Proper 19 A

September 14, 2008

Holy Cross Day

Genesis 50:15-21

Psalm 103:8-13

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

I don’t know if these things are still around for kids, but there used to be something like a tablet that had a little black wax coated cardboard on the bottom with an opaque plastic sheet stapled to the top. It came with a little red plastic deal that worked like a pencil so you could write anything you wanted on the plastic sheet, then lift it up and erase it all and start over with a clean slate, so to speak. Did you know that you could sit next to your brother and sister in the back seat of the family car and write really ugly things to each other – you could draw a picture of a monster, or something just as ugly and write their name next to it with a little arrow pointing to the picture. Or write lies about them, even bad words, if you knew how to spell them. Then if you see Mom or Dad about to turn around to check up on you, all you have to do is flip the page up real fast and it’s completely gone. There you are innocent as a lamb. Even if your brother or sister tattles on you, once you lift that page, there is no evidence. The worst you can get is a warning.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could erase trespasses against us like that? Just lift the page and it’s gone. Why can’t we do that? Why is forgiveness so hard for us?

The concept of forgiveness – setting sins and the consequence of sin aside – making it possible to start over with a clean slate is what separates Christianity from other world religions. Unforgiveness, the unwillingness or inability to forgive is what separates Christians from each other.

I thought I might come up with a ‘top ten’ list, (like David Letterman), of stumbling blocks to forgiveness but I couldn’t come up with ten so here’s my top three in no particular order:

#1 Forgiveness is to be valued above all else. Don’t squander it on people who don’t deserve it.

Have you ever noticed the more uncommon something is the greater its value? Rare and precious are words we might use to describe something like that. Among Christians forgiveness is not supposed to be rare and precious like a gemstone. It is supposed to be as common and ordinary in the church as a rock in the yard. Granted, every single rock is unique in shape, size, and color, but generally, rocks are not rare on this planet. A ruby is rare and precious, a yard rock is not. Forgiveness might be rare and precious to you if you didn’t receive much of it as a child, or if a parent or someone equally as important in your life taught you that not everyone deserves to be forgiven, that there are sins and offenses that are just plain unforgivable. The unwillingness or inability to forgive is unfortunately one of the many things passed from parents to children. In families where forgiveness is not generously given, where it is searched for and not found, it is indeed rare and precious but it isn’t supposed to be like that in the church.

#2 There is really no such thing as repentance. People never change.

You might believe that if you believe that someone who sins against you once will do it again, and again, and again, if you let them, and that you would be a complete fool to forgive them over and over again for the same sins. Maybe that is what was on Peter’s mind when he asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive his brother in Christ for sinning against him. Repentance, or a change of heart, often happens before a change of behavior. It’s through repentance that God softens our hearts so we become aware of our sins. Then, the awareness of our sins grieves our hearts enough that we want to go to our brothers and sisters in Christ and ask for their forgiveness. Truth is, they may very well have to forgive us for the same sin over and over again before we stop doing it altogether. But to say there is no such thing as true repentance is to say that a change of heart is not possible. That somebody who sins against us will always be the same as they are. God will not create a new heart in them. That puts limits on God and we do not have the authority to do that.

If a sinner is sorry for the sin and asks for our forgiveness Jesus said we have to forgive every time forgiveness is asked for, because that’s how God forgives us. I’ve said this many times. If you really want to know how God loves you, you have to love someone that keeps disappointing you, keeps hurting your feelings, someone you have to forgive over and over again, just to stay in a relationship with them. And you are willing to do that because you love the person so much that you could not bear it if that person was not a part of your life. That’s how God loves us, sinful children that we are.

#3 We think we know the motivations of those who sin against us.

There is a piece of wisdom I have to remind myself of frequently. I should just print it out and pin it up on the wall somewhere and that is: ‘Do not take offense when none is intended.’ I’m convinced it is not possible to always know the motivations of others. After thirty-five years together Kevin and I know each other very well but we both still wrongly assume that we know each other’s motivations. We get it right some of the time but not every time. Often one of us says or does something that offends the other one. When we’ve discovered that we’ve offended each other it catches us completely off guard because neither of us intended to do it. There is no reason to assume the worst motivations are behind the sins Christians commit against each other. More often than not we perceive trespasses against us that were never intended to be trespasses in the first place.

My top three stumbling blocks of forgiveness are things I’ve been working on for a long time to improve on my personal forgiveness of others. They have all been learned and tested in my family. The family of God we call the church, is made up of many individual families. That is where forgiveness is worked out first; between ourselves and our parents, our brothers and sisters, and our children. We work it out there first. Then we are able to work it out with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

The older I get the less energy I want to waste trying to keep track of how many times someone sins against me or what motivates them to do it. In the relationships that I cherish I’d rather just lift the plastic sheet and get back to a clean slate.

Why is it the kids have the best toys? If we can still buy that little tablet I described then I’d recommend we all buy one. It just may be that the visual experience of writing down sins and offenses committed against us, then lifting the page and having them disappear would bring great healing to the family of God. Maybe it would draw all brothers and sisters in Christ closer to each other and put a big smile on the face of our heavenly Father.