Forgiveness

A brief word to you from me about forgiveness.

Some people use a study guide or plan to read the bible, some dip in and out, others, it is fair to say, scarcely read their bible at all.  In our church we are taught to consume the bible in as large quantities as we are able, and to allow it to soak into us and speak to us.  At the moment I have been reading the gospels, currenlty into John.  One interesting thing that comes out from going through the bible in order is that when in the gospels, you get a nice bit of repetition going with some of the parables and miracles.

One particular parable has stood out for me of late, found in Matthew 18:23-35, and doubtlessly elsewhere, if not in Mark, then in Luke.  In this parable, a servant owes lots of money to his master, and begs and pleads to be let off the debt.  He is, and then after leaving his master's home, he finds someone who owes money to him, a far smaller debt than he has been let off, and beats this man and puts him in jail until he can pay.  When the master finds out, he is angry, and sends the first servant to be tortured until he can pay.

It's a familiar tale no doubt.  I acted it out in front of my fellow Year 7 students in a special Junior Christian Union assembly at Olaves.  You know who you are supposed to be, and you know what it is asking of you.  You know that Jesus is not messing about.

Another scripture: Mark 11:25-26.  This one is similarly no nonsense, but it's harder; it frames forgiveness in a harder light.  If you remain in unforgiveness, you will not be forgiven.  This poses questions, or it should.  Because we believe that all of our sins are going to be forgiven when we believed that Jesus died for us.  Don't we? And we're right to believe that.  Yet here is Jesus saying not just "forgive us as we forgive others" but straight up "if you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven".

Our minds here say that we are prepared to compromise a little bit.  Do we really believe this? I suspect not; I know that there are scriptures that we ignore.  Do we try to keep to this scripture (Matthew 5:48): "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect"? I'm not telling you that you won't be saved if you don't forgive you brother or your neighbour, or if you are not perfect, but what the bible tells us on this is clear: if you are going to be a Christian, God is not expecting you to fail to forgive anyone for anything.

Which I'm sure we will say is fine ... until something happens that we really can't forgive anyone for.

Do you have anything you couldn't forgive someone for? Shall I be blunt? You do.  Do you have kids? Would you forgive Roy Whiting? Would you forgive Ian Huntley?  Would you forgive Venables and Thompson? I am acquainted with someone who killed their mum.  If that was your brother would you forgive him?

The above parable makes it clear to you that you have to forgive anyone anything, and for you to punish them (and remember Christ's interpretation of murder during the Sermon on the Mount) would be entirely hypocritical given how much you have been forgiven.  You are a Christian? Forgive.  Anything.  By anyone.  Christ forgave the thief to his left (or right?) after one moment of heartfelt contrition.  He forgave those killing him when he had committed no sin.  You must forgive.

So the real question is how? Not if, but how?

The answer here lies in covenant.  We are receiving teaching about covenant at the moment at church.  Covenant is a binding agreement, like a pact or a treaty but stronger.  An agreement that is understood that it will not be broken.  An agreement forged through sacrifice and blood.  An agreement that sees an exchange of responsibilities, of authority, and of power.  If you are covenanted to me, what is mine is yours.  Those I have authority over, you have authority over.  My army is your army.  And yours is mine.  This was symbolised in ancient times by an exchange of the mantle, an exchange of coats.

Some people came into covenant out of convenience, or fear.  The Gibeonites in Joshua 9 were scared of the Israelites, who had been comanded to slay all of their neighbours.  So they tricked their way into a covenant so they would be protected.  this was a covenant between a mighty force, and a lesser one, who covenanted out of protection.  Our covenant with God is like this: His power, might and strength know no end; yours? Not so much.  His wisdom is flawless.  Yours? I'm pretty sure you would admit it's far from it. 

So your covenant, your binding, unbreakable agreement, is extremely beneficial.  Through this covenant, the disciples were given the same ability to cast out demons, heal the sick, raise the dead that Christ used.  The power of the Holy Spirit is like the mantle that has been given to those who believe: it is by this indwelling spirit that we are able to perform the same works that Jesus did.  We have received his power and authority.  It is the covenant in action.  I believe also that the answer to how we are able to forgive the things that we would previously have marked as "unforgivable" lies in covenant: we are covenanted to an entity, the Lord God Almighty, who has the mercy to forgive everyone that ever lived the most appalling sins, be they in thought, word or deed.  This ability to forgive, this power of forgiveness, is ours through our covenant with God.

BUT, and here is the major but, we have requirements under the same covenant.  Firstly there are the binding terms of the covenant, those set out by Jesus, the commandments for us to follow.  But more important is the very underpinning point of the covenant: if we are to take on the mantle of God, we must give him our mantle.  As I said earlier, our mantle is fairly insignificant; our strengths do not compare to his, our kingdom is one of dirt (yeah, its paraphrased Johnny Cash), compared to His of glory, but we do have a mantle.  We have authority, we have strengths, and we have a life.  And if we want His mantle, we have to surrender ours, and give it to Him.  And another of His terms is this: He will not share us.  We do not covenant with Him and anyone else.  We must not be found worshipping elsewhere.

So what am I saying, how can I draw this together? When Christ speaks about forgiveness, there is no room for manouvere.  You forgive anyone anything, or you will not be forgiven by God.  Since our entire faith is based on a belief in the forgiveness of our sins, we had better be ready to forgive.  I suspect that we are secretly (or not so secretly) ready to forgive anyone anything.  But in the truth of our covenental position lies this promise: the same power that enabled Christ to forgive as he fought for breath on the cross will work through you if we stay in our covenant position.  We do this by surrendering all we have, and worshipping God and God alone.

I'm not going to claim that any of this is easy.  But we have no choice but to forgive; you can play the odds that Christ didn't mean what he said, but I won't.  The tools for forgiveness are there.  Let us use them.

Yes, I did indeed say brief; scratch that.

Bless.