| Fifth
Sunday of Easter April 28, 2002
|
|||
 |
Printer Friendly Version
Well, it’s happened again. We were moving along nicely in Jesus’
Sermon on the Mount, enjoying his teaching, feeling kind of warm and comfortable
as he teaches us to pray, and then this.
Ever notice how Jesus seems to enjoy pulling the rug out from under our feet?
I mean just about the time we are thinking that we can get his version of
true discipleship, he throws in something like this – and suddenly it
seems impossible again. He was teaching us how to pray. And as we have been
saying, especially during our Sunday night focus, the Lord’s Prayer (as
we have come to call it) is so simple and yet deeply challenging. But for
the most part we like it and we are helped by it.
It certainly was helpful for us last week to hear Jesus tell us not to worry
so much about getting the words right in our praying, but that the heart is
what really counts. We like that kind of talk because most of us feel inadequate
at religious language but we know in our hearts we really do love God. But
now, Jesus has gone a bit too far. There’s no mistaking what he’s
talking about here and we don’t like it.
Forgiveness. He taught us to pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
our debtors.” That’s one thing and we can deal with that. But then,
almost like an afterthought, he goes back into the heart of the model prayer
and plunges the issue of forgiveness right into our guts. “Unless you
forgive each other, you will not be forgiven.” Ouch! That’s hitting
below the belt. That’s too hard. That’s conditional forgiveness
– isn’t it? I thought God’s forgiveness was unconditional.
Free. No strings attached. This sounds like a mighty big string. Jesus knows
us so well.
Now of course we believe in forgiveness as a concept. It’s the practice
of it that becomes a problem. It’s like the person who is committed to
tithing but never quite gets around to writing the checks. C. S. Lewis said,
“Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something
to forgive, as we had during the war [meaning WWII]. And then, to mention
the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger.”
Probably the renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud pegged the human spirit when
he said, “One must forgive one’s enemies, but not before they have
been hanged.”
Well that’s precisely the spirit that Jesus condemns squarely with the
troubling words we have heard this morning. “If you do not forgive men
their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” We don’t believe
that do we? We really don’t believe it or there wouldn’t be so much
unforgiveness at work in our relationships. Even within families that claim
to be Christian and churches that fly the banner of the kingdom of God, unforgiveness
is like buried toxic waste that everybody successfully ignores until people
start getting sick and dying. Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and then
waiting for the other person to die.
Jesus knew that with a spirit of unforgiveness lurking in our hearts, everything
else he is talking about in this Sermon on the Mount will unravel. None of
it works, none of it means anything if we refuse to live in reconciliation
and peace with each other. This is the heart of the gospel. Forgiveness is
what distinguishes Christianity from all other world religions. No one else
has the concept that God, out of his great love, freely and gladly forgives
those who are separated from him without having to somehow earn that.
No one else has a Savior who dies on a cross in order to make possible our
forgiveness from sin, and then be raised from the dead in order to have the
power to deliver that forgiveness to us. This is it. This is everything. If
we don’t get this, we don’t get anything. This is the great mystery
of the gospel. It’s the way to life. It’s the way to get free from
what binds you up and stifles your life.
And yet, amazingly, we so often refuse it. I have to think it’s because
we just don’t really understand it. We define forgiveness in the rather
cheap ways that our world has taught us to define it, rather than through
the lens of the death and resurrection of Jesus which alone makes true forgiveness
possible. So what is it that Jesus is really talking about here? What is he
calling us to? And what of that bit about God’s forgiveness that is supposed
to be unconditional? This sure doesn’t sound unconditional?
Well the issue Jesus is raising here comes in the context of a discussion
about what discipleship looks like. He’s talking about the marks of a
Christian. These are the characteristics that are to be present in the life
of genuine believer. So we probably would be right to distinguish to the forgiveness
of salvation and the forgiveness of ongoing relationship. I would suggest
to you that Jesus is not here talking about the basic forgiveness that God
offers us which makes us his children.
Otherwise Jesus would be saying to non-believers that they have get all their
relationships in order before they can be forgiven and be saved. That is not
the gospel. The gospel is the good news of salvation by grace through faith
in Jesus Christ alone. Besides a non-Christian does not really even have the
capacity to live out what Jesus is talking about here since the spirit of
Christ does not yet dwell in them as Lord.
But the real issue is, once one becomes a Christian and professes to follow
the way of Jesus, one of the key characteristics of that person is a spirit
of quick and ready forgiveness. He’s talking about relationship. What
does it mean for Christians to have relationship that honor God? In other
words, you may not be banished to hell for a moment of unforgiveness, but
you cannot live in fellowship with God and harbor and unforgiving spirit.
