Sermon from 14th September 2008

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, preaches based on the reading from Matthew 18v21-35

Forgiving Offences

Just before 11.00am on Remembrance Sunday in November 1987, an IRA bomb exploded without warning as people gathered at the war memorial in Enniskillen for the annual Remembrance Day service. Eleven people were killed and 63 injured, nine of them seriously, when a wall crashed down burying people in several feet of rubble. Two of the people buried under the rubble were Gordon Wilson and his 20 year old daughter, Marie. Gordon Wilson survived but Marie died.

Afterwards, in an interview with the BBC, Gordon Wilson described what happened to his daughter and his feelings toward her killers: "She held my hand tightly, and gripped me as hard as she could. She said, 'Daddy, I love you very much.' Those were her exact words to me, and those were the last words I ever heard her say." To the astonishment of those listening, Gordon Wilson went on to add, "But I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She was a great wee lassie. ... She was a pet. She's dead. She's in heaven and we shall meet again. I will pray for these men tonight and every night."

“I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. I will pray for these men...” What remarkable words. Where does forgiveness like that come from? How can someone forgive like that? I suspect that there are some of us here who are finding it very difficult to forgive a person for something that they have done to us, or to someone we love very much. It’s very easy to feel hurt and resentful, and to want revenge. Sometimes such feelings can be overwhelming and eat us up. All of us will know to some degree the feeling of being wronged and of being hurt, of being sinned against. And that’s why the passage from Matthew’s Gospel that I’ve just read is so relevant for us.

So, where does it come from – this forgiveness that Gordon Wilson displayed? Jesus gives us an answer in our Bible passage, and what he says can be summarised in a short sentence: We forgive because we have been forgiven by God. We forgive because we have been forgiven by God.

So let’s look at our passage, and we see Peter, as he so often did, getting the wrong end of the stick! In vs 21 we read, “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Now Peter would have thought that he was being very godly. He would have known that the Jewish religious leaders of the day suggested that if someone was repeatedly sinning against you, you should forgive them three times. So he upped it to seven times. He was expecting Jesus to commend him for his forgiving nature, but Jesus’ response, in vs 22, was entirely different; “Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.””

Obviously, Jesus didn’t literally mean 77 times. He wasn’t saying that you have to forgive 77 times, and on the 78th time you can tear into the other person. No, Jesus meant that you should forgive as many times as you are sinned against. Forgive without limit. Now it may well be the case that we’re not reconciled with the person; the person who has sinned against us may not want to be reconciled. But verses 15-20, which Cameron suggested last Sunday we read, show us we should try very hard to find reconciliation. Yet it may not be possible. Take Gordon Wilson. He forgave the bombers, but reconciliation didn’t take place. He had a meeting with IRA leaders which he described as ‘pointless’. We as Christians should forgive without limit and reconcile where possible, but reconciliation isn’t always possible. We still need to forgive, and hand over the issue to God to stop feelings of bitterness and hatred developing. Forgive without limit and reconcile where possible.

But the bigger issue is the motive for forgiveness. Why should we forgive? Why should Gordon Wilson forgive the terrorists who murdered his daughter? Why should we forgive people who’ve wounded us badly? I know many of us are familiar with the writings of Philip Yancey, and he addresses this question – why should we forgive – in one of his books, “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” One of the chapters in the book is called “An Unnatural Act”, and Yancey makes the point that ungrace, lack of forgiveness, is the natural human state. Many of us here today have heard a lot of sermons on forgiveness, but we still find it difficult to forgive. We often prefer to nurture our grievances and keep our disagreements alive than to forgive. We stubbornly refuse to forgive family members or work colleagues who have wronged us. So why should we forgive? We’ll take a closer look at the parable. READ vs.23-27.

Let’s think about how much the servant owed the king. The NIV translation says that it was ten thousand talents, and you will see the footnote says that this was over a million pounds. I’m not sure what the rate of exchange between 1st century Israelite talents and 21st century British pounds is, but the footnote in the NIV may even be underestimating the size of the debt – it might even be have been billions of pounds. But whatever the amount of the debt may have been, it is clear that it was vast. The servant had no chance of ever paying it back, even if he worked for 10,000 years. In vs 26 we read that the servant said to the king, “Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything!” But it would have been obvious to everyone that this was going to be totally impossible. Yet what happens! The king took pity on him, and cancelled the debt. There were no strings attached; the servant was given complete freedom from debt. What a relief it must have been for him – to have his gigantic debt running into billions cancelled. We can’t even begin to grasp how elated he must have felt. And what’s the point for us? Jesus told a parable about an inconceivably large debt to show us how much God has forgiven us. God has forgiven us a debt that we could never ever have repaid ourselves, not even in 10,000 years.

