Undone: forgiveness triumphs over tragedy 2/27/11

Undone: forgiveness triumphs over tragedy

Rumc   2/27/11

THAT’S NOT FAIR! If you have ever met a child you have heard that.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a Sunday School or a soccer team; there’ll always be a child or two who feels that it just is not fair.

They perceive “unequal treatment", and scream “NO FAIR!”

They sense a "preferred treatment’, and cry "NO FAIR!”

Make them do something they don’t want to do, and they cry “NO FAIR!”

I was fond of telling my kids-  “Oh well, who ever told you life would be fair?”

And guess what - it doesn’t get any better as they grow up. I’ve used children in this introduction, but this self centered sense of justice is the not the exception, it is the norm for any age group in any society. 

We all say we want “justice.” But what we really want is “what we want. “

·        The smaller child cries “no fair” because their older brother gets a bigger piece of cake.  The bigger one says that’s perfectly fair because I am bigger.

·        The older child cries not fair because the younger child gets more gifts.  The parent says, but your gifts cost more.

·        The customer cries not fair because they are injured by a spilled cup of coffee.  McDonalds says, you bought hot coffee.  If it weren’t hot you would complain too.

·        One party claims that the machinery was not safe enough.   The other claims it was not used with proper care.

·        The burglar claims damages because he was injured.  The home owner says, “But wait- you were robbing my home.”

·        The Unions say you’re breaking your promises. The Wisconsin Governor says we have to balance the budget or you won’t have a job anyway. 

·        The Israelis and the Palestinians both lay claim to the same land.  I’m not sure anyone is right any more, but you can’t tell that to the Israelite whose bus was just blown up. And you can’t tell that to the Palestinian who can’t get through the Israeli checkpoint to buy groceries.

The examples can go on and on because we all know what it means to be treated unfairly.  That is, I think one of the core problems of our society, we believe that everyone deserves fairness; so one gangs seek revenge on one another.  Political discourse becomes more and more heated.  And Courts are packed to the gills with law suits.  Forgiveness is like a foreign language.

Imagine the Bible story reading like this.  “Jesus was lead up the mount called Golgotha.  There they crucified him with two criminals one on his left and one on his right.  While he hung there dying, Jesus looked to heaven and said ‘Father, IT’S NOT FAIR!’”

Well, he would have been right.  It wasn’t fair!  The reason he didn’t do that, however, is because Jesus had a different sense of Justice than we do.  God has a different view of Justice than we do.  Today, as we come to the 6^th sermon in this series on forgiveness we need to come to grips with what we perceive as the “unfairness” or the “injustice” that is sometimes left behind when we forgive.

One of the reasons it is so hard for us to forgive is that we think justice means an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.  The injured party deserves compensation. 

We let one child cut the cake in half compensate the other by letting them chose which half they want.  We want compensation for services rendered, and lost wages, and damaged property.  That’s just fine.  But as soon as we get beyond the simplest of issues it becomes much more complex. As soon as we are dealing with anything more complicated than a piece of desert or a day’s wages the issue of justice becomes much more complex. But there is something more important to Jesus - something that is more important to God.  More important than whether we get our share of cake, any compensation, or civil justice. 

That’s where today’s lesson comes in. Listen for the advice Jesus gives us in these more complex issues of life.

"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

What is Jesus point here?  Jesus’ point is that LOVE is more important than “justice.”  FORGIVENESS is more important than “fair.” Society looks to equality and justice as a rule for life.  Christians must look to LOVE and FORGIVENESS to rule the day.  Whether you come out on top or not, love always gives you the upper hand.  Whether life seems just or unjust, love makes it right. In God’s court love always trumps fairness. In God’s creation - the only thing that is perfect besides God himself is Love.  And when we love true godly justice will flow.

What does that say about forgiveness?  It means that forgiveness is the one and only route to Godly justice.  Because forgiveness clears all the garbage out of the way so we can love. 

Forgiveness is choosing love over fairness.

Forgiveness is choosing love over human justice.

Forgiveness is choosing love over retribution

Forgiveness pushes aside our need for fairness- and allows us to love.

Forgiveness plows a way through the hurts of life- and allows us to love.

Forgiveness upends our normal sense of justice in favor of allowing us to love.

When you have the opportunity to forgive you have the opportunity to love as God loves.  You have the opportunity to be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.

Not perfect in justice.

Not perfect in behavior.

Not perfect in faith.

But perfect in love.

