Forgive Us

We pray for forgiveness when we pray the Lord's Prayer. But we also ask that we might be able to forgive. What exactly is that, anyway? Is it just forgetting what people have done to us? Or is it something else? This sermon suggests that it might be a way to free us from our past and enable us to begin again. What do you think?

Forgiveness. That’s what we ask for next as we pray the Lord’s Prayer. We pray that we might be forgiven; and we pray that God might help us to forgive, too. Forgiveness is the most difficult practice that God asks us to do. It is also the most misunderstood.

Maybe that’s because forgiving is all tangled up with forgetting. You know the saying: “Forgive and forget.” The trouble is that the hurts that we have the most trouble forgetting are the very ones that we most need to forgive! Little hurts that are quickly forgotten aren’t the problem. It’s the big hurts, the ones that leave us with scars so deep that they become a part of our very being – those are the hurts that we need to forgive. And those are the very ones that keep us mired in pain and resentment. So let’s get rid of that misunderstanding right now. Forgiving is not necessarily forgetting. Some things we simply can’t forget.

Forgiving is also not a warm, fuzzy feeling that we experience. I’m not sure that anyone, anywhere has ever felt like forgiving someone who has hurt them. Forgiveness is not a feeling that we have; it is a choice that we make. We choose to forgive because God has forgiven us; and because God has instructed us to forgive others; and because we know that forgiveness is for our own good in the end. I was reminded of this recently on the occasion of Nelson Mandela’s death. Nelson Mandela was jailed when he was just a young man, and eventually spent 27 years behind bars. He spent 18 years of that time in a damp concrete cell measuring 7 feet by 8 feet, and he had only a mat of straw on which to sleep. He was frequently abused and harassed by white prison guards, and was often locked in solitary confinement. He was permitted only one visit and one letter every 6 months. While he was in prison, his mother died, and then his oldest son was killed in an automobile accident. He was forbidden to attend either funeral. After his release, he reflected on his time in prison. “They took away everything I had,” he said. “They took away my marriage, my children, my freedom. But they could not take away my soul; and I would not give them that. I chose to forgive them.”

Nelson Mandela was on to something when he forgave his jailers. He knew that refusing to forgive chains you to the past more effectively than any physical ties could ever bind. When we refuse to forgive, in the words of William Faulkner, “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” When we refuse to forgive, we allow the hurts of the past to scar us over and over and over again. When we refuse to forgive, it’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. When we refuse to forgive, the only one that we hurt is ourselves.

But we have a choice. We can choose to forgive, no matter how deep our wounds have been. And God has set the example for us. God loves us despite the bone-headed things that we do all the time. God understands that we are stupid, arrogant, and stubborn – even though we don’t like to admit it – and that we frequently do what we do out of anger or pride or ignorance. So God cuts us a break. God gives us a chance to start over with the slate wiped clean. That’s what forgiveness is all about, after all. It’s about putting the past in the past – where it belongs – and being able to start all over again in the future.

That’s difficult for us human beings to do. Let’s face it, we love nursing grudges and hanging on to old hurts. We hang onto old wounds like a security blanket. We call on the idea of justice, and the reality that actions have consequences. But when we’re on the wrong side of that justice – when we are the ones who have hurt someone else – then it’s not nearly so attractive. That’s when we ask for mercy and compassion. After all, we don’t want to be defined by what we have done in the past! And in God’s goodness, God lets us start over again. God offers us the forgiveness that we crave. How can we do any less to those who have hurt us? Jesus set the forgiveness bar high when he prayed from the cross, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

I saw the power of forgiveness at work very recently as it surrounded Fred Phelps. You may not know that name, but I’ll bet that you know the person. Fred Phelps is the troubled, hate-filled man who founded Westboro Baptist Church. The group isn’t really a church at all, but an extended family cult whose sole purpose appears to be hating everyone who doesn’t conform to their particular way of thinking. The group is notorious for picketing the funerals of soldiers who have been killed in action, holding signs containing hate-filled slogans like “Thank God for September 11,” “God hates fags,” and “You’re all going to hell.”

Fred Phelps died about three weeks ago. As he lay on his deathbed, an entry in an online blog called for all of those who had been wounded by Phelps’ hatred to forgive him. It read in part, “May you be released from the bondage of hate and bigotry. I forgive you. May you also be able to forgive yourself.” The ensuing comments – and there were many – were all over the map. Some simply could not get past the hate that Phelps had shown. One responder wrote, “Trust me, this horrible piece of [dung] will never see God.” (I’ve censored the word that was really used.) Another wrote, “Let the man die in obscurity and oblivion in the historical grave he dug for himself.” And a third suggested, “[We should picket his funeral] with a sign saying, ‘God hates the Westboro Church.’”

I can understand their feelings. It is always easiest to return hate for hate, especially when the hate is so very deep and unprovoked. What caused Fred Phelps to justify his hatred by focusing on a few isolated scripture verses while ignoring all the ones that testify to God’s love and mercy? What caused Fred Phelps to be so full of hate in the first place? We’ll never know. But we do know that his unreasoning hatred deeply wounded the families of the men and women whose funerals he picketed.  If anyone has the right to deny forgiveness and to return hate for hate, it is those survivors.

But I also know something else. I know that hate will not win in the end. It is doomed to be defeated by love, compassion, and forgiveness. What happened when Fred Phelps was finally laid to rest? What happened when the Westboro Baptist Church held their first protest after the funeral? They were picketed by folks who had something to say to them. But it wasn’t what you might have expected. Directly across the street from the Westboro Church protest was a huge sign that required several people to carry it. It read, “Sorry for your loss.” That, my friends, is forgiveness at work.

Martin Luther King said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” And I would add, only the grace of forgiveness can release us from the past and allow us to begin again. “Father, forgive us, because we don’t know what we’re doing. And help us to forgive others, because they usually don’t know what they’re doing, either.”