help you take on that nature that finds more power in love and forgiveness than hate.”
After Mack begins the process of forgiving this man he asks, “So is it alright if I’m still angry?”
God quickly responds, “Absolutely! What he did was terrible. He caused incredible pain to many. It was wrong, and anger is the right response to something that is so wrong. But don’t let the anger and pain and loss you feel prevent you from forgiving him and removing your hands from around his neck.”[5]
God explains to Mack that forgiveness doesn’t mean there has to be a relationship or that there can be trust. Those things can only—possibly—happen if the other person truly repents. But forgiveness frees the forgiver to move on, to untie the knots in their heart and to begin to live again.
When we forgive, we allow God to act and we allow ourselves to heal. Forgiveness makes room for love and love binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Once we begin to practice forgiveness—“just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive”—we will find that we are free to live and to love. Forgiveness frees us to follow Jesus who calls us to love one another as he has loved us.[6] Forgiveness frees us, simply, to live in love. AMEN.
Endnotes
1. Jeremiah 31:34, NRSV.
2. Luke 6:37-38, NRSV.
3. Colossians 3:12b-14. NRSV.
4.http://relations.kimcm.dk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/forgiveness.gif
5. From The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity, by Wm. Paul Young. 2007, Windblown Media, Los Angeles, California, pp. 224, 225, 227.
6. John 15:12, NRSV.
Following the sermon Cathy Johnson led us in a meditation on untying the knots within us. Each person had been given a piece of rope with several knots in it to use during the meditation.
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