How Well We Forgive
Homecoming Sunday
Theme
The Limits of Forgiveness
Prelude
Welcome
Call to Worship Pastor: We come to the Lord burdened by the debt of our sins,
People: And desire the liberation of forgiveness.
Pastor: We hear God’s freeing word,
People: And feel release from our moral debt.
Pastor: We remember that we are to forgive others,
People: As often as we have been forgiven by the Lord.
*Hymn of Praise # 295 I Know Not Why God’s Wondrous Grace
Invocation (the Lord’s Prayer) God of all hope, we pray that the terror of September 11 be transformed into your peace as we are transformed by your presence. Help us to become instruments of your shalom that surpasses all our understanding and power. Help us to become a people and a world where no nation will act in a way which harms the children of another. Let us become, each one, a person who does justice, loves mercy and walks humbly with you.
Gloria Patri
Right Hand of Fellowship Ray and Christina Harris (Andrew King)
Choir God Bless America
Just for Kids
Bring one jar with seven coins in it and another with 490 (seven times seventy) coins in it. Keep them both out of sight. Using Matthew 18:21–22, tell the story in your own words. Show the jar with seven coins and then compare it to the jar filled with coins. Pass it around so the children can feel the difference in weight. Seventy times seven is a lot more than just seven – that means that Jesus wants us to forgive a lot.
Our Offering to God God waits for our gifts today.
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication O God of infinite love and forgiveness, you have given us your spirit of compassion and understanding. Help us to use these spiritual gifts wisely and well as we shape our world according to your desire. In offering our material gifts today, we also offer ourselves as your servants, overlooking minor differences with others, preserving the goodness of our material world, supporting those who work for justice and peace, and forgiving those who act selfishly and harmfully. We thank you for the confidence you place in us as we recommit and dedicate ourselves to your service through the same Spirit who guided Jesus to fulfill your will. Amen.
Litany of Assurance
*Hymn of Prayer How Majestic Is Your Name Lord, Be Glorified
Pastoral Prayer O God, we come to you on September 11, four years after our nation was shaken by terrible violence. Once again we lift up our hearts to you with a great sense of need. We need your strength, which is stronger that the forces of evil and destruction. We need your justice and mercy to overcome the troubles of time and history. We need your wisdom to face the uncertainties of life. We need your goodness and love to overcome sin and hatred. We need your forgiveness to save us from bitterness and hostility. // We continue to pray for all who have been injured and bereaved by the events of these four years. We pray for our country, our leaders, and our military personnel. We pray for ourselves and all others who search for understanding and assurance. We pray for all peace-loving people of every faith and nation as we work together to seek solutions. // Lord in the midst of trouble on a national and international scale, we remember that we are called to live and act locally. Help us in our individual lives to be faithful. Help us to be peacemakers. Help us with the personal struggles and suffering we face. Help us as a church to carry on our mission of sharing the gospel and helping each other to grow in faith. // We know that death and despair still have a foothold. We pray for all who grieve today; for those who are sick; for the hungry and the homeless; for the desperate and the discouraged. And we pray for those who minister to each of them; for those who work for peace and justice throughout our world; may we be counted among them. Let our lives proclaim your resurrection hope in all circumstances. This morning as we worship you and hear your word, open our hearts and minds and let your Spirit work you will in us.
Leader: Have mercy upon us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
People: According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgression.
Leader: Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin.
People: For I know my transgressions and my sins are ever before me.
Leader: You desire truth in the inward being.
People: Therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Leader: Purge me with hyssop and we shall be clean;
People: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Leader: Create in us a clean heart, O God,
People: And renew a right spirit within me.
Leader: Do not cast us away from your presence,
People: And do not take your holy spirit from me.
Leader: Restore to us the joy of your salvation,
ALL: And sustain in me a willing spirit.
—Based on Psalm 51.
*Hymn of Praise O God of Every Nation insert (#435 Methodist hymnal)
Today marks the anniversary of the horrific felling of the World Trade Center in 2001. The gospel lesson from Matthew finds Jesus teaching about one of Christianity's most central topics: forgiveness. The coinciding of this anniversary and this text could hardly be more spiritually charged.
