A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

unforgivens

Matthew 18:21-35, Preached  at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, March 22, 2009

A man was bitten by a dog. Later it was discovered that the dog had rabies. This was back when there was no cure for rabies. His doctor brought him the bad news. “Everything possible will be done to make you comfort­able,” he said, “but we can’t offer any false hope. My best advice to you is to put your affairs in order as soon as possible.” The dying man sank back in shock, but finally he rallied enough to ask for a pen and paper. He began writing furiously. An hour later, when the doctor returned, he­ said, “Well, it’s good to see you’ve taken my advice. I take it you’re working on your will.” “This is no will,” said the man. “It’s a list of people I plan on biting before I die.”

Despite growing up with advice like "Forgive and forget" or being reminded that "To err is human, to forgive divine" and our regular "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," we do not find much forgiveness out there. We live in a balance-sheet world that demands punishment. Society counsels, "Don't get mad; get even." When things do not go our way, we are advised to "Sue their socks off!" Children cannot forgive their parents and parents cannot forgive their children. Wives cannot forgive their husbands and husbands cannot forgive their wives. There is not much forgiveness. That is nothing new though. Two-thousand years ago the question was posed, "Lord, how often am I to forgive...seven times?"

Forgiveness. Great word. Great concept. We love it in the abstract, but when we really have something to forgive, we hate it in the concrete. What if I refused to forgive someone for what they did to me five, ten, or more years ago. Maybe someone does something heinous to someone, something “unforgivable.” Now what? What does that person do, or perhaps they are no longer alive? What does her or his family do with their feelings? Forgiving is really important, but is it always possible? There is a prayer called the Ravensbruck prayer. It comes from the Ravensbruck concentration camp in It was written by an unknown prisoner and left by the body of a dead child: “O Lord, remember not only the men and woman of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all of the suffering they have inflicted upon us: Instead remember the fruits we have borne because of this suffering, our fellowship, our loyalty to one another, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown from this trouble. When our persecutors come to be judged by you, let all of these fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.” That is truly amazing.

How many times must I forgive someone who has hurt me? That is Simon Peter’s question. How do I forgive someone who abused me or exploited me? This may be your question. In Peter’s question the issue is frequency. In other people’s case, the issue is severity.

Behind his question Peter is thinking: "Lord, we are talking about limits here, right? I mean, we have to have limits for everything, don’t we? Is it three strikes and you’re out? Two yellow cards, then a red one and you’re on the bench for the rest of the game? That doesn’t seem like enough to me, Lord. Let’s say, just to show that we are compassionate, long-suffering, forgiving people that we set the limit at seven times. That ought to be more than enough, don’t you think?" This is the mindset of the religious Pharisee, where righteousness can be quantified and assured. This is not a Jewish thing; this is a human thing. It answers the deep question of how we can know we are good, right and righteous. But Jesus doesn’t see things this way. “Not seven times, but seven times seventy times you should be willing to forgive."

I will be honest with you. Jesus doesn’t do human math. This is God’s mathematics we have here. They don’t teach this in school. God is the one who truly leaves no child left behind—and by child I mean you and me. If you are wondering how Christ gets this number, if you are trying to figure out what is behind this forgiveness discussion, there is an easy answer. Jesus is trying to get us to think and act like God. For him, the answer to life’s problems and troubles is not: What Would Jesus Do? Rather, it’s What Would God Do? So when it comes to forgiveness, the unstated answer could be the implied question: How many times does God forgive you, Peter? As we know, the Lord never threw in the final towel on this man, even after he personally and verbally, publicly and faithlessly, denied Jesus.

Let me push this even further. What if Judas hadn’t killed himself after he betrayed Jesus? Let’s say he went out and spent the money he got for telling the authorities where Jesus could be found that night. He had a good time with it. But then later on, years later, he hears about this small group of women and men who are calling themselves the Way. They say Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and he died and he was buried, but he was now resurrected. This Jesus was God’s Son, our Savior and Lord. Now what if Judas, hearing this story, went to bed one night, fell asleep, and in a dream Christ came to him. His wrists pierced, his feet pierced, his side pierced, and yet alive, resurrected, enthroned in God’s glory, and now calling to Judas, saying to him, telling him, “Rise, Judas. You are forgiven. Follow me.” Don’t you agree that this could have happened? Isn’t this what would have happened if Judas had stayed alive, if he had trusted God’s immense, eternal capacity for forgiveness and mercy? What would God do? God would forgive. God forgives, sets us back up on our feet, and tells us to take our new life and follow Christ.

