4th Sunday after Pentecost
June 12, 2016
Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:26-8:3
(Or watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gghUwJgamJE )
Grace
was my theme word in Nicaragua. Whenever
I would start to feel critical about the way something was being done or of a
person, the word GRACE would scream itself inside my head. I was not there to judge; I was there to
serve. And so grace was something I
learned a lot about in Nicaragua: how to receive it, how to give it, and most
importantly, how to allow myself grace.
For perhaps the first time in my life, I felt completely accepted for
who I was, as I was. The locals did not
judge me, they were just glad I was there, trying to help their country. They did not expect me to be perfect, or
well-behaved, or obedient. And all grace
is, is God’s unconditional, undeserved, unmerited love.
Christian
author Philip Yancey came out with a book in 2002 called What’s So Amazing About Grace?
The whole point of the book was that the church has forgotten that our
mission is to offer grace. We, as
Christians, are not to judge or to criticize; we are to offer unconditional
love to all who cross our path. That includes grace to ourselves, when we mess
up and wish we had done things differently, and grace to others. Some people
are easy to offer grace to; others are harder, and yet we are to allow grace to
those who have wronged us as well. The work of grace includes the hard work of
forgiveness.
Jesus’
parable that he tells to the Pharisee is about forgiveness. A Pharisee has
invited Jesus over for dinner with him. If you remember, Pharisees were the
sect of Judaism that were very strict and careful about observing all the laws
and traditions and strict in their temple attendance and participation.
Obedience to the letter of the law was of utmost importance. During dinner,
there is a woman, who all we know about her is that she is sinful, and she
cleans and anoints Jesus’ feet. The Pharisee is there thinking, if Jesus really
were a prophet, he’d know this woman is a sinner. Of course, Jesus knows that,
and he knows what the Pharisee is thinking, and so he tells him a parable about
two debtors. One owed a little and one owed a lot and the creditor canceled
both of their debts. It’s kind of like the real life story of John Oliver from
this past week.[1] He
bought $15 million of medical debt, for some 9,000 people, from a bank, and
then forgave the loans for those 9,000 individuals. If your loan was only
$1,000, you may not have been as excited about it as if your loan was $50,000,
and that’s Jesus’ point. The woman’s “sins, which were many, have been
forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is
forgiven, loves little.”[2]
If
you take great care not to ever mess up, then you have little need for a savior
and for grace, because you never have anything of which to be forgiven. If
you’re a little more comfortable with yourself and know that sometimes you mess
up and sometimes other people mess up and that there is grace for yourself and
grace for everyone else, then you are a little more loving. And you’re a little
more loving because you know that there is grace and forgiveness and you don’t
have to be perfect. You know the truth of Romans 3:23, that “all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God.” You know no one is perfect except God and
in all your striving, all your crossing your T’s and dotting your I’s, you
cannot make yourself perfect and you cannot save yourself. Instead, we all need
Christ and we need Jesus because of his unconditional love. We believe, again
quoting from Romans, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[3]
And because of this great love, because of this grace, Jesus makes us right
with God. That’s what Paul is trying to explain in our Galatians reading this
morning when he writes, “We know that a person is put right with God not by the works of the law, but only through faith in Jesus Christ.”[4]
There is no action, there is no law to obey that will save us. Only Jesus
Christ in his saving grace can make us right. If you’ve heard the term
‘justification’, that’s what it is: God’s grace that saves us.
However,
that’s not the end of the story. Just as God has forgiven us, so we are to
forgive others who have wronged us. It’s right there in the Lord’s Prayer that
we pray every Sunday, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have
trespassed against us.”[5]
A newer translation (CEB) says, “Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,
just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.” Just as we receive God’s
grace, we are to show God’s grace to others. We are to offer unconditional love
to all who cross our path.
Now, I know this can be hard work. When Osama bin Laden
was killed a few years ago, one pastor friend commented on Facebook, “Now
begins the hard work of forgiveness.” Forgiving someone who has majorly wronged
you is really hard. This is not an easy task Jesus gives us. Of course, it wasn’t
easy for Jesus, either. He got nailed to the cross and died in order to forgive
our sins. God making us right with God cost him the death of his only begotten
Son. This grace is expensive, and God knows that. Yet God also knows that it’s
worth it.
Now,
forgiveness is not pretending that it never happened. It does not mean
forgetting and it does not mean that what happened is ok. Instead, “it means
taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it. It means drawing out the
sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence.”[6]
I’m going to repeat that, “It means drawing out the sting in the memory that
threatens to poison our entire existence.” Forgiveness means drawing out the
sting, so that we can move on from that wrong. I didn’t come up with that; that
came from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He’s a priest in the Anglican Church and was
chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that South Africa put together
when it ended apartheid. The book he wrote on that experience is called No Future Without Forgiveness. He says,
“When someone cannot be forgiven, there is no future.” When there is some
brokenness in the relationship, there is no future for that relationship until
the brokenness is healed, until the sin is forgiven. “True forgiveness deals
with the past, all of the past, to make the future possible.” And you may
decide, like a bad divorce, that you just don’t want a future with that person,
and that’s fine. But you still have to figure out how to forgive, how to draw
the sting out of the memory, because otherwise it will make you very bitter and
very cynical. There is no future for you if you hold onto a grudge and nurse
it. It will not make you a better person. It will not make you happier. It will
not make you more loving. It will not make you more Christ-like. Not forgiving
a wrong done to you, whether the offender knows it or not, or is still around
or not, will slowly eat away at you and it will affect not only you, but those
around you.
I don’t know who you need to forgive this morning. Maybe
it’s yourself and you need to allow yourself more grace. Maybe it’s an old
friend or family member. Maybe a former pastor or a former church member. Maybe
a current pastor or a current church member. If there is some memory that stings
this morning, let’s pray for God to draw out the sting, to lessen the pain. I
don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be bitter. I’d much rather offer
grace and receive grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment