50/20 Vision

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Genesis 50:15-21; Mark 15:21-32

April 28, 2013 • Portage First UMC

I have an ailment known as myopia. Taken from two Greek words, “myopia” means “to shut the eye,” but as it’s come down to us, it’s more commonly known as nearsightedness. If I was in England, like Pastor Deb and Wanda, I would be called “shortsighted.” Myopia develops when the light that comes into our eyes doesn’t focus on the retina, but rather focuses in front of it. That causes things that are far away to be blurry. Or, in my case, it causes most things to be blurry. Without my contacts or glasses, I feel like the man by the pool of Bethsaida who told Jesus, “I see people; they look like trees walking around” (Mark 8:24). My vision, it seems, has always been pretty bad. I don’t remember ever seeing well, though I do remember getting my first glasses somewhere around the third grade. With contacts or glasses, my vision is much closer to the ideal, 20/20. That standard, those numbers, means that a person can see a chart of letters clearly at a distance of 20 feet. 20/40 vision means that person can see clearly at 20 feet what someone with optimal vision can see at 40 feet. I’m not sure what my last prescription was, but I can see about this far in front of my face without help.

Vision is important. For many people, one of their greatest fears is the fear of losing their vision, their eyesight. In fact, in a study carried out just a few years ago, twice as many people were found to be afraid of losing their eyesight as were afraid of premature death or heart disease. We worry that we won’t be able to take care of ourselves, or worry that we’ll be rendered useless or helpless if we lose our eyesight. And yet, while we worry about losing our physical eyesight, few of us worry, really worry, about losing our vision. Eyesight is different than vision, because vision is having a sense of where we’re headed in life. I hear couples on the verge of divorce say things like, “We just grew apart.” And yet, at some point, they had a common vision, a sense of what they both wanted life to be like. When was the vision lost, and why was no one paying attention? Or we see churches close. Every year, at Annual Conference, we read a list of churches that are being closed or have closed that year. And no matter how many ways we try to spin it, like saying they have “completed their mission,” the reality is still true: somewhere along the way, the church lost its vision. One hundred and seventy-seven years ago, a group of folks established a Methodist meeting here in this location, and without a sense of vision, this church would not still be here, thriving and reaching out. Without vision in our lives, without a sense of who and what we are called to be, we stumble toward uselessness. Proverbs is right: “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18, KJV). If one of our greatest fears in our physical life is losing our eyesight, why aren’t we more aware of those times when we lose vision?

Now, you may be wondering what in the world this has to do with forgiveness. After all, we’ve been talking for the last month about various aspects of forgiveness: receiving forgiveness from God, working out forgiveness between husbands and wives, and also then between friends and family members. We’ve looked at how Jesus instructs us to forgive, but the final piece of all of this is something Joseph in the Old Testament teaches us. Joseph was not an eye doctor, but he helps us correct our vision when it comes to what really matters. As a seminary professor of mine used to say, Joseph has 50/20 vision—the kind of vision we need if we’re going to be able to forgive.

You may remember Joseph’s story, or maybe you’ve only known Joseph’s story in the way Donny Osmond told it in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The real story occupies a huge chunk of the book of Genesis and is, in some ways, an explanation for how the Hebrews, Abraham’s descendants, got from Canaan (or modern-day Israel) down to Egypt, which is where the book of Exodus finds them. So Joseph’s story, chapters 37-50 of the book of Genesis, is a bridge of sorts, and to understand what really happens in Genesis 50, we need to see what has come before. The first thing we know is that Joseph grew up as his father’s favorite. Now, that’s never a good dynamic. I’ve known, and you likely have known, families where one child is favored over another, and all sorts of conflict can happen out of that. Jacob, Joseph’s father, was his mother’s favorite, and he simply continues the trend. Of course, Jacob has two wives and two concubines, so his sons all have different mothers. Joseph happens to be the oldest son of Jacob’s favorite wife, and so the favoritism poured out on Joseph seems to happen naturally. But Jacob doesn’t help things when he gives Joseph an “ornate robe” (37:3). Some translations say it was a “long robe with sleeves” (NRSV) or a “coat of many colors” (KJV). Basically, what it meant was that Joseph was not expected to work like the other sons. He was a man of leisure; the robe said so. Now, just think about what sort of dynamics that creates. Imagine everyone coming in from the fields and the flocks for dinner and there’s Joseph, not even a bead of sweat on his forehead while the other sons are stinky and sweaty. I even sort of imagine Joseph getting his food first, maybe even before the others come in for the evening. What sort of feelings do you think were there? How much time, do you think, they spent talking about their youngest brother while they were out in the fields, day after day? And to make matters worse, as if they could be made worse, Joseph doesn’t mind entertaining them at dinner with stories of the dreams he’s had: dreams about his brothers and his parents one day bowing down to him. Genesis puts it bluntly: “They hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said” (37:8).

