Interesting Sermon On "Forgiveness"

Last edited by on Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

Forgiveness as Judgment
A Sermon preached by Dean Breidenthal
on Sunday, September 15, 2002

Text: Matthew 18:21-35

In today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive one who has offended against him. Seven times? Seventy times seven, answers Jesus.

This reminds me of the story of a little boy who was going to his first day of kindergarten. This was back in the days when nursery school was less common, so this really was to be the boy’s first experience of school. His mother took care to prepare him. For weeks beforehand they talked about the special clothes he would wear, the story circle he would sit in along with the other children, the time for playing, singing, eating and resting. The day before school started she took him to the room, and he met the teacher. On the big day he was so eager and ready he forgot to say goodbye to his mother. Back home that afternoon and evening, he could hardly stop talking about his day. The next morning, when his mother woke him and said “It’s time for school,” he stared at her in astonishment. “Does it happen again?”

Peter must have felt something like this boy’s astonishment to learn that forgiveness is not a one-time event. We are told by Jesus that forgiveness is a way of life. There is no limit to the number of times we are to forgive someone who asks for it. By implication, we are even to forgive those who have injured us and are not sorry.

Surely this will make most of us uncomfortable. We admire the grand gesture of forgiveness when it occurs once in awhile: Jesus on the cross saying, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But frequent and repeated forgiveness smacks of passivity and victim-hood, while pardon, when it replaces punishment too often, seems to dull the claim of justice. When post-apartheid South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee was pursuing its great experiment in amnesty for perpetrators who came clean, many complained that these proceedings deprived the tortured and the bereaved the judicial satisfaction that was coming to them. Can we blame them? Finally, there are crimes which strike us as inherently unforgivable – the abduction, abuse and murder of children; so-called ethnic cleansing; the events of 9/11.

Hannah Arendt, a great twentieth-century political philosopher, argued that Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness were among the most important teachings on the political realm ever to be produced. For her, Jesus’ insistence on forgiveness went hand in hand with an appreciation of the value of civic life: a people who could not bury the hatchet was a people that could never achieve a stable and healthy public life. I believe she is right here, yet one cannot help but wonder if there are not stores of bitterness and woe that are too precious, too deeply a part of the fabric of injured dignity, that are not worth foregoing for the sake of civility.

The question, then, is this: What does the practice of constant and wide-ranging forgiveness offer that outweighs the claims of dignity, justice, and decency?

Let’s look at the parable Jesus offers by way of explanation. He tells of a king who, determined to settle accounts with his servants, discovers one servant who owes him a huge sum. He orders that the man and his family be sold, so that the debt may be repaid. When the servant begs for time to make repayment, the king has a change of heart. He does not simply delay the deadline for collection; he cancels the debt – that is, he forgives it. On his way home, this same servant encounters a fellow servant who owes him a certain amount of money. He demands immediate repayment, and when this is not forthcoming, he throws him into prison, despite his pleas for mercy. When the king hears of it, he revokes his forgiveness and has the unmerciful servant thrown into the torture-chamber until the last penny has been repaid.

At the most obvious level this parable warns its hearers to pattern their behavior after God’s. If God, like the king, has been merciful to us (and God certainly has been merciful), then we had better be merciful to one another: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

But there is more going on here than that. Notice that the king undergoes a change of heart. He moves from settling accounts with his servants to canceling a debt outright. In essence, he shifts from one economic model to another – from an economy based on obligation and repayment to an economy based on freedom and generosity. He is able to do this, of course, because he is rich – rich, shall we say, beyond all human measure – and can therefore afford to cancel every debt. It’s hard to imagine even the richest individual or corporation today deciding to make such a shift. But of course Jesus is really talking about God here, and where God is concerned, it is perfectly easy to see how God, whose resources of creative power are infinite, might choose to establish an economy free from any need to worry about the bottom line. It is as if Jesus were saying: ‘You may have thought (rightly or wrongly) that God was primarily concerned with the settling of accounts, but the fact is, that is not where God is now. God has freed you from everything you owe to God, so you are now free to operate in a new way with one another.’

The forgiven servant should have realized that all the rules had changed. Anyone who has ever been part of a reporting structure knows that the demands of one’s superiors shape what one demands of one’s subordinates. If the CEO says ‘tighten your belt,’ you will make sure that those who report to you spend less. If the CEO says ‘think outside the box, be creative, don’t be afraid to make some mistakes, money is no object,’ you will give pass that expansiveness on. The forgiven servant failed to appreciate that the policy had changed, and that he was therefore free to be generous. He no longer needed to call in his chips in order to satisfy an exacting master, and yet he continued to behave as if he was operating in a climate of exactitude and the settling of accounts.

Here, then, is the point of this passage for us. Forgiveness is not a form of passivity, nor is it a backing-away from the claims of justice – if by justice we mean clarity about what is right and what is wrong, acknowledgement of the reality of injury and a firm grasp on the fact that many injuries are beyond the possibility of adequate redress. For the Christian, forgiveness is a practice that witnesses to God’s expressed intention to spare no cost (or, put otherwise, to deploy God’s inexhaustible abundance) to make God’s sun rise on the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:45). Anyone who shows mercy (Matthew 25: 31-46), anyone who demands mercy (Matthew 15:21-2 Cool

, anyone who is willing to step into the light of truth (Matthew 9: 9-13) is welcome into the kingdom of God. To forgive is to ally oneself with God’s intention, to witness to it, and to invite the forgiven to new life.

