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Some years ago, I saw an ad from a
British newspaper announcing the “Postal Forgiveness
Service.” It comes from Father Alfred Rawlins, vicar of St.
Mary in the Fields, Newcastle on Tyne. It shows a picture of
the consoling priest himself with clerical collar, proper
gray hair and a gentle smile. The headline announces:
Make Your Peace With God…For as Little as
10 Pounds
And the
paragraph reads:
Now and then we all stray from the path
of righteousness, and in today’s busy world, finding time to
go to confession is none too easy. How much easier it would
be to get forgiveness at a time which suits you. Well now,
with the new Postal Forgiveness Service brought to you by
Father Alfred Rawlins, you can be forgiven of your
trespasses from the comfort of your own home. Simply fill
out the coupon below and send it in with cheque or postal
money order to Father Rawlins.
Then
the clip-off coupon with easy-to-check boxes:
Father, forgive me, for I have
sinned. I have committed the following sins:
Profanity 1 pound
Falsehood 10 pounds
Adultery 15 pounds
Theft 20 pounds
And
finally, this note at the bottom:
Please allow 28 days for forgiveness.
Wouldn’t it be nice if it was that easy to make our peace
with God and with one another?
1. Father, forgive us our sins.
My first appointment in 1972 was to three
small churches in rural western Pennsylvania—Hawthorn, Oak
Ridge and Mt. Zion. It was only four years after the merger
of the Evangelical United Brethren and the Methodist Church.
Hawthorn and Mt. Zion were former EUB and Oak Ridge was
former Methodist. At Hawthorn and Mt. Zion, when we prayed
the Lord’s Prayer we followed the EUB tradition, praying,
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” But at
Hawthorn we used the Methodist version: “Forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Running between three services in the
three churches on Sunday morning, then one Sunday night
service at Hawthorn and three mid-week prayer meetings, I
always had to remember where I was in order to lead the
prayer. When it came to combined services, I figured it was
every man for himself, and I just got real quiet so as not
to appear to be taking sides.
Even now, forty years after the merger,
we still have both versions in our hymnal, plus the newer
version which uses the word “sins” instead of either debts
or trespasses.
But whether you say debts,
trespasses or sins, the starting point is the acknowledgment
of our own need of mercy, forgiveness and grace.
Some years ago, therapist and theologian
Carl Menninger wrote a book which raised the question:
Whatever Became of Sin? Of course, if you asked that
question today, you might answer that sin has become the
stuff of entertainment—think the Spears family or Jerry
Springer—flaunting our indiscretions for all to see. Or
reflect on the Oscar movies with themes like bitter revenge,
cold-blooded murder, sexual indiscretions and corrupt
business practices. But personal sin? Acknowledging my own
shortcomings, my own need for forgiveness and redemption,
confession and pardon? Well, that’s something else
altogether. Yet the path to new life begins when I realize
my own need of grace, my own sin.
The story is told of the proud and brash,
but not very becoming, Oliver Cromwell, who one day was
sitting for a personal portrait to be painted. In the midst
of it, in all of his arrogance, he said to the artist,
“Well, my good man, I hope you can do me justice.” It is
said that the artist responded, “It’s not justice you need,
it’s mercy.” And in the broad light of God’s word, so do
we.
“All we like sheep have gone astray.”
“We have all fallen short of the glory of
God.”
We all stand in need of God’s grace. Our
journey toward wholeness begins with the simple prayer:
“Forgive us our sins.”
And that is where today’s parable begins.
It begins with the servant’s realization
of his need of mercy. His master confronts him with this
incredible debt which would have sounded totally absurd to
Jesus’ hearers—10,000 talents! For the common laborer, that
would be equal to about fifteen years worth of wages. It is
more than the total budget of a typical province in that
time. King Herod himself collected the inordinate sum of
1,000 talents per year in taxes to support his lavish
lifestyle, and Jesus says what this man owed was more than
ten times Herod’s annual spending. The servant first offers
to pay, which of course is completely impossible. Then,
acknowledging his total inability to save himself, he pleads
for mercy.
Author Keith Miller tells
the story on himself. He was raised a northern city boy in
Chicago and had never been south of the Mason Dixon Line
until he went to basic training at Ft. Benning, Georgia. On
the first day, he came down for breakfast in the mess hall,
picked up his tray, and saw this gooey white stuff in the
serving line which he thought looked for all the world like
cream of wheat. So he dished up a big bowl of it and put
milk and sugar on top. Well, the Georgia farm boy across the
table from him started to laugh and said, “Whatcha doin’ to
them grits, putting milk and sugar on them? Is that how you
eat grits?” Unwilling to be embarrassed, he responded, “You
bet! This is how we eat ’em in Chicago!” And the Georgia
good old boy watched in amazement as he ate them.
The next morning when he sat down for
breakfast, the same Georgia soldier was right across from
him, and of course, he had to do the same thing—another bowl
of grits with milk and sugar. He says, “Unwilling to admit
I had made a mistake, I somehow managed to eat the mess
again.”
His conclusion: “We would rather go to
hell maintaining our innocence than to say, ‘I was wrong.’”
(Edge of Adventure, page 14)
All we
like sheep have gone astray. All have fallen short of the
glory of God.
Father, forgive us our trespasses.
Father, forgive us our debts.
Father, forgive us our sins…
2. “...as we forgive those who have sinned against us.”
