Sermon for Third Midweek Lenten Service
March 11, 2015
“The Jesus Family Forgives Together”
1 John 1:5-10
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim
to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we
say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie
and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is
in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his
Son cleanses us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and
just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar,
and his word is not in us.
Matthew 18:21-36
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. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be
compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When
he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to
him; and, 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. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience
with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the
lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But 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.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have
patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and
threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow
slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and
reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned
him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you
pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as
I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be
tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will
also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from
your heart.”
So far in our Lenten journey as the Jesus family, we have
first simply discovered that we are a part of the Jesus family because God has
claimed us as God’s children. We’ve then
learned that as the Jesus family we are called to be followers together,
despite what the world says about leadership.
Last week we talked about prayer, understanding that we are called to
direct, honest communication with God as members of the Jesus family.
This week, now nearly halfway through our Lenten journey, we
turn to what could arguably be considered the central practice of the Christian
faith: forgiveness. We begin by
acknowledging a simple fact that 1 John eloquently states for us: “If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” In other words, we are broken, our
relationships are broken, and our world is broken, by sin. When we think of “sin” perhaps we only think
of it in terms of our relationship with God.
Certainly our relationship with God is damaged by sin, but we also hurt
one another by our sins. Maybe it’s
obvious when you hear it, but it needs to be stated, so hear it again: we hurt
one another. Sometimes it’s in
relatively minor ways, sometimes in deep and lasting ways, but every one of our
relationships, even those with our closest friends and family, is marred by
sin. So as we talk about forgiveness, we’re
not just focusing on our need for forgiveness with God, we’re talking about
forgiveness as the means by which God seeks to make the world whole again,
including our relationships with one another.
It would be nice, I suppose, if we talked about the Jesus
family in a more utopian way. It would
sound better to say, “In the Jesus family, we don’t hurt one another.” But that’s not reality. If your expectation is that the church is a
place free of sin and brokenness, boy are you going to be sorely disappointed. I hope that’s not the image that we’re
projecting to the world. There was a
sign I saw a while back that was shared by a friend that said, “This church is
not full of sinners, there’s always room for more.” So we begin by recognizing our brokenness and
our sinfulness. If we do not acknowledge
this, then there’s no reason to go on talking about forgiveness, unless of
course all we want to do is point fingers at those around us. That would seem to be the impression many
non-Christians have about the Jesus family.
We are self-righteous, “holier than thou” hypocrites who do nothing but
run around the world telling others how horribly sinful they are. Let us stand firmly in opposition to this
view of Christianity. When we speak of
brokenness and of sin, let us speak first of our own, as a church and as
individuals.
What are we to do with this brokenness then? We see how it infects every relationship of
our lives. We see how much harm we do to
one another. We cannot delude ourselves
into believing we will somehow create a utopia free from conflict. The key question, then, is how will we
respond? Clinically speaking, there are
two basic responses that our bodies have when someone hurts us. One is to harbor resentment, to become
overcome with anger, and even to seek vengeance. This can be simplified with the phrase
“holding a grudge.” We know this feeling
well. It includes a measurable
physiological response: our heart rate and blood pressure increase, we feel a
flushing in our cheeks and a tightening of our muscles, and even the
conductance of our skin goes up, giving us a warm, tingly sensation or causing
the hairs on our arms and necks to stand up.
All you have to do is recall someone hurting you to draw out these
responses. These are natural feelings,
built into the “fight or flight” response system of our bodies. But there is a lot of psychological and
medical research that shows that living in this state for long periods of time
is detrimental to our health and wellbeing.
People who tend to hold grudges for months and years are more
susceptible to heart problems, anxiety, and depression. The Mayo Clinic also lists these possible
effects of holding a grudge:
You might “bring anger and bitterness into every
relationship and new experience. Become
so wrapped up in the wrong that you can’t enjoy the present. Become depressed or anxious. Feel that your life lacks meaning or purpose,
or that you’re at odds with your spiritual beliefs. Lose valuable and enriching connectedness
with others.”
We know that staying in such a state of unrest is unhealthy,
but still we persist, mostly because we believe that revenge or seeing the
other person brought to some kind of justice will give us satisfaction and make
us whole again. The problem is, revenge
is not so simple. The Chinese
philosopher Confucious said, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig
two graves.” Too often, seeking
vengeance ends up doing as much harm to ourselves as it does to the offender
who has wronged us in the first place, and even when we do get some kind of
revenge, it never satisfies us in the way we originally thought it should. Psychological studies have shown that when
there are two groups of people, both who have been wronged, and one is given
the opportunity for revenge and the other is not, the ones who get revenge end
up less happy than the ones who didn’t.