One day, Joseph was sent out to check on his brothers—probably the most work he’s ever done. Now, I think I would have left the nice robe back home, especially if I had any inkling how much my brothers hated it, but not Joseph. Either he’s oblivious, or he just doesn’t care, because he goes out and they see him coming. “Here comes that dreamer!” they say. “Let’s kill him and…say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams” (37:19-20). For a lot of us in our lives, this is the moment when our vision begins to give out. You know Joseph’s brothers. They’re the dream-killers. They’re the ones who told you couldn’t, you shouldn’t, you’ll never measure up. They’re the spouse or the parent who told you that you were no good. They’re the ones who hurt you, who abused you. They’re the ones who sought to steal your life. You know them. And you most likely know the moment when the vision you once had began to leak out of your life. The holes torn in your soul by the dream-killers don’t fill easily. “Let’s kill him,” the brothers say, and while one of them talks the others out of that plan, they still throw Joseph into a well, steal his robe, and sell him to a passing band of slave traders, headed to Egypt.

Once there, Joseph goes through a series of ups and downs. He’s sold to Potiphar, captain of the guard, and he becomes head of the household. But that only brings him to the attention of Potiphar’s wife, who tries repeatedly to seduce him. Joseph refuses to be taken in by her invitations. “How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” he asks (39:9). And with his integrity intact, he heads off to jail because she accuses him of what he refused to do. She lies about him. And here’s another moment when our vision begins to dry up. We do the right thing, we treat someone as we would want to be treated, and we walk away with our integrity, but it doesn’t matter. One accusation, one person who speaks against you, and it can all be lost. Do you begin to see the wisdom in the Hebrew justice system that we talked about last week, how no one could be accused of anything and found guilty without there being at least two witnesses whose stories agree? Joseph is taken down, put in prison, and yet, even there, he prospers. The warden notices him and puts him in charge of all those in the prison.

There are two prisoners who were put there by Pharaoh when they displeased him. Somehow, they learn that Joseph can interpret dreams, and when he gives a favorable reading to one of them, that man promises that when he gets out of prison, he will remember Joseph. But when he does get out, he forgets until Pharaoh has a dream he can’t understand. Then the man remembers, and Joseph is brought to stand before Pharaoh. The dream is about a famine that’s about to come on all the land, and Joseph not only interprets the dream, he also tells Pharaoh what he should do: “Look for a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt” (41:33). That “discerning and wise man” is Joseph, and pretty soon, this prisoner is in charge of storing grain for the coming famine. At thirty years old, he is suddenly second-in-command of all of Egypt (41:46). Now, this couldn’t have been an easy job. Egypt, as I learned last summer, is mostly desert. Most of the people today live in the cities because much of the land, except along the Nile, is basically uninhabitable. That’s why the cities are overcrowded, but it also says something about the enormity of the task ahead of Joseph. He had to collect food from all over the country, see to its safe storage, and then be ready when the famine arrives. And in the middle of all that, he somehow managed to get married and have two sons.

Then, the famine comes. And it’s widespread. It even hits back in Canaan, to the point where Jacob sends Joseph’s brothers down to Egypt to buy grain, to buy food. Little do they know, the man they will stand in front of is the brother they abused so long ago. There’s a whole give and take that happens, and Joseph seems, at points, to be playing with his brothers, because they don’t recognize him. They have no idea who he is, except that he has the power of life and death over them. They go back and forth between Egypt and Canaan, and then, on the last trip, Joseph reveals who he is to them. “I am Joseph!” he says. “Is my father still living?” (45:3). You’ve got to wonder what sort of fear rose in the hearts of those brothers when this powerful Egyptian man turned out to be their brother, but Joseph tries to calm their fears: “Do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you” (45:5). In this most dramatic moment, Joseph gives us a glimpse of the kind of vision he has developed through all of his trials and difficulties. But it’s not really until we get to the end of his father’s life that we see clearly how far he has come.