Ouch. Now, as the old southern Baptist
lady used to say, “He done stopped preachin’ and started
meddlin’.” When we acknowledge our need of mercy, when we
have experienced God’s amazing grace, when forgiveness comes
our way, the path leads in only one direction. For the
servant in the parable, it leads to his neighbor.
Now again, to get the real punch of the
story, you have to realize the ridiculous contrast Jesus
offers. Here is a man who has just been forgiven of a debt
which is equal to fifteen years of wages—10,000 talents—ten
times greater than Herod’s annual expenditures. And what
happens? He immediately encounters a neighbor who owes him
not even one talent, just a few denarii, about ten bucks! In
the light of what he has just experienced, what does he do?
He grabs him by the neck and demands payment. And when the
poor man begs forgiveness, he has him thrown in jail.
Jesus’ point is so simple, so obvious.
When I acknowledge my own need of forgiveness, when I
realize the great debt Christ has paid, when I am
overwhelmed by God’s amazing grace for me, I am called to do
the same, called to the path of forgiveness.
At this point it’s important to remember
the context of his parable. Peter has just asked Jesus the
64,000 dollar question: “Lord, how often shall we forgive?
As many as seven times?” You see, Jewish law required three
times, so Peter was offering more than twice what the law
required. He was thinking of himself as generous, maybe
even a bit smug, a little self-righteous, thinking he was
being so merciful. And Jesus replied, “I do not say seven
times, but seventy times seven.”
Which is to say, it’s not about
keeping count, it’s about mercy. It’s not about keeping
score, it’s about grace.
Unlimited, undeserved, unearned,
immeasurable, immense, overwhelming grace. And in the prayer
we pray every week, Jesus goes so far as to dare us to pray:
“Father, forgive me my sins, even as I forgive those who
have sinned against me.”
The pipeline of grace flows from
God to me to others. And if you plug up the pipeline at one
end, it stops flowing at the other.
God
calls us to forgive.
Now I would never suggest the path is
easy, quick or simple. Forgiveness is seldom linear or fast
or even complete. Forgiveness is not the same as legal
pardon. There is also the matter of justice, recompense and
restitution. Forgiveness does not guarantee reconciliation.
One person can forgive but it takes two to reconcile, and
sometimes that simply can’t happen. But the path to
wholeness includes the step of forgiveness. Bishop Tutu is
right. Not only for the nation of South Africa, but for all
of us there is “no future without forgiveness.”
I’ll share my own witness at this point.
It involves an uncle who was a drain on the family for most
of his life. He cheated on his numerous wives, deserted his
children, stole from his brothers, and embarrassed my
grandfather right in front of Gramps’ pastor. The last time
I saw him for almost twenty years was literally over my
dad’s deathbed when we had a pretty bitter exchange. I saw
him one more time at another uncle’s funeral, when we were
at least polite with each other. When I heard of his death,
it didn’t really bring relief, but it felt like the end of a
sad saga in our family.
For almost three decades now, I have
dealt with Uncle Earl as a part of my life and my story and
I have struggled to forgive. I can’t say it’s complete. In
fact, even to tell the story dredges up my own anger and
resentment. But I know that for the sake of my own soul and
sanity, the path leads through forgiveness. We never
reconciled in life, and of course, with his death there is
no option for that. But I know that if I am to be whole, if
I am to find my own sense of well-being, I must continually
seek to forgive. Harboring resentment only blocks the flow
of God’s mercy and forgiveness in my life. And in the end,
it only hurts me.
Two things have been helpful to me. The
first is to remember what my brother said after Uncle Earl’s
death: “In the resurrection, all is healed and all will be
well, and the circle will be unbroken by and by.” And I pray
that is true.
The second is to remember how much God
has already forgiven me. And if God has been so merciful
with me, then what else can I do but seek to forgive?
3. Father, forgive us our sins,
even as we forgive those who sin against us…and help us to
remember.
Rev.
Laurie Haller reminds us that:
Forgiveness requires remembering, not
forgetting. The past has a way of returning and haunting us
unless we remember it and acknowledge it. Forgiveness
doesn’t mean forgetting, but it does mean letting go of the
hold the past has on us.
(Rev. Laurie Haller, “Forgiveness: What’s
the Big Deal?”
FUMC Grand Rapids, March 5, 2006)
And of course, that’s what I am striving
to do with Uncle Earl. I will never forget the past, but I
am striving to be free of the hold the past has on me,
remembering the grace and forgiveness I have already
received from God.
In working on this sermon, I came across
an old article from Time Magazine in 1974, just after
President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. After the
way he had abused the office and the nation, most of us were
none too sympathetic toward Nixon. And few of us supported
Ford’s decision, especially since Nixon never repented,
never acknowledged his need of forgiveness.
But in this Time essay, Mayo Mohs
says:
There is a difference between pardon and
amnesty. Amnesty means to forget. Pardon presumes guilt, but
it represents the desire to forgive.
And his concluding paragraph says:
Each of us is to a degree lost, tied to
the rest of humanity and to God by fragile strands of grace,
strands that fray and break. Forgiveness is a favor that we
may sometimes be in a position to grant, but more important,
it is one that we will always need. (Time Magazine,
Sept. 23, 1974)
Father, forgive us our sins, as we
forgive those who sin against us.
Freely, freely you have received;
Freely, freely give. |