Could Jesus have exacted punishment on the soldiers who crucified him?  I suspect so. But instead he said “Father forgive them”

Could Jesus have gotten revenge on the crowd that shouted “crucify him?”  I’m sure he could have. But he said “Father forgive them”

Could Jesus have paid back Pilate for his weakness and acquiescence to the crowd and the authorities?  Sure- one word and his nose would have fallen off or he would have burst into flames.  But that was not important to Jesus- he said “Father forgive them”

·        It is the difference between seeing the wrongs we experience as crimes or tragedies.

o   A crime must be investigated to assign blame and prosecute. Someone must be punished.  A Crime cries out for compensation.  In this world, we will probably die still waiting for justice.

o   A tragedy on the other hand, does not seek punishment, or compensation or justice.  A tragedy cries out for mercy, and love and forgiveness.   We do our best to move on in spite of what happened (like Robyn said last week, forgiving and forgetting)

On October 2, 2006 a man did a terrible thing.  Because his daughter lives only 20 minutes after birth 9 years earlier, he bought a 9MM handgun, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a 30-06 rifle, 2 knives and 600 rounds of ammunition and driven by hate he entered an Amish Schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. The same schoolhouse where hours earlier the students had prayed “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  He sent all the boys away.

Remaining were 10 girls ages 6-13.  He barricaded the door.  Bound the girls with duct tape and announced “I am going to make you pay for my daughter.” 

Angry with Life, angry with God, angry with himself; in Charles Robert’s mind someone had to pay for the death of his daughter.  Since he could not exact revenge on God directly, he would instead make other innocent young girls pay for the death of his infant daughter.   He was heard to say “I’m angry with God and I need to punish some Christian girls to get even with him.”  At 11:05am he inflicted three shot gun blasts and rapid fire pistol shots to the heads of girls. 5 dead and 5 wounded; then he turned the gun on himself and completed his descent into the dark abyss of revenge.

He left 4 families grieving the loss of 5 children; 5 families struggling to keep their children alive; and he left his wife, Amy and his own 3 children reeling in the wake of his hatred and violence. The entire community was rocked to the very core.  How did they respond?

That afternoon three representatives of the Amish community went to the Roberts house.  Not to exact revenge.  Not to seek damages.  Not to seek justice- for in a case like this there is no justice on this earth.

The three men went to the Roberts house, including one man who’s daughter died in the shooting . . .  to offer love and forgiveness to the shooters wife and family.

The movie “Amish Grace” is about this story.  It features the struggle of two women- one whose husband did a terrible thing- and she thought she would never forgive him or be forgiven.

The other woman struggling with the loss of her daughter and what Christian forgiveness means in this situation.   We are going to close with 2 video clips from that movie.   The first shows the struggle these two women experienced.  The second is an illustration of God’s perfect forgiveness and love triumphing over injustice and tragedy.  

(Video clip from the end of “Amish Grace”

1.     Scene in the fire house with grief counselor

2.     Scene at the cemetery during Charles Robert’s funeral)

 Rev Terry Plocher all rights Reserved.

2/20/20-11 Forgive and Forget: Why God Can’t – Why We Must (Rev. Robyn Plocher))

Terry flattered me a couple of weeks ago by saying that I forgive easily and quickly.  As far as it goes, that is true.  But, I also have a memory that never quits.  I remember the most trivial things, like what time Medical Center starring Chad Everett was on when I was what?  Eight years old.  (It was Mondays at 9 on CBS-and it premiered in 1969, when I was eight years old)  My memory works that way with less than trivial things as well.  Few people know the inner battles anyone us fight.  I confess that one of my inner battles is to let go of the past and leave it in the past because my memory has a way of churning things up over and over again.  I try to discipline my memory and lead with my head rather than my hurt feelings as much as possible, but sometimes the remembrance of past hurts colors my present living.  So this subject, which I did not choose but was chosen for me, was of great interest.

I fully expected that my Bible study would show that God forgives and forgets our sins but we cannot forget.  What I found is precisely the opposite and the reason for the rather provocative sermon title this morning. 

Let’s start with some basic facts:

First, the word “forget” – encompasses so much more than some involuntary slippage of memory from our minds.  Forget does mean that involuntary loss of memory, but in both the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament and in modern English as defined by Webster’s Dictionary forgive also means to be oblivious to something.  It means to fail to remember as we normally think of it, but it also means to choose not to pay attention to or ignore something.  Forgetting can be a choice to simply neglect attending to something. 