That’s in the passage we read this morning, in Genesis 50. Jacob has died, and his sons carry his remains back to Canaan to bury him next to his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham. Then, they all return to Egypt, and Genesis says Joseph’s brothers “saw” that their father was dead. Well, they didn’t just now physically “see” him as dead. After all, they made the long journey back to Canaan and helped bury him. This “seeing” is more than physical sight. It’s more like it suddenly dawned on them what it meant that Jacob was dead (V. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18-50 [NICOT], pg. 701). Maybe Joseph would finally take out his anger and frustration on them now that Jacob was gone. Maybe their father was the only thing holding him back. They’re thinking Joseph lives and acts like they do, and since this story started with them hating him, they naturally assume Joseph must hate them. So they send a message to their powerful brother: “Your father [note: YOUR father] left these instructions before he died: ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your [note: YOUR] father” (50:16-17). Did Jacob really say that? We have no record of it. At best, it’s unverifiable, but it’s probably made up altogether (V. Hamilton 703). And yet, this is the first time in the whole story the brothers admit they did something wrong. This is the first time they seem to feel guilt or at least give lip service to remorse (V. Hamilton 702). And Joseph’s reaction is to weep.

There’s one other time when we’re told Joseph weeps, and it’s right before he reveals himself to his brothers in chapter 45. Joseph weeps at a turning point, and again, here in chapter 50, he’s about to reveal his heart to his brothers. I think he weeps because he’s sad that, after all he’s done for them, his brothers still believe he hates them. He weeps because the relationship is still broken after all these years. His heart is broken by something that breaks the heart of God. And yet, before he can respond, his brothers come and fall down before him, proclaiming themselves as his slaves. At least, they must think, if they are slaves, they will be alive. Joseph, as powerful as he is, could have them all killed in retribution. But that’s not Joseph’s heart. Joseph is possessed by a vision, a long-range vision that sees beyond the momentary hurt and doesn’t allow the past to define him. His vision is, as Dr. David Seamands labeled it, 50/20 vision, spelled out in Genesis 50:20: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (cf. Seamands, Living With Your Dreams, pg. 149). Joseph has long-ago forgiven his brothers and he now lives with the sort of vision that sees a bigger purpose, a bigger plan in it all. He sees God working even in the midst of pain and brokenness, bringing good out of it all. Joseph’s 50/20 vision is spelled out centuries later by Paul in the letter to the Romans: “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Now, I’ll be honest. I have a love-hate relationship with that verse, because we use it too flippantly and we often use it to try to dismiss people’s pain. I’ve had times when I was sharing a point of great hurt and someone would respond, “Well, you know, God works all things for good.” You just want to punch them, right then and there. My other struggle with that verse is that we often understand it as meaning that everything that happens is good, that God does everything for a purpose. That’s not what Paul or Joseph are saying. There are things that happen in the world that are not good and not God’s will. Child abuse is not God’s will. Men blowing up bombs at a marathon is not God’s will. A tsunami rushing in and sweeping hundreds of people to their deaths is not God’s will. What we sometimes blame on “God’s will” is more often the consequence of our own or someone else’s sin, of a broken place in our world that needs grace and forgiveness. So what does Joseph mean when, then, he says God “intended” it for good? And what does Paul mean when he says God works all things for good? These two verses are intimately connected, because the witness of the whole of Scripture is that there is nothing God can’t use. Even our sin and our brokenness can be redeemed. Our pain, the injustice done to us, the hurt we have experienced—God can use even that. Joseph isn’t saying God caused the brothers to sell him into slavery, but he is saying that his trials didn’t knock God off the throne. God wasn’t sitting in heaven saying, “Well, gosh, I don’t know to do about that now.” No, God is still working, able to bring good out of even our struggles, even our brokenness. That’s 50/20 vision. That’s being able to see beyond the present painful circumstances. That’s deep faith: trusting that God will use even this for good.

