| Sunday Sermon September 14, 2008 The High Cost of Not Forgiving One day a young boy accidentally broke his sister’s favorite doll. He was truly sorry about it and told her, but she refused to listen because she was so upset. The boy begged his sister to forgive him, but she refused. Eventually, their mother intervened in the impasse, telling her daughter, “Now, Sally, it was an accident. Your brother did not break your doll on purpose. He said he is sorry. You will forgive him now, won’t you?” Sally thought a moment and replied, “Oh, all right. I’ll forgive him, but I could forgive him a lot easier if I could slug him first.” It is not easy to forgive someone who has hurt us, is it? In fact, it can downright hard! Many of you know my brother was killed in a high-speed police chase. It happened in Dallas in 1981 when his car was crashed into by a vehicle the police were pursuing at a high rate of speed on a neighborhood street. Gilbert was 33-years old, had a wife and a 5-month-old son, and had been practicing internal medicine for four years when his life was suddenly cut short. What you don’t about that painful event and loss that compounded the tragedy is that two Dallas Police Department officers had the driver in the chase pulled over earlier because he had allegedly tried to pass a forged prescription. As the officers sought to apprehend the suspect, they did not follow appropriate police department procedures and allowed him to escape. It is then the chase ensued that resulted in my family’s unnecessary loss of a beloved son, husband, father, and brother. Do you think it was quick and easy for our family to find forgiveness for those responsible in some considerable measure for the loss of our loved one? For several years whenever I went to Dallas I had an immediate, intense visceral response upon seeing a Dallas Police car. My stomach would twist and turn in knots, and feelings of anger and regret would flood my heart and head. There was nothing really rational about this response, but it was real – and it was connected to my inability or unwillingness to forgive and move on in those first years following our family’s loss. Lewis Smedes writes, “Forgiveness is a journey. The deeper the offense, the longer the journey.” Four days ago John Ramsey announced he’s forgiven the news media for the “cyberspace lynching” he and his family endured following the death of his six-year old daughter, Jon-Benet, 12 years ago. We know that forgiveness does not take away the fact, memory or consequences of sin. I don’t know where you may be on the journey of giving or receiving forgiveness, but I know it is a road we must travel much of our lives. Let’s think together this morning about three dynamics connected to the journey of forgiveness: Why we forgive, what happens when we don’t forgive, and what happens when we do choose to forgive. Forgiveness is a core value of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and almost every major world religion. We begin with the primary lesson of the parable and much of the New Testament: We forgive because we have been forgiven. The slave in the parable who was forgiven a $10 gazillion debt, but could not forgive a $10 debt, was confronted with a convicting question by the king, “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” (vs. 33) Jesus said in the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Paul writes to the Colossians in a passage couples often request me to read at their weddings, 3:12-17, “Bear with one another and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” “To err is human, to forgive is divine,” wrote Alexander Pope. We are human. We do err. We are not divine, but the Divine One calls to us forgive, even as we have been forgiven. Shortly after I came to Denver two years ago, a prominent community leader, the head of his own very successful professional corporation, and a member of this congregation, invited me to lunch. We set a mutually agreeable date, time, and place to meet and eat. For 33 years as a pastor, I have taken great pride in never missing or being significantly late for a wedding, a rehearsal, a funeral, speaking engagement or pastoral appointment. But somehow I did not transfer this lunch date to a new calendar and I did not show up that day at Racine’s for lunch with a man whose time is his livelihood. I stood up this very busy prominent, professional leader. He had every right to think, “My new pastor is an idiot. He did not notify he could make it. How unprofessional! I have waited almost an hour and he’s a no show. I think I may just look for a new church to attend.” But that’s not what this man did. He sent an email that afternoon that said, “I missed you at lunch today. I hope everything’s okay with you and your family. Let’s set another date and try again for lunch. Let me know when you’re available.” Friends, that was an experience of mercy, grace, and forgiveness! I called him immediately, apologized, and thanked for his forgiving and gracious attitude. The outcome of that experience was not just a rescheduled lunch date and ongoing good friendship, it was the model and incentive to me to be forever forgiving, gracious and merciful to staff, church and family members who may occasionally, unintentionally forget an appointment or be negligent in some way that inconveniences or even irritates me. Because I had received mercy from this gentleman, I learned powerfully the lesson of giving mercy. This week Gay Bossart kindly shared with me a just published book called The Power of Forgiveness, based on an NPR documentary film of the same name. The author is Kenneth Briggs, former religion editor of the