IT NEVER WAS ABOUT THE SCORE
September 14, 2008
Last week we were talking about the difference it would make if we were to
be salt and light in the world right where we live. We said that a little bit of
us could go a long ways. And indeed, many of you are interested in letting
your light shine around you.
But is that what makes us so unique? Is that the defining characteristic of
the Christian community – that we serve in love for the benefit of others?
We might be hard pressed to make that argument given that members of
Kiwanis, Rotary, Red Cross, and other groups do the same. Lots of groups
and individuals act with kindness and compassion towards friends and
strangers.
Well, what about a sense of community? Is that what makes us so unique?
We use a certain language that talks about family, brothers and sisters, and
body of Christ. We come together for fellowship opportunities and
education. But couldn’t we say that other fraternal organizations, business
groups, Packer-backers, neighborhood associations, coin and country clubs
serve the same purpose?
Maybe it’s the dimension of holding common beliefs, that make us so
unique. We subscribe to certain tenets of the faith, even though we may
view them differently. We recite the same creeds, embrace the Covenant of
our church, and sing the traditional hymns. But aren’t there other groups
that have basic common beliefs – like Democrats and Republicans?
So what is it that makes us so different? What is the component that gives
such brightness to our light, and flavor to our saltiness? I’m wondering if
the clue isn’t embedded somewhere in these scriptures today. Forgiveness is
not the way of the world. An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth is more the
credo of modern society. We seek revenge on those who hurt us and hope to
even the score. But the hallmark of Christian faith says for us to go further,
to reach higher, stand taller, and ultimately change the equation.
A certain married couple had many sharp disagreements. Yet somehow the
wife always stayed calm and collected. One day her husband commented on
his wife’s restraint. “When I get mad at you,” he said, “you never fight
back. How do you control your anger?” The wife said: “I work it off by
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cleaning the toilet.” The husband asked: “How does that help?” She said: “I
use your toothbrush!”
Our subject today is forgiveness. How many times must I forgive someone
who has hurt me, abused me, and exploited me? That is Simon Peter’s
question. How many times? Would seven times be enough? Peter thought
that he was being generous. After all, the rabbis of his day taught that only
three times were required. Peter was taking what the rabbis commanded,
multiplying it by two, and adding one more for good measure! Seven times,
Peter thought, should be plenty enough forgiveness.
But it was not enough for Jesus. In answer to how many times we should
forgive Jesus said, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” In
other words, forgiveness is limitless. This is important because some of you
are probably thinking: “That’s a lot, seventy times seven. But at least the
four hundred ninety-first time, I can just walk away.”
STORY OF JIMMY BORROWING STAPLE GUN AND FORGETTING
TO RETURN IT WHEN A NOTE WAS PLACED ON HIS FRONT DOOR
AT MIDNIGHT SAYING THAT THE OWNER OF THE STAPLER
FORGAVE HIM ONCE AND HE HAS 489 LEFT.
We miss Jesus’ point. There is to be no limit to our forgiveness.
Forgiveness is at the heart of Christian faith. We are not to hold grudges,
carry resentments, and harbor bitterness. It’s a tough teaching, but it is one
of Jesus’ most important lessons. It is at the center of everything we believe
about Christ and should be at the heart of how we live. It’s not about the
score. Can you imagine if God was keeping score and decided that we had
used up our allotment of 490? Where would we be then? We forgive others
as God has forgiven us – limitlessly.
What is the alternative to refusing to forgive? Isn’t it to carry around for a
lifetime a feeling of bitterness, resentment, simmering hatred? Why would
you do that to yourself? Harboring resentments is like taking poison and
waiting for the other guy to die. Or it’s like burning down our house to get
rid of rats. When we refuse to forgive, we hurt ourselves most of all.
Do you remember the famous Brink’s robbery? It happened in Boston,
Massachusetts in January 1950. The robbery netted nearly $3 million, an
extraordinary amount of money fifty-eight years ago. Do you know how the
culprits in this robbery were apprehended? Eleven days before the statute of
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limitations was to expire on the robbery, out of the blue, one of the robbers
confessed. His motive? Anger. Revenge. The other members of the gang
had let him down. And this was his way of payback. Eleven days before the
statute of limitations was to expire! Wow! I guess he showed them. Of
course, he was punished right along with his buddies. Why? Because
something got in his way and he couldn’t forgive.
I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m just saying that it’s necessary for our own well
being and the sake of the church. If for nobody else, do it for yourself. The
first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who
does the forgiving. Forgiveness is one of the best gifts we can give
ourselves. Do you understand that? Sometimes I think that we regard
forgiveness as something we do for God, or something we do because it is
the nice thing to do. All of that is true, of course. But forgiveness is
ultimately a gift we give ourselves.
