The Fruits of the Spirit: Patience

Today, we continue our series on the fruits of the Spirit, and we turn our attention to the fourth fruit on that list: patience.

Now, I must confess that I was a bit excited to begin studying this particular fruit because oftentimes I find myself lacking patience.  I mean, a lack of patience is why I enjoy fishing for bass and not for catfish.  When you fish for catfish, you throw your bait into the water and just sit and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Sometimes, you can wait an entire afternoon or an entire day, and nothing happens.  This is very, very tough on me.  I personally don’t like it one bit.  But in bass fishing...well, that’s an entirely different dynamic.  You are constantly throwing your lure out into the water and reeling it in.  You can cast far away.  You can cast nearby.  You sometimes have to work though the weeds.  You are in constant motion even if the fish aren’t biting.  You aren’t just standing or sitting around waiting.  You don’t have to be patient.  Yet, they do say, “Patience is a virtue.”  So, I was hoping to cultivate patience so that at the very least, I might become a better fisherman–at least for catfish.

Ah, but then I started digging into the meaning of the word patience.  On Monday, I sat down and pulled out my commentaries.  I began looking up the word patience in the original Greek.  And I discovered something.  I discovered that there are actually two words in Greek that are translated into the English equivalent “patience.”  One of those words indeed meant simply waiting for something to happen.  But then there was the other one, and here is your Greek word for the day–a word that I am sure you will not remember five seconds after I speak it.  The Greek word used for patience right here in this list of the fruits of the Spirit is makrothymía.  It does not mean simply waiting.  No.  It has a much different nuance.  Let me read to you what Strong’s Concordance gives as its definition: “Makrothymia comes from the Greek words makrós, "long" and thymós, "passion, anger"–properly, long-passion, in other words waiting sufficient time before expressing anger. This avoids the premature use of force (retribution) that rises out of improper anger (a personal reaction).”  So, patience as Paul lists it here as a fruit of the Spirit is waiting a sufficient time before expressing anger.

This means patience, as a fruit of the Spirit, means not only being able to wait in the doctor’s office; it means being able to wait in the doctor’s office knowing that your appointment was at 10 a.m. and that it is now 11 a.m. and you still have a pleasant disposition.  You haven’t become angry.  It’s also the type of patience showed by the man pushing a cart with a screaming baby at the supermarket.  As he goes up and down the aisles, he softly says, “Keep calm, George.  Don’t get all excited, George.  Don’t yell, George.”  A lady watching with approval says, “You certainly need to be commended for your patience in trying to quiet little George!” The man said, “Lady, I am George!”  That’s the patience spoken of as a fruit of the Spirit.

And as I continued on with my study, I found that this word was used by Jesus only a few times.  One of those times, I’m going to deal with in the adult Bible study today, so you are welcome to join in on that.  But probably the most significant time Jesus used this word was in a parable that is very familiar to us.  It is a parable that I literally spent three weeks preaching on not too long ago in my sermon series on forgiveness.  Many of you might remember the parable of the unforgiving servant.  As I sat and wrestled with the true meaning of this word and how it was reshaping my entire understanding of what I had thought patience was and how it related to Jesus’ teachings,  I had to stop.  Literally. I had to stop and just let things settle.  I got up from my studies, grabbed my car keys and headed out to visit one of our members who was in the hospital. 

I mean, have you ever had such a thing happen to you?  Have you ever thought that you knew exactly what something meant and how it played out only to suddenly have everything changed?  Have you ever thought that you had studied something and understood it only then to have one more piece of information change your perspective drastically?  I had to go from understanding patience as simply enduring waiting for something to understanding patience as a slowness to anger.  I had to let my mind process that switch.  Now,  I am wondering if you are having to process this information in the same way.  I am wondering if you are having to re-think your understanding of patience just like I did.  I am wondering if you need some time to let your brain settle in just like I did.  If that’s the case, then maybe I should stop the sermon right here and give you a week to think about it.  Then, next week, we can all come back, and I will finish this sermon when we’ve let the dust settle.

Now, most of you know that I’m not able to do that.  I can’t preach a sermon where I don’t even mention the Gospel of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, so, that means I’m going to have to press onward.  Therefore, I am going to ask those of you who may be struggling to try and hold onto the definition of patience as: slow to anger.  And perhaps turning to something familiar will help us do that as we look briefly again at the parable of the unforgiving servant as we find it printed in our bulletin today.

Just to recap, we know that a master who is wealthy beyond imagination begins settling accounts with his slaves.  A particular slave is brought before him who owes the equivalent of $6 billion.  There is no way possible this slave can pay his master back.  The debt is entirely too large.  Therefore, the master is going to sell this slave along with all the slave’s possessions and the slave’s wife and children to recoup the debt.  The slave falls down, kisses his master’s feet and says, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.”  When I preached on this parable, I was under the assumption that the slave was begging for time.  I thought he was trying to convince his master that given enough time, he would pay back the debt–although we know this is an impossibility.  But, alas, this was the wrong assumption.  This is not what the slave is saying.  The slave is saying, “Don’t let your anger burn against me; don’t let your wrath be turned against me; be slow to anger, and I will pay you back everything.”  That’s actually a pretty big difference in what is being said because we know that the master has every right to be angry with this slave.  We know that the master has every right to unleash his wrath upon this slave.  This slave has managed, God knows how, to lose $6 billion of his master’s money.  That’s not chump change in the least.  That’s an overwhelming amount of your master’s money to lose.  Anyone who’s lost a substantial sum of money on a bad investment will tell you how angry that makes you.  But this slave is appealing to his master’s compassion.  This slave is appealing to the master’s love.

And guess what?  What does the master show?  Compassion.  The master has makrothymía.  The master is tremendously slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  Jesus is reminding his listeners–and us–of the reality of what God is like; a reality echoed even in the Old Testament in Nehemiah 9: 16-17: 16 ‘But they and our ancestors acted presumptuously and stiffened their necks and did not obey your commandments; 17they refused to obey, and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them; but they stiffened their necks and determined to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them.”

And that is exactly what the master does here.  The master swallows the debt.  The master writes off $6 billion and frees the slave.  This is the heart of the Gospel.  This is exactly what Jesus does for us on the cross.  We come before God owing a debt that we cannot possibly pay.  Our sin is overwhelming.  We have sinned against God in thought, word and deed.  Every time we have sinned against our neighbor or against the creation, we have sinned against God.  And we can never commit enough good to erase that debt.  We can never, ever pay it off.

Yet, justice demands that it must be paid.  And so, God pays it Himself in the person of Jesus.  Jesus takes our debt upon himself and faces the anger that we should have faced.  Jesus takes our debt upon himself and pays the price that we should have paid.  The cancellation of our debt is free for us, but tremendously costly for God.  But such is the compassion of our God.  Such is the grace of our God.  Such is the love of our God. 

But the cancellation of the debt is only half of what happens, for our God now gives us His righteousness.  Our God then clothes us with glory.  Our God then gives us garments that are whiter than snow.  “For as many of you who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have clothed yourselves with Christ...”  (Gal. 3:27) Not only has our sin been removed and have we been rendered spotless, we have also become children of God.  Jesus has made us His brothers and sisters so that we will share in His inheritance.  And that inheritance was gloriously revealed in the resurrection.  Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, we will be raised from the dead.  Just as Jesus suffering was transformed into good, our suffering will be transformed into good.  These are the things that happen to us when we place our trust in Jesus’ work and not our own.  These are the promises we can hold onto when we trust in Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of our lives. 

And when we understand the makrothymía that God has had toward us; when we understand how slow to anger God was with us, then we will have makrothymía toward others.  We will be slow to anger toward others.  We will understand that we were and still are broken people.  We will understand that we needed a savior.  And we will be patient when others sin against us.  For we know that they need grace just like we need grace. 

Ah, but that does not mean that there is no time and place for anger.  That does not mean that anger completely vanishes.  Remember makrothymía means slow to anger.  Jesus reminds us of that in the remainder of the parable because the servant who received compassion from his master fails to extend that same compassion to a fellow servant.  A fellow servant owes him the equivalent of $10,000, and when the fellow servant pleads for makrothymía–that anger might be slow, his pleas are unanswered.  The one who was forgiven fails to forgive. 

And then, the One who was slow to anger, becomes angry.  The one who had forgiven, reinstates the debt and throws the one whose heart was not changed into prison where he must pay back the debt.  And we know, that this debt will never be repaid.  The one who had been forgiven will spend eternity in prison.  Jesus rams home the message, if you who know that you have been forgiven and you fail to forgive, the result will be eternal punishment.  Makrothymía has its limits.

