Forgiveness # 6 Accepting forgiveness. Carroll UMC 5/17/2020

Forgiveness # 6 Accepting forgiveness.

Carroll UMC 5/17/2020

 

She sat in my office, in my grandma’s rocker, her knuckles white as she clutched the arms of the chair as if it was an electric chair. She had cancer at the age of 35 and might not survived. She stopped by to talk and reflect on her life as one does when they face their mortality. She started talking about how she deserved cancer and she deserved to die. I invited her to explain what she meant. That is when she grabbed the chair as if she were about to fly down the first hill of the roller coaster.

She began to tell her story. She became pregnant at the age of 16. When she told her parents, they were more worried about their image than about her or the baby.  “Don’t you care anything about us?” “How could you do this to us?” And then they put her in “exile.” They took her out of school and kept her at home because she was “an embarrassment.” In the hospital they would not allow her last name to be put on the door of her room; just her first name. They forbade her to name the child and forced the nurses to remove the baby before she saw it or held it. (And I say “IT” because they wouldn’t even tell her what the gender the baby was.) She believed she was a disgrace, a shameful blot on the family name, a whore, a tramp, stupid, foolish, and everything else people had said about her. She had been carrying this with her for almost 20 years. Is it any wonder she had cancer? 

The studies prove unforgiveness will kill us. I am sure that being unforgiven, and its twin siblings, guilt and shame are just as deadly. Guilt and shame metastasized in this young woman’s body, long before cancer came along.   The woman who sat in my office that day is among millions of people who live with toxic and maybe even deadly levels of guilt and shame. No matter how many times they hear “God forgives sin” “You are forgiven” “For God so loved the world” it doesn’t penetrate to the cellular level and they live in their own personal hell.

What do we do when the grudge we hold isn’t against anyone but ourselves? When our inner critic takes control of our thoughts, shouting things like:” How could you do that? Shame on you. You’re unlovable and unforgivable.”  When we feel like we can’t accept forgiveness for ourselves and don’t deserve it anyway; we’re in a battle we can’t afford to lose. Because here’s the hard truth: Unforgiveness will kill us and forgiving others isn’t possible without first forgiving our self.

 Accepting Forgiveness isn’t actually about the other person. Accepting Forgiveness is a decision I must make for myself—a decision to set myself free from my self-constructed prison of the past so that I might be free today.

 

Let’s clarify a couple of things before we talk about how to accept forgiveness.

 First, I am trying not to use “forgive ourselves.” We aren’t talking about being all-powerful and absolving ourselves from our sins. When we say, “I just can’t forgive myself,” the first response is, “Correct. You do not have that power. If we did, what would we need Jesus for?”

The second response is we are already forgiven… if we will accept it.  God is anxious to forgive us, and in fact, sacrificed everything to make that possible… but we must accept the forgiveness to be set free from our self-constructed prison of guilt and shame.

 The other thing I want to clarify is that guilt and shame are not the same things.  It is really pretty simple. “Guilt is I MADE a mistake,” It has to do with actions, and these are the things that often hurt other people

 Shame is a belief that we are the mistake.   Shame is about who we are, not what we have done. Where guilt is saying, “I made a mistake,” shame is saying, “I am a mistake.”   Guilt is saying “I broke something” shame is saying “I am broken.” Now, there is truth in saying we are all broken. You know, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But Jesus died for our brokenness as much as for the things we break. “The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children then joint-heirs with Christ.” The trouble with shame is that it robs us of the confidence in God’s love. Shame is a lie that can beat our self-esteem down so low that we think we are unlovable and unforgivable. None of that is true. But shame is like a cone of silence shuts out God’s love.

 

 That takes us to 1 John verse 7 that Emma read today. “If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” This directly addresses both guilt and shame.  If we walk in the light of Christ, guilt cannot eat us up. If we walk in the light of Christ’s love, shame has no power over us. The bible does not leave any room for doubt… we do not deserve forgiveness, but by faith, we are offered that which we can never earn or deserve. Jesus never said, “you get what you deserve.”  He said things like: “Your sins are forgiven” and “go and sin no more.” Understanding that God really loves you and wants to forgive you; is the first step in accepting forgiveness.

Do you remember the 3-step process I used to describe how we forgive others?  Rehumanizing them, giving up our expectation of justice, and change our attitude toward them to bless them.  Notice how the process of accepting forgiveness fits with that.