William Watkins Reid's "O God of Every Nation," a hymn set to a variety of tunes tells us "Keep bright in us the vision of days when war shall cease, When hatred and division give way to love and peace." Amen. Let it be so.
Scripture Reading Matthew 18:21–35
In response to Peter’s question about how often he must forgive someone who offends him, Jesus tells a parable that highlights the true meaning of forgiveness and the consequences of not forgiving one another.
Message How Well We Forgive
In answer to Peter’s question about how often to forgive, Jesus tells a parable that shifts the focus from how often to how well, emphasizing that our forgiveness of others is the measure of God’s forgiveness of us.
As creatures, we live with limits. We spend a limited time on earth; we deal with physical and intellectual limitations; we have limited financial resources and personal opportunities; and we face emotional limits as well. Most parents have a limit to their patience with children; volunteers have a limit to their availability; grieving persons have a limit to their pain; the oppressed have a limit to their tolerance of injustice.
So it is perfectly understandable that Peter would ask Jesus what the limit was on forgiveness, especially as his question came immediately after Jesus' instruction on how to handle a member of the community who sins against you. Whether Peter's question was hypothetical, simply for the sake of discussion, or real, because someone had sinned against him, Peter wanted to show Jesus how big-hearted he was. So Peter volunteered the answer to his own question: forgive up to seven times.
In other words, Jesus tells Peter and all the disciples to forgive as often as they are offended. There is no limit on forgiveness if the person is truly sorry. As he often does, Jesus drives home his point with a story - except that this one doesn't quite fit the question that prompted it. Instead of telling a story about how often to forgive, Jesus tells a story about the true meaning of forgiveness.
The situation is common. A servant was in debt to his lord, or master, in a big way. The modern equivalent might be years of income owed on a credit card or perhaps a loan that a person cannot possibly pay back. The master in question had a simple solution: sell the man, his family, and whatever property he had to another slave master and use the money to pay off the debt, not unlike creditors today foreclosing on a person's home or other assets in lieu of repayment.
This desperate situation called for a desperate response. The slave pleaded with his master and asked for more time to settle accounts. The petition must have been persuasive because the master not only released him but forgave his debt as well. It's as if a credit card company or loan institution suddenly felt pity for a person and just wrote off the whole debt.
The story should have had a happy ending at that point, emphasizing again how God is merciful and forgiving when a person acknowledges their wrongs and the just obligations they incur as a result. But the story goes on because it is not about God's response to our moral debts, but about our response to one another (Peter's original question). ///// As the slave left his master's presence - symbolic distancing of himself from the forgiveness of the Lord - , free of debt and punishment, he came upon a fellow slave who owed him a small amount. Instead of following his master's example and celebrating his good fortune by forgiving this minor debt, he abused his fellow slave and demanded payment. The debtor struck the same self-effacing pose as the first slave, begging for more time.
The response, however, is exactly the opposite of what the first slave had received. The first slave had the second one thrown in jail, where he could not possibly earn any money to repay the debt. It appears from this action that the first slave didn't want the money so much as the twisted satisfaction of making the second slave suffer. But his wicked indulgence didn't last very long. Other slaves heard what had happened and reported it to the master who immediately revoked his forgiveness and handed the wicked servant over to the torturers.
This long answer to Peter's short question can be summed up as follows. We are to forgive others as often as we have been forgiven by God, which is as often as we sincerely ask for forgiveness. We welcome this limitless spirit of forgiveness from God to ourselves, but sometimes we find it difficult to imitate that same spirit in our relationships with others. Perhaps the advice of Paul in Rom 14:1-12 can help us head off the need for such forgiveness.
In writing to the Christians at Rome, Paul plays down the differences among us that often lead to harsh words, divisive judgments, and hurtful actions. So what, he asks, if some eat meat and others are vegetarians? What difference does it make if some think Christmas is more important than Easter, or singing hymns is a better way to praise God than meditating silently on scripture? There is no difference in these matters, he insists, if everyone is doing them for the Lord's glory.
In other words, Paul reintroduces the priorities that should govern the Christian life. It is not insisting on incidental practices and personal preferences. It is "walking in love" (14:15) with one another, avoiding doing the things that offend or injure others, and overlooking the choices and attitudes that offend us. Obviously Paul is not referring here to core beliefs and practices that define the Christian life. These are not usually the things that cause us to judge and offend one another. It is usually the differences in the way we carry out our commitment to Jesus.
