8 Crazy Things Christians Do: Forgive

For six weeks now we have been talking craziness. We have been talking about what it means to follow Jesus down some roads that in the eyes of others might seem like strange paths. Paths of worship and prayer. Paths of witness and giving. Paths of loving neighbors and loving enemies. These are things we would probably not do if our lives had not come to a crossroads at the foot of the cross. I also suspect that they may be things we don’t do anyway and that is the challenge I lay before myself and you in this series - Will we walk behind Jesus and do what he does? Or not?

So today – forgiveness. This is one of those impossibly grand things that Jesus calls us to. I mean, what was he thinking? Forgive serious wounds? And forget forgetting! How does that happen?

Then we see it happen and it takes our breath away. You remember two years ago when a man in Pennsylvania went into an Amish schoolhouse and sent out the adults and the boys and then shot the ten girls? It was horrific but we remember this not only because it was such a terrible thing, but also because of what the Amish community did in response.

If it had happened in another community with other people it might have looked like all of our other modern America tragedy sites. There would have been televised funeral services with speakers from across the country. There would have been chain-link fences covered in ribbons and teddy bears and reporters trying to wrench every bit of anguish they could from the traumatized survivors.

But that’s not what happened. The Amish had very private religious ceremonies and they buried their dead. They made food to take to those who grieved and when they did they also made food they took some to Marie Roberts, the husband of the man who killed the children before killing himself. They took her food, because they knew she had suffered a loss, too. And they invited her to attend one of the funerals. And they offered their forgiveness because it is what Christians are told to do. Told to do because it doesn’t come naturally. What’s natural is to hate and to strike out and to hold grudges and to close the door. But even in such darkness, when the forces of death threaten to overcome us, God is willing life and we know that because people whose lives are formed by the savior who submitted even to death on a cross brought food and forgiveness instead of bitterness and more darkness. Craziness, yes, but what beautiful craziness.

So here’s what I think – forgiveness is something that has to be seen and done to be believed. That’s why when we talk about it we end up telling stories. That’s what Jesus did. Peter came to him and said, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

Jesus responds by saying, “Not seven times but seven times seventy.” Evidently, though, he saw something he didn’t like in Peter’s eyes. He saw Peter starting to multiply seven times seventy and he knew that he still didn’t get it. It wasn’t the number but something more Jesus wanted. He wanted a change of heart. So he told this strange parable about the king and the unforgiving servant. The king forgives the servant a huge debt and then the servant refuses to forgive a fellow slave a much smaller debt. When the king finds out he hauls the servant back in and begins to extract the debt from the unforgiving servant.

It’s a strange story because really nobody is forgiving like Jesus wants Peter to forgive. The king forgives once, but then takes it back. The servant doesn’t even forgive the first time. But what really strikes me about the story is the other servants who see what is going on and are greatly distressed, because they know that a world without forgiveness is a world that is dark and threatening. They point to what humanity really needs – a model of forgiveness that leads to more forgiveness.

So let me offer one more story from the fictional community of Mattaponi Courthouse:
Sunshine Bristow was standing in aisle 7 of the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. To all the other shoppers in aisle 7 it appeared that she was just having difficulty making up her mind between the baked and the fired cheese doodles, but there were far more serious questions on Sunshine’s mind – she was thinking about death, forgiveness and God, all in the middle of the chip and dip section.

“Forgive me, Sunshine, but I just need to get a bag over here if you don’t mind.” Yolanda Perkins brushed past her and grabbed some barbecued pork rinds from the shelf and shuffled on down the aisle. It was enough to make Sunshine come to her senses and head to the check out.
Sunshine was deep in thought because her father was lying in a bed in Mattaponi’s small hospital. She had just gotten word from her sister Benita that he had been admitted with severe chest pains. They seemed to have ruled out a heart attack, but he was being held for observation. For the first time in seven years, Sunshine Bristow was thinking about going to see her father.

You wouldn’t think this, given her name, but Sunshine was generally not a very happy person. She had come to adulthood bearing the scars of a rugged childhood. She had lost a brother in a car accident when she was only eleven. School and friendships were hard for her after that. At sixteen she had run away from home, only to return six months later battered and bruised and with a drug addiction.

Her family had coped with her brother’s death by wrapping his memory in a blanket of silence. Nobody talked about Billy. But his memory remained like a chilly draught that finds its way through the tiniest cracks and which cannot be stopped. Her mother had tried to fill the emptiness with a kind of cheer and blind optimism, but it lingered – especially with her father.
Sunshine could not remember one time that her father had held her or hugged her or offered even a word of affection. He drank too much and grew more abusive to her and everyone in the house. Even now, twenty years later, she felt it – that anger at her father that festered like an open wound. She didn’t like feeling like this. She prayed to a God she hoped was there that she might be forgiven for her dark feelings of resentment and regret.

Now her father was in the hospital, having faced death himself, and she was wondering if she should go. By the time she got to her car she knew that she would. She rushed home to change clothes. For some reason she felt like she needed to dress up, at least a little bit. She found a favorite dress, brushed her hair and then opened the drawer for a hair clip. Her hand brushed across a small object and she paused. It was an ancient black pocketknife with a small brass plate monogrammed with the initials B.B. Sunshine picked it up, felt its weight and then dropped it into her purse.