There’s a story about a truck driver who dropped in at an all-night restaurant in the western U.S.  The waitress had just served his meal when three drunken bikers came in and asked him for a fight.  One grabbed his hamburger, and another took a handful of his french fries, while the third picked up his coffee and drank it.  The trucker didn’t respond as one might predict.  Instead, he calmly got up from the table with his check, left his money at the cash register, and walked outside.  As the waitress took his money, she watched the man drive away in a big truck.  When she returned, one of the bikers said, “He’s not very tough, is he?” She said, “I don’t know much about that, but I know he’s not much of a truck driver because he just ran over three motorcycles in the parking lot.”

Now, I’m not suggesting that we run over motorcycles or anything of that sort.  Not in the least.  But I am suggesting that even though we practice patience; even though we are slow to anger, there is also a time where we must realize that there are things that are wrong.  We must realize that there are things that must be confronted.  We must realize that we cannot stand idly by and allow things like poverty, abuse, hunger, bullying, harassment, and such things to go unchecked.  Our anger, like God’s anger must be kindled against such things. 

But here is the kicker–this is why makrothymía is a gift: our anger is directed toward the actions, not the people.  With people, we have patience–we are slow to anger.  Our first response toward people is to share with them the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Our first response is to help them understand how they have been forgiven.  Our first response is to introduce them to the God who loved them enough to die for them when they were unlovable.  For this, and this alone truly changes a heart and helps them stop doing the things they once did that were contrary to God’s word. 

Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church once said, and I am paraphrasing here: If I truly want people to change their behavior, I do not preach the law; on the contrary, I preach the gospel over and over and over again.  You see, it is very easy for us to see things that are wrong, and yell out, “Thou shalt not!!!”  But it is much more difficult to say, “Look to the cross at the God who died for you.”  To do so requires something special within us.  It requires an ability to be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  It requires makrothymía–patience.  May we all be blessed with this fruit.  Amen.

Fruits of the Spirit: Peace

Today, we come to the third fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23: peace.

As we discovered when dealing with the word: love, there are also several meanings to the word peace.  There is the kind of peace that a mother of three young children longs for.  Some of you understand this kind of desire.  It’s the kids are jumping around the house on a rainy day, screaming and yelling, knocking over furniture, asking for juice and snacks, putting all kinds of demands on you, lock yourself in the restroom for five minutes so you can get away kind of peace.  This kind of peace is the absence of any distractions or demands on your time or person.

But that is not the only kind of peace we know and long for.  There is also the absence of conflict kind of peace.  I had an interesting discussion with a World War II veteran this week who shared with me what it was like to find this kind of peace.  His unit had been assigned to go after the Eagle’s Nest in Germany.  For those of you who might be unfamiliar with that term, the Eagle’s Nest was the place where Hitler was supposed to be holed up–a last stronghold.  This veteran had faced the daunting task of fighting to capture this fortified, dangerous position.  But before, they moved out, they received word that the war was over.  Peace had been declared.  “The feeling was unimaginable,” this man said.  The absence of what had been brutal conflict was overwhelming.  We long for this kind of peace.

There is also the feeling that we experience in the midst of conflict and strife that all will be okay.  We tend to call this inner peace.  I know this feeling well because I have had it numerous times in my life.  The most vivid one was when I was working for the YMCA summer camp program.  We had taken a group of children to a park in northwest Austin, TX.  It was June of 1996, and we received word that the town of Jarrel, TX had been hit by tornadoes, and they were headed our way.  Complicating matters was that the Y had hired school busses to shuttle us and several other groups to the elementary schools which served as our home bases.  Those busses were busy shuttling another group, and we were without transportation. The skies darkened, and we took the kids to a ravine hoping that the storms would pass over us.  I climbed to the top of a small hill and looked northward and saw a funnel cloud heading toward us.  Yet, in the midst of all of this, I was strangely calm.  Deep down, I knew everything was going to be okay.  And sure enough, a local family saw our plight and urged us to take shelter in their house.  The storms passed us by while we huddled safely there–in peace.

It is quite interesting that in all of these circumstances, we often talk about working for peace. We talk about trying to make peace happen.  We broker treaties, schedule retreats, go to counseling, and all sorts of other things to generate peace.  But Paul, in this list calls peace a fruit of the Spirit.  This means that for a Christian, peace isn’t something that we manufacture as if we can find and assemble the pieces to make something come together in perfect harmony; instead, peace is something that naturally flows from us as individuals and is found in our congregations and churches.  In a real sense, peace just happens.  How can this be?

Well, it all begins with Jesus.  Jesus makes a very interesting comment in the book of John.  27"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  When Jesus says these words, he is tapping into his Jewish heritage and talking about Shalom–a deep sense of well being; a sense of being in harmony with God.  This is not a simple, fleeting feeling.  It is a true gift.  And what is that gift.

First, let’s examine what Jesus means when he says, “I do not give to you as the world gives.”  What does the world give?  Remember, Jesus is saying these things in the midst of the Pax Romana–the peace of Rome.  It was a grand narrative that the Roman Empire proclaimed.  They were bringing peace to the world.  But how?  How did the Roman Empire bring their peace?  How has peace been brought to the world for countless generations?  Through violence.  The Romans established peace by stomping out anyone who opposed them.  They viciously put down any opposing army or insurrection.  They crucified thousands of people.  They rendered swift and merciless judgement on criminals.  Their violence established peace.  This is how the world establishes peace.  The biggest kid on the block gets to call the shots, and if anyone dares to oppose him or her, then the consequences are severe.  There is no conflict because no one wants to take on the big kid.  Everyone fears reprisal.  Everyone walks in lock step because to do so means one will endure the wrath of the one in charge.  This is the peace that the world gives.  Jesus says his peace is not like this.  Not by a long shot.

So, what kind of peace does Jesus bring?  Let me begin to flesh this out by reminding you of an older story–a story that is found at the very beginning of the Bible.  Some of you may remember the story of Noah’s Ark.  You know that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and Noah and his family and a bunch of animals were saved by being on a giant boat.  And you may remember that the boat came to rest on top of a mountain and stayed there until the water subsided.  Now, I would like to read to you the ending of that story.  Genesis chapter 9 starting at verse 8:

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ 12God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’ 17God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’

Now, most of us were taught that this bow is the rainbow.  The rainbow is often seen as a sign of peace.  Why?  Well, please note that in the lesson from Genesis, the word “rainbow” is not used.  The word bow is.  Do you know what a bow is?  No, not the bow that is put in someone’s hair to make it look pretty.  This is a bow, the kind that is used to shoot arrows. The kind that in that day was used to make war.  God hung up his bow after the flood.  After God punished the sinfulness of humankind, there was peace.

Now, let’s fast forward thousands of years.  Let’s fast forward to another hill, this one outside the city of Jerusalem.  On that hill stands a man, hanging and dying on a cross.  But he is more than just a man.  He is also God incarnate.  He is the creator and sustainer of the universe.  He is one person of the Holy Trinity who took on human flesh to live among us.  He lived the perfect life, following every command of God the Father, and because he was spotless and blameless, he became the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  That man, hanging on the cross has taken the world’s sin upon himself.  He has reached into you and into me and taken our unholiness upon himself.  He has reached into you and me and taken our brokenness upon himself.  He has reached into you and me and taken every evil thought, word, and deed upon himself.  And he is dying in our place.  He is suffering the torments of hell in our place.  He is taking the punishment of the world’s sin so that we might never have to face it.  He is redeeming us and offering us forgiveness of sin.  And not only is he doing this.  No, this is just one half of the equation.  The other half is what Jesus is giving to us.  He is giving us his righteousness.  He is giving us his blamelessness.  He is giving us his spotlessness.  He is making us holy so that we can stand before God Almighty acceptable in His sight.  He is transforming us into his brothers and sisters so that we may receive the promises of God.  He is giving us the same status that he had as sinless.

Instead of washing the world clean by a flood and destroying once again the wickedness of humankind and punishing us for our sin, God pays the price himself and washes us clean by His blood on the cross of Calvary.  Instead of hanging a bow in the sky, God hangs himself on the cross in a declaration of peace.  Why?  Because, when you hang a bow up, the bow is still there and it can be used later.  War can be re-declared.  This time, the bow is broken, shattered, and a lasting peace is established between God and humanity as God pays the price once and for all!

St. Paul wrote about it this way in the book of Romans, “6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

Through Jesus Christ, we have peace with God.  A right relationship with God has been restored.  We have been justified.  We have been made right with our creator, not by any action we have taken, but by the actions that Jesus Christ has taken.  And God announced this new status with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  God declared that everything Jesus said and did was true; and God showed that what happened to Jesus will also happen to us.  Death will not touch us.  We too will be raised to eternal life.

And when we put our trust in this action; when we stop trying to make ourselves right and throw ourselves on the mercy of God and God’s action, something happens deep within us.  Something happens that brings us a sense of overwhelming peace and comfort.  We know that we are right with our Creator.  We know we stand in God’s love–a love that will never go away.  And we know that God will act to bring us through whatever trial or tribulation we will face.  Even death cannot have the last say.  God will work to bring all things toward the good.  Such things bring us an overwhelming sense of peace deep within our hearts–even when the world rages around us.  Such is the fruit that grows within our hearts.

