Chipped – Forgive Others
Sycamore Creek Church
Matthew 5:9-15
May 1, 2011
Peace, Friends!
We continue in a three week series on forgiveness. Have you ever had a chip in the windshield of your car? Jeremy, our worship leader, had a chip in the windshield of his car. We took it to have it repaired, and the repairman showed us another windshield that had a small chip that turned into a several big cracks. If you don’t deal with the small chip when it comes up, it can spread. And of course, depending on what hits your windshield, you may have more than just a chip. The whole thing could shatter, or worse. The bigger the rock that hits your windshield the more repair work there is to do.
Last July I was in a car that was rear-ended. We were sitting still waiting for someone to turn left in front of us when someone behind us who didn’t notice that there were several cars stopped in front of him hit us at about 45 MPH. The windshield was instantly shattered. Glass was everywhere. When I got out of the car, there was glass down the back of my shirt. When something hits you that hard, there’s a lot of repair work to be done. A lot more than a small little pebble.
Then there’s the kind of thing that happens to you that does damage to more than just your windshield. This poor guy barely escaped some serious life-ending damage when a boulder hit the top of his car. When something like this happens to your car, it’s likely that you won’t be driving that car again.
Life is the same way. You do things that chip, crack or shatter other people’s windshields, and people do stuff that damages the windshield of your life. The first is about the forgiveness that each of us needs. We talked about that last week. Today we’re talking about the damage that people do to us, and our need to forgive others. Of course, the bigger the damage, the more repair work there is to do. Someone lies once to you. It’s a small pebble. No big deal. Someone lies to you over and over or breaks the foundation of your trust by sharing a secret or committing adultery, we’re talking about a lot of repair work that needs to be done. Then there is the really really damaging stuff that I hope and pray never happens to you. These are the boulders that get dropped on our lives and our lives come to a grinding halt. Things like torture or murder. However much damage that has been done to your life by other people, the repair work of it all begins with forgiveness.
Our text for this series is what is often called the Lord’s Prayer. It is the prayer that Jesus taught to his followers when they asked him to teach them to pray. Let’s read it.
Matthew 6:9-15 (NLT)
Pray like this:
Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven.
Give us our food for today,
and forgive us our sins,
just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.
This is Jesus’ teaching for us today. Thank you, God!
Recently I was contacted by someone on Facebook that I hadn’t even thought about for many many years. They saw a picture of my son, and they were congratulating me on a beautiful child. This person is someone who hurt me significantly in the past. They sent me a brief note to tell me that my son, Micah, was beautiful. “Hmm,” I thought, “That’s interesting.” I didn’t really feel like responding back. It was a strange experience for me. I didn’t think there was anyone that I couldn’t at least send a polite message to, but here I was confronted with someone I didn’t even want to respond to. Of course, this all happened during the time that I was preparing for this series. I was reading a couple of books about forgiveness and thinking through how to teach about forgiveness in ways that take into account the serious damage that we do to each other and the good news of forgiveness that we received in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and community of followers. It was like God was putting before me the opportunity to test and see if I really believed this whole forgiveness thing. Could I really forgive this person? And if I did forgive them, did that mean I had to be their friend on Facebook?
Just in case one note wasn’t enough, I got a second one: “Your son is really cute.” At this point I thought, “Come on! God, this is silly. Why can’t I at least respond with a simple ‘Thanks.’?” So that’s what I did. I sent a brief note back that basically said, “Thanks.” But then I wrote a much longer letter based on some things I was reading about forgiveness.
One book that has been particularly helpful for me in thinking about forgiveness has been Forgiving as We’ve Been Forgiven by Greg Jones, the Dean of Duke Divinity School while I was there. Greg has written several books and articles on the topic of forgiveness and is a regular speaker at conferences on the topic. He presents what he calls six steps of forgiveness, but he emphasizes that they do not necessarily come in a linear fashion. I like to think of them as pieces of a big puzzle about forgiveness. Or maybe you can think of it as piecing together a shattered windshield. Which piece do you begin with? What ever piece you are able to begin with.
Piecing Together Forgiveness – Piece I
The first piece is that we become willing to speak truthfully and patiently about the conflicts that have arisen. Truthfully has to do with not glossing over the pain that someone caused in your life. Name it. Don’t beat around the bush and try to cover up what exactly happened. This doesn’t mean that you have a license to be cruel. Truth can be communicated in gentle ways.
I like the encouragement to speak patiently. I think this is important because speaking truthfully about a situation can be hard. Often times when someone has hurt us, we find that it is very difficult if not even impossible to agree on what actually did happen! We get into a “He said…She said” kind of argument. This kind of argument can only be untied with patience.