At the hospital she stood outside the door of her father’s room for a long minute with her hand on the door. Finally she drew a deep breath and walked in. Benita, her sister, was sitting by the bed on the far side next to the window. She was holding her father’s hand and smiling with a smile she had inherited from their mother. Sunshine’s father was propped up uncomfortably, frowning at Wheel of Fortune on the small TV above the bed.

“Sunshine! I’m so glad you came.” That was Benita, not her father. “I think we’ve got some good news. It wasn’t his heart. They’re running some more tests, but they think it’s a gall stone or something.”

Bert Bristow was not so cheerful. “Might as well have been a heart attack. Felt just as bad.” Sunshine noticed the same tight lips and deep wrinkles in his forehead, but he was much paler and thinner. And older. “Well, Sunshine,” Bert said, “it seems like bad news brings out everybody. You’re dressed like you’re ready for my funeral.”

Sunshine’s face flushed red. “Daddy, that’s not fair. You know that.”

“Do I? Seven years I don’t see you and now you show up at my deathbed? What did you come to see?”

“I came to…I came hoping that maybe…” She felt the tears welling in her eyes. “Whatever it was, Daddy, I should have known better.” She ran out of the room.

Benita found her downstairs in the small snack counter off the front lobby. She was sitting on the far stool staring at a cup of coffee. Between her fingers she was playing with the old back pocketknife.

“I’m sorry, Sunshine. I’m sorry he treated you that way. You know how he is.”

“Yes, I know. I know he’s a cold and calloused old cuss and that he never cared a lick for me, but I was just hoping that…you know, with this attack and all…”

“You were hoping that he might have seen a great light and suddenly discovered how lucky he was to be alive and to have two fantastic daughters like you and me?”

“Yes. Exactly.” Sunshine looked at her sister with a half-smile. “Benita, I wanted to believe that he loved me and that he could change. I thought maybe if he could change then I could let go of all of this anger inside of me.”

Benita noticed the object in her hands for the first time. “Sunshine! Where did you get that?”

“Get what?”

“Daddy’s pocketknife. He loved that knife! Don’t you remember how he used to pull it out every night and fiddle with little blocks of wood? He was so upset when it disappeared. Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t find it, Benita. I stole it.”

“You did what?”

“I stole it. And I’ve kept it ever since. Twenty years I’ve kept it.”

“But, Sunshine…why?”

“Because…because when he came to see me at the drug treatment center…I’ll never forget it, Benita. I was so scared and confused and I needed him so much. He came on visiting day and he walked into the lounge and stared at me. Never said a word. He just stared with this cold and disappointed look in his eyes. Then he left. When I needed him the most, he left. So when I got home, I stole his knife.

“Now I look at this knife every day and I know that I hurt Daddy. I know I did. I try to forgive him and I try to forgive myself. But I can’t let go all of hurt and anger. And isn’t that what forgiveness is all about?”

Benita looked down at the counter and flicked away a crumb left by a previous customer. “Sunshine, I don’t know whether having a face-to-face meeting with mercy is going to change Daddy or not. Probably not. There’s too much pain there – the pain of losing Billy – the pain of feeling like a failure at life.

“But I do know that sometimes it’s not so much being forgiven as learning how to forgive that changes people and makes them realize that God is there. It’s not easy. Doesn’t mean that we go around saying ‘let bygones be bygones’ or that we gloss over the pain. God knows I’ve done my share of screaming and yelling because of Dad.

“Look, Sunshine, forgiveness isn’t something you can do all at once and then mark it down on some ‘been there, done that’ list. It’s a process. It takes time. And I’ve changed a lot more than Dad has. But you know what? It’s worth it.” Benita looked up into her sister’s eyes and gave her a smile that no longer seemed forced, but deep and genuine.

A few hours later Bert Bristow woke up from a nap in his stuffy little hospital room. He looked at the TV, which was still on. He stared out the window at the sodium lights in the hospital parking lot. He turned to his nightstand for a drink of water. There, next the pitcher, was an ancient black pocketknife with a small brass plate monogrammed with his initials – B.B.

Jesus said, “Not seven times – not seventy times seven times – but from your heart you must forgive.” And it’s not easy. It’s a process. But the consequences of remaining unforgiving or unforgiven are too great to bear. And we know how to forgive because God has done the forgiving first. For you and for me and for the life of the world. Thanks be to God.

Matthew 18:21-35
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how many times should I forgive when my brother or sister sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Jesus said to him, “I don’t say to you ‘up to seven times’ but rather seven times seventy times. For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a ruler who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. Now upon beginning his reckoning, one was brought to him owing ten thousand talents; and since he didn’t have the money to repay, the ruler ordered that he, his wife, his children, and all that he had be sold and repayment to be made.

“So the slave fell down and prostrated himself before the ruler saying, ‘Be patient with me and I will repay you everything.’ And being moved by sympathy, the ruler of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.

“Now that same slave, upon leaving, happened upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Repay what you owe.’

“So his fellow-slave fell down and implored him, ‘Be patient with me and I will repay you.’ But he did not want to and instead went and threw and his fellow-slave into prison until he would repay the debt.

“Upon seeing this, his fellow-slaves were extremely distressed and they went and reported to the ruler himself all that had taken place. Then his ruler summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all of that debt because you implored me. Weren’t you compelled to show mercy to your fellow slave, just as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his ruler handed him over to the extractors until he would repay the debt.

“So also will my heavenly Father do to you if you do not each forgive your brother and sister from your hearts.”