So, then, what does it mean to forgive as people who have 50/20 vision? The word translated “forgive” here in Genesis means to take away, to lift up, to spare or carry off. Basically, Joseph is saying he’s relieving his brothers of the guilt or the shame or whatever they might be feeling so that they can all move ahead into a better future. One way to define forgiveness is “giving up the hope of a different past” (A. Hamilton, Forgiveness, pg. 122). We get so tied down by our past, and often we are defined by those things that have hurt us or wounded us. We are a loser, a divorcee, an alcoholic, an abuser or an abused…the list could on and on. And we spend so much time wishing the past could have been different. But it can’t be. We can’t go back and change it. Forgiveness is giving up the longing for a different past so that we can take on the hope of a better and more joyful future (A. Hamilton 122). It’s the belief that no mater what we have been through, God can use that, God can redeem that, and God can even bless someone else because of it (Goldingay, Genesis for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 179). Notice that nowhere in this passage does Joseph say, “I forgive you” (V. Hamilton 704). Why is that? Because he already has, long ago, and for Joseph, the past is over and done with. It’s that act of forgiveness that has given him this 50/20 vision. It’s enabled him to see beyond the hurt, to refuse to let the hurt define him, and to move toward a better future.

It is 50/20 vision, in many ways, that drove Jesus to the cross. The night before he was crucified, he struggled in the garden of Gethsemane, telling his heavenly Father that there must be some other way. “Take this cup from me,” he prayed, and yet, the next day, he allowed the world to do its worst to him, and even prayed forgiveness for those who nailed his hands and feet to that awful wonderful cross, for those who stood by and mocked him, “heaped” insults on him. It was the promise of bringing salvation to the world that allowed Jesus to go through that horrible death. “For the joy set before him,” the book of Hebrews says, “he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:2). His example, Hebrews goes on to say, should encourage us to “not grow weary and lose heart” (12:3).

So where do we turn to develop that sort of vision? Each of us is different, and different things will help us at different points in our lives. For some, there may be a need for counseling or therapy. There is nothing wrong with having an objective person you can talk to, who can listen, who can help you understand and come to grips with what has happened to you. Regardless of the myth of the rugged American individualist, we all can use help from time to time. Maybe you just need someone to come alongside, and one of our Stephen Ministers and soon-to-be Congregational Caregivers can be a listening ear for you. For others, your small group or FISH group is a source of support and encouragement. They are friends who help you let go of the preferred past so you can move into a better future, friends who help you see beyond the pain of the past. I’ve heard from some of you that you wish FISH groups would go on longer than the times when we have coordinated studies, because you find great value in that group of friends. Let me tell you a not-so-much-a-secret: FISH groups don’t have to end. You can keep meeting. Some have. Yesterday, we celebrated the life of Margaret Keaton, and one of the things that helped both Margaret and Paul through her illness was their FISH group that met year-round because they all needed that support and the encouragement from friends to see beyond the pain and the hurt of the right now, to have 50/20 vision. So whether it’s a counselor or a caregiver or a small group—who helps you see beyond the past, beyond today into what God might be doing in your future? Who helps you have 50/20 vision? None of us were meant to go it alone.

Sometimes we need to confront the person who hurt us if we’re going to move into God’s future. And that can be difficult, because sometimes that person is no longer around, or we don’t know how to get in touch with them. There are people who have found value and help in writing a letter, even if they never send it, detailing the hurt, getting it all out on the table, so to speak. That allows us to say, “This did happen, and I’m acknowledging it.” So whether we confront the person directly, as we talked about last week, or through a letter or journal entry, it’s important to acknowledge the past to be able to move forward.

Of course, mixed into all of this should be prayer, because ultimately, God is the only healer who can bring joy out of the pain and hope out of the past. We’re actually going to be looking more at prayer next Sunday as we begin a series called “Connections,” where we’ll be talking about various ways we connect with God. And the most obvious of those is, of course, prayer. But let me just say here that you might need a prayer to pray. Some have found the Lord’s Prayer helpful, to pray each day, especially when you get to that line about forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. A “trespass” happens when someone goes where they ought not to go, when someone violates your trust or your well-being. The Lord’s Prayer, for centuries, has helped people get to the point where they can experience healing and develop that 50/20 vision. Or you might want to pray a breath prayer. This is just a short prayer that can said in a single breath, something that focuses you, something like, “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Some people set their watches or their cell phones to beep every hour as a reminder to pray. There are collections of prayers that help us focus, because often, when we’re trying to develop this God-vision, it’s much too personal to pray through our own pain. Sometimes we need someone else’s words just to get us started. I love this prayer of John Wesley: “O God, my Savior, my Sanctifier, keep your face turned toward me. Kindle within me the desires to confirm and increase my faith, and fulfill your plans for me. Amen.” Again, we’ll focus more on prayer next week, but it is one of the Holy Spirit’s primary ways of giving us new vision.