But it does not stay within our hearts.  These fruits of the Spirit also begin coming forth in our lives.  Peace begins emerging in our relationships–particularly in the relationships between those who believe in Jesus.  For you see, as our hearts change, we too understand that peace is not given as the world gives.  We begin to understand that peace is not brought about by being the top dog and strongest, mightiest person who can call all the shots.  No.  Instead, peace begins to emerge when we, like Jesus take on the pain and suffering of offering forgiveness.  Peace begins to emerge when we are willing to pay the price for someone else wronging us.  Remember our sermon series on forgiveness not too long ago?  See how the two are inter-related?  When a community of such like minded people gather, there are problems.  There are issues.  Our human natures still bring about conflict, BUT because our hearts are willing to absorb the cost; because our hearts have the peace of Christ within, reconciliation and forgiveness rule.  Reconciliation and forgiveness take center stage.  The same reconciliation and forgiveness God through Jesus extended to the whole world emerges within a community of faith bringing peace between brothers and sisters in Christ.

During my sermon series on forgiveness, I told the joke about the preacher who preached on loving one’s enemies.  Remember that joke?  A pastor preached a sermon to his congregation on loving and forgiving one’s enemies.  After 30 minutes, he asked his congregation, “Who believes we should love and forgive our enemies?”  About half of those in attendance raised their hands.  The preacher wasn’t satisfied with this, so he preached another 30 minutes.  He then asked again, “How many of you believe we should love and forgive our enemies?”  About 3/4 of the congregation raised their hands.  So, the preacher preached another 45 minutes.  He then asked once more, “Who believes we should love and forgive our enemies?”  The whole congregation raised their hands except for 94 year old Mrs. Mabel sitting in the back of the church.  The preacher was astounded.  “Mrs. Mabel, how is it that all the rest of the church believes they need to love and forgive their enemies, but you don’t?”  Mrs. Mabel replied, “I ain’t got no enemies!”  The preacher was astounded, “You have no enemies?”  Mrs Mabel responded, “No.  Not a one.”  The preacher was then filled with excitement as he said, “Mrs. Mabel, please come down here and give your testimony.  Come down here and tell us how it is that you have no enemies.”  Mrs. Mabel shuffled up to the front of the church. She took the microphone in her hand and held it close.  Then she said, “It’s because I outlived all them hussies!”

I am sure Mrs. Mabel was at peace, but not because she was producing peace.  She was not bearing the fruits of the Spirit.  Imagine a place where such personal relationships were governed by the peace that forgiveness brings.  Imagine such a place governed by a group of people who were quick to bear one another’s burdens and realize how deeply flawed one another can be.  Imagine a community where the words, “I forgive you,” easily flow as they did from the lips of Jesus.  Imagine a community of people who know the peace of being forgiven by God and who then extend that forgiveness to one another.  Would you want to be a part of that community?  Could you stand being away from that type of community for a long period of time?  Would you want to stay in that community and experience it day in and day out?  At its best, this community would be called the church.  It would be called those who are forgiven and who forgive as Jesus did.  It would be called those who produce the fruit of Peace because they know the grace of God truly and deeply.  May we be such a community.  Amen.

The Heart of Forgiveness: Part 5

Long ago, before I came here to St. John, I taught a Bible study titled “Finding God in Harry Potter.”  It was based on the book The Gospel According to Harry Potter by Connie Neal, and I will forever remember an anecdote that Neal used in the book.  To illustrate a point that she was making, she said, “When you look at a fly through a microscope, it looks like a monster.” 

Indeed, it does.  In fact, if we saw flies from that perspective all the time, we would be terrified of them.  But we don’t.  Instead, we see flies as miserable little insects that are a minor nuisance at times and a major one at others.  We are unafraid of them, and we swat them with fly swatters with little concern for ourselves.  They are tiny and insignificant compared to how big we are in comparison.  That perspective makes a big difference–a very big difference indeed.

Sometimes in life, we are offered a choice in perspectives.  We are given an opportunity to view a problem; view a challenge; view a course of action in a different manner.  We are given a chance to change our focus; change our way of looking at things; see a new reality.  When this happens, sometimes it forever changes how we look at reality as we know it.  There are stories of atheists becoming believers; believers becoming atheists; Republicans becoming Democrats; Democrats becoming Republicans; Republicans and Democrats becoming Libertarian, and so on and so forth.  When these shifts occur, it changes the very core of a person.  They become completely and totally different, and because of this, these changes are not easy to make or undertake.  A shift in perspective is very, very difficult.

You might be wondering what this has to do with forgiveness?  Essentially everything.  To really, truly learn how to forgive requires a fundamental shift of being.  It requires a new perspective.  It requires a change of heart.

This is why the Bible does not offer any sort of 12 step process of forgiveness.  You simply can’t change a heart with any sort of program.  It’s not that easy.  I mean, let’s think about this with our working definition of forgiveness: the change in our emotional state when we choose to absorb the cost of someone else’s actions that have hurt us.  No one really wants to do this.  No one really wants to absorb the cost: the pain, the frustration, the anxiety, the misery, of someone else wronging us.  We want revenge.  We want restitution.  We want justice.  We want the other person to hurt just as badly as we hurt.  But forgiveness says, “No.”  Forgiveness says, “I will willingly bear this pain for the other person so that in the long run I will be free from it.”  Forgiveness says, “I will erase the debt that someone else owes me so that I am no longer burdened by the anger and frustration of holding onto that debt.”  That’s no easy task.  No easy task at all.  It fundamentally goes against the grain of our very being.

Generally, something has to happen to us to change our perspective.  Generally, something has to happen to us to reorient our lives and our hearts.  Generally, something has to jar us out of our anger and frustration so that we can become new beings and practice forgiveness.

This is what Jesus is fundamentally getting at when He tells the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.  We are now going to put everything together that this parable is trying to convey to us, and maybe, just maybe it will hit home to the extent that it will open our hearts and minds so that we change our perspective; change our focus; and find the path to forgiveness.

As we have worked through this parable in the past couple of weeks, we have found that God is a God of unimaginable justice and unimaginable love.  God is just.  There is no way of getting around that, and God will demand justice out of us.  This is the message of the opening scene of this parable.  A servant has racked up an extraordinary debt–10,000 talents.  In today’s money, that would be roughly $6 billion.  You’d have to spend one million dollars a day for nearly 16 and a half years in order to incur that much debt.  It’s overwhelming.  And the Master to whom this debt is owed renders judgment on the servant.  The debt is due.  Payment must be made.  That’s the way the world works.  If you owe someone, you must pay.  We all know this.  If you need a reminder, go borrow a bit of money from the bank and fail to pay a payment.  I guarantee you, you will be reminded very quickly.  The Master is rendering justice on this servant when He declares that the servant will be sold along with his family and his possessions as payment for the debt.  This is God’s justice at work.  It is only right.

But the servant is desperate.  He does not want this to happen to him.  He does not want to lose what freedom he has.  He does not want to lose his family.  He does not want to lose what he has.  His life might as well be over if these things happen.  So, the servant begs and pleads with his Master.  He falls to his knees; he kisses his Master’s feet; he lies and says, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”  We know there is no way this can happen.  A person was lucky to make one talent in his lifetime.  This guy owes 10,000 lifetimes of debt.  There is no way he can repay.  It’s a lie.  He knows it, but he is desperate.  He has yet to understand his Master.

And speaking of the Master, the Master is deeply moved by the plight of His servant.  Despite the enormous debt; despite the lies; despite the servant’s unworthiness, the Master forgives the debt.  The Master wipes the books clean.  The Master incurs the cost of $6 billion dollars.  Can you imagine losing that much money with a simple word?  The Master’s forgiveness does not come cheap.  Not for Him at least.

And as I said last week, we know that this parable isn’t about money. It’s about sin.  It’s about our debt of sin, for we are like that servant who owes $6 billion.  We have sinned against God.  We know that God owns everything.  God created everything. He created you.  He created me. He created this world that we live on.  We know that a sin against anything or anyone is ultimately a sin against God.  Just like if our car is damaged by someone who runs into us, we are owed payment for the damages–because we own the car, we are owed when someone damages it.   Therefore if we sin against our neighbor, we sin against God.  When we sin against the planet, we sin against God.  And as we confess each Sunday, when we have an unholy thought, we sin.  When we say and unholy word, we sin. When we do an unholy deed, we sin.  But we also sin when we leave things undone.  When we do not feed the hungry, we sin. When we do not clothe the naked, we sin.  When we keep more than we need, we sin.  When we allow injustice to continue, we sin.  In this fashion. We rack up a terrible debt toward God.  Indeed, it is comparable to $6 billion worth of debt, but unlike $6 billion of inanimate currency, our sin is deadly. $6 billion can sit in a vault forever and not hurt a soul, but our sin certainly does.  Our sin harms people.  Our sin harms the planet.  Our sin harms society.  And for this reason, the Bible says, “The wages of sin is death.” 

