Just Do It!

There is a story that is told of a Spanish father and his teenaged son, Paco. The relationship between the father and son became increasingly tense and strained until, finally, the son ran away from home.  Distraught that the conflict had led to this, the boy's father began a journey in search of his runaway son, but was unable to find him.  After a long search, the father, as a last resort, put an ad in a local newspaper in Madrid. The ad read: “Dear Paco, Meet me in front of the newspaper office tomorrow at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father.”  The next day at noon in front of the newspaper office were eight hundred boys with the name Paco… all of them seeking forgiveness!

When you read the whole story of Joseph and his brothers, you realize that the brothers had strong provocation to do what they did.  Joseph was the older son of Jacob’s beloved wife, Rachel, and, while he was born late in Jacob’s life, he was favored by his father from the day of his birth.  It was his father who gave him the coat of many colors that so angered his brothers.  It was Joseph who had dreams of greatness – of his brothers bowing down to him and being subject to him – dreams that Joseph bragged about and, in that way, angered his brothers even more.  His father’s favoritism and his own arrogance led to his being sold into slavery in Egypt.

Yet, if you read the story, you also learn that the brothers later regretted their actions and were saddened by the way in which Joseph’s disappearance hurt their father.  How do you undo a wrong?  How do you live with the knowledge of what you have done?  Yet, despite the wrong that was done to him, somehow Joseph prospered in all that he did, eventually becoming second only to Pharaoh in power in Egypt.  A wealthy and powerful man, he did not even have to acknowledge his brothers when they came to Egypt.  And he had the power to turn them away… to send them home without any food.  For all that he had suffered at their hands, Joseph could have done that.  Yet, despite all that his brothers had done to him, Joseph chose to forgive them… and to leave the pain of the past behind.

The words of the “Lord’s Prayer” make it clear that we are to forgive others before we dare to ask God for forgiveness ourselves.  In the passage that Diane Netherland read this morning, we see that, in the “Lord’s Prayer” Jesus said, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”  Jesus went on to say, “If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”  It sure sounds like our receiving forgiveness from God is contingent upon our willingness and commitment to forgive those we believe have wronged us.  And the obvious conclusion is that we need to just do it! 

Do you remember when, as a child, you were forced by some adult to "forgive" someone who was first forced to say "I’m sorry" to you?  When you think of those times, do you believe that the perpetrator of the crime was truly repentant?  Do you believe that you, the victim, truly forgave that person?  It is possible, I suppose, but it was certainly not true of those times when I had to say “I’m sorry” or to forgive the one who wronged me.  I think, if we were honest, we would agree that this charade by children more often became a temporary cessation of hostilities to keep the grown-ups happy while, for us, there was the full intent to do more violence – and not get caught this time – or to get revenge later – when no adult could see us.

Does ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ really work in this instance?   Well, yes… and no.  Adults force children through this ritual because strife in a family or group of kids is unbearably painful; and they want to teach.  Going through the motions of saying “I’m sorry” and forgiving another does give at least a temporary reprieve... and, hopefully, it teaches that forgiveness is a conscious choice, not an emotional feeling.  But God's pain is more acute when God witnesses our conflict with each other, and God’s solution aims a little deeper than simply the words that are said or some superficial truce.  God is aiming not at hypocritical play-acting, but at truth from the inside out.

Sometimes, this childish pantomime of "forgiveness" carries into adulthood as a superficial substitute for the real thing. We somehow think that by "saying so", we have achieved what the Bible asks of us.  But do we truly believe that God is fooled by these actions?  Are we?   Is there ever a place where we can escape God’s penetrating examination of our lives? Doesn’t God see the secret meditation of revenge or the bitter hatred behind the nice smile? Since when has God been impressed with mere words when our hearts do not match the words that we speak?

Is it easy to do – this forgiveness thing?  No.  It is not easy to do, but it is something that our Lord commands us to do.  It is a decision that we can make… no, a decision that we must make.  The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the church at Colossae, wrote, “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”  God does not tell us to wait until we feel like forgiving the person that wronged us… God has told us to forgive even in the face of grave injustice… and the example we have is the example of our Savior hanging on the cross.  In his final words, he prays to his Father, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  In the face of that example, how can you or I hold a grudge against our neighbor… against a friend… against a member of our own family… against a fellow Christian... for anything?   Have we ever been so wronged?

God asks us to forgive by faith, out of obedience to God.  Since forgiveness goes against our nature, we must forgive by faith, whether we feel like it or not.  We must trust God to do the work in us that needs to be done so that our forgiveness will be complete. I believe God honors our commitment to obey Him and our desire to please him when we choose to forgive.  God completes the work in us… in his time. We must continue to forgive – for that is our responsibility – until the work of forgiveness – which belongs to God – is done in our hearts.  There is another story which illustrates this.

In her book, The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp system, tells a story of how challenging forgiveness can be.  She once spoke at a church service in Munich.  On that day, after the service, she saw a man she had not seen for many years, but she remembered him well.  His face had been emblazoned upon her mind. He was a former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center of the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Seeing him now brought back a flood of memories – of a room full of mocking men… of stacks of clothing on the floor… of her sister, Betsie's, pain-filled face.

The former SS man came up to her as the church was emptying and said, "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein," he said. "To think, as you say, God has washed my sins away."  He reached out to shake hands with Corrie Ten Boom, but she could not move her arm. As she stood there, with the anger boiling up in her, she knew it was wrong, and she prayed to herself, "Lord, forgive me and help me forgive him." She tried to smile and struggled to raise her hand, but she felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth. She breathed again a silent prayer: "Lord, I cannot forgive him, forgive me." As she took the man's hand, the most incredible thing happened. Corrie Ten Boom said it felt like a current of electricity ran down her arm to him, and suddenly she felt an overwhelming love for this stranger she had hated for so long.

She discovered that it is not on our forgiveness, any more than on our goodness, that the world's healing hinges.  It is upon God's. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, along with the command, he gives us the power both to forgive and to love. There are some things which lie so far beyond our own strength that it is only with God’s power that we can do it.   But God’s power is perfected in our weakness… and through our weakness, God is glorified. As the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the church at Corinth, “[God] is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Not that forgiving another is a one-time thing:  Peter came to Jesus and asked him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?"  Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”  When was the last time that you gave anyone even seven chances?  Too often, we give each other just one or two chances… and, after that, we carry our injured pride around like a trophy.  Jesus’ rebuke of such behavior is stinging.  In his Sermon on the Mount, he says, “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I will admit that there are times when even I have nursed a hurt too long.  When I look back over my life, I now see how much time was wasted by my own “pity parties.” Yes, we are human… and therefore, less than perfect.  Can we learn to accept that in others and give them the love… grace… patience and forbearance that God has given to us? Think how it would change our own community of faith if that could be!  Can it be?  We won’t know until we try.  So, maybe Nike was right after all:  Just do it.  Just do it and let God bless our lives with the fruit of that decision.  Amen.

Genesis 45:1-15