And, one more suggestion: find a way to serve someone else. Don’t you imagine that Joseph’s opportunity to serve the nation of Egypt by managing grain and keeping the people from starving was part of his healing process? Untold numbers of people have found that getting outside of ourselves and serving others makes a huge difference in the way we see our future. Alcoholics Anonymous started because of a man who didn’t want to be defined any longer by that disease. MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) began after a mother lost her 13-year-old daughter to a drunk driver. Both of these organizations, and many others like them, are determined to serve so that others don’t have to go through the pain their founders did.

The new movie “42” tells the story of the first African-American major league baseball player, Jackie Robinson, and the man who brought him into the game, Branch Rickey. What the movie doesn’t say much about is that both Robinson and Rickey were Christians—in fact, they were Methodists—and in many ways, it was their faith that motivated them. Rickey, especially, knew this was his chance to right a wrong in the past, that this time, he had a chance to serve a greater cause, a higher vision. Take a listen to this clip.

VIDEO: “42”

The time came when he could not longer ignore the wrong, and so one way Branch Rickey dealt with his hurt, his guilt and his brokenness, one way he pursued forgiveness (even of himself) was to help Jackie Robinson make it to the big leagues. Sometimes it is just one person helping another, whether on a national scale like with Jackie Robinson, or on a smaller scale, where someone who has gone through grief sits with someone else who just lost a loved one, and together they find healing. Someone with cancer offers hope to someone else who just got a diagnosis. Someone who lost a child walks with someone else who just had a miscarriage. I know from my own experience that going to Red Bird Mission in the fall gives me a new perspective. Sometimes it’s easy to allow myself to become defined by the issues or the problems or whatever might be going on here, and then I go to Red Bird, as I plan to this fall, and I work among some of the poorest of the poor, and I get a whole new vision, a new perspective. Others find that same perspective by working at the local food pantry, or by serving food at the homeless ministry, as our Mission Possible Kids are going to do this afternoon and evening. By serving others, God begins to bring good out of your pain, to bring hope into someone else’s pain, and 50/20 vision spreads. Healing begins. Hope rises (cf. A. Hamilton 115-119).

So how’s your vision? What will it take for you to develop 50/20 vision, to be able to see beyond the hurt, the pain, to offer forgiveness and move into God’s future for you? “You intended to harm me,” Joseph says, “but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (50:20). Isn’t that a beautiful promise, that the thing you may have been hurt most by could bring healing to others, could save many lives? 50/20 vision will do that, will move us forward and pour out healing on those around us. So how’s your vision? Has it been a while since you had a check-up? It’s not too late. As we pray this morning, I invite you to ask God for a vision correction, so that you can become a person of forgiveness, hope and healing to a lost and hurting world.

What might happen if each one of us, probably about 300 of us this morning, became people with 50/20 vision? How might our community be impacted if we became people of forgiveness, hope, and healing? What might happen if Portage First were known as a place of forgiveness and reconciliation? Let’s grab onto God’s vision for our lives, for our world, and then hang on, because once we grab hold of that, big things are bound to happen. Let’s pray.

Keeping Track

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Matthew 18:15-22

April 21, 2013 • Portage First UMC

April 15. Usually a date we associate with the dreaded paying of the taxes. But from this point on, certainly for the folks who live in Boston, April 15 will be the day the bombs went off and the safety and security of the world’s oldest annual marathon was disrupted. 2:50 p.m. Eastern time, more than two hours after the winners had crossed the finish line but while others were still finishing the race, a bomb went off near the finish line with another explosion a block away just a few seconds later. We’ve all seen the pictures, heard the stories and know the numbers: more than 170 injured, three killed including an eight-year-old boy. Once again our world has been shattered, and we wonder where, if anywhere, we can turn for safety, for security. It’s horrible. It’s tragic. It’s awful and it rightly shakes us up. And it made me think of the folks whom I’ve met in the Middle East, who deal with the fear every day of something like that happening. We’ve been incredibly sheltered, even after 9/11, and yet that reality doesn’t make it any less horrific.