 

 The second step in forgiving is to stop expecting the other person to come back and fix everything. Similarly, in accepting forgiveness we must give up the expectation that we can put everything back the way it was. We cannot travel back in time. We cannot erase what we have done. It doesn’t work that way.

So, the second step in forgiveness is to fix what we can. and then we must let go of the illusion that we are a time traveler and can unsay, unhurt, unbreak, unkill, or in any way undo what we have done. 

 

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 Finally, if we are confident in God’s love

If we fixed what we can,

Now we take ownership of our sin and try to do better.

Our passage says “. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” If we make excuses, deny it, minimize it, shift blame, and do our best to make ourselves feel better about what we have done, the truth is not in us. “If we want to be forgiven, we must own up and confess our sins and learn our lesson.

Learning a lesson is called Repentance…includes a commitment NOT to commit that sin again. We don’t receive forgiveness if we plan to repeat our bad behavior in ten minutes. It doesn't work that way. We need to repent rather than repeat. We need to turn around. That’s what repentance means.  “So, we confess our sins. He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”   There is no might, no should, no footnote, no exceptions “he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  You can take that to the bank. 

Now if God forgives us done is done. Too often we want to go back and dig up our sin again. Don’t but if you do, if the guilt or shame comes back Just start over again and claim your forgiveness again. There is no limit to God’s forgiveness. Jesus said we might have to forgive someone else 70x7 times… if need be God will forgive us 100 times-- 70x7 times. When we are forgiven again, we give thanks for God’s grace and we try not to dig it up again.

 

Reminding ourselves that we are a child of God, fixing what we can, and confessing to God with repentance in our hearts. 

Here’s the deal: Holding onto guilt and shame is kind of like holding onto a cactus. It hurts and you know it hurts but we refuse to let go. No child of God needs to spend their life hugging a cactus. You are a child of God. You are better off without the cactus. Put it down and walk away.

Christ died for us while we were yet sinners;

that proves God's love toward us.

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

 

Video… Stories of Forgiveness - Bruce

The power and problem of forgiveness #5 forgive and forgive again. May 10, 2020 First UMC Carroll

 

 Ken Whitaker decided to forgive his son who hired a hit man to kill his whole family.  Was that the end of the story, or do you suppose he had to forgive over and over like maybe 7*70 times?

 In last week’s video, Jamell McGee decided to forgive the police officer falsified records and sent him to jail for 7 years. Do you suppose he forgot about it and moved on, or do you think he might have had to forgive over and over like 7*70 times?

 Andrea, whose video we watched the first week of this series, thought about her rape on the anniversary every year. Do you suppose she had to forgive every year, even though she had forgiven once? I’m sure she did at least 7x70 times.

 We talked about forgiveness as “A decision we make to not imprison others - or ourselves - in the past so we can be free today.”

 Once you make that choice is it over? Do you forget about it entirely…erase it from your memory… do you perform a “hurtectomy” and just amputate all the hurt? Unfortunately, no.

 It is pretty common for people to experience “forgiveness indigestion.” We swallow the hurt, we swallow the anger but it is not really digested.  It comes back on us right here with a pain almost as intense as the original offense. I experience forgiveness indigestion, and I’m guessing many or you do too.

 Don’t get me wrong. It is not the forgiveness that gives us indigestion. It is the fact that we are imperfect people and our forgiveness is imperfect because we don’t complete a step, miss a step or try to take shortcuts. And it comes back to haunt us. The honest truth is, forgiveness is hard. Right?

 

But what about forgive and forget… doesn’t Jesus tell us to forgive and forget…NOPE…Paul?...NOPE…John?  NO. The phrase “forgive and forget” does not appear in the bible, and frankly we don’t know where it originated. But I think we misunderstand the sentiment.

 If anyone can forgive and forget it would be God, right? The Bible talks about God not remembering our sins. For instance, Isaiah 43:25 says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Hebrews adds “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Be careful here, though. It does not say that God forgets. It says that God does not remember. Take it from an expert in forgetting that not remembering. They are very different things. To me, forgetting is to not being able to recall. The disk is wiped clean. The trash has been emptied. And the memory is not available to us. God, on the other hand, never forgets anything God is omniscient, knows and remembers all things. God cannot forget.