One illustration will help us see this.  It’s an illustration that I’ve used years ago, but it is still pertinent.  There is a popular story about a man who had confessed the sin of gossip. For his penance he was told to go to the top of a nearby hill, pillow in hand, and cut it open. Shaking all the feathers into the wind, he had to go collect every last feather from the wilderness into which they had blown. Only then would his penance would be complete.  So it goes with each time we speak a word against another; we can never hope to recover all the information from whence it has been carried.  This is what our sin causes over and over and over again.

But though we deserve death, we do not have to face death, for our Master takes on human flesh.  Our Master, our God, comes to earth as Jesus of Nazareth.  He lives without sin to become the payment for our sins.  He becomes the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  He becomes the spotless Lamb of God who takes away your sin; my sin.  God dies so that we do not have to.  God absorbs the cost of our sin.  Your debt has been paid.  It has been wiped out; forgiven.

But there is more that happens than the debt being paid.  Jesus does not only take your sin upon Himself, He also gives His righteousness to you.   2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "He [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."  What this means is that God credits righteousness to us.  God gives us Jesus’ righteousness.  Not only is our debt wiped clean, we are given a full bank account of never ending grace. 

To show this in the parable, Jesus might have said, “And in deeper compassion for the servant, the Master granted him 10,000 talents that he may never be in debt again.”  This is the reality of life in God.  This is the reality of the grace of the Master.  It is overwhelming.  It is unbelievable.  Our debt has been paid, and we have been given the righteousness of Jesus!

And as I asked last week, so I now ask again, “What would you do if you had been forgiven such a debt?  What would you do if the Master looked at you and said, “You know that $6 billion you owe me. It’s gone.  You don’t have to pay it.  You are free to go.”?  What would your insides do?  What would you feel down deep?  What would your heart do?  And how would you feel toward the Master who had just paid that debt for you?  What would your thoughts be toward Him?  What would you think about the One who just lost $6 billion of His own money because you pleaded with Him?”  And now add: What would you think about the Master who also invested in you and credited you even more?  What would your insides do if you knew the Master then added another $6 billion to your account?  What would you feel toward your Master?

Can you feel that toward God?  Can you feel the joy welling up in you knowing that this is exactly what God has done for you in Jesus Christ?  Can you feel the deep appreciation and love of God starting at the bottom of your heart and coursing through your veins?  You have been forgiven the debt that you owed.  Jesus paid it for you.  Your account has been filled because Jesus righteousness has been given to you.  This is why grace is so doggone amazing!!

Ah, but now we are back to perspective.  For the servant who was forgiven does something rather mind boggling.  He seeks out a fellow servant who owes him a pittance–at least compared to what he once owed.  We see that forgiven servant fail to forgive.  Why?  Because all he can see is what he is owed.  All he can see is what is due him.  All he can see is what he deserves from someone else.  He has no change of heart.  Instead of focusing on what his Master has done for him; he focuses on other things.  In so doing, he is unable to extend the grace that was given to him.  And the consequences are dire.  The consequences are horrendous.  This unforgiving servant has his debt reinstated; is cast into prison; and is tortured until he can repay the debt.  And since he owes 10,000 lifetimes of debt and now has no way of earning money, that means, forever.  He can never repay what was once forgiven.  It’s tragic.

But for us, the story never has to go that far.  For us the story doesn’t have to end there.  For us, the story can end with experiencing the Master’s forgiveness.  For us the story can end when we focus on what has been done for us.  We can have that change of perspective.  We can have that change of heart, if we keep our attention; if we keep our focus in the right place.  If we realize the extent of our debt and see the graciousness of the master, we now see that the debt we are owed by others is not as significant as might think it is.  It’s not a fly in a microscope.  It’s much, much smaller.

Oh, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.  It does.  It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t make you angry.  It does.  It doesn’t mean that you haven’t been wronged.  You have.  It doesn’t mean that you will be able to forget.  You won’t.  It doesn’t mean that you will be able to let go right away.  You probably won’t.  But what it does mean is that you will not be consumed by what is owed to you.  You will not be consumed with anger.  You will not walk around in a perpetual state of depression.  Instead, you will be full of hope and joy.  You will be full of praise and thanksgiving.  You know the joy of your Master.  You know the grace of your Master.  You bask in His light.  Your focus remains on Him.  Your perspective is changed.  Your heart is changed.  And you can practice forgiveness because you have been forgiven.  Amen. 

The Unforgiving Servant: Forgiveness Part 4

Every once in a while, you will hear a story about good deeds being passed on and on and on.  I can remember about a year ago hearing about a chain reaction of good deeds at a McDonald’s restaurant.  Someone in the drive thru decided to pay for the person waiting in line behind them.  Touched by this person’s generosity, the person who was paid for, decided to pay for the next person.  Touched by that person’s act of kindness, the next person decided to pay for the next person, and so on and so forth.  According to a CNN article, 167 people paid it forward that day before the chain was broken.  Kindness and compassion begat kindness and compassion.  Every once in a while such stories break forth and help us see the goodness of humanity.

At such times, the Golden Rule seems to come to life, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Most of us whole-heartedly agree that this is the way it should work.  This is the way the world should operate.  We see that ideal looming before us.  Sometimes we catch glimpses of it actually happening, but then, we also are reminded of just how far we have to go.  We see things that make us shake our heads in bewilderment.  We see man’s inhumanity toward man.  We see that acts of kindness are met with acts of hatred and enmity.  Sometimes such acts make us think deeply about the world that we live in, and we ask, “What is wrong with people?”  It is an age old question.  It has been wrestled with for many, many centuries. 

The Bible wrestles with this question as well, but the Bible does not lead those of us who follow its teachings to say, “What’s wrong with people?”  No.  The Bible makes it more personal.  The Bible leads us ultimately to ask the question, “What is wrong with me?”  That’s not a popular question.  It’s not a popular question at all.  For the most part, we don’t like looking at ourselves and seeing that we might be flawed.  We don’t like looking at ourselves and admitting that we are broken individuals and that we are capable of causing pain, grief, and harm to others.  But if we delve into the Bible, if we consider it’s teachings honestly, there is no escaping what it says about us.  I cannot escape the Bible telling me, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  You, Kevin Haug are a sinner who has fallen short of God’s glory.”  This means that the relationship that I have with God is not where it should be.  This means that there is a strain in my relationship with the One who created me.  And if that relationship is to be maintained, forgiveness will need to enter into the picture–not on my behalf, but on God’s behalf.  God hasn’t messed up the relationship.  I have.  I need forgiveness.

This is a very crucial point in helping all of us become better at forgiving one another.  As we have worked through this topic we have learned a lot.  We have learned that forgiveness is very beneficial to our health and well being.  Science has confirmed this through numerous studies.  We have learned that God expects us to forgive one another, and that if we don’t forgive one another, we will not be forgiven.  We have also learned that despite these benefits and warnings, we still have an extremely difficult time forgiving because when we forgive someone, we absorb the cost of their wrongdoing.  No one really wants to pay for someone else’s wrongdoing–it flies in the face of justice as we know it!!  Forgiveness is extremely difficult because of this. 

Yet, as Christians, we are called to practice forgiveness, so we must learn how.  Unfortunately, we have discovered that the Bible does not give us a step by step program on how to forgive.  But, we did learn that Jesus gives us a step by step program on how to try and get someone to take responsibility for their sin.  This means we wouldn’t have to pay the cost ourselves.  Yet, the process does not always work, therefore we learned that we must move into the hard work of forgiveness.  And the first step we took in that endeavor was to look at God.  Jesus told a story of a Lord and Master who was unimaginably wealthy; who was unimaginably compassionate; who was unimaginably just.  We finished our time together last week holding in dynamic tension God’s great love and God’s great justice. 

Today, we look at the unforgiving servant in that story, and it’s not exactly the most pleasant thing to look at.  Why?  Well, in every story that Jesus tells, He expects His audience to find themselves in that story.  He expects us to relate to at least one or more of the characters.  It is quite obvious from this story that we are not the Lord and Master.  That spot is reserved for God.  We are also not those who are standing around watching.  That’s a bit part to move the story along.  We certainly can find ourselves like the second servant–at the receiving end of someone who fails to forgive us; however, I don’t think Jesus means for us to identify with this servant because He is answering Peter’s question: “How many times must I forgive someone who sins against me?”   We are put in the place of someone who is owed a debt.  As far as we know, the second servant is not owed anything, therefore, we are not to relate to this man.  Given all of that, Jesus tells this parable with the idea that we will be most closely associated with the servant who was forgiven a massive debt but then fails to forgive. 

