Forgiveness

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Text:  Matthew 18:21-25

I would like to begin my reflections on the appointed gospel with this poem by Jan Richardson, a United Methodist Church minister and visual artist**.  I think it accurately describes the experience of practicing forgiveness.

The Hardest Blessing

If we cannot
lay aside the wound
then let us say 
it will not always 
bind us.

Let us say 
the damage
will not eternally
determine our path

Let us say 
the line of our life
will not forever follow
the tearing, the rending
we have borne.

Let us say
that forgiveness
can take some practice,
can take some patience,
can take a long struggling time.

Let us say
that to offer
the hardest blessing
we will need
the deepest grace,
that to forgive
the sharpest pain
we will need
new strength
for every day.

Let us say
the wound
will not be
our final home;
that through it 
runs a road,
a way we would not 
have chosen
but on which 
we will finally see
forgiveness,
so long practiced,
coming towards us
shining with the joy
so well deserved. 


Archbishop Tutu reminds us that we are made in the image of God and so we are to strive to come as close to that perfection as we are humanly capable of achieving.  When we engage in acts of forgiveness we are involved in the work of God.  “In forgiving we are engaging not just in a mundane act, we are sharing in the divine enterprise with cosmic consequences to advance or retard the work of bringing all things to a unity in Christ, to help draw all into the embrace of the Christ throwing out his arms to draw all to himself.”
Forgiveness is a theological necessity.  Forgiveness is central to who we are as followers of Christ.  Forgiveness is central to forming right relationships with each other and being in right relationship with God.  We can choose to be chained to a hurtful past or we can choose to allow God’s grace to enter us, to bless us and to free us.  Or we can choose the alternative that the slave in today’s parable chose.  To be forgiven one must practice forgiveness consciously on a daily basis.  If we take anything away from today’s gospel it should be that God’s forgiveness is endless and so should our forgiveness in this life be endless.  Forgiveness should be paid forward.  If one wants to be reflective of God’s abundant radical acceptance and radical grace then one must practice forgiveness.  

Keith +

**Jan Richardson is the author of the blog The Painted Prayerbook which may be accessed by clicking here.  This poem is from her post from September 9, 2014, The Hardest Blessing.