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For the past five weeks we have been examining what forgiveness means in our lives and how the act of forgiveness is not acknowledging forgetting what has happened. Forgiveness gives the forgiver freedom from their burden. We have examined those in the Bible who have offered forgiveness and saw how their forgiveness freed them. President Reagan who forgave his attempted assassin John Hinckley for President Reagan realized that only then could he internally heal from his external wounds. We have learned that sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me is wrong. For words can hurt even more than a broken bone for the damage to us mentally cannot be placed in a cast or externally sutured to heal with medication in the event of infection.
In the Bible, the themes of the Book of Proverbs speaks multitudes:
Wisdom: For God wants His people to be wise and there are two kinds of people who portray two contrasting paths of life. The fool is the wicked, stubborn person who hates or ignores what God says. The wise person seeks to know and love God.
Relationships: The Book of Proverbs gives us advise for developing our personal relationships with friends, family, co-workers, every day people. In every relationship we must show love, dedication and high moral standards.
Speech: What we say shows our real attitude toward others. How we talk reveals what we’re really like. Our speech is a test of how wise we have become.
Work: God, not I, God controls the final outcome of all we do. We are accountable for what we do, for our laziness and our efforts.
Success: Although people work very hard for money and fame. God views success as having a good reputation, moral character and spiritual devotion to Him and not the world.
But what if you grew up in an era where who you were, where you could eat, sit on a bus, drink from a water fountain and or go to the bathroom let alone attend school was determined by the color of your skin? What if you grew up in an era where you belittled and abused, treated like nothing verbally and physically?
What if you knew God’s word,
Isaiah 55: 5-9
Behold, you shall call nations that you know not, and nations that knew you not shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
The year is 1963, Springfield, Ohio was racially divided black and white. Your skin color determined where you sat on the bus, what water fountain you drank out of, and if you went to the Regent Theatre in downtown Springfield if you were black you could only sit in the balcony. And if you were in Springfield and got hungry, the only place you could eat at was in the cafeteria at Wren’s in downtown Springfield.
Something happened one evening in 1963, at 1108 Cottage Avenue, in Springfield, Ohio that would leave an everlasting impression on a family, their son Jimmy and another man, Ben, who was not related to the family. Jimmy watched one evening in horror and helplessness as a white police officer came to his home. The police officer arrested his father and put him in the car while not being very nice. Then the police officer arrested Jimmy’s mother and Jimmy watched terrified as the police officer dragged his mother across the ground as her underclothes were showing and then threw her into the police cruiser.
When Jimmy started screaming at the police officer to be nice to his momma and daddy, the police officer turned on Jimmy warning him, You little N….. if you don’t back off I’ll throw you in the car and you’ll all be going downtown where you belong.
Forty years later in 2003, two men sat across from each other at the same table on the Springfield Area Men’s Walk To Emmaus #25 at the High Street United Methodist Church in Springfield, Ohio. As the men sat across from each other they both wondered, “He looks familiar to me, how do I know him?” And then God intervened as the two men, Jimmy and Ben realized how they knew each other. Jimmy and a Springfield Police Officer had both wondered about each other all these years.
In the wisdom of God, God brought them together once again as men. We are blessed today to have Jimmy and Ben who was the police officer, with us in worship and a miracle that occurred in their lives as they recognized, as they looked at each other how they knew each other. It is by the grace of God that these two men forty years later were brought together in a men’s religious retreat and God sat them at the same table. Sat at the same table and everyone present sat and learned that forgiveness is a miracle as Jimmy spoke to Ben and forgave him for the way he treated his mother and father as well as Jimmy in such a degrading manner because of the color of their skin. Then with tears coming down their faces they hugged and Jimmy forgave Ben telling him, I forgive you for what you did to my parents and me, at this very moment.
If somebody called you a degrading name because of the color of your skin or was physically abusive and used excessive force physically as well as verbally, could you forgive them or would you live harboring hate and resentment toward them to your last breath? Could you live and be in peace with the words of Isaiah 55:10-11 in your life? For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return not thither but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
As we end this series on forgiveness it is important that we remember… forgiveness doesn’t mean that we will forget. After all as Jesus hung on
that Old Wooden Cross he said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they have done.” Jesus did not say: “Father forgive them, I forget what they have done.”
And in your struggle with forgiveness, remember as a child of God we are called to not hold hatred and resentment for our fellow human beings but be in celebration as we live. Be in celebration and realize Isaiah 55:12-13 in our lives, “For you shall go out in joy, and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off.”
For what our scripture lesson and sermon text, Isaiah 55:5-13 is saying to us are not complicated. God will provide and forgiveness is not about the color of our skin, where we are from, where we attend worship. Forgiveness is about what is on the inside of the forgiver. To live curled up in a ball while never relaxing or to give it up to God and be free on the inside. To live the wisdom of the themes of the Book of Proverbs: Wisdom, Relationships, Speech, and Work and Success. In giving forgiveness Jim was released from his anger, his hurt over the injustice that had kept him a self-imposed prisoner all these years. In receiving this forgiveness Ben is at peace with Jim, his family, as well as himself.
Today, Jim and Ben associate with each other, we have had lunch together, and because forgiveness is a miracle they embrace each other not as men of color but as men of God.
Forgiveness is a miracle. At this very moment is there a miracle of wisdom, relationships, speech, work and success waiting to take place in your life? Is there a miracle of forgiveness waiting to take place in your life?
The altar is open as we enter into prayer.
Father God in this world it is so easy to walk around angry, unforgiving. I pray for the one among us who is full of anger, mistrust, resentment, hatred, and confusion because they are unable to forgive and live in a living hell. May we remember red and yellow, black and white we are precious in Your sight and be thankful for this day and the days yet to come when we are no longer burdened and weighed down in un-forgiveness. Amen
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