A New Look At
Forgiveness
Rev.
Bill Barney
First
UMC,
April
20, 2008
“…If
you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good.” John 20: 23 The Message
“Giving
ourselves permission to feel at peace with our past actions is one of the most
positive steps we can take toward living a life free from regrets,
disappointments, and guilt.” So it says in the reading from the Daily OM which
I just shared. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?
It
seems for sure that this is what the writer of John had in mind when he wrote
words coming from Jesus in today’s gospel reading. Jesus would have surely said
something like “give yourselves permission to feel at peace.”
Let’s
take a look at the whole scenario in which Jesus is present in the room with
the disciples after his resurrection. Today we will not argue whether this was
a physical presence or a spiritual presence.
For sure, after Jesus death, his followers clearly felt the presence of
his energy in their energy.
Let’s
note one thing. In this scripture, positive as this scene is – it is one of my
favorites – the writer of the Gospel According To John is on a campaign, 60
years after Jesus’ death to blame his death on the Jews. I had Harold leave that out of his reading
this morning because we do not need to perpetuate the idea that the Jews killed
Jesus. The writer was sort of the Mel Gibson of his day and there have been
others every year since Jesus died. As this scripture is translated in most
versions it says that “the disciples had gathered together, but fearful of the Jews, had locked all the doors.”
This is clearly one more opportunity by the writer to slam the Jews who when
this was written were continuing to be the persecutors and naysayers of the
movement to follow Jesus. Again, it was 60 years after the scene he is
describing. It is as though the writer
were not following Jesus’ own commissioning words.
All
that being said, this is a great scene – a powerful story and what I have grown
fond of calling “the greater commissioning”.
In this story, Jesus’ role is clearly to commission or recommission the
disciples. The presence of his energy is what will be needed if they are to get
refocused after his death only a few days before.
This
commissioning is kind of a trinity or if you count his first greeting we could
call it a quadrilateral – there is that very Methodist word again on the eve of
the meeting of our quadrennial General Conference. As was his custom the disciples first hear
from this Jesus presence: “peace be with you.” Don’t you feel at ease when
someone starts out a conversation or greeting with those words? I suppose we have changed it to the more
familiar, “how are you”. We don’t often talk that way do we? I suppose we are more apt to say it as a
departure – “shalom – peace be with you.”
Immediately
Jesus follows with: “As I have been sent, so I send you.” He wants the disciples to move along in
sharing the “good news.” No hanging out
in fear or crying in your wine, just keep this movement going NOW or it will
fizzle.
Do
I need to remind us here that these commissioning instructions are meant for us
just as personally as they were meant for those disciples? “O darn, I was afraid he was going to bring
that up”, some less than enthusiastic modern day follower of Jesus is thinking
right now.
And,
then it says he took a deep breath and breathed into them, “receive the Holy
Spirit” he said. No need to wait for
Pentecost – “you have the power of Spirit within you now.” With the power of
Spirit comes the responsibility to convey it to others. Spirit is that within
us that can overcome the forces that seek to overtake us from without and from
within.
Like
any good story, there’s another “and then”…And, then he said: “If you forgive,
someone’s offenses (the translation says sins, but just in case you need some
defining I’ll use “offenses”) they’re gone from good. If YOU forgive someone’s
offenses, they’re gone for good.
Yes,
Jesus is saying that his followers are to four things now!
I
have always said that Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness was his most powerful
and unique offering to the ages. Even in his death on a cross he is quoted in
the Gospels as offering forgiveness to his executioners. Interesting that some 60 years later in
writing the Gospel of John, that author could not offer the same forgiveness.
Instead he speaks offensively about the Jews throughout, both by word and in
subtle implications.
The
building up of unforgiven feelings leads to another word we don’t like to talk
about – resentment.
The
word resentment means to re-feel -- to feel again a wrong that has been done to
you by another, to re-feel the wound or the injury or the insult itself. The
Hebrew Talmud says that a person who harbors a resentment is "like one
who, having cut one hand while handling a knife, avenges himself by cutting the
other hand."
