Matthew
6:5-15
Luke
23:32-34
Donald Trump received a lot of attention several weeks ago for
saying this about whether or not he has ever sought forgiveness from God – I am not sure I
have. I just go on and try to do a
better job from there. I don't
think so. I think if I do
something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into
that picture. I don’t.
My first reaction upon hearing those comments was to shake my head,
but perhaps he was expressing the feelings of many when he uttered those
words. Forgiveness is tough, it is
difficult, and, if we are honest, it is also something we would often rather
ignore.
As we continue through the Lord’s Prayer we come to the phrase forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors. Or forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
Hear again, the Lord’s Prayer, and a passage from Luke’s gospel that
provides the ultimate testimony of forgiveness.
Matthew 6:5-15 –
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
Our
Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give
us this day our daily bread.
12 And
forgive us our debts, (leave out next phrase ) as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
forever. Amen.
Luke 23:32-34 –
32 Two other men,
both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed.
33 When they came to
the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the
criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.
34 Jesus said,
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they
divided up his clothes by casting lots.
Did you notice that I left out part of a verse? I skipped the line as we forgive our debtors.
It wasn’t an oversight; I did it to make a point. If we’re honest, we might admit that we
would prefer to leave out that part of the Lord’s Prayer, because of the
difficulty of offering forgiveness.
Jesus taught about many subjects, and there are certain themes he
returned to on multiple occasions.
One of the regular themes in the preaching of Jesus is that of
forgiveness. The
words Jesus spoke about forgiveness are some of the most radical and
challenging words he offered throughout his earthly ministry. It was not just that he pronounced
God’s forgiveness for sins – which did offend some people, because they could
not accept who he was – but because so many did not want to see forgiveness
granted to others, and in that respect, human nature has not changed much in
the ensuing two thousand years.
Forgiveness is one of those topics that make us squirm, because we
recognize how incredibly difficult forgiveness can be. I think that if we are
really honest, we will admit that forgiveness comes neither easy nor natural to
us.
When we talk about forgiveness, we also have to say a few words
about what brings about the need for forgiveness, which is the brokenness of
humanity and our sin. The New
Testament uses five different words for sin, whereas in English, we have only
one.
1. Hamartia – this is
the most common word used for sin, and it means a missing of the target.
It is a failure to be what we were created to be. This is different from committing a
particular action; it is being satisfied with how we are rather than how we
could be. It is not unusual to be
tempted to be content with our lives, thinking well, I’m just as good as anyone else and therefore, good enough. The real question, however, that we must
ask ourselves is this – are we everything
God desires us to be and created us to be?
2. Parabasis – which
means a stepping across. This is an action that steps over a clearly
marked line of right and wrong.
It’s the concept of a line in the sand, where there is a clear
distinction between right and wrong.
Sometimes we eye that line for a long time, and then make a conscious
decision to take that step across the line. It is a very willful, obvious act of disobedience.
In our congregation, we use the version of the Lord’s Prayer that
contains the words trespass and trespasses. The word trespass
means there is a line you don’t cross.
To forgive those who trespass
against us is an acknowledgement that someone has crossed a line of what is
right, what is good, and what is acceptable and have done something that causes
some kind of hurt to us. It
acknowledges there has been real hurt that has taken place.
3. Paraptoma – which
means a slipping across. This is similar to slipping on ice,
where an action is not as deliberate but comes more from carelessness or
neglect. We often use language to
describe these types of actions, such as saying we have slipped up. There is
no thought or plan in this type of action; it just seems to happen, causing us
to ask, how did that happen? How did things go this far? We don’t go from point A to point B in
a single step, but one small, sometimes unknowing step at a time, slipping
further and further down a path that so often leads to heartbreak.
4. Anomia – which means
lawlessness. This is when a person knows what is
right, but very specifically does what is wrong. It’s the kind of action that reflects an attitude of I really don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m going to live how I want and I
don’t care who it hurts.