In the Old Testament the word forget is usually used in one of two ways.  Sometimes the people are accusing God of forgetting them – of no longer paying attention to them or ignoring their needs.  Psalm 44 would be an example of this: “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?  Rouse yourself!  Do not reject us forever.  Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?”  (Psalm 44:23,24)

  Other times, God, often through the prophets, admonishes the people for forgetting his grace and activity on their behalf.  Amos prophesied to an entirely corrupt community.  They are portrayed as cheaters, swindlers, and pagan worshippers;  people who showed no mercy to the poor , widowed or orphaned.  God, through Amos, declares the people will be judged for their unfaithfulness.  And, God says, “I will never forget their sin.” Psalm 103 states that God casts our sins as far as the east if from the west, but never says God forgets.  It says that we should never forget God’s incredible goodness and grace toward us.  

Here we encounter our first problem.  Didn’t we think that God forgets?  Didn’t we think that “forgive and forget” appears in scripture somewhere?  (It doesn’t)  The problem with the idea that God forgets sin is that God is not only a God of mercy, he is also a God of justice.   This is one of the very attributes of God that is praised in the same Psalm, Psalm 103,  that I cited just a moment ago.   God is just.  Therefore sin has consequences.  It’s a law, the way of the natural order that God created, that sin has consequences.

If my mother’s favorite vase slips out of my hand and falls to the floor it will likely break into many pieces.  This is because of the law of gravity.  The consequence is that this family heirloom that meant so much to my mother is now gone, irreplaceable.  I feel bad. She feels bad. 

If a drunk driver causes an accident that kills a young mother and her child, there will be much pain and grief caused by his actions.  The consequence of his actions may include a trial, spending time in prison, losing his job, having to face the surviving husband and father in court.  Regardless of how bad he feels or how repentant he may be, these are the consequences he will have to live with.  These consequences result because taking a life is against the laws of both God and man.

  God cannot forget our sins and still be a just God.  If our sins were forgotten as well as forgiven there would be no need for redemption.  There would have been no need for Christ’s death or resurrection.  The Apostle Paul put it this way:  “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  (Romans  6:23)

Now we come to our second problem:  We think it is impossible for us to forget wrongs done to us.  The memory is always there, we say.   But remember (no pun intended) that we are talking about more than simply losing the conscious memory of an event.  The definition of “forget” makes it clear that “forgetting” is a matter of the will as well as a matter of the brain.  So, I say we must be willing to forget the pain of the past.   We must be willing to choose to set is aside and move forward AS IF the hurtful experience had not happened.  WHY?

1.        Our memories are not perfect.  The greater the trauma the less likely we are to accurately remember what happened.  That is why witnesses to traumatic events such as assaults, murders and the like make truly awful witnesses in the courts.  As we are traumatized, time and details are distorted.  The event may seem to drag on forever or it may seem that the whole event took place in the blink of an eye.  Under traumatic stress we may go numb.  We can’t process the overload to our senses that is taking place so mercifully we shut down, go numb and may experience traumatic amnesia about the event.  Even when the event is not traumatic we just know our memories are typically not that good.  One night this past week I couldn’t find my toothbrush.  Not to worry, I found it the next morning, IN MY PURSE!  Remember playing the game of “telephone” when you were little (describe)  We cannot trust our memories to be accurate so it is a dangerous game we play when we hold a grudge against someone because of our perception and remembrance of the way they hurt us.  We may be deceiving ourselves about the severity of the harm done. 

2.      When we become obsessed with past hurts we harm ourselves, our relationship with God and our relationship with others.  Our spiritual, emotional and physical well-being are entwined.  We are whole beings and what impacts one part of our being impacts all of our being.  If we carry hurt, anger, resentment and the like it will poison us. 

3.      We are not God.  It is not our place to judge.  We are not all knowing.  We don’t know what was in the heart and mind of the person who insulted or hurt us.  We don’t know what motivated them or caused them the moment of weakness that led to their hurting us.   We are not yet perfected in love and justice.  Bottom line:  WE ARE NOT GOD.  It is not our place to keep account of their sin.  We must remember our place.  God is creator and Lord.  We are the creatures. We must not presume to act as Lord and Judge.

Paul wrote about this kind of forgetting in his letter to the church at Philippi when he said:  but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,

 ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

 ¹⁵ Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded.

So what does it look like –to forgive and forget?  One story came to me over and over again this week.  Let me share it with you.  12 year old Aaron went to spend the weekend at his dad’s house in a small Illinois town, not unlike Reinbeck or Grundy Center.  His dad had become involved in the most wrong of the wrong crowd.  Overnight his dad’s associates broke into the home.  They hog tied and tortured Aaron and his dad for hours.  They killed Aaron’s father.  They stabbed Aaron in the back and left him for dead.  Aaron survived.  I met him in the hospital while he was recovering and doing physical therapy.  Aaron’s injuries paralyzed him from the waist down. The expectation is that he will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. 