Not remembering, on the other hand, is a choice. God does not forget; God chooses to not remember… God chooses to set our sins aside and never recall them again.

 Remember how I am defining forgiveness. “A decision we make to not imprison others - or ourselves - in the past.” In other words, to forgive is to decide not to remember. To set the memories aside. Not imprisoning anyone, including ourselves, in the mistakes, hurts, and memories of the past.

So, we chose not to remember, but Even when we have forgiven, all of those memories Remain in the deep recesses of our mind. In theory, they are harmlessly in the past. Or are they? memories of past hurts, injuries, and wrongs involuntarily come back on us, that is what I am calling forgiveness indigestion. It might be triggered by seeing the person, hearing similar words, being in the same place, or there may be no trigger at all. For no apparent reason our minds will be flooded with the hurts others have caused us, and the feelings of anger, or hatred, or revenge, or fear, or victimization will come back. And you know what?…We have to forgive all over again.

That is how it works for me. I think I have forgiven someone, until I see them mentioned on Facebook, and my stomach tightens, my pulse goes up and I raise my guard. Not voluntarily, mind you. Automatically. A flood of memories, pain, anger, fear come back all over again. To me this is not the other person’s fault. This is not about them. I have forgiven them. I have released them. I have not, however, completely released myself from the pain and anger. Therefore, forgiveness indigestion

 

 I'm not the first, nor am I the only person to have forgiveness indigestion. In today's scripture Peter asking how many times he had to forgive someone. I don't know what the story behind the story is. Was this something from his past? A family member? One of the other disciples who just got on his nerves. You know He turns to Jesus and says, “How many times do I have to forgive this Bozo.” 

The rabbis of the day would answer 3 times. Jesus answer is 70x7 times 490 times.

There are two Situations in which we would have to forgive repeatedly. The first is if someone keeps hurting us over and over. How many times do we have to keep forgiving them? 70*7.

The other is “How many times do I have to forgive again because of forgiveness indigestion?” And Jesus’ answer is just the same 70x7.

In Luke Jesus says, “Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive.  And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” He says 7 times, but I suspect he would agree with 70x7.

 

But how do we do it, you ask. Let me give you some tools.

 In The Bounce Back Book, Karen Salmansohn  offers 7 strategies for setting aside anger and bitterness that comes back after forgiveness.

1.            She starts with my favorite… Say a Prayer. Remember when I laid out the steps to forgiveness, the last one was to bless them or pray for them the same things we want for ourselves. But when forgiveness indigestion strikes, I think going back to the last step of forgiving is a great place to start. Pray for them the same things you want for yourself.  Jesus says pray for those who persecute you.

2.            Focus on Gratitude We can't be grateful and feel sorry for ourselves or angry at another at the same time. Focusing on gratitude keeps us from having a pity party or living in the past. Paul says, “Rejoice in the lord always and again I say rejoice.”

3.            Learn the Lesson. I do not believe that God sends bad things our direction, however, I do believe in a God of resurrection and redemption. I do believe in the God of Joseph who said to his brothers, “what you intended for evil God has made into good.” I believe God can turn a hurt into a lesson. Let me say that even though we hope that forgiveness restores relationships, there are times when the lesson is that the relationship is poison.  It is OK, for the sake of your safety, or health, or some other good reason to decide that, even though you have forgiven,  to realize that the lesson is to forgive and keep your distance from the person who hurt you so they cannot do it again.  There is nothing wrong with that.

4.            Maintain Perspective Stay focused on the things that are really important in life. What is important? I said gratitude.  Jesus says “love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. “Amos says “Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”  The harm this person did to you may consume you today, but remember, it is not your whole life. It is part of your life, but your whole life belongs to God.

5.            Let Go of Resentment (again, and again) Remember, unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. You have been hurt enough. Don’t reinjure yourself by playing the resentment and revenge game. There are never any winners. Let Go again.

6.            Get Revenge Positively Albert Einstein said, "You can't solve a problem by staying in the same energy in which it was created." To stay focused on hurt only hurts more. Go positive instead.  Paul writes, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  Now, if the only part you heard was “heap burning coals on their heads.” You might be in trouble. All Paul is saying is that your kindness may prod them into feeling guilt or remorse and changing.  The key is hurting them will not help you. You have a choice.  You can be overcome by evil and do evil. Or you can overcome evil with Good.  I chose over come evil with Good.

