Matthew
18:21-35, Genesis 50:15-21
Lord, if another member of the church
sins against me, how often should I forgive?
As many as seven times? Peter must have been pretty proud of himself
with this question. Seven times is a
heck of a lot of times to forgive someone.
What a shock it must have been when Jesus replies, Not seven, but seventy seven times.
Yikes! Truth be told, most of
us have a hard time forgiving just once.
Seventy seven times, basically offering unlimited forgiveness? Most of us would find that close to
impossible.
One
of the reasons that forgiveness can be so difficult for us is that it’s easy to
confuse what it is and what it isn’t.
Like forgiveness is not about forgetting, as in the old saying, Forgive and Forget. That’s ridiculous. Whatever happened in the past is history and
it can’t be changed nor can it be forgotten.
And forgiveness is not about saying something is okay. If something is okay then it doesn’t need to
be forgiven. If forgiveness is needed it
means that something was definitely not okay.
And offering forgiveness does not mean that consequences are
absolved. Brokenness in various ways may
still be the result of an act even though the offender has been forgiven. What forgiveness actually is, the forgiveness
that Jesus speaks of, a forgiving from the heart, is a letting go - a letting
go of bitterness, of resentment, of the desire to seek revenge - so that
eventually the hardness fades away and is replaced by a kind of peace that
frees the person who forgives to fully live.
The
rub is that it’s one thing to know this in your head. It’s a completely different thing to
experience it in your heart. I’ve been
with countless people who struggle, struggle mightily, to forgive - and the
offender varies. Some seek to forgive a
particular person, or a group of people.
Others are unable to forgive themselves for a certain act or to forgive
God who either seemed to cause or allow something to happen. What’s particularly troubling is that even if
we think that forgiveness is a good thing it still can be a very hard to do in
our hearts. So when Jesus says that he
expects us to forgive seventy seven times and adds that there may be dire
consequences if we do not, well that can feel quite defeating. Is Jesus really setting up a condition that
if we unable to fulfill we are to keep away?
Is he saying that if we find ourselves unable to forgive that we have no
place with him?
No. Absolutely not. That’s not what he’s saying. Something else is going on here for God
desires each one of us to always come close and live fully in her love. Our God does not expect us nor does she want
us to go off on our own, get our lives in order, shape up first and then come
to her. Rather God’s way is always to
call us to come with all of our messy imperfections and embarrassing failures
so that we might know love, be loved and be healed and made whole.
That’s
what God wants for all of us all the time and it’s no different when it comes
to forgiveness. God knows our struggles
- how hard it can be to let go of hurt and resentment particularly when the
offense is grave. God also knows that
Jesus’ command to forgive can sometimes feel downright impossible. But what if that is exactly what God wants us
to know. That, yes, the expectation to
forgive seventy seven times is, indeed, not something that we can do on our
own. Because when able we recognize
that, admit that it’s beyond our ability we can then turn to God for help. Our inadequacy actually becomes an
opportunity to come closer the love and mercy of God. Hear this: Forgiveness is not a job that
Jesus wants us to do on our own.
Forgiveness is a job that Jesus wants to do in us - in your heart and in mine.
But
in order for that job to begin, for that process to start - because more often
than not forgiveness is a process not a one-time event - we need to be willing
for God’s Spirit to be at work in us.
Honestly, that may be a challenge in and of itself. Sometimes we don’t even want to be open to
change, to the possibility of forgiveness.
Here again if that’s the case, it’s another invitation to come close to
God. For some a beginning prayer may be,
Help me to want to want to forgive. And even from there over time, as we allow
God’s Spirit to move in our hearts forgiveness will come, a slow softening will
occur until one day, probably without any fanfare, there’s a realization that
the resentment, the hardness, the sting is gone. And in its place, the healing balm of forgiveness.
We
see that forgiveness at work in our Old Testament reading today with Joseph and
his brothers. Brothers that were
consumed with jealousy and wanted Joseph gone so badly that they sold him into
slavery where he suffered for many years until rising to become the highest
official in Egypt under Pharaoh. And
after many years had passed circumstances forced the brothers come before
Joseph. Understandably they were afraid
and filled with fear and trembling for they deserved any retribution that
Joseph would decide to mete out. But,
God’s Spirit had clearly been at work in Joseph’s heart for instead of
punishment he offers forgiveness saying, Even
though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.
Now
God did not want Joseph to suffer all those years as a slave nor did God make
it happen, but God still used that horrible experience, the wrongs that Joseph
endured, for good. That’s what God wants
to do for us, too. Whatever bad things
have happened in our lives, whatever suffering or struggle we have faced or are
facing at this moment God wants to use it, to redeem it, and make it for
good. That’s not to say that God turns
something bad into something good. Bad
is still bad and there’s no changing it.
However, our lives do not have to be poisoned by what happened in the
past. Whomever or whatever we find hard
to forgive God seeks take it and somehow turn it into a means a grace -
something that God can work in and through in order to bless.
Being
told that we need to forgive seventy seven times is not a precursor to
judgment. Rather it's an invitation to
come - to come closer and know even more fully and truly God’s great love,
God’s unlimited mercy, God’s amazing grace.
And to let all of that flow into our lives and into the lives of
everyone in this world no matter who they are or what they’ve done. That kind of love and forgiveness is bigger
and greater than anything any of us can muster.
But the good news is we are not expected to. We get to experience it ourselves and let it
flow through us into the world so that, with God’s help, we might be empowered
to actually forgive seventy seven times.
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