Many
people are ill not because of what they're eating but what's eating them
inside. Practitioners of science and faith have been telling us for a long time
that harboring grudges and resentments literally help to make people sick
physically. And forgiveness -- getting rid of the ill will -- will do more to
make them well than pills and medicines.
On
the way out of worship one Sunday morning, an uptight parishioner said to the
pastor, "There is so much resentment between groups in this city that the
very air is filled with it." To which the pastor replied, "Not so. If
you were to take a sampling of this air to a laboratory for analysis, you
wouldn't find a trace of resentment in the air. Resentment is in the minds and
hearts of the people who breathe the air." That pastor may have been a
little impatient with that parishioner’s metaphor but he was technically right,
of course.
Surely
Jesus knew that cleansing oneself from built up resentment is a necessary
releasing of both emotional and physical pain.
If hearing about a need for release isn’t connecting with you, please
hold on, someone sitting near you is suffering.
There
is a side to the cycle of offense and forgiveness that, like resentment, we
don’t talk about much in life – at home or at church. Followers of Jesus have always been taught
that forgiveness involves forgiving the other person or persons. Our concern
has been directed toward our need to forgive or the other persons need to be
forgiven.
A
new look at forgiveness may be just what we need to bring about a much
healthier understanding of this long recognized “Christian” practice. I want us to think and feel today what it
would mean if we put as much effort in to promoting the forgiveness of self as
we do to promoting the forgiveness of others.
I would suggest that historically the church has found it profitable for
people to feel guilty. It certainly has kept
the prayers of confession flowing and kept people asking for the Divine
intervention of forgiveness – now doubt attracting people to the church for
help. Can you see how some may see the power to self forgive may interfere with
the church’s role in life?
What
I want to suggest today is that we do have the Divine given capacity to forgive
ourselves. This is an empowerment that
we very rarely call upon because the act itself makes us feel guilty.
The
Daily OM from which read this morning
says this about releasing guilt and forgiving ourselves:
“When
we can look back at our past and really assess what has happened, we begin to
realize that there are many dimensions to our actions. While feeling guilty
might assuage our feelings at first, it is really only a short-term solution.
It is all too ironic that being hard on ourselves is the easy way out. If we
truly are able to gaze upon our lives through the lens of compassion however,
we will be able to see that there is much more to what we do and have done than
we realize. Perhaps we were simply trying to protect ourselves or others and
did the best we could at the time, or maybe we thought we had no other recourse
and chose a solution in the heat of the moment. Once we can understand that
dwelling in our negative feelings will only make us feel worse, we will come to
recognize that it is really only through forgiving ourselves that we can
transform our feelings and truly heal any resentment we have about our past.”
Jesus’
teaching is often summoned up as” Love one another as I have loved you”. OR,
“love others as you love yourself.” Of course, many are not too good about
loving themselves any more than they are about forgiving themselves. Even
though we don’t have it in literal scripture, the body of evidence we have
about Jesus’ teaching certainly suggests that he must have said, “As you
forgive others, also forgive yourself.”
Perhaps
you know someone who is a "half-a-minder" -- someone who is always
saying, "I've half a mind to do this or that." Actually we're all
"half-a-minders" or “half-hearters” in many areas of our lives. But
in the area of forgiveness, Jesus is telling us, in today’s Gospel lesson – the
greater commissioning - that half way measures simply will never do. In the
area of forgiveness, we've got to go all out; we've got to forgive
unconditionally, with all our minds and all our hearts! A “half-minder” or “half-hearter” is most
likely someone who forget about forgiving themselves – they think it’s not a
Christian thing to do.
Think
again! When you’re carrying out Jesus’
commissioning to forgive, don’t forget to look in the mirror. Don’t forget to
look deep in your own heart. You too, can take “a new look at forgiveness.”
Amen.