7.            That’s what the world does. Tit for tat. But do not be conformed to this world…but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Stay focused on new life in God. Stay focused on God and let God transform you.

 

The world says revenge… you mind says get even… your twisted-up gut says teach them a lesson… but Paul writes, don’t be conformed to that. But be a transformed creature. Transformed by the grace of God into a child of love and forgiveness. Not just partial forgiveness total forgiveness.

                During the video and closing song. I want you to take the paper I asked you to get as worship started.  I want you to write on one side, “I release” and on the other write “I am free.”

Now imagine that the paper weighs a million pounds… about the same weight as a load of resentment and vengefulness you carry on your back.   You can’t even budge it let alone pick it up to claim your freedom on the other side.  It will be like that until you write someone’s name on the side that says, “I release.”  It might be a recent event, or a 50-year-old grudge.  Write their name and pray for God to help you to release the weight of unforgiveness. When you feel the weightlifting, turn the paper over and claim the freedom God gives you. Freedom from sin, freedom from grudges, freedom from unforgiveness.

The power and problem of forgiveness #4 barriers

(Dirty cop video)

 Now that’s forgiveness, right? Forgiving the cop who falsified records, and had you imprisoned.

Most forgiveness is not that dramatic.

A playground bully pushes the neighbor girl down, skinning her knee and sending her home crying. That night the girl returns to the playground and there is no sign of anger or hurt, except the big bird Band-Aids on her knee and elbow.

You and your spouse have an argument about something silly… and someone steps over the line and hurts feelings. An hour later you are sitting at the dinner table planning your next vacation.

That is forgiveness too. It is just as much forgiveness as the man who forgave the police officer.  From the sandbox and school yard; to the workplace, and the family, forgiveness is a critical part of human relationships. None of us gets through life without hurting someone’s feelings, stepping on someone’s toes, or breaking someone’s heart. Likewise, none of us gets through life without having our feelings hurt, toes stepped on, or heart broken.

Most of what we forgive are small things: mistakes, misjudgments, and oversights, but you know what? Forgiveness under any circumstance is just really hard. There are a lot of things that can trip us up. Today, let’s talk about some barriers to forgiveness.

 If you have heard the first three sermons in this series, you know that

 The source of all forgiveness is God’s grace.

 Unforgiveness will kill us physically, emotionally and spiritually

  forgiveness is a process

•             Recognize that they are a child of God

•             Don’t expect them to make it right

•             Change our attitude toward them

•             Until we can pray for God to bless them the way we want to be blessed

 Forgiveness is “Release them from the prison of the past… and you will be set free. today”

That sounds so simple. And that sounds so good. Why is forgiveness so hard? Why does Jesus have to teach on it over and over?  Why do we get stuck when we need to forgive? Forgiveness is just hard. I can’t fix that. But we can address a few barriers to forgiveness.

 The first barrier is simple WE SIMPLY DON’T WANT TO FORGIVE. Let’s face it. On one level, we think it would be OK to hate someone for harming us and still receive forgiveness from God. We’d much prefer it if we could just have our relationship with God insulated and encapsulated so we could treat other people any way we like. Jesus says, “No deal. You can’t have it that way.”

 Let’s take a look at Mathew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ That’s the way we would prefer it isn’t it? But, Jesus continues, “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.” You see, Jesus won’t accept our resistance to forgiveness.

  In the next chapter Jesus just lays it on the table.  “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” NO doubt, NO wiggle room. NO escape clause. End of discussion. Do whatever you have to do to offer forgiveness to those who harm you.

 The second barrier is a matter of conscience. “If I forgive them, I feel like I am excusing their behavior, endorsing sin, or telling them that their behavior is OK”. 

We are not excusing them… forgiving presupposes that a wrong was done. If they did no wrong, there is no need for forgiveness. Far from endorsing sin we are claiming the power of the love of God over that sin.  Far from telling them that their behavior is OK we are telling them that we are not going to continue to allow ourselves to be damaged by what they did.