So what do we do? How do we respond? Not just to this particular instance, horrible as it is. How do we respond when we’ve been attacked—whether we’re talking about a national incident, an international event, or even all the way down to something that hurts us personally, something that directly affects us. For those in Boston, that’s not a theoretical question. How will they respond? How should we respond? Well, the temptation is to add this to the list. You know the list. It’s the one we keep that’s full of all the hurts, all the wounds, all the ways people have “done us wrong.” We all have a list, and it’s full of hurts, injuries, wounds, words unkindly spoken. Maybe it has a divorce on it, or a person who stole from us, or the company that used our talents and then threw us away. We all have a list, because we’re good at keeping track of the ways we’ve been hurt. So the question really is this: what do we do with the list? Maybe a better question is: what can we do that is in the best interest of our soul? We have a choice when things like the bombings in Boston or the words unkindly spoken happen. Do we get angry and bitter or do we respond as Christians are told to respond? Do we seek to forgive?

This morning, we’re in the middle of a sermon series focused on forgiveness, and two weeks ago, we talked about what it means to be forgiven by God. Last Sunday, Pastor Deb helped us think about how forgiveness happens between spouses. And this morning, then, we come to look at how we practice forgiveness between others: close family members, friends, even church family members. In all of this, I never want you to get the idea that either Deb or I—or Jesus, for that matter—think that forgiveness is an easy thing. It’s not. It’s hard. It’s difficult work, and it takes a lot of energy. It’s most often a process, and in fact, it most often needs to be a process. To forgive too quickly means we probably haven’t really dealt with the injury, the pain that has happened. And yet, isn’t that the typical Christian response? We simply pretend everything is all right, that the other person hasn’t really done anything wrong. We put on a false front. It’s like when a crack develops in a wall, our first response is to put some filler in it, sand it and paint over it. Crack gone. Problem solved. Except that we haven’t dealt with the possible structural matters that caused the crack in the first place. And so it’s very possible the crack will return. When we forgive too quickly, we just paint over it and we don’t really deal with the foundational issues (cf. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 35). Working through the process of forgiveness is saying it did happen, it does matter, and I’m willing to deal with it. I’m done keeping track, and I want to be able to erase it off my list. So how do we do that?

One day, Jesus was asked about who the greatest person in the kingdom of heaven is. Undoubtedly, knowing their track record, the disciples were likely expecting Jesus to point to one of them. But he doesn’t. Instead, he calls a child to stand in the middle of the group and says, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (18:3). Right away, Jesus gets to the point: greatness in the kingdom of heaven is not about accolades or achievements. It’s not about what you’ve done. It’s about who you are, the kind of character you cultivate. And so in the next few verses he describes that sort of character, including the way we forgive. I sort of think he kept the child standing there, because little children more naturally forgive. Somewhere along the way, we learn we’re supposed to keep track. But little children can fight over a toy one minute and then be the best of the friends the next. Jesus wants us to have that same, eager approach to forgiveness, but he knows it’s not that easy for us grown-ups. So he describes a process we are to go through when someone hurts us, when someone sins against us. Now, I know we’ve heard this before. I know I’ve preached on it before (more than once), but this may be one of Jesus’ hardest teachings. It’s certainly one that we put into practice the least. It’s not easy to do what Jesus says to do here, and our tendency is instead to keep track of the hurts. But we know where that leads. If we don’t deal with them, they will come back and we’ll be hurt people who hurt people. So what does Jesus tell us to do?

Jesus says first, we go talk to the person who has hurt us. We don’t go talk to others. We don’t go and try to build our case with those who aren’t involved. We don’t build support for ourselves. We go directly and talk to the person who has hurt us. Jesus says it’s supposed to be “just between the two of you” (18:15). Honestly, this is probably where we get it wrong the most, in the very first step Jesus gives. We tend to talk to everyone but the person who has hurt us. There’s a word for that: gossip. We do it because we want to prove how right we are. Or we want to hurt them in someone else’s eyes as much as or more than they’ve hurt us. Or we post it on Facebook to see how many “likes” we can get, proving we’re in the right and people are on our side. There’s a word for that, too: slander. Or, in our highly litigious society, we go straight for the lawyer if we think we can hurt them that way or get something out of it. Jesus doesn’t give us any of those options. Instead, he says talk to the person who has hurt you. One on one. “Point out their fault,” he says, but he doesn’t mean we go in a spirit of superiority or anger. The aim is not to win or score points. In fact, Jesus says, the aim is to win them over, to win them back as a brother or sister (18:15). This takes humility, and recognizing that there is probably hurt on both sides. You may need to listen as much as you need to talk. These things are hard to hear, as well as to say, so we approach the other in a spirit of love and humility (cf. Carson, “Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 402). We’ll talk in a few moments about how we do that. But it’s important to remember the first step: we approach the other person, one on one, without going to anyone else first.

