Uncertain Forgiveness
TRANSCRIPTION:
Welcome to worship with Dearborn First UMC. I am Pastor Suzy Todd, and I am grateful that you have chosen to join us on this second Sunday in Lent. During Lent this year we are exploring the uncertainties of life and how to live with joy, peace and grace without having all the answers.
Dietrich the Doodle
Photo courtesy of Suzy Todd.
Some of you know that I have two dogs.
There is Dietrich who is a 3-year-old doodle. He runs through life full bore. He prances and enjoys every sight, sound and smell of the world. He loves people and playing in the yard and taking long walks. He embraces life with the joy of a dog who believes he owns the world.
And then there’s Reggie. He’s a toy rat terrier. He’s 16 years old and blind and mostly deaf. I think he can still see some shadows, and he hears some high-pitched noises, like a dog whistle. But much of his life is filled with uncertainty about what is going on around him and how he can safely get to where he’s going.
He gets around the house pretty well, but he bumps into a few walls, especially if there’s not a lot of lights on. He has walked off the edge of the bed and misjudged the number of steps in the staircase. But miraculously, he always bounces right up.
16-year-old Reggie;
Photo courtesy of Suzy Todd.
He loves to go for a car ride, safely secured in his car seat. He loves to eat, once I set his nose over the bowl. Mostly, he loves to cuddle on the couch, burrowing under a blanket – sleeping his day away.
He no longer likes to go for walks. He can’t see where he’s going so he’d need to follow his nose, and that’s more conducive to a backyard foray.
Even though he neither sees nor hears, he finds peace and joy in the safety of his own home.
It’s hard to live with that much uncertainty.
Sometimes we embrace life like Dietrich – with complete confidence about each step. Other times we are like Reggie – tentatively stepping out, hoping not to bang our heads against a wall.
Last week we talked about the uncertainty of our faith… do we have enough? Is it enough to change our world?
This week we’re going to look at the uncertainty in forgiveness.
The topic of forgiveness is fraught with emotions. We all constantly live in the tension between those we need to forgive and those who need to forgive us.
This might be the most difficult subject for me. Not because I don’t know the scriptures well enough. Not because I have any doubt about what God’s forgiveness feels like. Not because I haven’t done my research… but because I know that I still have work to do within my own life around forgiveness – forgiving myself and forgiving others.
So, as we look at this topic today through the lens of Christian faithfulness, I do not present myself as a master of this skill. I am a fellow journeyer sharing some of the things I am learning along the way.
How well do we Forgive?
In the Lord’s prayer we pray this line: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”
Which gives us pause to ponder: Are we extending the quality of forgiveness that we want God to extend to us?
Saying, “I’m sorry,” is often not enough. Forgiving people for the wounds they inflict on us, or our loved ones is hard.
Sometimes we can’t let go of the hurt.
Sometimes we think we let go of the hurt, but we get triggered again.
Sometimes the apology is negated when the behavior is repeated.
Extending forgiveness makes us vulnerable to being hurt again… but a lack of forgiveness makes us vulnerable to being bitter.
Here’s what Matthew 18:21-22 says about forgiveness:
21 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times?”
22 Jesus said, “Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times
How do we forgive the unthinkable?
When I lived in Brighton, there was a financial advisor in town who was highly successful. He had a nice storefront on Grand River. He funded a new scoreboard for the local high school. He had a beautiful home in town and another in Florida. He was regularly seen driving his Ferrari around.
In 2013 he and his son were convicted of defrauding people of $50 million. He was running a Ponzi scheme. And he had bilked people, including a few I knew, out of their entire retirements.
It was a big deal. Lots of people who had worked hard, saved hard or inherited generously – now faced uncertain futures. It is awful hard to let go of something like that, when you’re still working at 75 or even 80 because of their actions.
“Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?”
Seventy-seven times doesn’t mean you have a finite number, just shy of 80, that you must attempt before giving up.
In Biblical numerology, the number 7 means completion or perfection.
So, when Jesus says, “Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times.” He acknowledges that forgiveness is not a straight pathway. Forgiveness is a spiral. You will circle back to old feelings of pain, hurt, betrayal – anger, more than once. You’re going to have to repeat the steps until you’ve mastered them – until the forgiveness is complete.
One of my daughters had a teacher whose 18-year-old child was hit by a drunk driver. She suffered plenty of broken bones, spent months in the hospital and has a traumatic brain injury substantive enough that she will live in supportive housing for the rest of her life.
The car that hit her was orange. And her mom, for years afterward experienced a visceral reaction when she saw an orange car on the roadways. Her anxiety and anger were triggered.
Every time she left the house she stepped into the fog of uncertainty as to whether she would be involuntarily thrust back into the storm of emotions from the day her daughter’s life changed.
Over and over again she came face-to-face with her pain. Her journey to forgiveness led her to acknowledge her pain as it arose – every single time; to honestly discern how it was impacting her life; and to practice strategies to mitigate the pain’s ability to divert her emotional energy from her present pursuits.
The spiraling journey to forgiveness begins with:
Deciding to forgive - to let go of any ill will.
Acknowledging the pain, feeling the pain, and not judging ourselves for it.