 Third we say, “If I forgive them, all the consequences go away.”  They do not. People worry, if I forgive then I can’t press charges.  Yes, you can.  Newton’s third law of motion says, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That’s not only true or physics, that is true in life. Everything we do elicits a reaction, sometimes pleasant, sometimes negative. When we break the rules or the law, or someone’s trust, or someone’s heart, there are consequences. We might be disqualified from the game, arrested and tried for our crimes, lose a friend or become the “ex.”  Forgiveness does not make that go away. Just because you release them form the past, it does not mean that it is over for them.

You may forgive the person who stole from you, that does not mean that they are free of theft charges. You may forgive the person who ran into your car, but that doesn’t mean they and their insurance company don’t have to fix it.  You can forgive the unfaithful spouse, but that does not mean that you won’t divorce them. You might forgive the best friend who betrayed your trust and made you the butt of the school’s jokes, but that does not mean that they get to be your best friend.

 This is where the 3rd barrier connects to the 4th.  The 4th barrier is- “I can’t pretend nothing happened.” I can’t roll back time.

No one is asking us to roll back time.  Just because we forgive someone who has wronged us, does not mean that they have the right to expect that everything will go back to the way it was before the wrong. The forgiver may try to restore the relationship, but it will never be the same as it was. The forgiver has every right to protect themselves from being hurt again.

Just because you forgive a car thief, does not mean that they have no right to expect that your car doors will be unlocked again.  If the abuser is forgiven, they have not right to expect that they will retain sole, unsupervised custody of the child. Forgiveness does not erase the past.  It is, however, a chance to not be imprisoned by the past.

 Another barrier is sometimes we can’t get to the person who wronged us. They die, they are in Jail, we lose track of where they are, or we never knew who it was like the person who ran in to Robyn’s car in a parking lot two days after we bought it.  There is no one to say I’m sorry and there is no one to whom we can express forgiveness. This is always unfortunate, but it is not a real barrier for forgiveness.  Remember we forgive by setting them free of the prison of the past SO THAT we can be free today.  That is inside work, heart work, gut work. We can and sometimes must let go of holding someone responsible even when we can not see them face to face or we don’t know who they are. And we pray that they find forgiveness in some other way.

  And then there are the times when we know the person who hurt us, we know where they are but there is no apology, no acknowledgement of the hurt, no repentance, nothing. If you forgive someone who doesn’t believe they need forgiveness, they may just look at you funny… or they may punch you in the nose. We would like to have the justice of a confession and expression of regret, but that is not one of the steps in forgiveness. Step two, in fact, is to specifically give up our claim to justice. Give up any expectation that they will take any steps to make it better, or acknowledge wrong done, or ask for forgiveness.  God’s grace and forgiveness is free… forgiveness is a gift from God. God’s grace and love come freely.

No strings attached, no hoops through which to jump. Our forgiveness is an extension of God’s forgiveness.

    I think one of the most amazing acts of forgiveness is Jesus on the cross.  No one apologized, no one was going to make it right, but Jesus said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

 The last barrier I want to address is repeat offenders. They never seem to change. The example that comes to mind is the alcoholic who is remorseful when they are sober, but they are so owned by the alcohol that they keep repeating the very behavior that hurts those close to them. It might be a gossiper, or a bully or anyone else who keeps committing the same hurt. Matthew 18 lays out a conflict resolution plan for Christians. If we work through the plan and they still continue to sin… they continue to hurt us… Jesus says to treat them “as a gentile and a tax collector.” How did Jesus treat Gentile san tax collectors? Let’s see… he healed them, he forgave them, he loved them, the treated them the best he could, in fact, he treated them better than they deserved.

 So, to treat someone as a gentile or tax collector is to treat them with grace and love even though they may not reciprocate. Next week we will expand on this, but Jesus says we have to forgive and forgive. 70*70 times.

Every situation is different. Each one of us is different and you may have barriers that I don’t experience as barriers.  I’d love to know what I have missed. What makes forgiveness particularly difficult for you?  I’d love to hear from you.

 Forgiveness is Hard.   But it is not

•             Optional

•             Making excuses

•             Preventing consequences

•             Rolling back time

•             Dependent on their availability or apology

•             Is not dependent on changing them

 

 It is maybe the hardest thing we have to do. But think about it this way… If a perfectly righteous God who does not have the capacity to do wrong, is willing to sacrifice his only son who also was perfect and sinless, so that you and I can be forgiven… don’t you think forgiveness is pretty important?  It is, so RELEASE THE PAST SO YOU CAN HE SET FREE TODAY.