Finding a Way to Forgive

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 13, 2014.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 18:21-35 and Matthew 21:1-11.

            Let’s review where we are so far in our sermon series, “Pray This Way”, looking at the Lord’s Prayer.  We started with “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”  We talked about how important it is for us to acknowledge the holiness of God.  We then went to, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”  We talked about how important it is for us to do whatever we can to make earth more like God’s kingdom and to do God’s will on earth.  In our most recent message, we covered, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  We talked about how important it is in all aspects of our lives to trust that God will give us enough for today--enough food, enough time, enough energy, enough inspiration, enough love--and that God will give us enough for tomorrow when tomorrow gets here.

            So now, we come to the next sentence.  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

            Let’s get one thing out of the way early.  Some traditions, as we do, say “trespasses”.  Others say “debts”.  Others says “sins”.  It really does not matter.  We say “trespasses” because trespasses is an old English word, used in the King James Bible, and United Methodism started in England.  But I think we all know that when we pray the Lord’s Prayer we’re not asking God to forgive us for going on someone’s property without permission.  It’s not that kind of trespasses.  And I also think we know we’re not asking God to forgive us for owing money.  It’s not that kind of debts.  We’re asking God to forgive our sins.

            But asking God to forgive our sins is the easy part of this sentence.  That’s not to say it’s always easy.  Sometimes we don’t really feel like talking to God about our sins.  Sometimes we don’t even feel like admitting them even to ourselves.  Sometimes we want to pretend that our sins are not really sins, that we really did not do anything wrong.  Sometimes we’ll go to great lengths to justify our actions, or our inactions, and try to convince ourselves that everything we do or don’t do is okay.  And believe me, I’m as guilty of that as anyone.

            But even so, we know we’re sinners.  No matter how much we may try to push that thought away, we still know.  And we know we need to go to God and ask for forgiveness.  It’s not always easy to do, but we know we need to do it, and I think most of us probably do it.

            But there’s that second part of the sentence.  This is the part we tend to gloss over.  This is the part we tend to hurry right on past.  We ask God to forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us.

            That’s the tricky bit.  That’s the part we don’t like to have to deal with very much.  It’s one thing to ask God to forgive us.  It’s another thing entirely for us to forgive other people.

            But the thing is, the way Jesus puts it, the one is dependent on the other.  The extent to which we are forgiven depends on the extent to which we forgive.  In Matthew, right after teaching the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus emphasizes the point.  He says, “For 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 you.”

            That’s the point of what we read from Matthew 18 today, too.  Jesus tells the story of a servant who owed his master a bunch of money and was forgiven for it.  That same servant then went out, found someone who owed him a piddly amount and refused to forgive.  When the master found out about it, he revoked the forgiveness he had given the servant.  Jesus said that’s how it’s going to work for us, too.  He said if we don’t forgive others, we are not going to be forgiven.

            But then, Jesus said one more thing.  He said that the forgiveness you and I give someone must come “from your heart”.  In other words, it’s not enough for us to just say we forgive someone.  We need to feel it.  Our forgiveness needs to be completely and totally heart-felt if it’s going to count.

            And that’s really hard.  Because sometimes we’re not ready to forgive someone.  And sometimes we just plain don’t feel like it.  We feel like someone does not deserve our forgiveness.  We feel like they have not asked for forgiveness and probably could not care less whether we forgive them or not.  And sometimes, what someone did to us really hurt.  It was more than just the ordinary mistake or doing something wrong, it was a betrayal.  And when we feel someone has betrayed us, when we put our trust in someone and they let us down and hurt us, it’s really hard for us to forgive them.

            And that brings us, at last to Palm Sunday.  Imagine you’re Jesus on that first Palm Sunday.  You’re riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.  The disciples are walking next to you.  A crowd forms along the side of the road.  Pretty soon, there are people everywhere.  They’re shouting and cheering.  They’re waving palm branches.  They lay their coats down in front of you.  They lay the branches down in front of you, too, sort of like forming a red carpet for you.

            If you’re Jesus, how do you feel about this?  For some of us, it might be the crowning moment of our lives, making this triumphant, heroic entrance.  But for Jesus, there’s really no way it could have been.  Because Jesus knew what was coming next.

Jesus knew all this cheering, all this shouting, this whole red carpet treatment, was meaningless.  He knew none of these people even knew what they were cheering for.  They wanted someone who would come in and kick out the Romans and establish a new, self-ruled Jewish kingdom.  That’s what the palm branches were all about.  They were a symbol of Jewish nationalism.  

Jesus knew that in just a few days, he was going to be arrested, and beaten, and tortured, and killed.  And he knew that when that happened, not one of these people who were now cheering him on would do the slightest thing to help him.  Not one of them would lift a finger.  In fact, some of the people who were now cheering him on would soon be cheering on the authorities who wanted to kill him.

Can you imagine what that would feel like?  To see all this and know it was all meaningless?  To see all this and know all these people who are so enthusiastically cheering you on would turn on you less than a week later?  

In our Wednesday Lent services, we’ve been talking about how Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.  Because he was fully human, it seems like there must have been a part of Jesus that wanted to strike back at these people somehow.  He must’ve been tempted to bring down lightning bolts from heaven on them.  At the least, he must’ve wanted to tell them off, tell them what hypocrites they were.

So, if you’re struggling with forgiving someone, whether it’s for something that happened recently or something that happened a long time ago, know that Jesus understands what you’re going through.  Jesus knows what it’s like.  Jesus knows it’s hard.  Jesus has been there.

            But Jesus found a way to forgive.  And that's what we need to do, too.  No matter how hard it is to forgive, no matter how much we may not even want to forgive, we still need to try to find a way to do it.  The extent to which we are forgiven depends on the extent to which we’re willing to forgive.  That’s the rule.

            But as I was thinking about this, I remembered something we’ve said in other contexts about God’s rules.  We’ve said that God does not give us rules so that God can send us to hell if we break them.  God gives us rules because God knows we’ll be happier, we’ll do better, we’ll live better lives, if we just do things the way God tells us to.  And that includes forgiveness.  Jesus did not tell us this so that God would have an excuse to send us to hell if we don’t forgive people.  Jesus told us this because God knows that you and I need to offer people forgiveness.

            Sometimes in life, people do really hurt us.  And when they do, it is really hard to forgive.  And as I said, Jesus understands that.  But when we don’t forgive, we never get past the hurt.  The hurt stays in our hearts.  We re-live it, over and over again.  That hurt takes away our happiness.  It takes away our joy in living.  It takes away from our self-confidence.  That hurt even gets in the way of our ability to serve God.  The only way we can ever get rid of that hurt, the only way we can ever truly heal, is to find a way to forgive.

            It’s not easy.  I don’t have a magic formula to tell you how to do it.  I do think it involves prayer.  I think it involves asking God to help us be able to forgive.  I think it involves asking God to help us let go of the past and move forward in our lives.

            Again, that’s not a magic formula.  It’s not like saying one quick prayer is going to enable us to forgive.  It takes time.  It takes effort.  But I do believe that if we keep trying, and keep praying, eventually God will answer our prayer and will help us forgive.

            So the next time you say the Lord’s Prayer, think about those words.  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Take a moment and ask God to help you forgive anyone you need to forgive, whether you want to or not.  When we pray this way, God will answer our prayer and get rid of our hurt.