5. Opheilema – this
is the word used in the Lord’s Prayer, and it means a debt, specifically, a failure
or inability to pay what is due. Some churches use the version of the
Lord’s Prayer that contains the words debts
and debtors, which express this idea.
We usually think of the word debt
as a financial word – someone owes a debt to someone else. That’s how we sometimes see
forgiveness. When someone hurts
us, we believe they owe us
something. They owe us an apology, they owe us an explanation, and they owe us restitution. It is easy to hold the offense of the
other person over their head and to place them in a position of being a debtor to us.
Jesus asks us to release that person from the position of being a
debtor. We are called to remove
the shackles of guilt we want to fasten to them and we are called to release
the other person from any sense of indebtedness to us.
Now, allow me to offer a few brief words about forgiveness –
1. Forgive others.
Someone once said that we are
most like God when we forgive.
I hope, then, that we are often like God.
But there are some very important considerations to make when we
speak about forgiving others.
Very shortly
after the shootings at the Immanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina,
early in the summer, some of the families quickly, and publicly, expressed
their forgiveness to the shooter.
But not everyone agreed with this sentiment. More than one editorial column said it was too soon to offer
forgiveness, and one writer expressed this in very blunt language – Recently, I wrote that I believe in forgiveness. I do. It is necessary to move on. But
this was too fast. Too soon. Too quick.
This was instantaneous forgiveness of the unfathomable kind where the
wounds were still fresh, the bodies unburied, the echo of that horrible sin
still ringing. Forgiveness, depending on what one is forgiving, should come
over time. How much time? Not this soon. Not this soon.
I can understand that sense of withholding forgiveness, but I think
it is an incorrect view. The
writer of the editorial equated forgiveness, I think, with overlooking a
terrible action. To forgive quickly,
he seems to imply, is to fail to adequately acknowledge just how terrible this
tragedy was. But others had a
different view. Listen to the
words of an editorial offered by another writer –
When we suffer injustice, the human heart craves revenge, vindication
and retaliation. These are also desires Christ came to save us from. Christians
are commanded to respond to injustice with forgiveness. This principle is
central to Jesus’ teaching in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we
also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12). Immediately after this prayer,
Jesus tells his disciples, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew
6:14–15)
Later in the Gospel of Matthew, Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, how many times
shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answers, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew
18:21–22) In other words, you cannot forgive someone enough.
The swift forgiveness offered by the victims’ families, as hard as that
must have been, is what Christianity is all about. Forgiveness is an extension
of love. Christians extend forgiving love to those who have wronged them —
including their enemies — because this is God’s disposition toward them. God is
love, and he calls his people to love. God forgives first and expects his
people to do the same.
The grace of forgiveness, in turn, empowers forgiven people to forgive
others.
Allow me, then, to make a few brief observations about forgiving
others.
First, it is important to understand that forgiveness and reconciliation
are not the same. In an ideal
world, reconciliation would come after forgiveness, but we do not live in an
ideal world. We live in a world
where some people see the possibility of a reconciled relationship as an
opportunity to continue inflicting their bad behavior and bullying upon the
other person. That is neither wise nor healthy. The reality is that some relationships contain such a toxic
level of brokenness that the amount of pain and hurt caused make reconciliation
all but impossible. In such cases,
reconciliation might never be possible, but forgiveness is. Forgiveness can
come even if reconciliation never does. But we must understand that offering forgiveness
does not mean that the hurt and pain caused by others are in any way
acceptable, and it does not mean that we are asked to overlook them. Forgiveness, in such circumstances, is
very much an act of the will, and in situations where the hurt and the pain is
so deep, it is necessary to call upon every ounce of our will to forgive.
Second, because forgiveness does not mean we must accept bad
behaviors, enter into dysfunctional and codependent relationships, or overlook unacceptable
actions, we are freer to make a conscious decision to forgive, which helps us
refuse to allow the poison of bitterness to build up within our hearts and
souls. I am convinced that some
people cannot offer forgiveness because they believe that in doing so they are
admitting that their pain does not matter and that the actions of the other
person are in some way excusable.