Aaron will never forget what he experienced on that awful night when he was 12 years old.  Those memories are forever imprinted on his brain.  In fact, the most heart wrenching picture Aaron ever drew for me was of the evidence table in the courtroom where all but one of his attackers was tried (one was never captured )   Perhaps a dozen items lay on that table and Aaron told me how each one was used to injure and inflict pain on him or his father.  Aaron did not seek revenge or harbor intent to personally settle the score with his attackers, however, he did participate in the meeting out of justice at the trial.   Perhaps most importantly, Aaron was firm that this experience would not hold him back but rather he would look ahead with hope and dreams not unlike those of any other 12 year old boy.  Aaron’s particular dream was to become the  first wheel chair bound astronaut to  travel into space. 

A terrible trauma-the dispensing of justice – the lack of any desire for personal revenge – freedom from the past and the hope of the future.  Aaron’s story is one of the very best illustrations of “forgive and forget” I can think of. 

If a 12 year old boy who has endured what Aaron did in this spirit and with this much grace, then who are you to say you cannot?

2/13/2010 Undone: forgiveness doing whatever it takes.

Undone: forgiveness doing whatever it takes.

Reinbeck UMC

February 13, 2011

Seventy- seven?  My Bible says 70 x 7!  But 77 is kind of like good news/ bad news.  The good news is I don’t have to count as high.  The bad news is, as I look through my little tally book here, a few of you are running right up there in the 50’s and 60’s, so you had better watch your step cause I’m keeping track!

I’m glad your laughing because that’s just exactly the opposite of what Jesus is trying to tell us.  The Greek could be either 77 of 70x7, but either way Jesus’ point is that we’re not supposed to keep track.

Before we get any further into that, let’s review just a little bit.  This is sermon # 4 in the series on forgiveness.

o   In the first sermon I talked about forgiveness unleashing divine love.  Forgiveness is contrary to every natural instinct we have, and it has to be a choice for God and a gift from God.

o   In the second sermon I talked about forgiveness undoing what we’ve become; the fact that we need forgiveness as much as we need to give it.

o   Last week I talked about forgiveness unlocking the prison: not denying that something bad has happened, but freeing the person we forgive from their past and freeing us for a future with God.

Now we are going to get into some nuts and bolts of forgiveness. This week we’ll cover how much to forgive.  In the next weeks we will cover

·      forgive and forget, and

·      forgiveness and justice, and

·      Getting revenge/or giving a blessing.

In this week’s scripture Jesus gives some great instructions about conflict resolution.  Peter, always being practical, says “but what if it doesn’t work?  What if they keep sinning against us?  How many times do I have to forgive them?”  Now, he did think this through.   He knew that the rabbi’s taught to forgive three times. So he took the three doubled it, and just because he knew Jesus was such a nice guy he added one more to get 7.  He also knew that seven was traditionally the number of completion.  So he says, “Should I forgive them as many as seven times?”

Jesus says, 7 times? Heaven’s no, not seven times 70x7 times.

Peter probably had to pick his jaw up off the ground.  That was unthinkable!  Who could forgive that many times… in fact who could keep track of that many times.  But don’t you think that was Jesus point?

Paul Says “Love does not keep track of wrongs but rejoices in the right. “

Jesus says if someone takes your coat; give him your cloak too.  If someone slaps you on the right cheek, give him your left.  And if we had 490 cheeks I think Jesus would have kept going.

Jesus point is that:

o   There is no end to forgiveness, either God’s or ours. 

o   There is no limit on the amount of forgiveness we can receive, and there should be none on the amount we are willing to offer.

Many of you are probably thinking about someone or a particular situation right now and saying in your heart, does that mean. . .  Well stop right there, because the answer is probably “yes.”

Does that mean…

o   That if I forgive someone and after a while they do it again, I am supposed to forgive them again?  Jesus says, “Yes”

o   Does that mean that if they outright plan to do it again I have to forgive them?  Jesus says, “Yes”

o   Does that mean no matter how bad someone hurts me I am supposed to forgive them?  Jesus says, “Yes”

o   Does that mean if they deny they did anything wrong I have to forgive them?  Jesus says, “Yes”

o   Does that mean that even though I have forgiven them, if anger starts to boil up inside of me I have to forgive them again? Jesus says, “Yes”

o   Does that mean that if they. . .  Jesus says, “Yes.”  How many ways can I say …

§  There is no circumstance in which Jesus gives us permission to be unforgiving.

