United Church of Pittsford

Colossians 3:12-14

Bob and Nancy had been married for 12 years. By all appearances, things were going very well in their lives. Bob had a good job, their kids were happy and healthy, they lived in a nice neighborhood, and had a number of good, trusted, and treasured friends. However, in spite of all this, Nancy was bored with her life of leisure, and quite frankly, bored with her marriage. So, she got a part-time job, as a way to add some new found purpose and excitement in her life. While on the job she met and became friends with one of her work-mates. Their friendship slowly became more and more intimate, exciting, stimulating, and rewarding and before long, physical!

One evening, after dinner, Nancy revealed her new found relationship to Bob and announced that she was going to move out of the house, and move in with her new man! Bob was shocked, stunned, crushed by the disclosure! He felt lost, broken-hearted, shamed, emasculated, betrayed and eventually, extremely angry!

Nancy moved out and Bob struggled to carry-on alone. As angry as he was at Nancy, what he really wanted was his wife, his life, and his family back. Numerous long, painful, tear-filled conversations with his pastor helped him realize that the only chance for reconciliation involved his willingness and ability to forgive. There were no guarantees, but clearly, their fractured relationship would never be repaired without forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an idea that appears at the very heart of Christianity. Forgiveness appears everywhere in the language of faith. "I believe," states the creed, "in the forgiveness of sins."

"How often should we forgive?"

Jesus says, "seventy times seven."

"Forgive us our sins," we recite each week in worship, "as we forgive those who sin against us."
Forgive one another," says the Apostle Paul, "as God in Christ has forgiven you."

Forgiveness, both human and divine, is the heartbeat of grace it would be impossible to imagine the Christian faith without it! The famed preacher, Howard Thurman has said, "In Jesus' insistence that we should forgive seventy times seven
there seems to be the assumption that forgiveness is mandatory."

Our faith tradition assures us that God forgives all of us again and again and again; for whatever it is that we might say or do, be it intentional or unintentional, that proves hurtful to the will and purpose of the Lord God.

And, because we are all sinners, all of us, on occasion intentionally, more often unintentionally, hurt others by our words and our actions.  So, we certainly understand, that no single mean, thoughtless, or cruel word spoken, or deed enacted, represents our full character or intent nor the full character or intent of someone who has caused us pain, who has hurt our feelings.

We have all been there, on both the giving and the receiving end of such action often, we may not even be aware, or even understand the hurt, the pain, and the suffering we have inflicted on another. When we are hurting, it is not unusual to be unwilling to forgive.

Popular Christian author, Philip Yancy has called forgiveness an "unnatural act."

Maybe a helpful way to deal with the problem when it appears in our lives, is first to consider that God certainly does understand how very difficult it is for us to forgive and so provides us with the power, the presence, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so that we can participate in the gift of grace that God has already extended to the one who has offended us.  Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount, "If you forgive others for the wrongs they do to you, your Father in heaven will forgive you. "But if you fail to forgive others, your Father in heaven will not forgive you."  What Jesus seems to be saying is that our relationship with God is breached whenever our human relationships are ruptured. As long as we are cut off from others, God is cut off from us.

Forgiveness implies a close relationship. If a complete stranger upsets, angers, or offends us, it may hurt for a while but the pain eventually disappears, and we are not left in a state of prolonged suffering. For the pain to cause emotional suffering, there must be a violation of a personal relationship; one that is based on trust, and that implies the existence of a mutual bond. It is when such a bond is broken that forgiveness is needed. The closer the bond, the greater the pain when it is ruptured and the greater the need for forgiveness.

Popular Christian author and preacher, Frederick Buechner, has said, "To forgive somebody is to say one way or another, ‘You have done something unspeakable, and by all rights I should call it quits between us. ‘Both my pride and my principles demand no less. ‘However although I make no guarantees that I will be able to forget what you've done I refuse to let it stand between us. I still want you for my friend.'"

Forgiveness is a gift of grace empowered and inspired by the Spirit of Christ; a gift that enables us to remain in relationship with both God and one another.  If we were to write off everyone who hurts us, everyone who lets us down, everyone who does us wrong, eventually, we would be all alone.  Forgiveness not only serves as a gift of grace for the one being forgiven but for the one doing the forgiving as well. Those feelings of anger and hatred, of resentment and hostility, those feelings of sorrow, sadness, and self-pity, those feelings of judgment and revenge, that precede any act of forgiveness, are all spiritual, psychological, physical, and emotional poison. They suppress joy, they blot out hope, they obliterate love, they subvert peace and the stress involved slowly destroys our body!

Forgiveness is the antidote that allows us to live in relationship with God and one another without it, we are lost and alone!

Forgiveness is a gift of grace for both the one receiving the gift, and especially for the one willing to take the risk, and extend the gift.

After nearly two years of existing apart Bob and Nancy finally entered pastoral counseling and after many months of hard work, they reunited. It never would have happened without Bob's willingness to forgive and their mutually rewarding relationship today would not exist, had Bob not been able to forgive.  He credits his faith in Christ with enabling him to forgive "I never could have done it alone!" he says.

Amen.