Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
Forgiving others is one of the most important things we do as Christians, and
also one of the hardest.
And I must admit, it is not always an easy thing for me to do either. Some years
ago now, I remember one person I eventually came to forgive.
We'll call her Jessica. She worried above me at an organization I was helping out with. I became involved in several projects with her because I appreciated her passion for doing good. But there was a darker side to her I had yet to see.
We were putting together a presentation for a women's appreciation day. Not a big one mind you, just for our organization. I was paired up with someone who was less than motivated. And both of us had various other projects we were working on at the time. We were swamped for time and putting the little time we had left over into this presentation.
But what we had wasn't good enough. Or rather, what I had wasn't good enough. Because after we put all this work in, and had two or three days left to go, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that this was not good enough. I had never seen anyone quite so angry over a project that would be seen by so few.
So I worked hard to fix it. I worked past exhaustion for the rest of the week. On top of helping with another major project and starting a project of my own. It was so bad, one of my friends asked if I was okay when she saw me on the bus.
And the worst part is all this I ended up getting sick for a month. And there was no recognition. No sign that I had done what she wanted me to. It felt like Jessica had forced me to work through my breaking point and didn't even care.
And unfortunately I still had to work under Jessica on many projects. And so I hid my anger and let it fester inside me.
And then one day she smiled at me and asked how I was doing. And then it hit me. She didn't know. She was just one of those absolutely clueless people who has no idea the affect they have on others. She didn't even know what she had done.
It recalled to mind Jesus' words on the cross: "Forgive them Father, for the know not what they do." And for some reason realizing that made it easier to forgive her. To move on. To forget what had happened.
We'll call her Jessica. She worried above me at an organization I was helping out with. I became involved in several projects with her because I appreciated her passion for doing good. But there was a darker side to her I had yet to see.
We were putting together a presentation for a women's appreciation day. Not a big one mind you, just for our organization. I was paired up with someone who was less than motivated. And both of us had various other projects we were working on at the time. We were swamped for time and putting the little time we had left over into this presentation.
But what we had wasn't good enough. Or rather, what I had wasn't good enough. Because after we put all this work in, and had two or three days left to go, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that this was not good enough. I had never seen anyone quite so angry over a project that would be seen by so few.
So I worked hard to fix it. I worked past exhaustion for the rest of the week. On top of helping with another major project and starting a project of my own. It was so bad, one of my friends asked if I was okay when she saw me on the bus.
And the worst part is all this I ended up getting sick for a month. And there was no recognition. No sign that I had done what she wanted me to. It felt like Jessica had forced me to work through my breaking point and didn't even care.
And unfortunately I still had to work under Jessica on many projects. And so I hid my anger and let it fester inside me.
And then one day she smiled at me and asked how I was doing. And then it hit me. She didn't know. She was just one of those absolutely clueless people who has no idea the affect they have on others. She didn't even know what she had done.
It recalled to mind Jesus' words on the cross: "Forgive them Father, for the know not what they do." And for some reason realizing that made it easier to forgive her. To move on. To forget what had happened.
That's not to say that every feeling I had towards Jessica was gone in that moment. Several years later I saw her receive an award for some work she had done with a non-profit she was running. And I felt the pang of what she had done to me returning. It took talking it out with one of my best friends to move past it again.
Jesus tells us we should forgive not 7 times, but 70 times 7. Jesus means this for those people we meet who keep sinning and sinning against us. That we should give them more than one chance to repent and turn back.
But it is also a reminder that Forgiveness is a process. And often times a long one. Sometimes we need that 70 times 7 times so that we can fully forgive the person. So that we can truly move on. So that we can let go of our righteous anger, our hate, and our letting that person dwell within our heads, continuing to torture us again and again and again.
The easiest way to learn to forgive better, to learn to let go, is to realize that forgiveness is just following in Jesus' example. That we are just doing the same thing for others that Jesus did for us. This is what we learn in the parable today. We don't forgive because we shouldn't be angry. We don't forgive because we've fully let go of the pain. We forgive and move on because Jesus has done that for us. Because all of us have sinned. All of us have done wrong towards God, whether directly or through our harm of each other.
We forgive because it doesn't help us to hold on. Like the parable, it leads us further away from God. It leads to death. As long as we hold on to our anger and frustration, we allow that sin against to continue to harm us.
And it becomes easier to let go as we realize, with Jesus, that many times the other doesn't truly know what they are doing. They don't know the real harm that they've brought about. They weren't really thinking about the lasting impact of their sins.
This is where Joseph's brothers found themselves. When they threw Joseph in a hole and sold him into slavery, they weren't thinking about what a terrible thing they were doing. They weren't thinking about the consequences. They just knew that their brother was a constant nuisance and pain in their lives, which he really was, and they thought their lives would be so much better without him.
But as Joseph said, what his brothers intended for evil, God used for good. God was able to take that sin and transform it by placing Joseph in the right place to save his family when they needed it.
God has done that ultimately with His own death on the cross. Through the crucifixion, a terrible event of injustice carried out on the one just man to have ever lived, God was able to save us all. The bad stays bad, but God can still transform it to save everyone.
Forgiveness is very difficult. Because there are things people do to make us justly angry at them. But we have done that very same thing to God. We have made Him justly angry with us. And yet God still brings us back to Himself. Like the woman of ill-repute in John 8, God gives us the chance to turn back with the words "Go, and sin no more." We can't turn back the clock, but we can move forward changed and transformed.
We are called to give the same opportunity to those who have made us justifiably angry. We're called not to let that anger destroy us, but to let it go. We're called to be like Jesus and take that pain and transform it. Transform it into something new, something powerful, something life-giving.