Do we truly realise what God has done for us? It’s easy for us to say that we have received forgiveness from God, but do we realise what a massive debt we’ve had cancelled? The human race has turned away from God and messed things up badly. And we’ve all played our part in that rebellion against God. Yet God has cancelled all the debt due that has arisen from our sin – past, present and future. God has cancelled a whole life time of debt, wiped out by Jesus’ death on the Cross. This, then, is our motive for forgiveness. We forgive because we have been forgiven by God. We forgive other people who sin against us, because really their sin is so insignificant compared to our sin against God. I’m not saying we haven’t been hurt badly: I’m not saying forgiveness is easy. To achieve our forgiveness, Jesus died in agony on the Cross; the Cross tells us that forgiveness is costly and painful. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who fought against apartheid in South Africa for many years once said, “Forgiveness is not for sissies. Forgiveness stares the beast in the eye. Forgiveness is confrontational, to name the hurt, and then to refuse to retaliate. It is not retributive but restorative. It seeks not to punish but to heal."

And then he added some words which I think are highly relevant today on Racial Justice Sunday. "For without forgiveness there is no future. There is no future between communities and between nations." Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily lead to reconciliation; the other side may not want to be reconciled. But without forgiveness there can’t be reconciliation. Black South Africans were willing to forgive white South Africans for the sins of apartheid. And that forgiveness was a key factor in the success of the negotiations that led to the new South Africa.

The bombers at Enniskillen didn’t want to be reconciled with Gordon Wilson. That wasn’t the end of the story, though. A leading Irish historian made the following comment on what he had said, "No words in more than twenty-five years of violence in Northern Ireland had such a powerful, emotional impact." Gordon Wilson’s words helped to discredit the men of violence, and may well have played some part in the process that ultimately led to the agreement between Republicans and Unionists.

And the same principle applies to disputes within families, within churches and other groups and communities. Without forgiveness, there can’t be reconciliation. Wounds will fester and the desire for revenge will grow and grow.

As Archbishop Tutu made clear, forgiveness isn’t approval of what the other person did. Forgiveness isn’t excusing what the other person did. Forgiveness isn’t denying or forgetting what they did; it’s not pretending that what they did didn’t hurt. No, we are aware of what the other person has done, yet we are called to forgive. We bear no ill will, we bear no grudge and we hand over the situation to God. And when we struggle to forgive, we should ask ourselves – Where would we be if God said that some of our sins were too big, too horrendous to be forgiven? And where would we be if God said that we had committed the same sin too many times to be forgiven? God forgives our worst sins; God forgives us totally, 100%. Jesus has paid our debt on the Cross. We forgive because we have been forgiven by God.
And the challenge for us is this. If we won’t forgive, it calls into question whether we ourselves are really forgiven people. Let’s look at our passage again. The servant has been let off his massive debt; he’s been freed from his burden. He no longer has anything to worry about, except for a fellow-servant who owed him very small sum. So what does he do? Of course, the obvious thing to do would to let him off the tiny debt, but that didn’t happen. READ verses 28-30.

How could someone be so cruel when they had been forgiven so much? How could he forget how much he had been forgiven? And yet Jesus says that’s exactly what we are like when we don’t forgive those who’ve sinned against us. And the result is calamitous for the unforgiving servant. READ verses 32-35.

Is there someone we need to forgive, perhaps a family member, or someone at work or even at church? We have a choice. We can decide that we don’t want to forgive the person who has wronged us; we can decide to carry on bearing the grudge. Or we can choose to hand the situation over to God, to bear no ill will, to bear no grudge. We won’t be able to do that if we focus on the person who’s wronged us, or on ourselves. But we will be able to begin to forgive them if we focus on God and how much more he has forgiven us.

Let’s pray. Every Sunday we pray, Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lord, help us to do as we pray. Help us to forgive as you have forgiven us. Amen.

Sermon 7th September 2008

Our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches today based on the reading from Matthew 18: 1-5, 15-20

If I were to say he's the Messiah of Israel; if I were to say he's the teacher who was even greater than Moses; if I were to say he's the Son of Man; if I were to say he's the one who laid down his life for us; if I were to say he's the one who has saved the world; if I were to say he's the King who rules the world – I'd very much hope that most of you would know exactly who I'm talking about!

Yes, of course I'm talking about Jesus! This is the person whom we meet in the four gospels that tell the story of his life, death and resurrection about 2000 years ago. Each of the gospel writers told the story of Jesus in their own, unique way, with their own particular emphases. All four had an identical aim, though. It's best summed up at the end of John's gospel. John wrote: “this has been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you may have life”.

That was Matthew's aim in writing his gospel too. As one of Jesus' 12 disciples – and a former tax collector at that – he knew exactly what it meant that Jesus had given him life. And he wanted to share that good news with others, especially with his fellow Jews. That doesn't make Matthew a particularly easy book for us to understand today. As we'll see in this series, he didn't bother to explain very much of the Jewish context that he wrote into. But, in other ways, Matthew is the best gospel for us to read. He wrote the story of Jesus in a careful, ordered, thematic way. And he particularly drew out those characteristics of Jesus that I began with: Messiah; teacher; the Son of Man; who gave up his life to save us and the world he now rules as King. And that is as instructive a list as we could want about who Jesus is!