Now, before I go further, I would like to ask you to hang in there through this whole sermon series.  I’m not up here to scare the living daylights out of you.  I’m not here to suggest that you and I have a one way ticket to hell.  I am not up here telling you that fear is the ultimate motivation for forgiveness.  No.  That’s not it at all.  But as I said last week, if we understand this parable and what it is pointing out, then we will understand forgiveness and we will be better able to forgive.  We simply need to hang in there, and once we wade through everything, things will become much more clear. So, with that being said, let’s now look at this servant in the parable.

Sometimes, you can read something over and over again and never notice things until someone else points that thing out.  Such is the case with me with this parable.  I had never really noticed the fact that this servant was brought before the Lord.  I’m not too sure he willingly came before his master.  He had to be dragged there.  Why?  Well, because he knew how much he owed the Lord.  He owed the Lord 10,000 talents.  Last week we put a modern dollar figure on that amount.  This servant owed $6 billion.  If you know you owe that much and you know your Lord is settling accounts, you don’t want to appear in front of Him.  You don’t want to face the music.  You are scared out of your mind.  You wouldn’t voluntarily head into such a meeting. You’d do everything possible to try and avoid it.  So, this servant had to be brought before his Master. 

And the Master demanded a reckoning.  The Master demanded repayment.  At this point, I can’t help but ask this question: who in the world can rack up $6 billion in debt?  I mean, that’s a staggering amount.  How do you do that?  I mean, I was crunching the numbers on this.  Do you realize that you would have to spend $1 million per day for 16 and a half years before you spent $6 billion?  How do you do that?  I cannot even begin to fathom that.  That number is almost beyond my comprehension.  And yet, this guy owed that much money.

Now, of course, this parable isn’t about money.  It’s about sin, so the point of this comparison is that we are in debt to God in a similar fashion.  We have sinned against God in an amount that is beyond comprehension.  As I read this parable, Jesus is saying to me, “Kevin, you have racked up a debt towards God that is comparable to $6 billion dollars.  Your sin is overwhelming.”  That is not a comforting thought.  How can I rack up so much sin?  How can I be in debt to God that much?  Haven’t I tried to be a good person?  Haven’t I worked for God in the church?  Haven’t I been a Christian all my life?  How could I rack up so much sin?  And then I remember the confession and forgiveness that we do each and every Sunday.  “We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.  We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed; by things that we have done and by things that we have left undone.”  Sin takes the form of thought, word and deed.  Whenever we think an unholy thought, we sin. Whenever we speak an unholy word, we sin.  Whenever we do an unholy deed, we sin.  But it goes beyond what we do.  It is also the things we don’t do.  Whenever we don’t feed the hungry, we sin. Whenever we don’t speak well of our neighbor and defend him or her, we sin.  Whenever we allow injustice to continue, we sin.  Whenever we keep more than we need, we sin.  Whenever we fail to give to God the things that are due God, we sin.  If we honestly look at what God commands, and if we honestly look at ourselves, we begin to see just how sinful we are.  We begin to see just how in debt to God we are.  We resonate deeply with St. Paul when he says in 1 Timothy 1:15, “15The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost.”  Yes, I am in debt beyond imagination.

And the Master demands an account.  The Master demands repayment.  “You will be sold along with your family and all your possessions as payment for the debt.”  This is far too little to satisfy the debt, but it is everything that the servant has.  The servant sees what is happening.  He knows that he will never experience any sort of freedom again.  He sees that his family will be gone; that his possessions will be taken.  He knows that the only thing he can do is plead for mercy.  And so he does.  He falls face down in front of the Master; he kisses the Master’s feet.  And he lies.  Yes, he lies. “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”  This servant owed 10,000 talents.  At best, a slave could expect to earn one talent in his entire lifetime.  This slave owes 10,000 lifetimes worth of debt.  There is no way he could ever repay it.  There is no way he could ever come close.  But he is desperate.  He needs a way out.  He wants salvation.  He will do whatever it takes to get it in light of the alternative.

But what the servant does not realize is the grace of his Master.  The servant does not realize the compassion the Master has.  The Master is moved with pity for the servant, and in a move of sheer grace, the master releases the servant and forgives the debt. 

Now, the important question comes forth.  What would you do if you had been forgiven such a debt?  What would you do if the Master looked at you and said, “You know that $6 billion you owe me. It’s gone.  You don’t have to pay it.  You are free to go.”?  What would your insides do?  What would you feel down deep?  What would your heart do?  And how would you feel toward the Master who had just paid that debt for you?  What would your thoughts be toward Him?  What would you think about the One who just lost $6 billion of His own money because you pleaded with Him?

These are vastly important questions.  They are the crux of the whole problem of forgiveness.  They are the lynch pin on helping us to forgive.  Therefore, we will focus on them in depth next week.

What we do know now is the direction this servant took.  What we do know is that unlike those 167 people in that McDonald’s drive thru, this servant does not pay things forward.  Instead of passing on what he had received, he sought out a fellow servant who owed him money.  Please note that Jesus purposely tells us that this is a fellow servant.  This is an equal.  This is someone who has the same status as the servant who was just forgiven.  And in a scene of horror, the forgiven servant refuses to forgive.  The one who was forgiven 10,000 lifetimes of debt, refuses to forgive three month’s wages.  Even though his fellow servant begged and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.”  You will note that the only difference between what this servant said and what the unforgiving servant said to the Master is only one word.  “Everything” is missing.  Almost the exact same words produce vastly different results.

Why?  I mean, we know what happens next.  We know the Master finds out what happens and reinstates the debt; throws the servant into prison; and allows him to be tortured.  It’s not a happy ending.  But why did it get that far?  Why did the one who was forgiven fail to forgive?  Answering these questions will bring us to the heart of forgiveness.  Answering these questions will help us see how we can forgive.  But I do not have time to answer them now.  They will have to wait until next week.  I don’t like leaving you hanging out there with little direction, so I’ll give you a little bit to think about in the week ahead.  Why does the servant focus on what is owed him instead of focusing on what he was forgiven?  Consider that question as next week we bring things full circle.  Amen.

The Lord: Forgiveness (Part 3)

Today, the rubber begins to hit the road.  Today we come to the pivotal biblical teaching on forgiveness.  This teaching is actually so deep and rich that we will spend three Sundays delving into it, and hopefully, at the end of it all, we will come to a deep and full appreciation of forgiveness and find out how indeed we can forgive.

But before we get there, let me take just a moment to recap where we have been so far for anyone who might have missed the first two sermons. First, we delved into what forgiveness is.  We found that it has scientifically proven health and mental benefits.  We also found that it is commanded by God.  We found that if we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven.  Yet, despite all of this, we also found that forgiveness is extremely difficult because it means that we pay for the wrongdoing of someone else.  We bear the cost of someone else hurting us.  Our working definition of forgiveness for this series then is this: the change in our emotional state when we choose to absorb the cost of someone else’s actions that have hurt us. 

Last week, we discovered that the Bible doesn’t give much instruction on how we can forgive.  We found that it commands forgiveness; that it expects forgiveness, but there is no direct process on how it can be accomplished in our lives.  Instead, Jesus begins his teachings on forgiveness with an emphasis on first getting those who have hurt us to take responsibility for their actions.  We are called to seek out those who have hurt us to win them back–win them because they are in danger of losing their salvation.  Jesus outlines a process in doing this, but if that process doesn’t work–if those who have wronged us fail to take responsibility, then we must move on to the hard work of forgiveness.  We must move on to shouldering the cost of how we were wronged.

This leads us straight to our Bible lesson this morning from Matthew chapter 18.  Peter, the spokesman of the disciples picks up on what Jesus is saying.  He understands what Jesus is saying about forgiveness.  He knows that Jesus is asking them to pay the cost of another’s wrong doing.  So Peter asks, “Lord, how many times must I forgive someone?  Seven times?”  Now, Peter thinks that he should receive a pat on the back or two for this question.  The religious teachers of his day had talked of forgiveness as well.  They had decided in their deliberations that one was obligated to forgive another person two times.  After the third offense, one was no longer obligated to forgive.  Does this sound like someone playing baseball?  Three strikes, and you are out!!  Peter is going well above what the religious authorities taught.  He has doubled their number and then added one: seven.  Seven is also considered the perfect number–the number of godliness.  Surely this is accurate.

Jesus actually will have none of it.  Jesus says, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”  Now, the Greek is a little bit difficult to parse here.  You could also translate this seventy times seven–which some of you may have been exposed to in other translations of the Bible.  Either way, Jesus is purposely expanding the number greatly–so much so, that Jesus is truly saying, “Look Peter, you don’t keep count.” If you are keeping count; if you are keeping score; you have not yet understood the idea of forgiveness.