I’m reminded of another book I read several years ago called Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. She encourages people to “interrogate reality.” The key to this approach to conversations is being open to the possibility that someone else may have a perspective on reality that you need. You look down and see that where you’re standing the world looks red, but someone else looks down and what they see is blue. Who is right? Well, both are right in their own way.
I’m not trying to suggest that there isn’t right or wrong, but rather that each of us only has a limited perspective. We need patience to be able to listen to someone else’s perspective (especially someone who has hurt us!) and speak truthfully.
Jesus tells us that “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the fault” (Matthew 18:15 NLT). This is instruction specific to other believers, but I think the basic principle is true no matter who you are in conflict with. Just remember that when you go talk to them, if you are patient and really seeking truth, you may find out that they were not at fault! One time I got upset because I had swaddled Micah and put him down asleep. I left the room and heard him start crying. I came back in the room and found Sarah hovering over him. I immediately spoke what I was thinking, “Why did you wake him up?!” I was really upset because it had taken me a long time to get him to fall asleep. She retorted, “He woke up on his own, and I came over to see what was wrong!” Um…oh…sorry. Yeah. Speak truthfully and patiently. That’s the first piece of forgiving.
Piecing Together Forgiveness – Piece II
A second piece of the repair work of forgiveness is acknowledging both the existence of anger and bitterness, and a desire to overcome them. There’s no use in pretending not to be hurt when you are. That’s called denial. I must admit that I try denial all the time. I try to talk myself into thinking that something was no big deal and that it really didn’t hurt when it did. Anger can be a “righteous anger” when we encounter injustice and oppression, and we’ll be looking more closely at anger in the fall, but for now, an important part of acknowledging that we really are hurt.
Acknowledging hurt isn’t the end of the story. The key here is acknowledging a desire to overcome that anger and bitterness. This acknowledgment doesn’t mean you have overcome them, but only that you desire to do so.
St. Augustine, a fourth century church leader, encourages his congregation in a sermon to pray for their enemies. He goes on to add a clarification that was based on what his congregation was actually praying for. He says, that we are to pray for our enemies, and that doesn’t mean praying for them to die!
Greg Jones tells the story of a student of his who was taking his class on forgiveness. She told him that she was taking the class because she was having a hard time forgiving someone who had raped her. Greg, in a less than faith-filled moment, encouraged her that maybe this wasn’t the right class for her at this time, but she insisted. As the class progressed she met with him in his office and said that there was no way she could pray for her attacker. Greg said, “Don’t pray for him. Let me pray for him.” She agreed. A couple of months she met with him again and asked, “Are you still praying for him?” He said that he was. Again several months later, she asked, “Are you still praying for him?” and he said that he continued to pray for this person. What’s going on here? She is acknowledging the bitterness and anger and at the same time she is taking a step toward desiring to overcome them. She wasn’t at a place where she herself could be concerned to pray for this person, but she could be concerned that someone else was.
I think of the man who came to Jesus asking him to heal his boy. When Jesus said to this father that he must believe, the father responded, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24 NRSV). Jesus then healed his boy. While this response isn’t about forgiveness, I think that the basic honesty in it is applicable to forgiveness. I am bitter and angry. Help me over come bitterness and anger! Be honest with God. Then pray for transformation.
Piecing Together Forgiveness – Piece III
A third piece of forgiveness is to summon up a concern for the well-being of the other as a child of God. In her book, Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean tells a heartbreaking story of Pat Sonnier who murders David Leblanc, the son of Lloyd Leblanc. Lloyd is called to the crime scene to identify his son’s body. When he arrives on the scene and positively identifies the body as that of his son, he kneels down and prays for the person who murdered him. This act of praying for the murderer of his son is built upon years and years of practicing prayer. Lloyd was a devout Catholic who prayed the Lord’s Prayer regularly both in and out of church. His unnatural response to the murder of his son was the natural outflow of a life built upon prayer.
This moment of prayer did not remove the anger and bitterness that Lloyd felt for Pat Sonnier, but it did point him in the right direction. One intermediate step that helped Lloyd summon this kind of concern for Pat was to pray for Pat’s mother. Knowing personally what it was like to lose a child, he found that he could summon within himself concern for the mother whose son was soon to be executed. Slowly Lloyd was able to take steps toward seeing Pat as one who bore the image of God. James, Jesus’ brother, gives us helpful counsel about our speech in moments like this. He says, “Sometimes [the tongue] praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against those who have been made in the image of God” (James 3:9 NLT). He encourages us to the former rather than the latter. St. Augustine adds, “Let them not pray, then, that their enemies may die, but that their enemies be corrected; then the enemies will be dead, because when converted they will no longer exist as enemies.”