The crazy thing is that the ones who don’t get revenge think they would
have been happier if they had been given the opportunity for revenge. The data suggests exactly the opposite. Researchers believe this is because those who
seek revenge are dwelling on the situation more in their minds. In other words, they were ruminating on the
wrong. When not seeking revenge,
participants in the study were able to trivialize the situation and dismiss it
more easily, moving on to more positive emotions.
So if brokenness is bound to happen, and we know that
holding grudges and seeking revenge are unhealthy practices, what alternative
is there? There is no over the counter
or prescription medication for this condition.
The diagnosis is simple and is the alternative response to when someone
does wrong to us: we can practice forgiveness.
I suppose I could simply go on and list the health benefits
of forgiveness that the Mayo Clinic gives:
“Healthier relationships, greater spiritual and
psychological well-being, less anxiety, stress and hostility, lower blood
pressure, fewer symptoms of depression, stronger immune system, improved heart
health, and higher self-esteem.”
And we could leave it at that. You should forgive because it’s healthier for
you. But as the Jesus family we have a
deeper reason for practicing forgiveness than simply to be healthier
people. We are called to practice
forgiveness because forgiveness is precisely what we have received in
Jesus. The parable of the unforgiving
slave that we heard is powerful in its hyperbole. The first slave has been forgiven a debt so
large that he would have no hope of every repaying his master. It is by pure grace that he has been released
from that burden, and yet when it comes to extending forgiveness to his fellow
slave, he turns again to the path of grudges and vengeance. The point is clear: because we have been graciously
forgiven, we are to be forgiving toward one another. Failure to do so is an affront to God’s
grace. It turns forgiveness into yet
another sinful and selfish thing that we love for ourselves, but refuse to our neighbors.
Let us not kid ourselves, however. Forgiveness is not easy. It sounds nice for the pastor to stand up and
say, “We need to be more forgiving.” The
truth is, it’s costly and it’s hard.
It’s hard because it means acknowledging that we hurt one another. It by no means trivializes the harm that we
do to each other. It does not mean we
shrug off the things that hurt us. Quite
the opposite, it means recognizing the pain and mistrust and brokenness that
are all around us. It means seeing that in
this very room are relationships that have brought pain into our lives.
Forgiveness is costly because it means letting our guard
down, putting aside our desire for vengeance, and relinquishing the role of
victim. It means coming to a place where
a relationship with another person means more to us than getting revenge. It means at some level learning to accept the
hurt that has been done to us, yet deciding to put aside the role of victim so
that the other person might be restored to us.
This can take time.
There is often no quick path to forgiveness, especially when others are
continually harming us. There is some
brokenness in our world that will never be healed, and there are hurts that
should never be tolerated.
However, what the church stands for, what the Jesus family
holds as its center, is a symbol of brutal vengeance and revenge that has been
transformed into a sign of forgiveness.
It stands to remind us of how costly God’s forgiveness is. We take the cross as the symbol of our faith
to tell the world that God has spent everything, even God’s own precious Son,
on repairing the brokenness that our sin has created. God has done this because God’s desire for a
relationship with God’s creation is deeper than God’s desire for revenge, and the
only path to wholeness is through forgiveness.
When we would rather hold grudges and seek revenge, the cross stands to
remind us that the price of forgiveness for our sins, the sins of our
neighbors, indeed the sins of the whole world, has already been paid. The path we are called to walk is the path of
forgiveness, not simply because it’s healthier for us, but because it’s the
path that Jesus is leading us along.
It’s the choice that God has made concerning our sins.
It’s important for us to keep this as our central focus as
the Jesus Family because the world is not good at forgiveness. Television shows, movies, other media, even
our legal system all seem to encourage revenge and retribution. This is why the mission of the church is so
important. We offer something that can’t
be found anywhere else. At our recent “Equipping
Congregations” event in Willmar, Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber shared this idea in a
powerful way by reminding us that the church too often tries to compete with
the world in other tasks. She
essentially said, “There are good, secular day cares, good health clubs, good
social service organizations, but nowhere else is there an organization whose
central focus is proclaiming the forgiveness of sins.” Forgiveness is not just one thing that we try
to do as Christians. It is our primary
mission and calling as the Jesus Family.
It’s what Jesus gave his life for.
That’s why we say “We don’t care what the world says about holding
grudges, in the Jesus family we forgive together.”
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