But nothing could be further from the truth. To forgive someone does not mean that we cannot condemn
their actions, nor does it mean that we cannot acknowledge the deep pain and
hurt that it has called.
Forgiveness is sometimes confused with overlooking hurtful actions and
pretending that nothing happened.
What forgiveness, and the offering of it, does is to release one from a
desire for revenge as well as releasing the pain and bitterness that seeks to
fester within our hearts.
Third, we should also forget everything we’ve ever heard about forgiving and forgetting. I don’t know where the saying of forgive and forget originated, but it is
both bad advice and bad theology.
We do not always forget hurts and offenses, but that does not mean that
forgiveness has not taken place if we have not forgotten them. We have so connected those two words –
forgive and forget – in our minds that people believe forgiveness has not taken
place unless they have completely removed the offense from their memory. Human nature being what it is, our emotions constantly remind
us of our painful experiences. While
we do not forget those experiences, we must be careful not to nurture their
memories, with the end result being bitterness and resentfulness, but the fact
that one does not forget them does not at all mean forgiveness has not, or
cannot, take place.
2. Forgive ourselves.
Over the course of my ministry I have encountered scores of people who
struggle to forgive themselves. As I sit
and listen to people struggle to find a way to forgive themselves, I struggle
over what to say to them. In all
my years of ministry I haven’t been able to find the words to help people find self-forgiveness.
The best I can seem to do is to
say you need to forgive yourself. But how does one do so?
All of us, perhaps, carry guilt over something we have done or
something we have said. Perhaps there were words spoken that could never be taken
back. Perhaps it is guilt over
missed opportunities. Perhaps it
is guilt over a broken relationship.
Perhaps it is guilt over an action that one deeply regrets. Whatever the
cause, so many are desperate to find a way to forgive themselves, but they
cannot do so.
And, regrettably, some people sense that guilt and use it as a tool
for manipulation. Guilt is such a
destructive force. Let go of the
guilt and offer yourself forgiveness.
3. Forgive God.
This one may sound strange, but there are people who are angry with
God and they cannot move past that anger.
Now, when I say that some people need to forgive God, I’m not saying God
has done anything wrong. What I am
saying is that some people are angry because God has not done what they asked
of him, what they hoped of him, or what they expected of him, and they are
disappointed in him, and that disappointment has turned into anger.
Maybe it is anger because of praying so hard that someone would be
healed, and they were not healed.
The person knows God could heal, but he didn’t, so disappointment sets
in and then turns to anger. Or,
perhaps, life just didn’t turn out the way one has hoped, and they are angry
about their life, and that anger is then directed at God.
I wonder if God might get more blame than credit. Perhaps people are quicker to blame God
when things go wrong than they are to credit him when things go right.
And when we talk about forgiving God, we should include the church
as well. There are a lot of people
who have suffered hurt in churches and have joined what one writer has called the church alumni society. Any person who has been involved in a
church for long has most likely experienced some kind of disappointment and
hurt, but some of it runs very deeply.
Forgiveness is incredibly difficult, but if we want to be like
Jesus, if we want to be the people he asks us to be, that is what we are called
to do.
The author Robert Louis Stevenson made it a practice to say the
Lord’s Prayer every morning with his family. One day, in the middle of the prayer, he got up off his
knees and walked out of the room without saying a word. His wife followed him out and asked
what was wrong. Referring to the
verse we will study this morning, he said, I
am not fit to pray the Lord’s Prayer (The
Gospel of Matthew, Volume One, The Daily Bible Study Series, William
Barclay, page 223).
This is both
the power and the challenge of forgiveness. The power of forgiveness is how it can forever change a
life, but the challenge of forgiveness comes from understanding all that is
involved in its offering.
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