When we forgive our enemies, then, we are not acquiescing in what they have done to us. Nor are we soft-pedaling the claims of justice. We are responding to their cruelty with a clear demonstration of our own faith in – and agreement with – God’s intent to make disciples of everyone, even the most despicable. Paul puts this very well in the passage that was read at Opening Exercises last Wednesday: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads” (Romans 12: 20). Paul is not talking here about making our enemies feel bad by treating them kindly. Rather, our witness brings those who have harmed us into the presence of God, whose judgment, harnessed as it is to forgiveness, is a transforming and purging fire for those who will receive it (Isaiah 6: 1-7).

Forgiveness is, then, a form of judgment. But it is only judgment if we ourselves are included under the judgment, and if we are willing, in the end, to be in fellowship with those who have hurt us most. I say “in the end” deliberately. Forgiveness usually must begin when fellowship is not possible: it is a down-payment on a reconciliation which may now be unimaginable. Yet we forgive in our hearts, aware that we too are forgiven sinners, and ready, when the time comes, to act on willingness to forgive.

Horace Bushnell, a Congregationalist minister and one of the leading American theologians of the nineteenth century, tells a story that illustrates vividly the dynamic of forgiveness in the Christian life. (I am borrowing here from James McClendon’s account in his Systematic Theology: Ethics [Abingdon: 1986], pp. 225-7.) A Christian businessman was betrayed by his partner, and their company was ruined. He was able to start over, and eventually prospered. The offending partner went from worse to worse, until he was destitute and unable to afford medical care for his sick child. The now prosperous former partner, who had struggled daily to forgive his old friend – even though he still could not bear to meet him on the street, and would cross over to avoid it – reasoned that his forgiveness had better issue in action. So he sent anonymous checks to cover the cost of the sick child’s cure. But when a serious infectious disease hit the family of the offending partner, there was no one willing to take the risk of helping. So the businessman himself went to the home of his enemy, where he cooked, and cleaned and nursed, until the danger was passed.

We begin by knowing we have injured others and are forgiven. We are then able to begin to picture those who have harmed us as children of God. In the end, we are equipped for service – even the service of those who have treated us ill. That is the way that is mapped out for us as followers of Jesus. May the knowledge of God’s abundant love give us the security and the courage to pursue this way.

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/chapel/Sermon%20Files/2002_sermons/jugement.htm
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...I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. - Jonah 2:2

Subject: Re: Interesting Sermon On "Forgiveness" Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:11 pm

Our Father has been dealing with me alot lately on the issue of "forgiveness". I came accross this article earlier today and thought that I would share it. What are you thoughts?
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...I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. - Jonah 2:2

Joined : 07 Apr 2007 Posts : 269

It's one of the most difficult things to forgive.

Joined : 14 Apr 2007 Posts : 124

From what I have the seen the majority of Christians do not practice true forgiveness. I am sure everyone will disagree and tell me how forgiving they are. The real proof is in the pudding, which I do not see much of in the everyday existense

Subject: Re: Interesting Sermon On "Forgiveness" Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:57 am

Yeah.... people have a hard time genuinely repenting and taking responsibility for the wrong they've done to others, too.

Get over it.
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only symbols can be twisted ,burned,spat on etc.NOTHING truly Holy can be desecrated.....

Joined : 14 Apr 2007 Posts : 124

Subject: Re: Interesting Sermon On "Forgiveness" Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:53 am

It's a good article. I'll post one a bit later.

It's definitely a process and definitely of more benefit to the forgiver than the forgiven.

I've learned over the past few years how very deep it can go. *whew*
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only symbols can be twisted ,burned,spat on etc.NOTHING truly Holy can be desecrated.....

Subject: Re: Interesting Sermon On "Forgiveness" Mon Jun 25, 2007 2:51 pm

Taken in Adultery
Three Tales
by Orson Scott Card
1986

This sermon, or midrash, on the story of the woman taken in adultery, is by the Hugo and Nebula award winning author Orson Scott Card. He wrote it as the introductory material to Chapter 16, "The Fence," in Speaker for the Dead, the sequel to Ender's Game. Used with permission.

Old Testament Message
If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. — Leviticus 20:10

New Testament Message
Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. — Romans 13:8-10

Gospel Message
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him.

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.

When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

She said, "No one, sir."

And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again." — John 8:3-11

A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It so happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a Speaker for the Dead, told me of two other rabbis that had faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.)

The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. "Is there anyone here," he says to them, " who has not desired another man's wife, or another woman's husband?"

They murmur and say, " We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it."

The rabbi says, "Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong." He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, "Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he'll know that I am his loyal servant." So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her, and stops the mob, as in the other story and says, "Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone."

The people are abashed, and forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I'll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated.

As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the stones, lifts it high over the woman's head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull, and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones.

"Nor am I without sin," he says to the people. "But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it."
So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation.

So of course, we killed him.
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only symbols can be twisted ,burned,spat on etc.NOTHING truly Holy can be desecrated.....

Man in Morph Age : 40 Joined : 08 Apr 2007 Posts : 8017

Forgiveness used to be a four letter word to me. Anyone, like me, that had a parent that was an alcoholic, knows the torture of trying to forgive someone who wasn't asking and wasn't changeing. Forgive my dad? I'd rather run him over with large heavy objects. It was my mom who showed me how to forgive and mean it and she was getting used and abused more then us kids. She is a saint in my book. I now try to operate under the golden rule-forgive others as you would want them to forgive you. Someday I may even get better at it.