forgiveness
There’s a saying that goes, ‘If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator; If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist; If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist; If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer; But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Saviour.’
Forgiveness is one of the key things that we accept as Christians – and it is one of the key qualities that is so often needed in a world which so often lives by the rule of the Old Testament – ‘An eye for an eye…’ This is not the rule of Jesus who came into the world to show that every sin could be washed away, not by merit, not by good works or thoughts, but by saying sorry and promising to try and live as Jesus wants us to live…
In the gospel this evening (Matt. 18:15-end) as Jesus begins to teach about forgiveness, Peter asks him how many times he should forgive someone if they sin against him – and Peter offers the figure of 7 as a suggestion. Almost certainly Peter thought he was being generous – The Rabbis taught that forgiving someone three times was sufficient. Nothing in the Jewish Talmud required people to forgive more than that. Knowing that, Peter doubled that number and then added one to boot! He figured he was really impressing Jesus. But Jesus answered: "not seven times, but seventy times seven." That's 490 times! The point Jesus made was: ‘Don't count, Peter, just forgive!' A principle that applies time after time…
Forgiveness is a word we both love and hate. It's a tremendous grace as it regards what God does with our confessed sins. When God forgives our sins it's like He presses the delete button on His Heavenly computer. And when He forgives us He doesn't send our sins to a temporary recycle bin just in case He needs to remind us of them. They're totally removed! That's what we love about the word forgiveness.
But there's an element of forgiveness that's more difficult for us to deal with. And that element arises when God asks us to forgive those that trespass against us.
There’ s a story of a man that loved dogs. He went in front of his house and began making a pathway to the street. As he was nearly finished a dog trounced right though the middle of the wet cement. Since he was a dog lover he overlooked the dog's inability to recognize wet cement so he calmly re-smoothed the pathway. Knowing it could happen again he placed rope along each side of the pathway.
But a few minutes later the dog pounced over the rope and again splashed through the cement. His patience dwindled but he didn't retaliate; he just chased off the dog with some harsh words. Again, he smoothed out the concrete but incredibly enough, the dog sneaked behind him and leaped right into the middle of the cement again. The man stormed into the house, snatched his gun, went outside and shot the dog! His neighbour witnessed everything that happened and rushed over to his friend and said: "I thought you loved dogs." The man responded, "I do love dogs. But that's in the abstract. I hate dogs in the concrete."
Forgiveness really isn’t easy – but forgiveness is not something we do just for others but something we do for ourselves… There is no doubt that a willingness to forgive can help others, but a failure to forgive very often will affect us far more than it will ever affect anyone else. Whilst the person that has done us wrong is often continuing with their lives, we may be eaten up by bitterness or even hate…
Jesus says forgive – and of course he offered the perfect example of forgiveness as he hung on the cross and offered the words, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do…’
But it is difficult, and there will be times when we fail to forgive – times when we need to approach God and tell him we have failed, and ask for his help and strength to help us…’ Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, was reminded one day of a vicious deed that someone had done to her years before. But she acted as if she had never even heard of the incident. "Don't you remember it?" her friend asked. "No," came Barton's reply, "I distinctly remember forgetting it."
Jesus, in this gospel reading that we’ve heard this evening tells the parable about the unforgiving servant – in the parable the king decides to settle some accounts with his slaves – and the first one that is brought before him owed him 10,000 talents – a huge amount of money, perhaps years of salary. After the king orders him to be sold along with his family, the man begs for another chance, and the king forgave him the debt.
Later the forgiven slave decides to chase up his accounts and when someone who owed him money, just a days wages, begged for extra time to pay, the forgiven slave refused and had him put in prison. Rightly the other workers, along with the king himself, were outraged, and the king immediately ordered that he be tortured until the debt was paid.
Jesus, anticipating the action he was to take on the cross, was teaching his followers that forgiveness means forgiveness – and that forgiveness also has to have an affect on the rest of our lives. As we are forgiven by God, so we must forgive…
And so the art of forgiving is a spiritual gift that every one of us should develop, and it will need work, because there are people that we don’t want to forgive, however sorry they may be, and there are people that we will almost certainly weigh up in our mind to see if they deserve forgiveness or not, but we are not to be the judges.