To get a proper handle on all of that we'd have to study all 28 chapters of Matthew. And that would take far longer than we've got. So in our autumn series we'll focus on one very specific characteristic of Jesus from Matthew's list. It's the nature of Jesus as Teacher that leaps out of us from these later chapters of Matthew. To put these events into context in the story of Jesus' life, he was on his way to Jerusalem when he said and did these things. This was his final chance to teach friends and enemies alike key lessons before he died. And, knowing what was going to happen to him, Jesus wasn't about to miss this great opportunity.

Now hopefully nobody is too surprised by this idea that Jesus was a great teacher. Even many people who don't accept that he was the Son of God will tell you that Jesus was a great moral teacher. Some of them may even say that he was the greatest teacher who's ever lived. But I do wonder about people who say such things. In particular, I wonder just how closely they have listened to what Jesus taught; and to how he taught it! I specifically wonder whether they have ever read, or absorbed, passages like this!

At this stage it would be helpful if I could borrow a child, please ... While said child and their parents decide if I can be trusted for whatever I might have in mind, let me remind you again of the context. As I said, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, where he would die. At this point he was just with his closest followers. They knew that they could safely ask Jesus whatever was on their minds. And so that's what they did. In his account of this incident, Mark says the disciples had, in fact, been arguing with each other as they walked along behind Jesus. They had been trying to work out who was the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Now it's a fair bet that the disciples already had a pretty good idea about who would be the greatest! We could be kind, and say that perhaps they had been ranking themselves in order of their closeness to Jesus. But chances are that the disciples thought – as many of us probably do – that it's the most talented, the strongest, the hardest working, the richest, the best looking who'd get to the top in God's Kingdom. Well, the cream does always rise to the surface, doesn't it? That is how life works. Not in God's economy it doesn't! Jesus took a child, like this one, and had it stand in front of them. Then Jesus said, “The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven is the one who humbles themselves, and becomes like this child”!

Now I'm sure that you all like this lovely child, who has all sorts of wonderful characteristics – OK, as well as a few less attractive ones! But do you want to be like her/ him? Most of us spend a large part of our lives ensuring that we aren't. We want to grow up, to take responsibility for ourselves, to make our own decisions, about what we do and wear and eat. Who wants to go back to being like this? Not many of us, I'll bet! And so for us to want to be like a child would involve us humbling ourselves. It would mean changing how we see and present ourselves. And I guess that, if we're honest, not many of us fancy that idea!

That has helped to make Jesus' point very graphically. But I do have to say that's it's an even harder point to hear than we might first think. When I said that Jesus took a child and made 'it' stand in front of them, that's what the Greek says. The word for child is neuter: an 'it'. We've come a long way in our view of children since then. Children have rights; they are people, with real characters that we cherish. We often value them – rightly, even if a little rosily, perhaps – for their innocence and sweetness, for their capacity to learn and to grow. But that's not why Jesus used a child to illustrate greatness in the Kingdom of God.

No, Jesus chose a child because of how 'it' was seen at that time. Not a person with rights and choices, and opinions that must be accounted for. Rather a child was, and still is, a responsibility; something weak and vulnerable, unable to fend for itself, of next to no significance, totally dependent. And so are all of us before God! That's not how we like to see ourselves; and so that's why Jesus said that we need to change! In his translation Tom Wright says we need to be 'turned inside out'! And that's not 'just' to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven (which was Matthew's phrase to avoid upsetting Jewish readers, by the way). Jesus assures us this is how we have to be if we are to enter God's Kingdom at all!

I'm sure you don't like that idea any more than the person next to you. But that doesn't make it untrue! Yes, there may be many things that you are in control of in your life, outcomes that you can influence. But when it rains or the wind blows later, try to stop it – and see how far you get! Or try to stop yourself from dying. Or try talking God to let, or buying your way, into his Kingdom. The fact is that none of us can! When it comes to things that truly matter eternally, we are, all of us, weak and vulnerable, unable to fend for ourselves, of next to no significance, and totally dependent on God's goodness and generosity. So if we do want to enter God's Kingdom, we do truly need to be like that child!

It is a radical thought. And it's a radical thought that needs to shape every part of our lives. Change is necessary, in each of us. Another key feature of Matthew is how Jesus demands a right ethical response to his teaching. The idea today was to go on to one illustration of how that change is necessary, in confronting and dealing with sin in the church. I'm clearly not going to have time to cover that now, so I'll encourage you to study 18:15-20 yourselves later. When you do, do note how radically different a way it is to what we naturally do. And that will prepare you well for what's in store next week, and in the rest of our series. This teaching of Jesus is all about changing what we do and how we do it, because now we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's teaching that demands us to change, radically. And that change is all based on who and what we truly are, and must be, before God. So that's the foundational lesson that we need to learn today, to launch us into this series. It's not easy to accept that we are weak and vulnerable, unable to fend for ourselves, of next to no significance, and totally dependent on God's goodness and mercy. I know that, because it's a lesson that I've had to learn over and over again through the long process of Jocelyn's illness and transplant. But in that process I have also been learning that believing and trusting in Jesus day by day is indeed the only route to life. So let's pray ...