MEETING CHRIST IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

                                               Forgive Us

                                             Matthew 6:7-15

 

Pastor Robyn Hogue                          March 24, 2013                        Skyline Presbyterian Church

 

 

We think of Robert Louis Stevenson for his famous works Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Robert Louis Stevenson was also a Christian, a Scottish Presbyterian Christian at that. One Sunday Stevenson suddenly left a worship service. He had not been well, so his wife was concerned and went after him to see if he was all right. As Mrs. Stevenson recounted it in the book she wrote, her husband was all right, but he was feeling a sense of shock and anger at learning of some unexpected treachery on the part of one whom he had every reason to trust. He told her, “I had to leave. I am not yet fit to say, ‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.’“

Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt unable to pray this prayer because of some long held grudge, some pent up hurt? Or, more likely, have you just tended to mouth, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” without much thought? 

Forgiveness is something with which we are all familiar. We appreciate being forgiven when we have done wrong. We know that forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus Christ lived and died so that we might be forgiven. Christianity and forgiveness are inseparable. 

When I was a child of eleven, my best friend’s brother hit a baseball through a neighbor’s window. He knew that he should confess his crime and face the consequences. As he did that I believe my support took the form of prayer, as he walked up to the neighbor’s door, that there would be no one at home. Ding-dong. No one answered the bell!

That evening, his sister told his parents what had happened and they insisted that he go back and try again. Reluctantly, he did, and this time there was someone at home. At the door he explained what he had done and offered to make restitution. The lady of the house invited him inside, handed him a dust pan and broom and asked him to clean up the broken window. He did, and he again offered to pay for it. She told him that she appreciated his honesty in confessing what had happened and that she would help him earn the money by doing chores around her home and help her husband put in the replacement window. The woman did something else quite remarkable. She made sure that the boy knew he was welcome in the neighborhood; that their future relationship held no barriers. He never felt such a sense of relief in his life! He felt so clean, so relieved, so forgiven! This is exactly what Jesus does for us on the Cross. He will not always be able to save us from the consequences of our sins, but His love extends to us so that we know we have an open relationship with Him in the future.

We need forgiveness because we are guilty. Did you notice this prayer is not a negotiation? This prayer does not say: “Lord, watch how generous we have been toward those who have offended us; now please be generous to us in view of these achieved credits that have accumulated to our benefit.” It is rather, “Lord, please grant us forgiveness and help us to share the forgiveness we receive with those nearby who also need forgiveness.”

C.S. Lewis has captured the profound implication of this in the way he portrays Aslan’s relationship with the characters in the seven stories of the Chronicles of Narnia. Digory, for example, in the Magician’s Nephew, discovers the immense creative power of Aslan, the great golden Lion, Son of the Emperor from beyond the sea. But a deep worry is heavy upon Digory’s heart when he remembers the grave illness of his mother who is back in England while Digory has been caught up in his wondrous adventures in Narnia. Digory’s worry is heightened because he does not know the rules of Narnia: that time spent in Narnia uses up no time in the other world of England.

Just at that point, Aslan calls to Digory to send him on a long and dangerous mission. Listen to Lewis as he narrates this encounter:

“Son of Adam, said Aslan, “are you ready …?”

“Yes,” said Digory. He had had for a second some wild idea of saying “I’ll try to help you if you’ll promise to help my Mother,” but he realized in time that the Lion was not at all the sort of person one could try to make bargains with. But when he had said, “Yes”… a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out: “But please, please—wont’ you—can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?”

That is precisely the Bible’s teaching on prayer: we are to blurt out our deepest needs to the Lord because Jesus asks us to do that very thing. It is in no sense a bargain; it is in every sense even more daring than a bargain. It is coming in to the presence of God with our real selves and with our deepest cares.

We are to blurt out our need for forgiveness. The prayer that Jesus teaches creates a connection between our experience of the forgiveness of our sinfulness and our inescapable obligation toward the sinners who surround us. The second half of this petition has been very challenging not only to those who speak the prayer but also to interpreters of the prayer who want to understand its meaning. Our Lord follows the text of the prayer with an additional sentence that further strengthens the importance of this second half of the petition: “For if you forgive others their sins against you, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive others their sins, neither will your Father forgive your sins.”

This part of the Lord’s Prayer makes it plain that Jesus does not expect that His disciples will live their discipleship in an ideal setting free from the threat of sin and its harm. Jesus is fully aware of His disciples’ need for forgiveness, and also that they will live their lives in places where they will encounter the sins of other people toward them.

Christ links the forgiveness of sin to our forgiving, so that forever after, He would obligate the Christians to love. When we forgive other people then it is by that act that we experience the assurance that our own forgiveness by Jesus Christ is real. In other words we have exercised grace and found it sufficient. When we meet the one who speaks these words and teaches this prayer we meet the one who makes forgiveness possible because Jesus Christ himself has fulfilled this prayer.

There is a story about an old Maori woman in the country of New Zealand who had earned a reputation for being an argumentative, combative person, for which she received the nickname of “Warrior Brown.” She would become especially belligerent when she became drunk and angry.

However, Warrior Brown’s life was changed, when by the grace of God and the love of some missionaries, she accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. One day at an outdoor worship service someone in the crowd threw a potato at her, bruising her face. The woman quietly picked up the potato and put it into her pocket. Then she went home. Had this incident happened before Ms. Brown’s conversion to Christ, the potato hurler would have had to flee or risk life and limb.

Nothing more happened in relation to this incident until much later when the church held its annual Harvest Festival. “Warrior Brown” had become a fine gardener, and she brought with her a sack of good potatoes. What she had done was to plant in God’s good earth the insulting potato which was hurled at her in hostility, and this potato had brought an increase as it became an offering of love to Jesus Christ.

The gift Warrior Brown brought that day to the Harvest Festival was much more than a sack of potatoes. The real gift, the one that cost her something, was the offering of a forgiving heart, absent of hatred and resentment. May it be so with us. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us…”