I am quite sure that Peter was taken aback by Jesus reply.  I am quite sure that Peter looked at Jesus with those deer in the headlights eyes.  I’m sure Peter stood there for a moment with his mouth agape before trying to form the words, “But...how?”  How can I forgive someone like that?  How can I bear that much cost?  How can I bear that much pain?  How can I do such an impossible thing?

Like the Master Teacher he is, Jesus responds with a story.  It is a powerful story.  A frightening story.  A story packed with imagery and detail and a wallop of a punch.  And within this story, when we come to understand it. When we come to understand all that is being said.  When it clicks within our minds and our hearts, then, yes, then we will understand and know how to forgive. 

Oh but we need to spend some time in this story.  We need to examine it.  We need to see what this story tells us about God, about ourselves, and then about forgiveness.  And to do this, we will spend today focusing on the Master.  We will spend next Sunday focusing on the servant, and we will spend the last Sunday putting it all together.

As we look at the parable Jesus told, we first see that the Lord and Master in this parable is unimaginably rich.  How do we come to this conclusion.  Well, we come to this conclusion by seeing how much the servant owes him.  This servant is in debt to his master 10,000 talents.  Now, how much is that?  Anyone out there who is a mathematician will appreciate this.  One talent is worth 6,000 denarii, and one denarii is a day’s wage.  Day laborers generally work for $100 a day, so let’s do all the multiplication.  One hundred times 6,000 is $600,000. $600,000 times 10,000 is six billion.  The Lord’s servant owes him six billion dollars!!!  And this is not the only servant. There are more servants to go, and we know from the outset of this parable that they owe the master money as well.  Who has that kind of money to loan?  Only someone who is unimaginably rich! 

This is an important part of this parable because it leads to an important tenet of the Christian faith.  We believe and proclaim that all sin is a sin against God.  Yes, when we sin against another person, we wrong that other person, but we also wrong our Heavenly Father.  There have been a few folks in my time who I have heard who have a hard time wrapping their heads around this.  They will say, “Sure, I may have sinned against this person, but it wasn’t against God.”  I get that argument.  I understand it, but you’ve got to expand your thinking a bit.  For it’s like this: let’s say you drive down to Houston to do some shopping.  You pull into Memorial City Mall, and you see a parking spot open up–that’s a rare thing, you know!!  So you speed up a little bit, and you pull in just in time.  But another patron, who had also seen that parking spot bumps into your car and dents it.  You are not happy with the situation, and you confront the person who hit you.  You demand an apology and payment for the damages.  The person looks at you and says, “You know, I didn’t hit you.  I hit the car.  I don’t owe you and apology.  I owe the car an apology, and I don’t owe you damages.  I owe the car damages.  What is your car’s name so that I can make a check out to it?”  I know that sounds stupid. Why?  Because we all know, that if you own the car, you are due the damages.  If you are driving the car, they hit you. As the owner, you are the one who was sinned against!!! 

So here is the question: what does God own?  What belongs to God?  God is unimaginably wealthy.  God owns everything–including you; including me.  When we sin against one another, we are sinning against the one who owns us.  We are sinning against God.  We will need to remember this next week as well as we talk about the servant, but for now, let’s move on.

The second thing we see about the Lord and Master is that He is unimaginably compassionate.  He is unimaginably gracious.  The servant who owes him six billion dollars is brought before Him, and He demands payment.  The Lord has kept an account of everything owed to Him.  He knows every cent due.  He knows what is rightfully His.  Just like us when our car is damaged and we want things set to right; the Lord wants things set to right.  It is only just.  It is only fair.  You can’t have people squandering your wealth without an accounting.  You can’t have people causing damage without demanding responsibility!  Imagine the chaos such things would cause!!  Payment for the debt must be made!!! 

But how can $6 billion be accounted for?  The only way the Lord can recoup the debt is by selling the servant, his family, and all his possessions.  This is only a drop in the bucket, but the debt must be paid. 

Such a thing is devastating for the servant, so he pleads with the Lord not to do such a thing.  “Give me time, and I will repay everything!!”  We’ll talk more about this next week.

What is important to us today is to see the Lord’s response.  The Lord has compassion.  Literally, in the Greek, the Lord’s insides melted.  When the Lord heard His servant’s plea, He was moved deeply.  How deeply.  The Lord released the servant and wiped out the debt.  The wording here is very important–the slave was literally a prisoner.  He was in bondage, but he is now freed.  He is now released, and his debt is gone; wiped out; completely erased. 

But that forgiveness wasn’t cheap, was it?  Oh, it was cheap for the slave, but it wasn’t cheap for the Lord.  The Lord just incurred a $6 billion expense.  The Lord just had $6 billion erased from His net worth.  Can you imagine swallowing that much?  Can you imagine doing that for someone?  Can you imagine the generosity?  The compassion? The grace?  That is unimaginable.  No one does this.  No one. No one cancels that much debt.  No one pays that cost themselves.  Except for this Lord.  Except for our Lord.  Can you see the generosity of God?  Can you see the compassion of God?  Can you see what God is willing to do for His servants?  Oh ponder the depths of God’s grace and love and mercy!!!

Oh, and if the parable would have ended here, perhaps we could be happy.  Perhaps we could simply revel in the glories of God and His generosity.  But Jesus doesn’t simply stop with the forgiveness of the debt.  There is more.

The servant who was forgiven–who was released, seeks out a fellow servant who owes him money.  Using the mathematics of earlier.  This fellow servant owes the forgiven servant $10,000.  Not insignificant, but completely manageable.  But there is no scene of forgiveness to be played out.  There is no release. There is imprisonment.  We will speak of these things further next week, but for now, let us simply see that the one who was forgiven refuses to forgive, and that initiates another sequence of events–a sequence of events that takes us right back to the Master and Lord.

The Lord is told about the actions of the forgiven servant.  The Lord is told of how the one who was forgiven refused to forgive.  The Lord is told of how the one who was released turned around and made a captive.  And the Lord’s wrath is kindled.  “You evil slave!”  Yes, that’s the Greek word.  Wicked seems to tone things down a bit.  A judgment is rendered here, and it is not pleasant.  “You evil slave!  I forgave you because you pleaded with me.  Shouldn’t you have done the same?!” 

God is not mocked.  God’s forgiveness is not mocked.  God’s righteous anger burns against those who have been forgiven and who fail to forgive.  God’s wrath falls upon them with the heaviest possible consequences.

The $6 billion debt is reinstated.  The slave is thrown into prison.  And the slave is tortured.  That might make us squeamish hearing Jesus say those words.  That may makes our stomachs turn.  We like hearing about God’s love.  We like hearing about Christ’s love.  But judgement?  Torture?  Really?  Surely this is just over the top language.  Surely this is just an interpretation.  Surely this isn’t the “real” Jesus.

Yes. It is.  It is the real Jesus talking about the real God.  We must remember that God is a God of justice.  God’s anger and wrath burns hot against sin.  God will not let sin go unchecked.  And if you have been forgiven $6 billion dollars, it is unjust to demand payment of $10,000.  Look at it this way–if you were lucky and a hard worker, you could expect to make one talent in your LIFETIME.  This servant was forgiven 10,000 lifetimes’ worth of debt, and he refuses to excuse three month’s of wages!  Do you consider that just?  Do you consider that fair?  Do you consider that worthy of the one who forgave $6 billion becoming angry?  Of course you do.  At a deep level, you recognize the injustice.  You recognize that the punishment fits the crime.

And so, is this where we are left?  Are we left here looking at God who punishes if we do not forgive?  Are we left here now thinking, “Geez, I’d better think twice about holding onto my grudges.  I’d better think twice about not forgiving someone else.  I’d better start letting go of my anger towards others lest I end up in hell being tortured because I ticked God off.” 

Stop.  Breathe.  The long answer is no.  We do not forgive others because we are scared to death of God.  We do not forgive others because we fear ending up in hell being tortured for eternity.  There is no comfort in such forgiveness.  There is no peace in such forgiveness.  It is forced and compelled forgiveness, and it certainly is not from the heart.  We will arrive there, but today it is sufficient for us to ponder both the love and the justice of God.   Hold these two things in dynamic tension.  For to see God’s love and God’s justice in tension in this manner is an important step in the process of learning how to forgive.  Amen.

Seeking Responsibility (Forgiveness Part 2)

We continue our sermon series this week on forgiveness.  Just to recap last week: we discovered that scientists have discovered many physical and mental benefits with forgiveness.  We also know that forgiveness is commanded by God and that the Bible tells us that if we don’t forgive, then we will not be forgiven.  Yet, despite all of this, forgiveness is terribly difficult for us to practice.  As we delved into the biblical understanding of forgiveness, we came to understand why: forgiveness means that we pay the cost when someone else wrongs us.  We would rather obtain justice, revenge, or restitution when someone harms us.  We would rather not pay that price ourselves.  We concluded with a working definition of forgiveness that will guide us through the next several weeks: the change in our emotional state when we choose to absorb the cost of someone else’s actions that have hurt us. 