Piecing Together Forgiveness – Piece IV
A fourth piece of forgiveness is recognizing our own complicity in conflict and remembering that we have been forgiven in the past and taking the step of repentance. The more damage someone does to us, the harder it is to remember our own need of forgiveness, but all of us are in need of forgiveness at some point in our lives. And ultimately all of us are in need of forgiveness by God. Jesus taught those who would follow him to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Forgive us. We all need it.
Of course, there may be some situations where you were completely blindsided, but most situations that we find ourselves in are not like this. We can usually ask ourselves, “Was there anything I could have done better? Was there any other kind of response I could have had?” I’m not trying to get you to blame yourself for what someone else done. Remember, speak truthfully about the situation, but speaking truthfully usually includes admitting that we maybe weren’t at our best all the time either. Jesus says, “Why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” (Matthew 7:3 NLT). Jesus is using hyperbole or exaggeration to make a point here, but maybe you have at least a speck in your eye that you could confess. I find that when I confess to having had room for improvement in my own responses, the door to an apology swings open rather than slamming shut.
Even if I did nothing wrong in any given situation, I have done wrong in the past to someone. One time when I got back to my car, I found a note on the windshield. It said, “I’m sorry I hit your car and put a dent in it. My name is…and my phone number is…” Wow! Déjà vu! Except last time I was in this situation, I was the one leaving the note on someone’s car. I called the person who left the note and said, “Thanks for leaving a note. My car has 150,000 miles on it and the part you hit was already rusted, so let’s call it good and not worry about it. I appreciate your honesty.” I didn’t have any trouble forgiving in that moment because I had done the very same thing to someone else!
Piecing Together Forgiveness – Piece V
A fifth piece of forgiveness is making a commitment to struggle to change whatever caused and continues to perpetuate our conflicts. There is “no peace without justice” as the saying goes. If the injustice continues, then how are we to expect forgiveness to come? It seems nearly impossible, and so forgiveness always includes working toward changing the situation that caused the conflict in the first place. We like to call this “role renegotiation” around here. You meet with the person who you’re in conflict with and you renegotiate expectations.
We learn what God desires of us through the prophet Micah (not my son…the Old Testament prophet Micah who he is named after), “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8 NRSV). In your place of needing to forgive, is there need for justice? Is there need for kindness? Is there need for humility? Forgiveness includes working for these things.
Piecing Together Forgiveness – Piece VI
A last piece of forgiveness is confessing our yearning for the possibility of reconciliation. OK, in the end you may not be able to reconcile, but are you satisfied with that or do you yearn for something better? I think a lot of us get stuck in bitterness and anger and we just give up and decide to live in the bitterness and anger. Those who follow Jesus are called to something more. We’re called to help bring about the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven. We’re called to at the very least yearn for it. God’s kingdom is already here, but at the same time it is not yet fully here. Are you satisfied with the “already” or do you yearn also for the “not yet”? We’re called to yearn and work for the “not yet.”
Maybe the damage to the windshield of your life will cost so much that you don’t have enough money to repair it. So do you drive around life content with a cracked windshield or do you yearn for the day when the damage will be repaired? Sometimes all we can do in this life is pray, struggle, and yearn for what seems like the impossible. Paul tells us, “Do your part to live in peace with everyone, as much as possible” (Romans 12:18 NLT). The key phrase there is “as much as possible.” Maybe in the end forgiveness isn’t possible in this life, but yearn for a time when it will be. You may eventually find that time has come.
Forgiveness
Back to my letter on forgiveness. This person had truly hurt me in the past. I decided to write a letter to this person. I haven’t sent it to them, and I’m not yet sure if I will. (Will it do harm or do good?) I began the letter thanking them for their compliment on my son. I agreed with how beautiful he is! I went on to say that I was surprised to get their note, and that it brought up some past pain that I was not aware of. I went on to tell them in as truthful but as kind a way as I could the pain that they had caused me. From there I moved on to forgiveness. I reminded this person that I was in need of forgiveness too. Probably not in this situation, but definitely in other situations. I also told them that I was even in need of forgiveness by God through Jesus Christ. I then forgave them. I ended the letter expressing the hope that this letter would bring healing to both of us, and that perhaps they would also experience the forgiveness and mercy of God in Jesus Christ.
In writing this letter, I followed the pattern of another letter I had read while preparing for this sermon series. It was the letter that Louis Zamporini, an American WWII POW in Japan, sent to his Japanese captor and torturer, Mutsuhiro Wantanabe. Zamporini was daily tortured by Wantanabe for several years. After some serious post traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, and violent abusive behavior with his wife and daughter, Zamporini had a life changing experience with God that led him to being able to forgive Wantanabe. But to hear that story and read that letter, you’ll have to come back next week when I’ll be dealing with forgiveness and our memory.
Share on Facebook
Recent Comments