Sermon, 2014-09-14, Amazing Grace to Forgive
In 2012 in a small town near Houston Texas, David Barajas and his 2 sons,
11- & 12-years-old, were pushing their car that had run out of gas.
They were 100 yards from their house... when a drunk driver, Jose Banda,
struck the two boys with his car killing them both.
Prosecutors said the dad, David Barajas, then went to his home, got a gun,
and went and shot and killed the drunken Banda still in his car.
But, authorities never found the weapon,
and there were no witnesses who identified Barajas as the shooter,
and gunshot residue tests done on Barajas came back negative.
Investigators testified that ammunition for a .357-caliber gun was found in
Barajas' home along with a holster.
And that a bullet fragment that could have come from such a gun
was found in Banda's car.
A forensic scientist also testified that blood found on the driver's
door and arm rest of Banda's car was consistent with that of Barajas.
But, on August 27 of this year, just a couple weeks ago,
Barajas was acquitted of all charges.
He was found not guilty in the shooting death of Banda.
Is there anyone here, who has a part of them that says:
what, it seems, that the father did to the drunk driver was just? Fair?
Justice? You took my two kids’ lives, I take yours.
English Poet W.H. Auden wrote:
I and the public know
What all school children learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
W.H. Auden
Those who have evil done to them,
do evil in return to those who did it to them.
All school children learn, it is the way of the world:
in the general sense
and in the way Jesus used the word world those who live in the system of beliefs and practices
indifferent or opposed to God and his kingdom.
It also could be said to be the way of the world in the natural sense.
Nature is inclined toward justice.
In What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey says,
The law of nature admits no forgiveness. Do squirrels forgive cats for
chasing them up trees or dolphins forgive sharks for eating their playmates?
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, not dog-forgive-dog. As for the human
species, our major institutions—financial, political, even athletic—run on
the same unrelenting principle. An umpire never announces, “You were
really out, but because of your exemplary spirit I’ll call you safe.” Or what
nation responds to its belligerent neighbors with the proclamation, “You
are right, we violated your borders. Will you please forgive us?”
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Sermon, 2014-09-14, Amazing Grace to Forgive
Palestinians from Gaza launch a missile into Israel.
Israel fires three back.
Assad’s regime kills 1000’s of Sunnis.
1000’s of Sunni’s unite under a new ISIS flag & take to killing Shiites.
It is human nature to want justice, retribution, pay back,
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
But for those of us in the kingdom of God,
Jesus taught us to pray,
“Father, forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
So we have this tension in the kingdom of God as followers of JC,
our natural inclination is toward justice, pay back, you hurt me I hurt you.
But in many ways and places Jesus to forgive.
Christian author Elizabeth O’Connor wrote,
“Despite a hundred sermons on forgiveness, we do not forgive easily, nor
find ourselves easily forgiven. Forgiveness, we discover, is always harder
than the sermons make it out to be. We nurse sores, go to elaborate lengths
to rationalize our behavior, perpetuate family feuds, punish ourselves,
punish others, all to avoid this most unnatural act.
We do not forgive easily.
And most of us, encounter issues and conflicts and relationship problems
for which we need to forgive or to be forgiven almost daily.
Title slide
So, as the last message in this series on grace,
today, I’d like to talk about forgiveness.
The grace of God forgives us when we don’t deserve it.
The grace of God calls us to and can enable us to forgive others too.
So, let’s start with the most important question here.
Why should we forgive?
And the answer is first,
1. We are commanded to, as the children of a Father who forgives.
Jesus taught us to pray to our Father
that just as we seek forgiveness for ourselves from Him,
we will give forgiveness to others.
And immediately after that prayer he adds,
Matthew 6:14-15
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins,
your Father will not forgive your sins.
If you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven.
It is a clear conditional principal stated as an indirect command.
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Sermon, 2014-09-14, Amazing Grace to Forgive
We must forgive. Or we will not be forgiven.
Who here is believing or betting that God’s not really gonna
not forgive you just because there’s someone you refuse to forgive?
You hate them. They did something inexcusable.