Since we have a working definition of forgiveness, the next question becomes: how do we practice forgiveness?  How do we overcome our natural tendencies toward justice, revenge, and demanding retribution and instead pay the cost of others’ wrong doings?  Now, I am going to admit right here that I am working on the assumption that as Christians, you want to practice forgiveness; you want to follow the commands in scripture; you want to become better at practicing this common faith that we share.  If that is indeed the case, we will proceed.

I find it very interesting that for such an important cornerstone to the Christian life, there really isn’t a whole lot of emphasis on how to forgive in the Bible.  It is certainly commanded.  It is certainly expected, but there isn’t much teaching on how it is to be accomplished.  It would be nice if the Bible had a series of steps laid out: a three step program; a seven step program; a ten step program that would lay out the process of forgiveness so that we could simply walk step by step towards forgiveness.  Alas, but no such list is to be found.  The closest thing we get to a process can be found in Matthew chapter 18.  There is a series of teachings by Jesus that directly relates to forgiveness.

The first part of those teachings, ironically, is a process–although it is not a process of forgiveness.  Again, let’s go back to our working definition of forgiveness: the change in our emotional state when we choose to absorb the cost of someone else’s actions that have hurt us.  Absorbing that cost is very, very difficult.  It causes us hurt.  It causes us grief.  It causes us pain.  It is not something we want to do.  Furthermore, it seems to absolve the guilty party of responsibility.  That is not necessarily a good thing.

I can remember growing up and having lot of friends who were Roman Catholic.  Oftentimes some of them would go out partying on the weekends.  I’d ask them about how they squared their actions with their faith.  They’d usually say, “Well, I’ll just go to confession, and everything will be okay.”  Forgiveness to them was cheap.  It required nothing from them.  It absolved them of responsibility.  They simply continued their behavior.  I think that you and I can agree that this is not optimal.

And so, Jesus begins his teachings on forgiveness with a confrontation of the sin.  Jesus begins his teachings on forgiveness with the idea of getting someone who hurts you to take responsibility for his or her actions.  Jesus says, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.”  Now, there are some important details to look at in this statement.  First, Jesus says, “If another member of the church sins against you...”  This is an important qualifier to this process Jesus is outlining.  There is a difference between someone in the church and someone outside of the church.  Within the church we are expected to take responsibility for our actions; we are expected to take responsibility for our sins; we are expected to make things right as best as we can with our fellow man.  Therefore, when someone in the church sins against us, rather than immediately try and bear the cost of forgiveness, we are called to seek them out.  We are called to try and clear the air. 

This is very practical advice on one level.  I mean, sometimes we hurt people without even realizing it.  Has that ever happened to you?  Have you ever done or said something with the best of intentions only to have someone become very upset with what you have done?  I’m reminded of the story of the Polish man moved to the USA and married an American girl.  Although his English was far from perfect, they got along very well. One day he rushed into a lawyer's office and asked him if he could arrange a divorce for him. The lawyer said that getting a divorce would depend on the circumstances, and asked him the following questions: “Have you any grounds?” “Yes, an acre and half and nice little home.”  “No, I mean what is the foundation of this case?” “It made of concrete.”  “I don't think you understand. Does either of you have a real grudge?” “No, we have carport, and not need one.”  “I mean what are your relations like?” “All my relations still in Poland.”  “Is there any infidelity in your marriage?” “We have hi-fidelity stereo and good DVD player.”  “Does your wife beat you up?” “No, I always up before her.”  “Why do you want this divorce?” “She going to kill me.”  “What makes you think that?” “I got proof.”  “What kind of proof?” “She going to poison me. She buy a bottle at drugstore and put on shelf in bathroom. I can read English pretty good, and it say: Polish remover.”

Okay, that’s a joke, and we all know it, but there is some seriousness to it.  It’s a huge misunderstanding, and such misunderstandings can be cleared up very, very quickly in a private meeting between two people.  In the church, this should be easier than it tends to be.  And I know at least one of the reasons why.  We’re afraid.  We’re afraid to go talk to someone because we don’t like confrontation.  We don’t like the thought that someone will be angry with us.  We don’t like the idea that if we confront someone, we might be caused even more hurt.  And so we let it fester.  We let it simmer.  We fail to confront.  And it is not only to our detriment; it is also to the detriment of our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

For you see, the translation that we have before us isn’t as accurate as it could be.  Perhaps a better translation would be this, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have won that one.”  Yes, regained should probably be translated “won”.  This indicates that your fellow church member might be in danger of being lost.  Your fellow brother or sister in Christ might be in danger of losing his or her salvation.  This should be a revolting thought to any Christian.  God desires no one to be lost, and Jesus is giving us the responsibility of restoring our brothers and sisters to faith.  This is much more important and takes much greater precedence than our fear!

So, go.  Speak privately with your brother.  Speak privately with your sister.  If the sin is named; if the air is cleared; you have regained your brother; you have regained your sister; and you no longer have to bear the cost of forgiveness.  Your brother or sister has taken responsibility.

That’s the ideal.  But you and I know that we don’t live in an ideal world.  Oftentimes, confronting our brothers and sisters in their sin does not work.  There is a huge tendency to justify our actions.  “Why did you hit your brother?”  “He was picking on me.”  See the justification?  “You just broke that picture frame by throwing the ball in the house.”  “I didn’t mean to.”  See the justification?  “You shouldn’t say those kinds of things about other people.”  “That’s just your opinion.”  See the justification?  Sometimes, our pride and arrogance gets in the way of us truly taking responsibility for our actions.  And if you experience this when you confront someone who has hurt you, there is another step in the process.  Involve others.  Take another person or two to serve as witnesses. 

And if that doesn’t work, bring it to the church.  Notice that making things public in front of everybody is the last step in the process?  Notice that talking about another person’s sin in front of everyone is forbidden until all other avenues have been exhausted?  How backwards do we often practice Jesus words!!!  How backwards do we often live this out!!!  Oh how many conflicts and trials and broken relationships could be saved were we only to follow the instructions of our Lord and Savior!!

But we do also see before us that there is a time and a place for the church to render judgment.  We also see before us that there is a time and a place for the church to draw lines in the sand between that which is right and that which is wrong.  “If they do not listen to the church, treat them as a Gentile or a tax collector.”  In the language of the day, this means treat them as an outsider.  Treat them as one who does not belong to the fellowship.  You have given them every single opportunity to repent; you have given them every single opportunity to admit their guilt; you have given them every single opportunity to take responsibility for their actions; and they have not accepted it.  It’s time to move on.  It’s time to move to the hard work of forgiveness–of paying for the other person’s actions toward you.  You tried.  You did what you could.  But sometimes, it just doesn’t work out as it should.

And so let us close with a prayer from Desmond Tutu who worked very hard on reconciliation and forgiveness after apartheid came to an end in South Africa

I want to be willing to forgive
But I dare not ask for the will to forgive
In case you give it to me
And I am not yet ready
I am not yet ready for my heart to soften
I am not yet ready to be vulnerable again
Not yet ready to see that there is humanity in my tormentor’s eyes
or that the one who hurt me may also have cried
I am not yet ready for the journey
I am not yet interested in the path
I am at the prayer before the prayer of forgiveness
Grant me the will to want to forgive
Grant it to me not yet but soon
Can I even form the words
Forgive me?
Dare I even look?
Do I dare to see the hurt that I have caused?
I can glimpse all the shattered pieces of that fragile thing
That soul trying to rise on the broken wings of hope
But only out of the corner of my eye
I am afraid of it
And if I am afraid to see
How can I not be afraid to say
Forgive me?
Is there a place where we can meet?
You and me
The place in the middle
The no man’s land
Where we straddle the lines
Where you are right
and I am right too
And both of us are wrong and wronged
Can we meet there?
And look for the place where the path begins
The path that ends when we forgive.  Amen.

Part 1: Why is Forgiveness so Hard?

As we begin the season of Lent, I am going to begin a sermon series on forgiveness.  Most of us realize that forgiveness is one of the cornerstones of the Christian life–one that has been proclaimed and urged for nearly 2000 years.  But it is very interesting that in the last two decades or so, a wealth of psychological studies have also come out regarding forgiveness.  Some of the conclusions are quite staggering.

Consider what Dr. Thomas G. Plante said in his article for Psychology Today titled “Seven Rules for Forgiveness,” “It is really hard to forgive, whether it is forgiving yourself or others. We all could likely use some help learning to do it better. But what we may not be aware of is that learning to forgive is good for both our mental and physical health. Quality empirical research has shown that when we are better at forgiveness we experience lower stress, tension, levels of depression, anxiety, and perhaps most important, anger. Anger is toxic to our mental and physical health, increasing our stress reactivity and our risk for illness such as heart disease. In fact, the hostility and anger associated with Type A behavior is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease. When we have trouble being able to forgive, we hold in anger, resentment, and bitterness that can harm us in multiple ways and at multiple levels.”

