Theme:
Forgiveness
During the communal riots in Calcutta , the year before
Independence , Mahatma
Gandhi decided to come to the city and live in the midst of the carnage. He
received many visitors and listened to their tale of woe and loss. One day a
Hindu came in, greatly distressed and shedding tears of sadness and anger.
“Mahatmaji,” he blustered, “the Muslims have killed my little 8 year old son. I
shall not rest till I have taken the life of a Muslim boy the same age!”
Gandhiji replied, “Sit down my friend, and let me tell you that’s no way to get
peace of mind. But what you must do is to look for a Muslim boy of 8 years
whose parents have been killed. Take the boy home and bring him up as your own
son, a member of your family, but allowing him to remain a Muslim and
respecting the traditions of his parents. That will be the way of your peace of
mind.” Mahatma Gandhi was inviting that Hindu to embrace what he hated most.
Let me recall our own dear Francis of
Assisi. Before his conversion, Francis’ life was one of headlong pleasure and
worldly enjoyment. One day he was out on horseback, and there blocking his path
was a leper. The sight almost sickened him, but on divine impulse, he got off
his high horse, took the leper’s hand and kissed it. It was Francis’ leprosy of
spirit that was healed, because he embraced what he most hated.
Let me also tell you the story of a Dutch
Christian girl, named Corie Ten-Boom, who died a few years ago. With her family
Corie Ten-Boom had been sheltering Jews during the Second World War. They were
caught and sent to Ravensbrook concentration camp in Germany . Her father and sister died
there. Corie was released by mistake, but
not before she’d experienced what she called the “deepest hell that man can
create” at the hands of the Nazis. After the war, she became a minister of the
Word, and was preaching in Munich
when she noticed in the congregation the Nazi guard from Ravensbrook. Somehow,
she went on preaching, but her mind was filled with horror and anguish of her
memories. Now the leader of the men who had killed her father and sister were
here; and it filled her with loathing. After the bible service, he came up to
her smiling, held out his hand and said, “Thank you for your message: Jesus has
washed my sins away.” Corie looked at him, unable to take his bloodstained
hand. She’d preached forgiveness, but how could she show it to him of all
people?
Let’s break off the story to observe an
interesting point. We Christians keep stressing the way that god always takes
the initiative, and it’s right that we should. He loves us as his children,
even though we turn our back on him. Christ died for us while we were yet
sinners, says St. Paul
(Rom 5.8). We weren’t even born yet, still he did it for us. Yes, in God’s dealings
with us, he always acts first. It’s a two-way relationship in which God takes
the initiative.
We console ourselves by saying that God’s
love is unconditional, that he loves us whether we’re good or bad. I find it
rather odd therefore to find that one part of God’s love that has got a
condition. We all know it. It’s in the Lord Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But this is not an isolated
saying that we can wriggle out of. It’s a theme that Jesus rams home to us.
God, it seems, cannot forgive us if we cannot forgive others. In a deeper
sense, if we have really experienced God’s forgiveness for us, we should not
find it difficult to forgive others. If we have received that joy and
consolation of being forgiven by God we shall in turn give that joy to others
by forgiving them.
It is an important question. Because we
can’t look at what is happening in so many parts of today’s world and in our
own country without seeing hatred and revenge. And there are no easy political
answers. Only against the background of forgiveness can any answer at all be
found in those places. When we look at relationships between individuals and
communities in every country, they’re strained and broken. A first blow leads
to retaliation that develops into suspicion, ill-will, and rejection. There
seems to be no way out. Only when somebody forgives will the vicious circle be
broken.
Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness helps our
human predicament as nations and as people. I think the core of it is in the
story he told of the Prodigal Son. A better title would be the Parable of the
Forgiving Father. When he saw his bedraggled son returning, he forgot the
rights and wrongs of the situation, he absorbed the hurts that he had suffered,
because his relationship to his son was more important than either of the other
things. He grabbed his son and brought him right into the house. It was a
matter of the heart, not the reasoning. And that, I suggest, is the heart of
the whole thing.
Yes, there’s a good case to be made for
having principles. Of course, there is. a good case to be made for having an
ideology and commandments by which to live. But the message of Jesus is not
about principles, ideologies and legalities. It’s about relationships and, above
all, about restoring relationships. And it’s this truth that many Christians
get wrong. We demand that people are penitent before we forgive them. We say,
in effect, “Come on, admit it, that I’m right and you’re wrong, and then I’ll
forgive you.” That’s the religion of the Pharisees, which creates censorious,
cold, hard flinty Christians. No wonder we are sick with ourselves. Sick with
rivalry and the mad rush to be superior to others. And that’s the opposite of
what Jesus wants. For in the Kingdom
of God there is one
inescapable priority – that loving relationships reign supreme. And as only
free forgiveness makes those relationships possible, that is part of the
central priority.
So you see, if we will not accept that
relationships come before meanings, we’ve rejected the central basis of the
Kingdom, and we cannot receive God’s forgiveness either. So, I appeal to you,
forgive. Accept the hurtful things that have been done, freely forgive, for the
future relationship is more important than your pain. It’s worth agonising over
it, over how to practise it in our personal and social life. Because
forgiveness is a gloriously creative activity, it saves our future
relationships, it liberates us from corrosive and self-destroying bitterness. For
when you practise it, hard as it often is, you will feel as the forgiving
father felt, you will feel as God feels when he freely forgives you.
So, let us come to my story of Corie
Ten-Boom. We left Corie Ten-Boom looking at the extended hand of the Nazi guard
who had persecuted her. For a long time she paused and prayed silently, “Lord
Jesus, forgive me and help me to forgive him.” But she couldn’t move her hand,
so she tried again: “Give me your forgiveness, for I cannot forgive him on my
own.” And she took his hand. As she took it, Corie felt and amazing current
pass between them and love filled here heart. So, as she said afterwards, “When
God tells us to love our enemies, he gives us along with the command the love
itself.”
So, dear friends, what did Jesus die for? He died for-giving.
PRAYER: (Litany
of Reconciliation. Coventry
Cathedral)
The hatred which divides nation from
nation, race from race, class from class,
Father, forgive.
The covetous desires of people and nations
to possess what is not their own,
Father, forgive.
The greed which exploits the work of human
hands and lays waste the earth,
Father, forgive.
Our envy of the welfare and happiness of
others,
Father, forgive.
Our indifference to the plight of the
imprisoned, the homeless, the refugees,
Father, forgive.
The lust which dishonours the bodies of
men, women and children,
Father, forgive.
The pride which leads us to trust in
ourselves, not in God,
Father, forgive.
Be kind to one another, tender hearted,
forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Paul to the Ephesians)
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