FORGIVENESS IS ALSO A CHOICE. You don’t have to carry around
feelings of bitterness, resentment, anger. You can choose to forgive.
They said that World War II military hero George Patton couldn’t or
wouldn’t control his temper as a young officer. Patton once ordered a mule
shot because it had gotten in the way of his jeep. He forced members of an
antiaircraft unit to stand at attention for being sloppily dressed, despite the
fact that they had just beaten off an attack and some of the men were
wounded. In one incident, he slapped a hospitalized, shell-shocked soldier,
and denounced the man for being a coward.
Patton’s commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, didn’t believe that
Patton lacked self-control; only that he was refusing to practice it. He
ordered Patton to publicly apologize for slapping the soldier, put Patton on
probation, and postponed his promotion to general. And you know what
happened after this reprimand by Eisenhower? There were no more reports
of Patton committing acts of emotional or physical abuse during the two
remaining years of World War II. In other words, he could control himself
when motivated to do so.
What’s our motivation? Self-interest? OK with me! How about because
Christ has first shown it to us?
Jesus told a parable about a man who owed his king ten thousand talents.
That’s about the equivalent of ten million dollars. The king was ready to
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have the man, his wife, their children and all their possessions sold to satisfy
the debt. The man came begging on his knees to the king to ask for more
time.
The Scriptures tell us that the king was moved with compassion and
completely forgave the man his debt. What relief! What joy! But wait . . .
That same man had someone who owed him some money about twenty
dollars. He seized this man by the throat and told him to pay up. And when
the fellow did not, this man who had been forgiven his debt of ten million
dollars had the fellow thrown into prison for failing to pay his debt of twenty
dollars.
Then the king heard about this and called the man in again. “Here I forgave
your debt,” he exclaimed with rage; “should you not have forgiven the debt
that was owed to you?”
And Jesus asks the same question of us today.
“Forgive us our debts,” he taught us to pray, “as we forgive our debtors.”
We have heard a lot lately about the torturous brutality of the North
Vietnamese against captured American pilots, such as John McCain. Well,
Democrat, Pete Peterson was appointed as the first U.S. ambassador to
Vietnam since the Viet Nam war. Long before that, Peterson had served six
years as a prisoner of war in the dreaded “Hanoi Hilton” prison camp. He
endured unspeakable brutality, starvation, and torture at the hands of his
captures. They robbed him of six years of his life he will never get back.
Never. And when asked how he could return to this land as an ambassador,
he replied: “I left my anger and regret at the gates of that prison when I
walked out in 1972. I just left it behind me and decided to move forward
with my life.”
When Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone in the
church that offends him, he thought he was being spiritually generous to
suggest seven times. So when Jesus said, “Seventy times seven,” Peter
pulled out his calculator and came up with 490 times. Peter’s heart must
have skipped a beat as he just about swallowed his tongue. “Four hundred
and ninety times!” “Jesus, you must be kidding?” But I’m sure Jesus said
something like, “Peter, put away your calculator. It isn’t about the math.
IT NEVER WAS ABOUT THE SCORE. Forgiveness is an attitude, a way
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of life – Peter, it’s a matter of the heart. Forgiveness is the constant, unique
homework of Christians. Unfinished business, always.
Robert Coles was a distinguished child psychiatrist and he says that a little
black girl was responsible for his conversion to social concerns. He went to
Biloxi, Mississippi in the 1950s to help black children living with the trauma
of trying to integrate their schools.
Ruby was the first black child to help desegregate her public school in
Biloxi. Every day, Ruby would walk to school guarded by Federal Marshals
who escorted her through an angry mob of protestors. Dr. Coles was quite
concerned about Ruby and what effect all this hatred would have on the rest
of her life. He knew, as a psychiatrist, that she was probably having trouble
eating, sleeping, and carrying on her normal routine.
Every day he interviewed her and would ask, “Ruby, how are you sleeping?”
she would reply, “I’m sleeping just fine.” Coles would pursue the question,
“Then I bet you aren’t eating too well are you?” And Ruby would answer,
“I’m eating just fine.”
Every day he would ask the questions and she responded in the same way:
“I’m just fine.” Finally one day he heard Ruby’s teacher say that she had
noticed that Ruby seemed to be talking to herself when she walked through
the angry mob every morning. Dr. Coles asked her what she was saying as
she walked through that line of angry people. She told him, “I say, Father,
forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”
Would that we could all be Rubys! But for many of us, it’s not quite that
easy. BUT remember:
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it is, perhaps, the unique work of the Church, our defining quality
it’s the best choice we can make for ourselves
we do it because it has already been done for us
and, like Ruby, it sure helps to get a good night’s sleep
Exodus 13: 21-31
Matthew 18: 21-35