Naming the ways the pain impacts our lives.
Learning ways to limit the pain’s impact on other parts of our lives.
And then we repeat… again and again… not seven times. Not seventy-seven times. We repeat until it is complete, and there’s no need to do it again.
Forgiveness and Relationships
When we do this work well, we can see the other person as more than the offender who wounded us. We can see their whole selves: Beloved children of God, flawed and gifted, wounded and wounding. This can be really hard when it is someone within our intimate circle - who wounds us.
It is not unusual for grown siblings to fight and quit speaking to each other after the death of a parent. Most often it is premised on conflict about end-of-life care or about property in the estate. But it’s usually rooted in resentments that go further back than that… and unforgiveness sets in.
About 25% of marriages experience infidelity. 80-85% of those, end in divorce. infidelity can foster a lot of resentment. If left unresolved that resentment can carry into relationships that may follow.
About 10% of people are estranged from a parent or a child. That’s painful for both parties… and for the people around them. The power dynamics in parent-child relationships make it difficult to address issues as they arise, so by the time estrangement occurs, there are likely volumes of unforgiven slights poisoning the waters.
Let me be clear: When I speak of forgiveness, I’m not talking about restoring a relationship to its previous status. You cannot go backward and undo what has been done. The people in the relationship have been changed by the experience. If we choose to stay in relationship with each other, the relationship will be different.
Choosing to end a relationship where we have experienced betrayal, is a holy and sacred decision for self-care.
Choosing to stay in a relationship where there has been significant pain is also a holy and sacred decision.
When I speak of forgiveness, I am talking about finding enough healing that we are no longer burdened by the past in ways we do not want. Forgiveness is an inner sense of peace, love, joy and safety for the person forgiving.
I’m sure we’ve all heard it said, “withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
When we let the seeds of distrust, fear and bitterness take root in our hearts, we give the perpetrator the power to poison another day in our lives. Sometimes even another relationship.
The Forgiveness End-Game
Forgiveness is not a singular event. It’s an ongoing growth process that circles back time and time again, with a little less weight each time. Each time we circle through these stages of forgiveness, we wonder – Are we done yet? Or are we going to have to revisit this again?
Here are a few benchmarks to ask yourself, if you are uncertain:
Can we think of them without thinking of the hurt they caused us?
Can we think positive thoughts about them?
Are we still entertaining thoughts of revenge?
Have we stopped looking for them to fail?
That can take a while.
So how do we find joy, peace and grace while living immersed in the uncertainty of forgiveness?
Very few of us can live forever with the confidence of Dietrich. Darting through life brave and sure. Never doubting our own goodness, never been hurt by the world.
If that is your story – know that you are the envy of many.
Most of us live more like Reggie. We’ve fallen off a few edges in our days. Our ability to see the world clearly is clouded by our years of experiences.
We crave peace, joy and grace in life.
Last week’s scripture from Mark 9:23 told us:
“All things are possible for the one who has faith.”
Forgiveness is possible with faith.
Faith that forgiveness is holy work
Faith that God is with us each step of the way
Faith that perpetrator and victim are both beloved children of God
Faith that whether we ever fully arrive at forgiveness or not, the work of trying is the Way of Christ
Faith will not make the forgiveness journey painless. Faith merely gives us the resilience to keep on trying; and the reminder that there is always redemption waiting on the other side of our pain.
We have faith that at the end of the day, we rest safely in the arms of God.
Forgiveness is tough and sacred work.
But there is a whole lot of joy, peace and grace left in this world when we’re willing to make ourselves vulnerable to experiencing it.
Our assignment for this week’s Praying for Strangers project is to pray for someone who needs forgiveness and to pray for someone who needs to forgive. As you go about your week, take notice of people who seem to be in a conflict:
At the grocery store
In the neighborhood
At work
Or in traffic
Say a prayer for them.
Maybe you’ll hear about someone in a dispute with a family member.
You can always pray for the residents of the local jail or a rehabilitation center.
Pray for a stranger who is lost in the uncertainty of forgiveness.
Amen
PLEASE PRAY WITH ME:
"God our Creator,
we come before you seeking the grace to forgive, both ourselves and those who have hurt us. As you have forgiven us countless times, help us to extend that same mercy and understanding to others. May our hearts be filled with compassion, and our minds be free from bitterness and resentment. Grant us the strength to learn from, grow and then release the past.
We pray for all who live in uncertainty. May their faith give them confidence, even in their vulnerability. May their faith remind them that they are more than their worst decisions of actions. May their faith guide them through the fog and land them safely in your arms.
Jesus our redeemer,
Bring forth strength and goodness from our pains.
Holy Spirit,
Move mightily in our hearts. Give us voices willing to speak a prophetic truth to the forces of wickedness that seem to have so much power in our world. Give us strength to resist evil in all its forms. Give us courage to stand shoulder to shoulder with the persecuted. We pray for your will to be done, as we pray the Lord’s Prayer, saying:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Benediction:
Go boldly, comforted by the forgiveness that God offers you.
Go humbly, knowing that someone is working on forgiving you.
Go encouraged, that with faith all things are possible.
Amen