NY Times and husband of Gay’s cousin Kay. He writes of Jesus, “He preached a clear message: you have been forgiven by God; therefore, out of gratitude, to complete the circle, forgive others. You are to pass on something much bigger than yourself, which you did not give yourself and whose nature is to move through you to others.” Almost every Sunday we proclaim in one of our creeds, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” And every Sunday we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Our receiving divine forgiveness is not contingent on our giving it to others. However, our receiving mercy does compel us to be merciful to others. We forgive, because we have been forgiven. There is a second dynamic to forgiveness in this parable: We pay a tremendously high cost for not forgiving. Do you remember the fate of the forgiven slave who would not forgive? His lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. We can dismiss this as “just a parable” or say that Jesus was speaking with hyperbole. Then comes the zinger from the lips of our Lord in the last verse, the summary lesson of the parable, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” There is a profound truth in this passage, though not at the literal level. The slave in the story was imprisoned not for his debt, but because of his refusal to forgive. He was incarcerated because of the way he treated his neighbor – he couldn’t forgive a $10 debt when he had been forgiven a million times as much! The lesson is clear: When we don’t forgive others, we imprison ourselves. When we can’t let go of someone’s sin, slight, or shortcoming, we put ourselves in a prison cell of vengeance, hate, and bitterness. That is why Jesus says, “Keep forgiving – not 7 times, but 77 times – don’t stop forgiving because you need it as much as the person who has offended you.” You need to forgive so you don’t become a hate addict, a junkie who’s co-dependent on the wounds and wrongs you have received from others. In his book, Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them, John Ortberg writes, “God commands us to forgive because it is the best way to live. He commands it because the only other way is to remain a prisoner of the hurt as long as I live… No human beings are more miserable than the unforgiving.” (p. 160) “Non-forgiveness costs your heart… What you are eating at the banquet of bitterness is your own heart.” (165) Indeed, there is a high, high cost to not forgiving. That leads to the third dynamic of forgiveness: There is a healing power in forgiveness. When we forgive good things happen. In the conclusion of the introduction to The Power of Forgiveness, Kenneth Briggs writes, “Forgiveness ...is…a blessing, a process of conversion that can be brought into play when the powder kegs of hatred and revenge are lit…it holds enormous riches for our bodies, minds, and souls. It is the path seldom taken that actually leads to a better place…” An entire chapter in the book is dedicated to health and how forgiving other positively impacts one’s well being: our hearts, our blood pressure, our backs, our marriages, our levels on anxiety, neurosis, and depression. This week I did a survey of our staff on forgiveness. One of the questions I asked was, “What does forgiveness do for the one giving it?” A staff member wrote, “It’s freedom! It has released me from the chains of bitterness, of desiring revenge, and all the other things that consume time and energy, and allows me to move on without that anchor holding me back.” In the words of Lewis Smedes, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Try an experiment this week when you are driving. When some cuts in front of you, or doesn’t use a turn signal, or goes too slow, or exhibits some other driving behaviors that may cause you anger: instead of honking, shouting, or waving at them, simply say aloud, “I forgive you.” Say it twice if you need to! You will feel better, you will drive slower, and you will live longer. I tried it this week and it works! Speaking of driving, have you seen the ads by Allstate about their auto insurance program called “Accident Forgiveness”? Here’s one that reads, “It’s easier to forgive your teenager if we forgive them first.” We don’t have Accident Forgiveness Insurance with our Heavenly Parent. Along with our Life Insurance and Fire Insurance, we have Sin Forgiveness Insurance. And it so much easier for us to forgive others their sins, when we have been forgiven ours first. BOTTOM LINE: Forgiveness is a transforming gift that brings joy, relief, hope and gratitude. It sets free the giver and the recipient. Forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts we can give and one of the greatest we can receive. Many years ago in New England, a woman became angry with a pastor in her town. She began to harass him in every way she could. She started false rumors, called him ugly names, and wrote him vicious letters. After several months, the woman moved to another city and not long afterward, was converted to Christ. Part of her spiritual transformation was realizing the terrible wrong she had done and all the pain, suffering and embarrassment she had inflicted on that pastor. Finally, she sat down and wrote him a long letter, explaining what had happened to her and how deeply she regretted what she had done. She begged him to accept her apology. She mailed the letter. Two days later she received a telegram from that pastor. It contained three words. The words were, “Forgiven! Forgotten! Forever!” What grace to give such a message as that! What blessing to receive such an assurance as that!
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