And now, O God, we humbly ask that the peace of Christ might rule in  our hearts, that you would silence in our hearts any voice but your  own, so that hearing your word, we might also come to obey your  will, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” 

Friends, this is the ultimate lesson in all of scripture on the subject of forgiveness.

It seems that, in 2020, forgiveness is the last thing many Americans plan to do. 

There is an epitaph in a cemetery in Atlanta that a woman had inscribed on the tomb of her adulterous husband. The epitaph said, “Gone, but not forgiven.” Some of you may relate to that emotion. 

Forgiveness is not easy. And yet not forgiving can take an even greater toll on us than forgiving ever could. 

In the movie The Upside of Anger, Joan Allen plays the role of Terry, an angry housewife, with four daughters. 

Terry is angry because her husband (Kevin Costner) has run off with his secretary to live in Sweden. 

As the plot unfolds, the viewer becomes involved in her relationships with her four daughters.

These relationships are all complicated and dysfunctional because of the rage that Terry holds against her former husband. 

She takes some satisfaction in finally hearing at least some of her daughters say, “We hate Dad, too!”

At the end of the movie, they are exploring acreage in back of the house for a new subdivision that is to be built. The workers uncover an old well, and what do they find when they look inside?! 

Terry’s husband, the one who was supposed to have run off to Sweden with the secretary, but who apparently fell in a well and drowned while walking the dog. 

So the infidelity never happened except in Terry’s mind. But because she imagined that it did happen, Terry lived with immense feelings of abandonment. 

She adopts a lifestyle of alcoholism and jealous rage, of malicious anger. And she almost ruins the lives of those closest to her in the process. 

It is a sad, sad story. Even if her husband betrayed her and abandoned her, surely forgiveness would have been a healthier response for all concerned than a lifetime of anger and resentment.

Anger and resentment take an enormous toll. IT POISONS THE HEART AND SOUL.

Psychiatrist Dr. M. Scott Peck, says in his book The Road Less Traveled, that unless we are able to at least move toward the work of forgiving the person who hurt us, even the person who does not deserve our forgiveness, there will not be mental health.

Forgiveness is not easy. And yet, not forgiving can take a greater toll on us than forgiving ever could. 

Forgiveness is not easy as Jesus declares: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

“When someone strikes you on the cheek, turn the other cheek.” (Matthew 5:39)

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…

“Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)

We are even to forgive our enemies. Why? 

Because God has forgiven us while we were sinners, enemies of God!

We in turn are to forgive those who have sinned against us, who have become our enemies!.

Forgiveness is hard—

This brings us to the final thing to be said: forgiveness is only possible by God’s grace. If someone has hurt you, deeply hurt you, forgiveness IS possible only if you offer your hurt to God. 

O how hard it is to hear the commandment to forgive. 

It has been said: “We who follow Christ are always being commanded to do things we cannot do. We are commanded to love, to serve without counting the cost. 

The hardest of all is the commandment to forgive. We are bidden to do it, not because it is possible on our own, but because as we try what we are commanded to do, IT IS GIVEN TO US AS A GIFT FROM GOD.”

In her powerful autobiography entitled The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom tells of her experience after World War II.

She was preaching at a church service on the subject of forgiveness. As she left the pulpit and came down to the center of the sanctuary, 

She noticed a man coming toward her, his hand extended.

She recognized him as the chief guard at the prison camp where her sister had died and where both of them had been incarcerated. 

His face was beaming as he said, “‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,’ To think that, as you say, He washed my sins away.’” 

Corrie Ten Boom found herself paralyzed as the guard thrust out his hand to shake hers. She could not raise her hand from her side. 

“Even as the vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. . . I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of love or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him, give me your forgiveness.” 

She writes she was able to move her hand, and as she touched his hand, flesh to flesh, “from my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him . . . and so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness  any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges but on [Christ]. When he tells us to love our enemies, he gives, along with the command, the love itself”

Brothers and Sisters, We must forgive, not only because of what anger and resentment will do to us, but because forgiveness comes from the heart of God. 

We forgive because of the immensity of God’s forgiveness in our behalf. 

As our country suffers in this period of political anger and violence— This is a difficult commandment. 

What it requires of us is nothing less than a new heart of God’s love. Will you pray for that new heart today? 

We are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in fragmented world. As part of the one body of Christ, we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.

Closing Prayer

In this holy sanctuary, we sense the peace of your presence and the refreshment  of your grace. Here, we come with open hearts, seeking a new resurrection life  with Christ, willing to let go of persistent fears, lingering resentments, and  misplaced priorities, because we know that clinging to those things muddies the  waters of our souls. 

Give us the awareness and the desire to begin afresh by the power of your Spirit  within us. Bless this community that this bread and this cup might always offer  the deep unending springs of grace and power.

Shepherd of our souls, we turn to you with each concern we have carried with us  this morning – some of our worries seem too trivial to lift to you – but you have  invited us to bring all that we are in prayer. 

Some have pressing financial struggles with few solutions, others are caring for  spouses or parents or children and need to feel your encouragement. Others are  feeling fear or discouragement that steals their joy. 

Still others of us are caught up in worry over the world around us and need your  calming presence. During these trying times, we pray that whatever forces may  threaten to divide us, you would unite us in the knowledge that you alone are  Lord, and that you are the One in whom we trust. We bring to you our deepest  worries, Lord, you know the words behind each of our silences so in these  moments we lift them to you.

O God of us all, make of our hearts a welcoming space for each person, teaching  us to first offer to others the gift of acceptance that we have experienced from  you. And then, rooted in your acceptance, enable us to live lives that reflect the  glory of your presence within us, that we might be a sacred accepting space for  others because of Jesus.  And now as one voice, we offer the prayer Christ taught us 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 debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.