In another article from Psychology Today titled “The Psychology of Forgiveness”, Rubin Khoddam, a PhD student writes this, “Psychologically, when people reported higher levels of forgiveness, they also tended to report better health habits and decreased depression, anxiety, and anger levels. Even in betrayed couples, greater levels of forgiveness were associated with more satisfied relationships, a stronger parenting alliance, and children's perceptions of parenting functioning. Physiologically, higher reported levels of forgiveness were associated with lower white blood cell count and hematocrit levels. White blood cells are an integral part of fighting off diseases and infections. Together, these results highlight the importance of forgiveness - not for the other person, but for you.”

And then there are the personal testimonies by doctors.  In Salon magazine in the article “The Science of Forgiveness”, the following personal story was shared.

In 1978, Dr. Dabney Ewin, a surgeon specializing in burns, was on duty in a New Orleans emergency room when a man was brought in on a gurney. A worker at the Kaiser Aluminum plant, the patient had slipped and fallen into a vat of 950-degree molten aluminum up to his knees. Ewin did something that most would consider strange at best or the work of a charlatan at worst: He hypnotized the burned man. Without a swinging pocket watch or any other theatrical antics, the surgeon did what’s now known in the field of medical hypnosis as an “induction,” instructing the man to relax, breathe deeply, and close his eyes. He told him to imagine that his legs—scorched to the knees and now packed in ice—did not feel hot or painful but “cool and comfortable.” Ewin had found that doing this—in addition to standard treatments—improved his patients’ outcomes. And that’s what happened with the Kaiser Aluminum worker. While such severe burns would normally require months to heal, multiple skin grafts, and maybe even lead to amputation if excessive swelling cut off the blood supply, the man healed in just eighteen days—without a single skin graft.
As Ewin continued using hypnosis to expedite his burn patients’ recoveries, he added another
unorthodox practice to his regimen: He talked to his patients about anger and forgiveness. He noticed that people coming into the ER with burns were often very angry, and not without reason. They were, as he put it, “all burned up,” both literally and figuratively. Hurt and in severe pain due to their own reckless mistake or someone else’s, as they described the accident that left them burned, their words were tinged with angry guilt or blame. He concluded that their anger may have been interfering with their ability to heal by preventing them from relaxing and focusing on getting better. “I was listening to my patients and feeling what they were feeling,” Ewin told me. “It became obvious that this had to be dealt with. Their attitude affected the healing of their burns, and this was particularly true of skin grafts. With someone who’s real angry, we’d put three or four skin grafts on, but his body would reject them.” Whenever a patient seemed angry, Ewin would help them forgive themselves or the person who hurt them, either through a simple conversation or through hypnosis.
Once Ewin began helping his patients forgive, he noticed even more improvement. “What you’re thinking and feeling affects your body,” he would explain to his patients, using the analogy of something embarrassing causing someone to blush. “What you’re feeling will affect the healing of your skin, and we want you to put all your energy into healing.”...“I’d say, ‘You can still pursue damages through an attorney. You’re entitled to be angry, but for now I’m asking you to abandon your entitlement and let it go, to direct your energy toward healing, and turn this over to God or nature or whoever you worship. It’s not up to you to get revenge on yourself or someone else. When you know at a feeling level that you’re letting it go, raise your hand.’ Then I’d shut up, they’d raise their hand, and I’d know that skin graft was gonna take.”

The science behind forgiveness is powerful.  Very powerful.  However, that does not mean that forgiveness is easy.  Every article I read acknowledged this.  Every. Single. One.  And I found it interesting that few of the articles delved into this aspect very deeply.  Why is it so hard to forgive?  We know that forgiveness is good for you.  As Christians, we know forgiveness is commanded by God–in fact when we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Now, usually, we think this means, “God, forgive us so that we can forgive others.”  However, a more proper reading of the Greek suggests that we are coming to God and saying, “God, forgive me just like I forgive others.”  In other words, in the overall picture, God’s forgiveness will be based in some form on how we forgive others.  All this is to say, is that we know that we are supposed to forgive, but we struggle mightily with actually forgiving.  Today, I’d like to wrestle with why that is the case, and we will begin that wrestling with defining forgiveness.

What exactly is forgiveness?

Okay, bear with me here because I’m going to give a clinical definition of forgiveness published in an article titled “Forgiveness: A Sampling of Research Results”:  Forgiveness is a process (or the result of a process) that involves a change in emotion and attitude regarding an offender. Most scholars view this an intentional and voluntary process, driven by a deliberate decision to forgive (6, 8, 26, 38). This process results in decreased motivation to retaliate or maintain estrangement from an offender despite their actions, and requires letting go of negative emotions toward the offender. Theorists differ in the extent to which they believe forgiveness also implies replacing the negative emotions with positive attitudes including compassion and benevolence (8, 17, 23, 25, 26). In any event, forgiveness occurs with the victim’s full recognition that he or she deserved better treatment, one reason why Mahatma Gandhi contended that “the weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”1

Okay, let’s try and break that down a little bit.  Forgiveness is:
1. A change in emotion and attitude toward someone who has hurt you.
2. It’s a process that a person undertakes voluntarily and deliberately.
3. It is a process that a person undertakes with the goal to forgive someone.
4. The process leads you to where you don’t want to hurt the person who has hurt you.
5. The process leads you to get rid of negative emotions.
6. You recognize that you deserved better treatment, but you still let go anyway.
7. This is extremely difficult for a “weak” person to do.

Okay.  That’s a scientific view.  Personally, I might be able to understand forgiveness a little better, but it still doesn’t help me understand why it is so difficult to forgive.  So, let’s turn now to a biblical understanding of forgiveness.  The Greek word used for forgiveness is Aphesis, “which often has the legal sense of “release” from office, marriage, obligation, etc. as also from debt or punishment.”  I would like us to particularly focus on that last piece of the definition–a release from debt or punishment, here is why I think it is particularly hard for us to forgive.

Please note that I am not disputing anything that scientists have said about forgiveness, I’m simply adding a piece to the puzzle. Forgiveness is all the things scientists have said, but they have failed to mention that when you forgive someone, you release them from their debt to you.  Now, what does that mean?

First, let’s think about it in terms of a financial transaction.  Let’s say that one day, you needed to buy a car.  You don’t have enough money to buy a car, so you go to the bank and take out a loan.  You are now in debt, right?  Well, you purchase the car, and then you have a series of set backs.  You are unable to pay your car payment.  You go to the bank and explain your situation.  It just so happens that the CEO of the bank overhears your plight and has compassion on you.  He comes up to you and says, “I am terribly sorry to hear about all that has happened to you.  I tell you what, we are going to write off your loan.”  What did you just receive?  Forgiveness.  You have been forgiven your debt.  But here is the question: who paid the debt?  Who absorbed the cost?  The bank did.  The bank paid for your car in forgiving your debt. 

Now, let’s think about it in terms of an emotional transaction.  Let’s say that a coworker of yours spreads malicious rumors about you.  Soon, everyone is looking at you suspiciously.  Where once you had numerous friends around the office, suddenly you find yourself eating lunch alone.  Finally, someone asks you if the rumors are true.  You are taken aback at what was said about you.  You discover the source of the rumors and are even further taken aback at the person who started them.  You are hurt.  You are wounded.  Your reputation has taken a nasty shot.  And you decide to forgive.  You decide that instead of seeking revenge and restitution, you will simply go about your life and your job.  You know that something is owed to you, but rather than demand it, you move on with your life.  Now, you were owed a debt.  This time, it wasn’t financial, was it?  It was emotional.  Who paid the debt?  Who absorbed the cost?  You did.  You paid the price for someone else’s wrong. 

Do you now see why forgiveness is so difficult?  Do you see now why, even though we know it is good for us; even though we know it is commanded by God; even thought it is a cornerstone of the Christian life; it is extremely hard to practice.  It is extremely hard to accomplish.  We pay for someone else’s wrong doing.  So, let’s put forth a working definition of forgiveness that will guide us for the next several weeks: Forgiveness is the change in our emotional state when we choose to absorb the cost of someone else’s actions that have hurt us. 

Given that definition, it is easy to see why the old adage is so true: to err is human, but to forgive is divine.  Indeed, forgiveness is divine, and I invite you to journey with me in the next few weeks as we see this: as we see divine forgiveness and then how it translates into human forgiveness.  In invite you to join me as we learn how to forgive.  Amen.

1. American Psychological Association, (2006). Forgiveness: A Sampling of Research Results. Washington, DC: Office of International Affairs. Reprinted, 2008.