You will never forgive them, no matter what?
Do you really trust in Jesus as your Savior,
if you can withhold your forgiveness from your brother or sister?
The NT Word for forgive means to release, to send away, to free yourself.
When we forgive, we release the person who has hurt us
from our desire to get even, to hurt them, to hate them.
We release our claim to the debt they owe us.
God commands it because to Him it must be the height of
ingratitude and hypocrisy not to.
He forgives you every sin you’ve ever committed against his laws & heart
and you cannot even forgive your spouses’ angry words or stupid acts
or your sibling’s selfishness or thoughtlessness
or your children’s disrespect and ingratitude
or your parents mistakes and flaws.
That’s the theological answer.
It is enough.
But we can also see some other practical reasons to forgive.
2. Forgiveness can break the cycle of blame and pain.
Martin Luther wrote,
“Think of all the squabbles Adam and Eve must have had in the course of
their 900 years. Eve would say, ‘you ate the apple.’ And Adam would
retort, ‘But you gave it to me.’”
The story of David Barajas & Jose Banda is an example of a cycle of pain.
Barajas and his family suffered a horrible loss.
But then, in their need for vengeance, they only advanced that cycle of
pain to the parents of Jose Banda and all his family.
Forgiveness offers a way out.
It doesn’t settle all the issues of blame and pain.
But it makes it possible for relationships to reset,
to start over, to clean the slate.
As I said, The NT word for forgive means to release, to send away, to free
yourself. When we forgive, we can free ourselves from the pain.
Resentment means to feel again.
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Sermon, 2014-09-14, Amazing Grace to Forgive
Re sentiment – re feel. Feel again.
Philip Yancey writes,
We remain bound to the people we cannot forgive, held in their vise grip.
This principle applies even when one party is wholly innocent and the other
wholly to blame, for the innocent party will bear the wound until he or she
can find a way to release it – and forgiveness is the only way.
Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?
We are bound to those we won’t forgive.
We think of them.
We remember the things they did.
They become a painful part of us.
When we resent, we feel the pain over and over again.
When we forgive, we can free ourselves from the pain.
One more.
In a great little book called Forgive and Forget, Lewis Smedes writes,
The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person
who does the forgiveness.... When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner
free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.
Lewis Smedes, Forgive and Forget
Why should we forgive?
1. We are commanded to, as the children of a Father who forgives.
2. Forgiveness can break the cycle of blame and pain.
The third reason why we forgive is
3. Forgiveness can loosen the stranglehold of guilt in the offender.
The 1st reason we forgive is for God.
The 2nd is partly for ourselves.
This 3rd is for the sake of other’s.
The Apostle Paul wrote in,
2 Corinthians 2:10-11
I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan
might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
He forgives for their sake.
Grace gives others what they don’t deserve for their sake.
The grace of God in us calls us to give others what they don’t deserve.
and that in part is helping to free them from the guilt they might bear.
I mentioned Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable a few weeks ago.
Another part of the story points to how grace can release guilt.
Again, Les Miserable is a story of redemption in Christ.
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Sermon, 2014-09-14, Amazing Grace to Forgive
It is entirely a story about law vs grace.
The main character, Jean Valjean,
is a released prisoner in 19th century France.
The only person who will take him in after his release is a priest.
In the middle of the night, Valjean makes off with all the silver in the
priest’s house.
When Valjean is caught in possession of all the silver,
the police deduce where the silver has come from and return Valjean
to the priest’s residence to confirm the theft.
But the priest insists they were a gift.
And he says that in fact Valjean forgot the silver candlesticks
that he gave him also. And gives him them too.
In the face of certain imprisonment for the rest of his life in hard labor,
Valjean receives grace in the form of forgiveness from the priest
and it obliterates the guilt that could have destroyed Valjean.
It melts his heart.
In that forgiveness, he finds redemption.
His guilt is absolved.
He is redeemed, renewed.
And a whole new man with a whole new purpose for his life emerges.
You and I can do that for others in big and small ways
when we forgive them.
We release them and then they can release themselves.
