Text: Luke 11:4
Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
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Text: Luke 11:4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
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Often when people outside of the church talk about forgiveness you get the impression that forgiveness is a sign of weakness. It is an admission that we have been a failure; it is a come down in our pride and our public-image to ask for forgiveness from a work-mate or a friend.
Religious people talk about forgiveness. You expect them to do that. Even then, you sometimes get the impression that they really don't mean it. What happens in congregations? There are disagreements and clashes and religious people like all other people find it difficult to get over those conflicts and to forgive one another.
There is probably nothing in every day life that is so necessary, so indispensable, so healing as genuine forgiveness. The Bible is always talking about forgiveness. God forgives people and people forgive one another. It brings people together and keeps them together.
Forgiveness is that vital ingredient that keeps families from falling apart. As sinful humans, members of a family, whether we are husbands or wives, or sons and daughters, need to reach out to one another in love and forgiveness when there is tension and conflict in the home. It is forgiveness that heals the wounds that conflict and trouble cause, and allows peace and harmony to be evident in the family once again.
People all over the world try hard to live without forgiveness. They never succeed. If there was more forgiveness around the world and around our nation, the news on our TV at night would be totally different.
That's why Jesus included in his prayer the section: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. It reminds us that everyone needs to BE forgiven and everyone needs to forgive.
I'm sure most of us here would agree with the idea that none of us is perfect and are very good at upsetting other people. And those upsets usually affect us as well. And we know in the back of our minds what will restore harmony again. But you know as well as I do, even though we know all of that in theory, we can be very pig-headed and righteous when it comes to those times of conflict. We find it ever so difficult to go to God and to one another and seek reconciliation. Again it is our pride speaking that is always promoting ourselves and our opinions and ways as right to the detriment of our relationship with other people - everyone else is wrong.
There is a German folktale that is helpful at this point.
One day the Lord decided to take a long walk in the heavenly garden. In his absence, he left Peter in charge, admonishing him not to admit anyone until he returned. Moments after the Lord left, however, there was a knock at the gate. "Who is there?" Peter demanded.
"I am just a poor honest tailor who begs to be admitted into the presence of the Lord."
"Honest?" Peter asked. "I know your history. You often stole from your customers. I can't let you into the heavenly court anyway, because the Lord has forbidden it while he is gone.
The tailor begged to be allowed to enter and reluctantly Peter allowed him through the gate of heaven and told him he would have to wait behind the door in case the Lord should notice him and become angry.
The tailor sat quietly behind the door for a long time. Then he looked around the room at all the furniture and saw the throne of the Lord standing in the middle of the room. It was made of solid gold. It had a footstool made of gold in front of it. The tailor climbed up on the throne. From that position he could see every place on the earth at the same time. It was a tremendous sight.
Suddenly he saw an old woman stealing dresses off a clothesline. The tailor got so angry, he picked up the footstool and threw it at the woman. When he realised that he couldn’t retrieve the footstool, he got off the throne and hid behind the door again.
Soon the Lord returned. Immediately he noticed that his footstool was gone. He asked Peter if he had moved it. Peter hadn't touched it. Then he remembered the tailor.
"Where did you put my footstool?" the Lord asked the tailor.
"My Lord, I know that you will not permit any form of dishonesty," said the tailor. "While I sat on your throne I noticed an old woman stealing dresses off a clothesline. I got so angry with her dishonesty that I threw the footstool at her."
"You miserable rogue," the Lord said, "If I had treated you as you did that woman, what would have happened to you long ago? Besides, I wouldn't have a piece of furniture left in the heavenly court. I deal with sinners primarily with mercy! Get out of my sight. From now on you must stay outside the gate of heaven"
Even though this is only a folk tale, it does well to remind us that God is always willing to deal with us in love and mercy, and does not treat us in the same unforgiving way as we treat one another so often. Helmut Thielicke a German preacher said: "When God forgives us for hitting him with a club we should manage to put up with the pinpricks we get from our friends, our neighbours, our boss. For this is actually the ratio between what God forgives us and what we have to forgive our brother."
The Bible helps us come to grips with ourselves. It recognizes us for what we are and reveals God as he is. It tells us how God feels about us. Believe it or not the news is good. God has every right to pass judgement on you and me but he chooses to forgive us. Through Jesus, God reconciles everyone to himself so that he doesn't have to condemn us because of our sin.
Through Jesus' death on the cross, God reconciles us to himself - he forgives us. In other words, he removes everything that separates God and us. It is exactly what happens when a mother forgives her child or a wife forgives her husband. When a child lies or a husband deceives his wife, something between them is broken. And we correctly say: There is something between them. And when the mother, the wife forgives, this does not mean she "forgets" it, [because she may never forget it. Even in old age, she may feel an icy chill when she thinks of what that lie did to her long ago]. Forgiveness means: This shall not separate us. The bond of love is stronger than the separating power that would force us apart.
The worst thing that you can do is to refuse to admit that you have ever done anything wrong. The greatest thing God can ever say to you is "your sins are forgiven". The greatest thing you will ever do in your life is to forgive someone who has hurt you.
Jesus did not teach us to pray, "God, I am only human. I can't help it. I didn't mean it. I did the best I could. I can't help the way I am. In case I have done something wrong, forgive me." That's not the Lord's Prayer. His prayer which we pray is: "God, forgive me, as I with faith and love toward you, forgive others."
Forgiveness really works. A man tells how he
went to the home of a neighbour whom he has hated for 15 years. The feeling was
apparently mutual. The man told it this way.
"I had carried this resentment around with me and it had torn me to
pieces... I realised I was being foolish so I went to his place to see him. He
swore at me...and told me he had despised me for 15 years too. I told him it
would be a one way hatred from now on, and left. He followed me outside and we
forgave each other; and we have been friends ever since."
Forgiveness works, it heals, it restores.
It is hard to forgive a single hurt which has brought on a long resentment like that, but it is sometimes even harder to forgive people when they continually aggravate and upset you everyday. Perhaps you are thinking, "How can I keep on forgiving a bossy mother-in-law, a pushy, nagging spouse, a selfish daughter, a dishonest son, an unbearable neighbour or a disagreeable congregational member?
How can you do that? Jesus Christ gives us a new beginning. The "old" - which means this blood of ours that keeps crying for retaliation and is capable of becoming a self-destroying lust of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" - this "old" has passed away, behold the new has come.
Wherever Jesus is permitted to enter, new life begins, and the new age springs up from the dungeons of the ancient god of vengeance whenever men bow before the throne of the Father and tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. There can be no doubt about it, forgiveness from God changes your whole life. The possibility of restored and renewed relationships is unlimited.
What about you personally? Are there those with whom you hold a grudge, those whom you resent, those who for some reason or other you have found it hard to forgive? Think about this seriously. As someone who has received the mercy and forgiveness of God, and experienced the love and goodness of the Saviour, should not we too be passing on that love and forgiveness to others and restoring our relationships with them.
Helmut Thielicke says: "We are always echoes. The only question echoes of what? Either we are echoes of the injustice, the intrigue and the meanness that is around us and then we ourselves become scheming, cheating and mean. Or we are echoes of Jesus Christ and therefore echoes of that forgiving, renewing, creative love that comes from the Father. Then we ourselves become loving, renewing, forgiving, creative and positive."
I hope that you will pray this prayer with renewed confidence. "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." Go ahead with God's love and power and do it!
© Pastor Vince Gerhardy
St Luke's
Lutheran Church, Nambour - 8th
July, 2001
E-mail:
gerhardy65@hotmail.com
