September 17: "Marks of the Church: Forgiveness"

THE WORD IN THE GOSPEL

Matthew 18:15-22

[Jesus said,] “If your brother or sister sins against you, go and correct them when you are alone together. If they listen to you, then you’ve won over your brother or sister. But if they won’t listen, take with you one or two others so that every word may be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses. But if they still won’t pay attention, report it to the church. If they won’t pay attention even to the church, treat them as you would a Gentile and tax collector. I assure you that whatever you fasten on earth will be fastened in heaven. And whatever you loosen on earth will be loosened in heaven. Again I assure you that if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, then my Father who is in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there with them.”

Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times?”

Jesus said, “Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times.

MESSAGE

Now, I imagine that you may be wondering why I’m holding this heavy rock. Well, we’ll get to that later. Try not to let this rock distract you from hearing the message.

Last week, we talked about how we define “the church,” and about the “marks” of a faithful congregation. I shared with you on of my favorite definitions of “church,” from one of my favorite theologians, John Howard Yoder.

According to Yoder, the church is not simply the bearer of the message of the gospel and reconciliation. Rather, God works through the church to call and gather people together in a community of faith that reveals reconciliation in the ways the people treat, relate to, and love one another.

In other words, according to Yoder, the church doesn’t HAVE a message to proclaim; the church IS the message.

The church reveals the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the ways we live together and work together and try our best to love each other.

Last week, we learned that one important thing that “marks” us as a faithful church is when we follow the ways of Love, rather than the rule of Law. We talked about how we don’t have to worry so much about fulfilling the law, or about whether other people fulfill the law, because when we act out of love, we are already fulfilling the law.

This week, we’re looking at another “mark” of a faithful church, and it’s found in our reading from gospel of Matthew. And that mark is forgiveness.

In this morning’s passage, Jesus describes a process for conflict resolution for the church, a process that a member of the church should follow if one of their brothers or sisters in the faith hurts them in some way. This process includes, honestly and opening describing what pain or hurt was caused; repentance of the one who caused the pain; and, if necessary, the community’s support for the one who was hurt.

After hearing all this, Peter approaches Jesus with a question about forgiveness. I can imagine their entire conversation sounding something like this:

Peter asks, “So, Jesus, really . . . just how many times should I forgive? Like, seven?”

Jesus says, “More than that, my friend.”

Peter says, “Ok, well, like seventeen?”

“Not even close.”

“Wait, like twenty-seven?” Peter asks.

“Keep going.”

Peter, who is feeling a little exasperated by this time, says, “You’re kidding, right? Thirty-seven?”

Finally Jesus says, “Try seventy-seven times.”

I’m sure Peter must have thought, “That’s ridiculous! That’s impossible!”

Now the numbers in that passage, 7 and 77, are significant in a way that we might not understand. You see, to the ancient Jews, the number 7 was a sacred number that represented perfection and extreme holiness.

So Peter’s question about forgiving someone 7 times was reasonable. He was actually asking Jesus something like, “Must I forgive perfectly?”

But Jesus replies with a number that was shocking and seemingly far beyond perfection: 77 times. Jesus’ wasn’t telling Peter that he should set up a spreadsheet to keep track of the number of times he forgives someone. Jesus was saying that forgiveness must go beyond counting. It must go beyond what we think is enough. Forgiveness must go beyond something that we do – it must become the way that we live.

We need to remember the context of Jesus’ words here. He is specifically talking about forgiveness in the context of the church. He’s talking about forgiveness between Christian brothers and sisters, who are called to be a community of love and grace and fellowship.

Forgiveness in other contexts – such as in the case of a violent crime or abuse by a family member – is a complicated matter, and requires a lot more time to discuss than I have to spend with you this morning. But for right now, we’re focusing on forgiving each other here in the church.

We don’t like to admit that people in the church can hurt each other. But sometimes we do. We don’t mean to, of course, but we do. Sometimes an innocent comment can be misinterpreted, or someone’s intention can be misunderstood. Sometimes we may feel disrespected or ignored or unappreciated. Sometimes we may feel that someone has taken advantage of our generosity. These things happen. And when they do, we need to recognize it, name it, and deal with it.

You know, I can almost hear our own voices in Peter’s question. “How many times, God, must I be hurt before I can say, enough?” Like Peter, we try to put a number on forgiveness, to set certain restrictions on it, to establish guidelines for when we should forgive, or when we might not have to. But forgiveness doesn’t work like that.

Being the church means that we are always actively trying to reconcile whatever might come between us or whatever might hurt our fellowship or our witness. Being the church means we are forgiving people.

Easier said than done, right? Like a lot of the things Jesus teaches and demonstrates, forgiving those who hurt us is not easy. But it’s sure easier than lugging this rock around.

And yet, that’s what we often choose to do – lug rocks around. This rock represents the reason why we have to become forgiving people.

Let me ask you this: what does it mean to forgive? If you look in the dictionary, you will find things like, excuse, overlook, disregard, ignore, pardon, make allowances for.

But I think that when Jesus was talking to Peter about forgiveness, he was referring to something different. He was addressing our very human tendency to “hold grudges” or to “want revenge” or to “cling to resentment or bitterness” when someone hurts us.

And that’s what this rock represents: the grudge, the desire for revenge, the resentment and bitterness. When we don’t forgive – or at least work toward being able to forgive – then we’re hauling around some pretty big, heavy rocks.

When our hands are busy holding on to those rocks, we can’t possibly be the people God is calling us to be.

We can’t reach out to help others if our hands are wrapped around a rock of resentment. We can’t offer our hands in signs of peace and fellowship if they are weighed down with a rock of bitterness. We can’t be the hands of Jesus, offering support and love and healing to each other and to the world, if our hands are too busy lugging around heavy grudges.

And believe me, I know that, sometimes, it’s not easy to put down the rock. I know that sometimes the pain and the anger of being hurt are so deep that the rock becomes almost like a security blanket for us. We cling to that rock either because we don’t know how to release the pain and the anger, or because we’ve become so accustomed to the pain and anger that we can’t imagine moving beyond them. Believe me. I know. I’ve been there.

A couple of years ago, I spent many months carrying around a rock of anger and resentment, and you know what? One day I started to realize that my arms were tired. My spirit was tired. My heart was tired because I kept holding on to that dumb rock. I had no real sense of peace or purpose in my life because I was too worn out from lugging that rock around.

And so, I made the choice: to put down the rock. With God’s help, I made the choice to forgive.

Now that doesn’t mean the pain is gone. I still have days when the pain runs deep. And there are still times when I feel angry about what happened. But you know what? I no longer have that blasted rock of resentment and bitterness, of wanting revenge, weighing me down, dragging down my soul, keeping me from doing God’s work and keeping me from being who God wants me to be.

Forgiveness is a complicated thing. Sometimes it takes a lot of time, a lot of work, and a lot of support. Forgiving someone who has hurt you doesn’t mean that you’ll forget. Neither does it mean that you are condoning or ignoring the wrong that a person has done to you.

But as people of God, forgiveness is who we are. It’s what we do.

I know forgiving is hard, but really, sometimes it’s as easy as letting go of the rock.

A couple of years ago, I lead a study on forgiveness. At the end of the study, I gave all the students a copy of this picture:

“Forgive, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”

If we want to really be the church that God is calling us to be, and if we want to grow as individuals and as a community of faith, we need to put down whatever rocks we might be lugging around. We need to cultivate an attitude of forgiveness that is an integral part of our identity and our mission. We need to be a forgiving people.

So let’s put down the rock. And open our hands to the peace of being forgiving people.

And to help us learn how to be forgiving people, I will lead a study starting next Sunday on, what else? Forgiveness. For the next few weeks, we’ll meet in the conference room from 9:30 to 10:15. I invite you to join me on this journey.