On Forgiving (July 7, 2019)
A Sermon dedicated to my father Waldo Heinrichs
who passed away on July 3, 2019
Galatians 6:1-10 The Message (MSG)
6 1-3 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.
7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.
Forgiveness is a large subject, and I will be brief today. There will be so much that I leave out. Yet I don’t hear much talk about forgiveness these days. It’s as though the subject has been dropped from consideration in a time dominated by thoughts of attack and defense, righting wrongs, blaming and evening the score.
It’s as though forgiveness is just a quaint idea.
With Paul in the reading from Galatians, though, I believe that forgiveness is the only way out of the cycles of attack and defense that tear apart relationships, families, communities and nations. At some point I begin to notice the escalating and endless suffering we all get caught up in, and I sense that I’m done; there has to be a better way.
Paul says there is a better way. It’s called forgiveness. But before I say a word about what forgiveness is, it’s critical to say what forgiveness isn’t. This is important because there are ways that even forgiveness can be co-opted by our need to protect some inner idea of how things ought to be.
Examples:
What then, is forgiveness? Here’s the bottom line. At its core, forgiveness means forgiving life itself that your own story has not turned out as you want, as you expect or as you feel you deserve. Another way to say this is that you forgive God.
Paul says in Galatians that everything we know was nailed to the cross. Everything we know, except forgiveness. Nobody, it turns out, gets to be special or particularly good; but everybody, everybody gets forgiven. This is a hard truth because life often hurts and most of us secretly feel we deserve better. We feel that at the very least we deserve an explanation of the unfairness before we forgive. We don’t get one. Instead we get a cross, says Paul, upon which is written, forgiven. No explanation. And forgiveness is a door we open to find……what?
On the other side of the door of forgiveness we get to be real, first of all. We no longer need to pretend to be more or less or different than we actually are. This is called acceptance, and it is a huge relief.
On the other side of the door we get to see our life stories as instructive paths, rather than as strange and twisted plots designed by a cruel and capricious Creator.
On the other side of the door we get to be genuinely curious and unafraid of where life is taking us. And even if we do sometimes get afraid, we get to be curious about where our fear comes from and whether we actually need to be afraid.
On the other side of the door we get to be generous toward others, being aware that everybody has to open the door of forgiveness for themselves. We all open the door someday.
Here’s a thing. Once forgiveness begins its work in you, you will find that some other folks will sense the work in you and want to know more. Why? Because they are close to saying to themselves that they’re done, they no longer see the benefit of the endless cycles of attack and defense. They have begun to wonder whether there is a better way. They have begun to sense that there are people out there who are already opening the door. Like you, for example.
But the final step through the forgiveness door is this: we find out that the door doesn’t really exist at all. We just think the door exists because we are afraid we might discover that there is no loving, forgiving God. So we imagine a mysterious door between us and God that always seems to be closed on our side. It’s a door in our mind’s eye only. There never has been a door between us and God. Our own fear put the door there. And we can take it down.
And so, in the end, we forgive ourselves and eliminate the last door between us and God. Which is what God had in mind all along.
Amen
A Sermon dedicated to my father Waldo Heinrichs
who passed away on July 3, 2019
Galatians 6:1-10 The Message (MSG)
6 1-3 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.
7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.
Forgiveness is a large subject, and I will be brief today. There will be so much that I leave out. Yet I don’t hear much talk about forgiveness these days. It’s as though the subject has been dropped from consideration in a time dominated by thoughts of attack and defense, righting wrongs, blaming and evening the score.
It’s as though forgiveness is just a quaint idea.
With Paul in the reading from Galatians, though, I believe that forgiveness is the only way out of the cycles of attack and defense that tear apart relationships, families, communities and nations. At some point I begin to notice the escalating and endless suffering we all get caught up in, and I sense that I’m done; there has to be a better way.
Paul says there is a better way. It’s called forgiveness. But before I say a word about what forgiveness is, it’s critical to say what forgiveness isn’t. This is important because there are ways that even forgiveness can be co-opted by our need to protect some inner idea of how things ought to be.
Examples:
- Forget the idea that forgiveness is required. We can certainly choose our own suffering instead of a path to healing. Forgiveness cannot be forced upon us if we prefer to hold a grievance. It is our choice to forgive – or not.
- Similarly, nobody else can tell you when you must forgive. For many of us, forgiveness is a last resort after we have tried all the alternatives – the grievances, the blaming, the grudges, the self-righteousness - and we have seen how hollow the alternatives are. This is not a bad thing. We will forgive when we are ready to forgive.
- Never mind the idea that forgiveness means making “nice” or even about making amends. In fact, real forgiveness often means having uncomfortable and revealing conversations. And then things get real and challenging. Forgiveness tells the truth; it does not protect secrets or lies.{Ouch}
- Also, please dispense with the notion that forgiveness makes you a better person than the one you are forgiving. The “I-am-holier-than-thou” notion of forgiveness isn’t forgiveness, it’s spiritual one-up-manship. {Ugh}
- Finally, forgiveness is not about changing another person. Forgiveness is about doing your own inner work and owning your own truth, and then inviting another to do the same. The other party may or may not say yes to this invitation. No matter. Do your own work; you do not control what another person chooses to believe or to do. This is actually a huge relief, to realize that your peace starts when you stop taking responsibility for another’s choices. {Whew!}
What then, is forgiveness? Here’s the bottom line. At its core, forgiveness means forgiving life itself that your own story has not turned out as you want, as you expect or as you feel you deserve. Another way to say this is that you forgive God.
Paul says in Galatians that everything we know was nailed to the cross. Everything we know, except forgiveness. Nobody, it turns out, gets to be special or particularly good; but everybody, everybody gets forgiven. This is a hard truth because life often hurts and most of us secretly feel we deserve better. We feel that at the very least we deserve an explanation of the unfairness before we forgive. We don’t get one. Instead we get a cross, says Paul, upon which is written, forgiven. No explanation. And forgiveness is a door we open to find……what?
On the other side of the door of forgiveness we get to be real, first of all. We no longer need to pretend to be more or less or different than we actually are. This is called acceptance, and it is a huge relief.
On the other side of the door we get to see our life stories as instructive paths, rather than as strange and twisted plots designed by a cruel and capricious Creator.
On the other side of the door we get to be genuinely curious and unafraid of where life is taking us. And even if we do sometimes get afraid, we get to be curious about where our fear comes from and whether we actually need to be afraid.
On the other side of the door we get to be generous toward others, being aware that everybody has to open the door of forgiveness for themselves. We all open the door someday.
Here’s a thing. Once forgiveness begins its work in you, you will find that some other folks will sense the work in you and want to know more. Why? Because they are close to saying to themselves that they’re done, they no longer see the benefit of the endless cycles of attack and defense. They have begun to wonder whether there is a better way. They have begun to sense that there are people out there who are already opening the door. Like you, for example.
But the final step through the forgiveness door is this: we find out that the door doesn’t really exist at all. We just think the door exists because we are afraid we might discover that there is no loving, forgiving God. So we imagine a mysterious door between us and God that always seems to be closed on our side. It’s a door in our mind’s eye only. There never has been a door between us and God. Our own fear put the door there. And we can take it down.
And so, in the end, we forgive ourselves and eliminate the last door between us and God. Which is what God had in mind all along.
Amen