If that doesn’t bring about healing, or reconciliation, then Jesus says we are to “take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses’” (18:16). This should only happen after some more prayer and thought. Are you still absolutely convinced there is a wrong to be settled (Wright 35)? If so, then we gather a couple of close friends, people whom we know will keep confidentiality, people we can absolutely trust, people preferably who love both of you, and we get together with the one who has hurt us. This is not to “gang up on” someone, or to bash them. It’s for the purpose of reconciliation, restoration. These friends will serve two purposes. First, as Jesus says, they are witnesses to what is said and done, making sure both sides are cared for. In the Old Testament, nothing could be said to be true unless it was witnessed by two or three people. Remember in the trial of Jesus, the biggest difficulty they had in convicting him was to get two stories to agree (cf. Mark 14:56-59)? They knew Deuteronomy 19:15: “One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” The friends also serve as a reality check. They give an outside perspective that neither of you may be able to see right away because you’re too close to the situation. So take two friends with you.

As a last resort, if forgiveness still doesn’t take place, Jesus says to “tell it to the church” (18:17). Now, he’s not talking about “church” in our modern sense. The word better translates as “gathering” or “assembly.” We need to remember that the earliest Christian assemblies were more like a small group within the Jewish synagogue. The first Christians continued to be part of the synagogue community until they were thrust out largely beginning around A.D. 70 and continuing into the 100’s. So when Jesus, through Matthew’s Gospel, is talking about “church,” he’s not talking about standing up in front of a congregation like ours and announcing someone’s sin. He’s talking about taking it to the assembly of Christians, which would be more like a small group or an accountability group in our day. It would filled with people who are close to each other, who genuinely love each other. In fact, among those early Christians, it very well might have been filled with people who were related to each other. The “brother or sister” in verse 15 might not necessarily be figurative. So the “church” is a group that cares for both people, a group for whom reconciliation truly means something. For forgiveness not to happen here will likely mean the splintering of the group.

In our first church, Cathy and I were part of a couples’ small group that met every Friday night. It was a group that had all sorts of ages and personalities, and we met faithfully during the year, but then took the summer off. Leading up to and during the summer, we began to hear rumblings of one of the couples having trouble. They couldn’t work it out amongst themselves, and even having some close friends step in didn’t help. The next thing to do should have been for our small group to come alongside and offer help, love and support in bringing reconciliation and forgiveness, but we didn’t do that. In fact, our group never met again because to do so meant we would have to face our failure to care for our brother and sister. That couple got a divorce, but I’ve always wondered what might have happened had we cared for them they way Jesus tells us to. Could forgiveness, of whatever it was, have taken place? I don’t know, but Jesus gives that last chance. Bring it to your assembly, and seek forgiveness and reconciliation.

If that doesn’t happen, then, Jesus gives some very harsh words: “Treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector” (18:17). “Pagans and tax collectors” was a colloquial way of talking about those who were outside the community. The sinners. Sometimes it was “Gentiles and tax collectors.” Same thing. Those who didn’t belong. Jesus says treat the unrepentant as someone who is outside the community. Now, some read this and hear “excommunication” or “shunning,” and there is a certain element of that here. They are no longer part of the assembly, the community. They become outsiders. But it’s also important to remember, as Adam Hamilton points out, that the ones Jesus came after, the ones Jesus sought, the ones Jesus spent the most time with are the Gentiles, the pagans, and he even had a tax collector as one of his disciples. Do you remember which one? Matthew, the author of this Gospel. I think Jesus is saying you treat someone who refuses to do the hard work of reconciliation as an outsider—because that work of forgiveness is at the core of what it means to be a Christian—but you never forget that Jesus still loves that person, and you never stop reaching out to them, inviting them back into the fellowship (cf. Hamilton, Forgiveness, pg. 90; Carson 403). Remember: the goal in all of this is to win them back (cf. 18:15), to experience forgiveness and even reconciliation.