Needless to say, there are times when one member truly sins against another, violating a trust, speaking a falsehood, disrupting a family, and damaging a reputation. At such times, assuming the offending person expresses sorrow and asks for forgiveness, Jesus expects that we will have the same pity and compassion as God has with us rather than the vindictive spirit of the slave in the gospel. - Robert L. Kinast////////////
It’s important to know our place in the universe, and to trust that God will play his proper role as creator, judge and redeemer.
But to let God be God does not mean that we, as people, do nothing. Instead, we are challenged to work for reconciliation instead of revenge.
During World War II, the Russian philosopher Semyon Frank wrote in his notebook: “In this terrifying war, in the inhuman chaos which reigns in the world, the one who first starts to forgive will in the end be victorious.”
This seemed incredibly idealistic at the time, with bombs falling and millions dying, but in the end his words came true. At the close of the war, some members of the Allied camp wanted to pursue revenge against Germany, but others remembered how the punitive nature of the Versailles treaty after the First World War had created bitterness, and led to the rise of the Nazi party. So, instead of pursuing revenge, the Allies worked for reconciliation. The coal and steel industries of France and Germany were brought together, and their resources were pooled. A center was established in Switzerland to work for European reconciliation. On top of this, a generosity of spirit was at work in the United States, and a massive amount of money flowed into Europe through the Marshall Plan. Because the focus was on reconciliation instead of revenge, age-old enemies quickly became friends.
The one who first starts to forgive will, in the end, be victorious. It’s as true today as it was after World War II, and in the time of Joseph.
The challenge for us is to know our proper place in the world, and to know the place of God in human history as well. Our place is to be active followers of Jesus, and God’s place is to transform evil into good. Just how God does this is always unpredictable, because God’s ways are not our ways. But we have irrefutable evidence that God is always working to do this — we see it in the story of Joseph, when God takes the evil of the brothers and turns it into good, “in order to preserve a numerous people” (v. 20). And we see it in the story of Jesus on the cross — Christ’s own personal 9/11 — when God takes the evil of the crucifixion and transforms it into forgiveness, new life and everlasting salvation.
The Lord’s plans will certainly prevail, despite our tendency to toss people into pits and even crucify the Son of God. We humans may always be dreaming up evil, but God is always dreaming up good — coming up with wild and wonderful transformations, and surprising us with the ways that love can conquer hatred, and reconciliation can overpower revenge.
About the best we can do is to point people to the Lord, and show some evidence that he is alive and well and at work in the world. [When the Christian author Philip Yancey was asked, after 9/11, the question of where God is when it hurts, he thought for a moment and then said, “I guess the answer to that question is another question. Where is the church when it hurts? If the church is doing its job — binding wounds, comforting the grieving, offering food to the hungry — I don’t think people will wonder so much where God is when it hurts. They’ll know where God is: in the presence of his people on earth.” ]
Our place is to bind up wounds, comfort the grieving, feed the hungry, and work for reconciliation. We can do this as individuals, as families, as a community of faith and as a nation. If we know our place, then we’ll discover God’s place, and we’ll see the Lord’s hand at work in even the most horrifying of human events.
Our God is with us, working for good. On 9/11, and every day.
*Hymn of Response “Seek Ye First” insert (p 405 Methodist Hymnal)
*Sending forth prayer God of all creation, we have heard many times that “the whole world changed” four years ago today. Even as we pray and remember September 11, 2001, let us focus our attention on a different day, long, long ago, a day that did change the world, truly and decisively. It is the day your Son rose and walked out of a borrowed tomb. It is the day you declared victory over every power of sin and death in this world. It is the day on which all of our Christian hope rests. Let that day — the day of resurrection — be the one we remember above all. Let us recall that day as the one that changed our lives — that changed the world. Thank you for that tremendous resurrection power, which we carry with us in life and in death, in all our ordinary days and in all our 9/11’s. It is an abundant gift, and it is the gift of your presence. In the name of Christ, our risen Lord, we pray. Amen.
*Postlude
Thought for the Day
As followers of Jesus, we are expected to forgive others as often as we are forgiven by our heavenly Father – that is, without limit.