Forgiveness is a difficult course to take – but it is a way that allows God to be apparent in the world, because his very nature is one of forgiveness and love – of 70 times 7 chances… and if those are exceeded, then maybe some more as well ! AMEN
Forgiveness is one of the key things that we accept as Christians – and it is one of the key qualities that is so often needed in a world which so often lives by the rule of the Old Testament – ‘An eye for an eye…’ This is not the rule of Jesus who came into the world to show that every sin could be washed away, not by merit, not by good works or thoughts, but by saying sorry and promising to try and live as Jesus wants us to live…
In the gospel this evening (Matt. 18:15-end) as Jesus begins to teach about forgiveness, Peter asks him how many times he should forgive someone if they sin against him – and Peter offers the figure of 7 as a suggestion. Almost certainly Peter thought he was being generous – The Rabbis taught that forgiving someone three times was sufficient. Nothing in the Jewish Talmud required people to forgive more than that. Knowing that, Peter doubled that number and then added one to boot! He figured he was really impressing Jesus. But Jesus answered: "not seven times, but seventy times seven." That's 490 times! The point Jesus made was: ‘Don't count, Peter, just forgive!' A principle that applies time after time…
Forgiveness is a word we both love and hate. It's a tremendous grace as it regards what God does with our confessed sins. When God forgives our sins it's like He presses the delete button on His Heavenly computer. And when He forgives us He doesn't send our sins to a temporary recycle bin just in case He needs to remind us of them. They're totally removed! That's what we love about the word forgiveness.
But there's an element of forgiveness that's more difficult for us to deal with. And that element arises when God asks us to forgive those that trespass against us.
There’ s a story of a man that loved dogs. He went in front of his house and began making a pathway to the street. As he was nearly finished a dog trounced right though the middle of the wet cement. Since he was a dog lover he overlooked the dog's inability to recognize wet cement so he calmly re-smoothed the pathway. Knowing it could happen again he placed rope along each side of the pathway.
But a few minutes later the dog pounced over the rope and again splashed through the cement. His patience dwindled but he didn't retaliate; he just chased off the dog with some harsh words. Again, he smoothed out the concrete but incredibly enough, the dog sneaked behind him and leaped right into the middle of the cement again. The man stormed into the house, snatched his gun, went outside and shot the dog! His neighbour witnessed everything that happened and rushed over to his friend and said: "I thought you loved dogs." The man responded, "I do love dogs. But that's in the abstract. I hate dogs in the concrete."
Forgiveness really isn’t easy – but forgiveness is not something we do just for others but something we do for ourselves… There is no doubt that a willingness to forgive can help others, but a failure to forgive very often will affect us far more than it will ever affect anyone else. Whilst the person that has done us wrong is often continuing with their lives, we may be eaten up by bitterness or even hate…
Jesus says forgive – and of course he offered the perfect example of forgiveness as he hung on the cross and offered the words, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do…’
But it is difficult, and there will be times when we fail to forgive – times when we need to approach God and tell him we have failed, and ask for his help and strength to help us…’ Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, was reminded one day of a vicious deed that someone had done to her years before. But she acted as if she had never even heard of the incident. "Don't you remember it?" her friend asked. "No," came Barton's reply, "I distinctly remember forgetting it."
Jesus, in this gospel reading that we’ve heard this evening tells the parable about the unforgiving servant – in the parable the king decides to settle some accounts with his slaves – and the first one that is brought before him owed him 10,000 talents – a huge amount of money, perhaps years of salary. After the king orders him to be sold along with his family, the man begs for another chance, and the king forgave him the debt.
Later the forgiven slave decides to chase up his accounts and when someone who owed him money, just a days wages, begged for extra time to pay, the forgiven slave refused and had him put in prison. Rightly the other workers, along with the king himself, were outraged, and the king immediately ordered that he be tortured until the debt was paid.
Jesus, anticipating the action he was to take on the cross, was teaching his followers that forgiveness means forgiveness – and that forgiveness also has to have an affect on the rest of our lives. As we are forgiven by God, so we must forgive…
And so the art of forgiving is a spiritual gift that every one of us should develop, and it will need work, because there are people that we don’t want to forgive, however sorry they may be, and there are people that we will almost certainly weigh up in our mind to see if they deserve forgiveness or not, but we are not to be the judges.
Forgiveness is a difficult course to take – but it is a way that allows God to be apparent in the world, because his very nature is one of forgiveness and love – of 70 times 7 chances… and if those are exceeded, then maybe some more as well ! AMEN
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