SETTING THE CONTEXT

The section we're about to read in Isaiah is believed to have been written around 540 BCE. This is about 45 years after the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the deportation of many Israelites in what is called the Babylonian Exile. It is understandable that these exiles doubted their status as God's chosen people and even doubted if God was sovereign in the midst of this defeat and exile. Let's not forget though that the exile came about after generations of "the chosen people" rejected God. In this passage God through the prophet seeks to reassure the people that the Lord is still sovereign and will have compassion for them and will forgive them if they turn back to God.

Read Isaiah 55:1-9

It is very important to look at what precedes and succeeds this passage to understand its context. Before this passage on forgiveness are directions for confronting a person who sins and holding them accountable. The passage is followed by the parable of the unforgiving servant. The unforgiving servant was forgiven an incredibility huge sum of money yet he was unwilling to forgive another servant a tiny fraction of that sum. The parable seems to say "Do to others as God has already done to you." It is in this context that Jesus makes the following statement.

Read Matthew 18:21-22

THE SERMON

A number of years ago when one of our daughters was about 4, we went to visit my parents in Texas.  After we returned home, I was unpacking the girls' suitcases and I discovered a bunch of pennies in the pocket of the suitcase.  I remembered that my parents had a big box of pennies on the bookshelf for the children to play with.  I also knew that my parents did not give any of those pennies to the girls.  I confronted my daughter and knew immediately by her reaction that she was guilty.  I scolded her and talked to her about taking things that didn't belong to her and then I told her that she would have to tell her grandmother what she had done and apologize.  I want you to know that my children have always loved and been very close to their grandparents, but after this discovery my daughter wouldn't talk to her "Nana" any more.  She would run away from the phone and cry.  I gave her some time and continued to reassure her of her Nana's love, but it didn't help.  Finally, I sat her down next to the phone and I said, "OK, I will tell Nana what you did and all you have to do is say "I'm sorry."  It took me some time to convince her, but she finally agreed.  I called my mother and I told her what happened (even though we had already talked about it numerous times).  And I tried to give the phone to my daughter; she just sat there crying.  Well, within a few minutes my mother was crying and I was crying and finally in a very small and frightened voice she said, "I'm sorry."  My mother immediately said, "I forgive you and I love you and nothing would ever make me stop loving you."  Well, within a few minutes the tears dried up and my mother and my daughter were chatting just like old times.  In that big incident in that little life, we all experienced the power of forgiveness. Sometimes we do things that create barriers between us and those we love. We hurt them intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes people do things that hurt us deeply. When we hold on to those hurts, they continue to wreck damage and can even cause us to be bitter. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect, fallen people including ourselves; being able to forgive is essential to living fully.

C.S. Lewis's comment is very true though, "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive."^[i] There are some things that happen to us, some hurts that may be easy to forgive and forget as the old saying goes.  I've lost count of how many times someone has spilled milk at the dinner table.  (I also don't have the count of how many times I have spilled milk in my life.)  But there are other things that are much harder to forgive that we will never forget.  Some hurts that seem small to one person may be unforgivable to another.  I think we preachers sometimes do a disservice to people when we preach forgiveness as an easy thing that you just say it and it is done.  Sometimes that is possible, but often the hurt runs too deep and the pain is too great. It's so hard to let go of the pain, the image I get is like a hand spasmed around the pain and you can't let it go.

Forgiveness is worth the effort. It releases us from the pain and hurt. In some cases, it releases us from the power of the person who hurt us. Philosopher, Hannah Arendt put it this way, "Without forgiveness we would never be released from the consequences of what we have done or what has been done to us, and our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover.^[ii]" The ability to forgive is healing. The Rev. Joyce Meyers is a TV preacher who is very plainspoken and she knows what it is like to need healing. She said, "Hidden wounds, hurts and sins are like rotten food hidden in the back of your refrigerator. You can smell the stink, but you don't know where it is coming from."^[iii] Some honest prayerful self-examination and/or work with a counselor can help you locate the rotten food. The process of forgiveness then helps you heal those wounds and hurts even if there are still scars so they don't "stink up" our lives any more. The ability to forgive is not only good for your spiritual health; it's good for your physical health.  Dr. O. Carl Simonton, a researcher found that "lack of forgiveness contributes to emotional distress which is the 'number one risk factor to disease in the developed world.  It's surprising how rapid relief of physical symptoms can often be found through emotional healing.'"^[iv]  With all the benefits of forgiveness, it is surprising how few models we have of the process of forgiveness in our popular culture, mostly what we see is rage and revenge in the popular media.

Jesus is very clear about which path we should take, we are to forgive and forgive again and again without keeping score. Forgiveness does not mean though we condone the hurtful actions. Let's remember that immediately before his statement on forgiveness, Jesus has told the disciples how to confront someone who has sinned against them. I think Joyce Meyers is right when she said, "You can forgive but you can't have restoration of relationship without repentance," without a change of heart and direction. For example, you may be able to forgive an adulterous spouse but you will never be able to rebuild the trust, if the spouse continues to have affairs. Sometimes you forgive, not to restore a relationship, but to be freed from the tyranny of the wound that continues to bind you, that continues to impact your life.  We are called upon to forgive hurts of all shapes and sizes.  If we find a path for healing the big hurts, it will surely help us forgive the little ones.  And on the flip side, if we practice forgiving the small hurts, we will be better able to forgive the big ones. Mariah Burton Nelson wrote a book called The Unburdened Heart: 5 Keys to Forgiveness & Freedom about a process toward forgiveness. Mariah Nelson knows what she is talking about.  Her high school coach exploited her in an inappropriate relationship for three years. Finding a way to forgive him led her to this process of forgiveness. This is a person who has been through the agony of a deep hurt and the struggle to forgive and that struggle led her to other people who have struggled to forgive.  The five keys to forgiveness she describes are awareness (facing the hurt), validation (telling someone your story and having he/she believe you), compassion, humility and self-forgiveness.^[v] 

Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselve. Guilt can be a very heavy burden, it can bind us. I think of the chains wrapped around Marley's ghost. He was Ebenezer Scrooge's partner in the story A Christmas Carol. God has given us a process to release us from our guilt; that process is confession, repentance (having a change of heart and a change of direction), forgiveness and new life. Leonard Sweet calls that process a sacrament for failures; that's a term Sweet coined and I love it.^[vi] The prophet Isaiah assures us that God's desire is for us to have the fullness of life and God's desire is that we "forsake our wicked ways" and return to the Lord, so that God may have mercy on us for God will abundantly pardon. In Jesus' words from the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing"^[vii] we see the depth of God's mercy. If God will forgive us, can't we find it in our hearts to forgive ourselves?

We have been using the story from Tuesdays with Morrie to talk about some of these issues. Morrie's parents were Russian immigrants. His father came to America to escape the Russian Army. He was uneducated, barely able to speak English, constantly out of work and consequently the family was terribly poor. Morrie's father was a silent and cold man. When Morrie's mother died at a very young age, Morrie's father told his grieving son to forget her and never speak of her again. Morrie found this act unforgiveable.

SHOW MORRIE 11 FORGIVENESS FILM CLIP^[viii]

Lewis Smede author of Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve said, "Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk." To live a Christ-like life, to fully live, we have to take the risk. As Morrie said, "Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don't wait."^[ix] Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on March 11, 2007.