Again from the book Forgive & Forget, Lewis Smedes writes,
When you forgive someone, you slice away the wrong from the person who
did it. You disengage that person from his hurtful act. You recreate him.
Forgive & Forget, Lewis Smedes
This is what God does for us in Christ.
He says,
Psalm 103:12
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
God removes our guilt.
He takes it away, by his grace.
When Jesus was resurrected and we see his encounter with Peter who had
betrayed Jesus, Jesus asks Peter 3 times if he loves Him?
Peter says “yes” and Jesus says, “then feed my sheep.”
What is Jesus doing?
Jesus is, in part, releasing Peter from his own guilt.
He is forgiving Peter in a way that liberates him from the guilt
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Sermon, 2014-09-14, Amazing Grace to Forgive
that would have prevented Peter from so much good in life.
Just as Christ did it for Peter,
We can do this for others who have betrayed us.
(Blank)
Have you heard about Ray Rice?
He’s the football player who hit his girlfriend and knocked her unconscious
in an elevator at a casino in Atlantic City in February.
A video tape of him hitting her came out this week.
He was immediately fired by the Ravens & suspended indefinitely by the NFL.
And most of us say, “That’s right! That’s what should happen to him!”
That’s the justice the world and human nature demands.
Domestic violence is awful.
I’ve watched my stepfather punch my mother in the head
and watched her drop.
To dominate a woman with power and violence and pain is
reprehensible and those who do will face God’s wrath.
But Ray Rice went on to marry the woman.
They were engaged.
She’s forgiven him.
They are working on their issues in a program.
They are building their life.
And now the world’s call for justice
is wrapping him up tightly in a stranglehold of guilt.
And, the “no-forgiveness” justice the world is dealing him,
is perpetuating the pain and blame cycle for them both.
As awful as it is would God forgive it? Yes. Yes.
He forgives much, much worse.
He forgives everything. So he can forgive anything.
And he calls us to forgive all too.
I’d like to close with something we can do to respond to this call to forgive
today.
Benedictine monks and nuns have a moving service of forgiveness.
After giving instruction from the Bible, the abbot or abbotesses
ask each one attending to identify issues that require forgiveness.
Worshippers then submerge their hands in a large bowl of water,
“holding” the grievance in their cupped hands.
As they pray for the grace to forgive,
gradually their hands open to symbolically “release” the grievance.
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Sermon, 2014-09-14, Amazing Grace to Forgive
Someone who participated in the service wrote,
“Enacting a ceremony like this with one’s body possesses more
transforming power than merely uttering the words, ‘I forgive.’”
So today, as we come forward to receive Holy Communion, we have
prepared two bowls for you to symbolically release your grievance into.
If there is something you need to forgive another for today,
I invite you to stop at the table before receiving communion.
Take the water in your two cupped hands.
Say a prayer like: “Father help me to forgive _______.
“I want to forgive them. I forgive them now.”
Or you could say,
“Father forgive me my sins as I forgive those who sin against me.”
And then let the water go.
This is not for everyone.
You do not have to do this.
But if you have someone to forgive, I invite you to wash it away before
receiving Holy Communion.
On the night Jesus died, before he took the bread and cup,
He took water and he washed his disciples feet as a sign of forgiveness.
in the process his hands repeatedly dipped in the water and released it.
Then taking the bread he gave thanks for it and broke it and said,
This is my body broken for you.
Take and eat in.
And then he took the cup.
And said this is the blood of the covenant which is shed for you.
As often as you drink it, remember me.
So today, we receive his body and his blood.
We do it with thanksgiving for his forgiveness
And we are thankful.
Our communion is open to all who confess Jesus and Lord and Savior.
It is open to you today if by this act, you would make that confession.
It is open to children with their parents guidance and permission.
We will come down the center aisle.
Stop quickly at the bowl if you like.
Then kneel on either said.
After you have been served, please go back to your seat by the outer aisle
without crossing the center.
Let us pray.
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Sermon, 2014-09-14, Amazing Grace to Forgive
Communion.
Close with Lord’s Prayer.
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