§   There is no situation in which Jesus allows us to hold a grudge.

§  There is not point at which Jesus says, “You have done enough.”

Is that clear?

Let me come at it a different direction. 

Forgiveness is not limited in degree.  No matter how unimaginably terrible the offence, we must forgive.  Think about the stories I have been telling the last few weeks; forgiving Nazis, forgiving someone who killed someone we love, forgiving under the hardest circumstances.

Forgiveness is not limited in quantity.  Think about marriage.  How many times have I needed to crawl back to Robyn and ask for forgiveness?  How about you?  Where would you be if your spouse stopped forgiving you?

What about our children?  How many times does a parent put up with a lying 4 year old before they throw them out on the street?  There is no end. 

At what point do we stop loving someone who suffers with a serious addiction.  After one attempt at rehab one jail sentence?  2? 5? 10?  After the first time they steal from us, the 15^th time?  After they have promised to get clean and failed- how many times before we stop hoping? 

3? 7? 77? 490?  Of course not.  Forgiveness is not limited in quantity.

 Forgiveness is not limited by the other’s cooperation. Can we forgive someone who doesn’t ask for forgiveness?  On the other hand can we live the rest of our lives locked in the prison of anger and bitterness just because THEY choose denial?  Of course not. 

Research shows that anger reduces the capacity of heart to pump blood damaging heart muscles.  Anger will cause digestion problems like indigestion and irritable bowel syndrome.  Anger may affect the skin, lead to depression, addiction and sleeping problems. Are you willing to let someone lock you in that prison because they either refuse to face the hurt they cause or simply don’t care? 

No, there are no requirements, loopholes, catches, roadblocks, or excuses for not forgiving. Forgiveness does not depend on the other person.

   Forgiveness is not limited by time.  Something may have happened last week and you thought you forgave.  Or maybe it was last year, or 20 years ago; and for whatever reason suddenly you realize you are angry about it again.  We might associate this with victims of physical or sexual abuse, but it can and does happen to all of us.  Forgiveness is not limited by time in that you might have to forgive someone now and then 10 minutes later you feel angry again, and an hour later you find yourself fantasizing about revenge, and then a year later you realize you are avoiding them.  Over and over again we have to forgive, not just for additional offenses, but for the same offenses.  You see we can forgive.  We can choose not to hold an offense against someone, but that doesn’t mean we have forgotten. 

Like an onion we have to keep peeling off layer after layer off of our hurt.  We may cry with every layer we remove.  We may think we are done and set it aside, but occasionally, even without our realizing it, that onion will show up under our noses again.  And we have to go back to peeling off layers- forgiving, until we can set it aside again; knowing very well that it may come back and we may have to forgive all over again.

Finally, forgiveness is not limited by space.  What do you feel when I say 9-11.  What do you feel when I say Abu-grab.  What do you feel when I say Vietnam.

At least one of those words probably stirred up some strong feelings in you.  Why?  Maybe in a few cases you were there, or knew someone who was, but for most of us we neither knew the victims nor the perpetrators.  So why the angry, hurt feelings?  Because the need for forgiveness is not limited by space.  Sometimes we have to forgive people we have never met and never will meet. 

·      Some, who cannot forgive for 911, are trapped in a hatred and fear of everything Arab.  That is no way to live.

·      Some who cannot forgive for Abu grab or Vietnam are imprisoned in a chronic mistrust of our government or foreigners.  They live constantly looking over their shoulders.  Is that any way to live?  No, forgiveness is a much better answer.  And forgiveness is not limited by anything, not degree, not quantity, not cooperation, not time, not space. 

Forgiveness does whatever it takes. There are no numbers either 3 or 7 or 77 or 70x7 that either limit our ability to forgive, or let us off the hook for being forgiving.

Not even a billion.  Jesus said, “There was a man who owed the king a billion Dollars.  The king forgave the man his huge debt.

On his way out of the palace the man saw someone who owed him $50.75.  He grabbed the man by the throat and shook his brains out and had him thrown in to prison until he could pay. 

^32-35"The king summoned the man and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn’t be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?' The king was furious and threw the man in prison until he paid back his entire debt. (Which if you hadn’t figured it out would be never) And that's exactly what my Father in heaven is going to do to each one of you who doesn't forgive unconditionally anyone who asks for mercy.  Not 3 times, not 7 times, not 77 times, not even 70x7,  but 70 billion x 7 billion"  Forgiveness does whatever it takes.

AMEN