September 11, 2011
Restoring Wholeness
- Matthew 18:21-21:35
- Dr. Teri Thomas
How many of you grew up coming to church? How many of you came to church as an adult?
Whether you have been in a church your entire life or whether you have been here a short time at some point you made a decision to be involved. At some point in your life you made a choice to be a Christian or at least to hang out with folks who call themselves Christian.
Well, I have decided there are a number of things nobody ever tells us about this Christianity stuff until we are already in the door and settled. It is the fine print at the end of the contract that no one mentions until you've already signed on the dotted line.
This math stuff is one of them. I am not sure I want to do the math. It is really too depressing.
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?" Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times."
Or as some translations put it- 70 x 7 and in Bible math 70 x 7 doesn't equal 490. In Bible math 70 x 7 is infinity- too many to count- forever- never ending- one more than you have done so far.
I don't remember this ever coming up in senior high youth group. I would remember if it had because of that guy, Wayne, we all had to put up with. He was the one with the really warped sense of humor. The one who brought the chocolate brownies to the over-night and laced them with ex-lax.
How often should I forgive? Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.
Don't you think this should be part of pre-marital counseling? How was I to know I should not bother counting? I am sure it is a sin to forget your wife's birthday isn't it? When he remembered my birthday, he bought me pink roses. I don't like pink. I have never liked pink.
He has been married to me for 15 years. He should know I don't like pink. I am willing to bet they were on sale.
How often should I forgive? Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.
But today is different.
Today we remember a day that Jesus could never have anticipated.
Today we remember the horror, the pain, the fear, the anger, the God awful sin of 9.11.2001.
Jesus could never have predicted the Twin Towers or the Pentagon, let alone their destruction.
He could not have dreamed of a jetliner much less using it as a weapon of mass destruction.
Jesus could not have foreseen how evil and how cruel human beings could be.
Jesus can't be talking about forgiving that day.
Almost three thousand people died.
Six thousand Americans have died in the wars that were launched in response to the attacks.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan have lost their lives.
I lived in Washington DC ten years ago and the terrorists attacked my hometown.
The terrorist attacks made my brother afraid to leave home.
The recent threats make me fearful for my kids in New York this weekend.
Our country has grown angry and bitter and nasty.
People are afraid-
afraid of immigrants-
afraid of Muslims-
afraid of each other.
Now, even ten years later,
we are polarized and divided as a nation.
The rhetoric is cruel and hurtful.
We focus on loss, anger, pain.
We want someone to pay.
We want revenge.
Someone to blame.
We want someone to suffer for the way we feel.
How often should I forgive? Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.
True, Jesus could not have imagined these circumstances.
But he was tortured and killed on a cross by an angry mob.
He knew evil.
He never wants evil to have the victory.
He never wants a spirit of hatred and vindictiveness
to be planted inside of us
where the spirit of God ought to be.
It is so difficult to hear this commandment to forgive.
One theologian puts it like this:
"We who follow Christ are always being commanded to do things we cannot do. We are commanded to love, to serve without counting the cost. The hardest of all is the commandment to forgive. We are bidden to do it, not because it is possible on our own, but because as we try what we are commanded to do, it is given to us as a gift from God."
(ON NOT KEEPING SCORE, September 15, 2002, Joanna Adams, Pastor The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago)
Some people can forgive the Nazis for what they did and some cannot.
Some people can forgive their parents for what they did or didn't do—and some cannot.
Some can forgive an unfaithful spouse- and some cannot.
Some can forgive the terrorists, but some cannot.
Many live almost within reach of forgiveness but can't quite get there.
Forgiveness means going forward into a new world, in a new way. Most of us aren't very good at it. That's why Jesus' admonition that we forgive—is more than a little difficult. We know he is right, but we don't know how to be like him.
If we want to try, there are a few things we need to remember -
Forgiveness is not an act of will; it is a function of grace.
You cannot make yourself forgive anyone,
but you can at least consider
your own dependence on God's acceptance of you,
with all your brokenness and inadequacies,
and your reaction to those who have injured you.
And if we cannot forgive,
we can pray that the time will come when we can forgive
(Garrett Keizer, Christian Century, 31 July 2002; p. 23).
Even if we cannot pray that prayer, we can be honest before God in confessing that we cannot.
Some things cannot be done by simply deciding.
We have to wait;
we have to open ourselves
to receive from another realm
that which we find humanly impossible to do on our own.
And if we can receive the gift of finally being able to forgive another who has done us serious injury, a spouse who betrayed, a parent who abused, a careless driver who killed someone we love an attack that has taken so much from us,
if we receive that gift, we will want to remember what that does NOT mean.
To forgive is not to forget.
It is not to deny the pain or the wrongness.
To forgive is not to excuse that which is unjust or cruel. Forgiveness does not remove the appropriate consequences resulting from the sin.
To forgive simply means: to make a conscious choice to be unbound by evil.
When someone does something evil to us, the first injury they do is their fault, but if we hold on to a feeling of vengeance and hatred in our own heart, the fault for that injury is ours.
God is willing to show us how to loose the bonds that will set us free,
to loose the cords that bind us to the past
so that we might be able to really pray,
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
This is the path to wholeness,
this is the way to God's peace.
God will show us the way to forgiveness,
and to being forgiven, one step at a time.
Jesus will walk with us as we count our way to seven,
and seventy-seven,
and 490
and 3000
and 6000
and one hundred thousand
and on.
Then he will show us how to live in a new world,
a world where there is no more counting.
Jesus offers a grace beyond pain and beyond numbers.
And remember,
even on the days when we are still counting,
God is not.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.