But is this possible for you and me? Perhaps it is simply easier for God to forgive. We have so much less than the Lord, and when it is taken away it really hurts. To forgive may be divine, but it feels heroic, epic, titanic. It is. The great bible commentator William Barclay wrote in “The Letter to Hebrews,” “Forgiveness is a costly thing. Human forgiveness is costly. A son or a daughter may go wrong; a father or a mother may forgive; but that forgiveness has brought tears ... There was a price of a broken heart to pay. Divine forgiveness is costly. God is love, but God is holiness. God, least of all, can break the great moral laws on which the universe is built. Sin must have its punishment or the very structure of life disintegrates. And God alone can pay the terrible price that is necessary before men can be forgiven. Forgiveness is never a case of saying: ‘It's all right; it doesn't matter.’ Forgiveness is the most costly thing in the world.”

 To really trust again, well in today’s world this is something that is lampooned viciously as foolishness and self-defeating. The effects of abuse and betrayal are too severe and vast to be helped and healed by an easy three-word incantation: “I forgive you.” These don’t do justice to the hurt and pain children will carry with them their whole lives, that women feel in a relationship gone terribly wrong, and all people feel when they get caught up by someone who is a master manipulator. So it seems true that the only one who can truly and who should truly forgive is the person who has a strong enough sense of self, of self-worth. Someone who is defeated, who has little sense of self-worth, should not even be asked to forgive. The time will come down the road when that person is healthy, spiritually and emotionally, and who can then at that time give this tremendous and divine gift. Done too early, forgiveness is just a continuation of abuse and manipulation. It is not a gift yet; it is still stolen goods that the one who injured takes from the injured. As Eccleasiastes says, “There is a season for everything.”  

But ultimately forgiveness is the goal; it is the goal of each of us, of those who are journeying to spiritual strength and emotional health. Forgiveness is a Christian act, the mature Christian’s gift to another.

 I would like to tell you a bit about Corrie ten Boom, a world famous Dutch Christian whose family hid Jews and others in their home during World War II. In May 1942, a well dressed woman came to the Ten Boom door with a suitcase in hand. Nervously, she told Ten Boom that she was a Jew and that her husband had been arrested several months before, and her son had gone into hiding. Occupation authorities had recently visited her, and she was too fearful to return home. After hearing about how the ten Booms had helped their Jewish neighbors, she asked if she might stay with them, and Corrie ten Boom's father readily agreed. A devoted reader of the Old Testament, Casper ten Boom believed Jews were indeed "the chosen," and told the woman, "In this household, God's people are always welcome."

Thus began "the hiding place.” Ten Boom and her sister began taking in refugees, some of whom were Jews, others members of the resistance movement sought by the Gestapo and its Dutch counterpart. There were several extra rooms in their house, but food was scarce due to wartime shortages. Every non-Jewish Dutch person had received a ration card with which they could procure weekly coupons to buy food. Corrie knew many in Haarlem, thanks to her charitable work, and remembered a couple who had a developmentally disabled daughter. For about twenty years, Corrie ten Boom had run a special church service program for such children, and knew the family. The father was a civil servant who was by then in charge of the local ration-card office. She went to his house unannounced one evening, and he seemed to know why. When he asked how many ration cards she needed, "I opened my mouth to say, 'Five,'" Ten Boom wrote in The Hiding Place. "But the number that unexpectedly and astonishingly came out instead was. 'One hundred.'"

The Germans arrested the entire Ten Boom family on February 28, 1944 with the help of a Dutch informant. They were sent first to Scheveningen prison (where her father died ten days after his capture). Corrie's sister Nollie, brother Willem, and nephew Peter were all released. Later, Corrie and Betsie were sent to the Vught political concentration camp (both in the Netherlands), and finally to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany in September 1944, where Corrie's sister Betsie died. Before she died she told Corrie, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." Corrie was released on Christmas Day of December 1944. In the movie, The Hiding Place, Ten Boom tells of her release from camp, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error. The women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release.

After the war, Corrie ten Boom returned to the Netherlands to set up rehabilitation centers. She returned to Germany in 1946, and traveled the world as a public speaker, appearing in over sixty countries, during which time she wrote many books. Her teaching focused on the Christian Gospel, with emphasis on forgiveness. In her book, Tramp for the Lord, she tells the story of how after she had been teaching in Germany in 1947, she was approached by one of the cruelest former Ravensbrück camp guards. She was reluctant to forgive him, but prayed that she would be able to. She wrote that, “For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.” She also wrote in the same passage that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi brutality, it was those who were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives.

To forgive is costly, but not to forgive often costs even more. Don’t let any unforgivens in your life cost you any more. Extend grace. Offer forgiveness. Live a new life.

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