The connection to Lord’s Prayer is important. Jesus is clearly saying
that if you are living in unforgiveness your prayers will not be answered.
And the underlying principle in all of this is the great commandment that
Jesus said is love. If you want to know the real heart of Christianity it’s
summarized in this simple phrase: “Love the lord your god with all your
heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love your neighbors as yourself. The
two cannot be separated. You cannot love God unless you are loving your brother
– even the irritating ones. And that means you forgive them. If you don’t
then there is no way you can live in the reality of God’s forgiveness.
There is no practical way we can experience forgiveness unless we are willing
to make it a two-way street. If God is a forgiving God and we are unforgiving
creatures, we will never be able to get along – there is no fellowship
between opposites. That’s why Jesus can say categorically to believers,
“Unless you forgive each other, your Father will not forgive you.”
And I’m here today to tell you he was dead serious! He meant it. Stop
refusing it, or you will pay with your life!
Now it might be helpful to us to remember once again what this kind of forgiveness
really looks like. It’s often terribly misunderstood. Forgiveness isn't
pretending nothing has happened, or pretending that what happened didn't hurt.
It isn't even forgetting it completely, and it isn't going back and starting
over as though it hadn't ever happened. Pop-psychology has not helped us here.
Instead, Christians forgiveness is refusing to let anything permanently destroy
the relationship.
To forgive someone involves three things. First, it means i let go of the
right to strike back. I reject the urge to repay gossip with gossip and a
bad turn with a worse turn. That’s why gossip is so immoral. Practically
it means locking another person in the past, tying a person to a past sin
with my words. And that is anything but Christian. Forgiveness means that
the forgiven sin is no longer the subject of continued conversation. Second,
forgiveness means replacing the feeling of resentment and anger with love.
And I’m talking about biblical love. Not warm fuzzies, but a commitment
to do the good will of the other. Third, it means the forgiving person takes
concrete steps to restore the relationship. There's a place for saying, “I’m
sorry.” There's a place for assuring the other person that “all
is forgiven.” But the goal of both is to rebuild the relationship.
Too often, in the church, we say we offer forgiveness to each other but then
the practical strategy is to simply avoid each other and put the relationship
to rest. That’s not what Jesus has in mind. Fortunately, in spite of
our too common failure to live this out, there are some wonderful examples
of this kind of forgiveness.
A little boy passed a pet shop on his way home from school. Each day he would
stop and play with the dozen or so puppies that were kept in a pen in the
display window. Finally he got up enough courage to ask the owner of the store
how much one of the puppies would cost. The owner told him the price, and
so the boy went home and began saving his weekly allowance.
A few weeks later he came back with his piggy bank tucked under his arm and
a big smile spread across his face. He lifted his bank onto the counter and
broke it open. “It's all there!” He said joyfully. “So I see,”
said the owner, as he began to sort through the nickels and dimes and quarters.
“There's the pen. Pick out any one you like.”
The puppies were yelping, wagging their tails, and crawling all over each
other...all but one who sat off in the corner of the pen. The boy reached
past all the others, picked up the lonely one, brought it to the counter and
presented it to the shop owner. “Oh, you don't want that one,” said
the man. “Why not?” Asked the boy. “Well, he's crippled. Just
look at his leg. Son, you want a puppy who can run and play with you in the
park. You don't want a crippled puppy.”
The little boy set the puppy down on the floor and lifted the cuffs of his
pants. There was a set of braces, reminders of a childhood disease. The boy
said, “Yes, he's crippled. But I’m crippled too. I thought since
we were both crippled, we could be better friends.”
Isn’t that a parable for the church? We are all crippled, aren't we?
Our wounds come in many different forms, but we are all crippled. We came
to Christ to be healed. He gathered us together with others longing to be
made whole. And his plan is that we, the church, could be a healing community
for all who are broken, bruised and bleeding. And since we are all crippled,
since we are all in need of forgiveness, couldn’t we be better friends?
The only way that will happen with any success at all is if we submit to this
hard teaching of Jesus we have heard today.
“If you forgive others when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father
will not forgive your sins.”
I don’t know how he could have made it any plainer. The penetrating question
is, “Are you living in a spirit of unforgiveness toward anybody?”
God doesn’t do that. And if you want to be God’s, you can’t
do that. So what would Jesus have you do to fix it? He’ll give you the
strength and courage. You just need to make the commitment to be obedient.