So that’s the process Jesus describes for pursuing forgiveness, but how do we prepare ourselves? How do we personally approach a broken relationship? Adam Hamilton (73-75) suggests three steps for developing our own attitude, and perhaps you can remember them with the acronym RAP. The first, the R, is this: remember your own shortcomings. There are things we get upset about in someone else that, if we’re honest, we have done ourselves. Take a very simple example, like how upset we get when someone cuts us off in traffic, or when they go out of turn at a four-way stop. It’s easy to grumble about that, to let our spirits get so upset, even to have a few things to say to and about that other person, even if they’ll never hear us. But ask yourself: have you ever cut someone off? Have you ever gone out of turn? Well, yes, we say, but I really needed to. Remember your own shortcomings. None of us are perfect, and it’s likely we’ve done the very thing to someone else that upsets us when it’s done to us.

That leads us to the second piece: A - assume the best of the person who slighted you. Sometimes we get so upset about small things, so worked up, and we assume the other person intended the slight, intended to hurt us specifically. That may not be and often is not the case. Assume the best of the other person. They may have had a bad day. They may be grumpy because someone was mean to them earlier in the day. They may have hidden hurts that you can’t and won’t ever be able to see or understand. And they may have simply misspoke, or you may have misunderstood what they said. I can’t tell you how many times that’s been true of me, and maybe that’s a place where you struggle, too. We are so inundated with communication these days—so many words—that we often fail to hear what’s really being said. If we assume the best of the other person, we’ll be seeking always to clarify and not jump to conclusions.

So, remember your own shortcomings, assume the best of the other person, and pray for them. R-A-P. Now, prayer should go without saying, but often it’s the very last thing we do. We act before we pray. We speak before we pray. How often does that mean we end up hurting others out of our own hurt? Remember—hurt people often hurt people. Perhaps that’s one reason Paul told us to “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), because if we’re doing that, we’ll be praying through every act of hurt, every need of forgiveness. Approach every situation with prayer, and not just you doing all the talking. Make room for silence so that God can shape and mold you into the person you must be to pursue forgiveness.

So, Jesus says talk to the person, then if necessary take a couple of friends, and if forgiveness still doesn’t happen, then talk to your small group, your “assembly.” And treat the other person as you would want to be treated: remembering your own shortcomings, assuming the best of the other person, and praying for them. Naturally, all of this brings up a question: how often should we do this? This seems like a lot of work. Is there a limit of how many times we should forgive someone? Peter wondered that. When he heard Jesus’ teaching, he came right out and asked: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (18:21). Peter was being generous. The consensus of the rabbis of the day is that you should forgive a repeated sin three times; on the fourth time, they could not and should not be forgiven. Three times. And so Peter ups the ante: how about I forgive them seven times, Jesus? How’s that? Jesus tells Peter and the rest of them, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (18:22), and then he goes on to tell a parable that reminds them they have been forgiven far more than they will ever forgive (Carson 405). In other words, Jesus says keeping track is not the point. Seventy seven times or, as some Bibles have it, seventy times seven—if you’re keeping track, you’re missing the point. You’ve been forgiven much more than you could ever forgive. So don’t worry about how many times. Focus instead on becoming and being a forgiving person.

Well, some say, if I forgive, aren’t they getting off the hook? I mean, don’t they need to ask me first? Well, it is true that full reconciliation cannot happen without the other person acknowledging their sin, and so yes, in an ideal world, that person would come to you and ask for forgiveness first. But we don’t live in an ideal world. And forgiveness, by and large, is about the health of our own soul. Someone has said it this way: to refuse to forgive is to allow the other person to live rent-free in your head. They control you. They imprison you. Forgiveness is the key that lets us out. Jesus routinely forgave people who didn’t ask for it; the supreme example, of course, are his words from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). So whether they ask for forgiveness or not, we have to consider what refusing to forgive does to our soul.

But what about consequences? Doesn’t forgiveness let them out of the consequences? Not always. Sometimes, but not always. My kids will routinely say the words, “I’m sorry,” as a way to try to get out of punishment for whatever it is they did. And my standard response these days is, “I love to hear you say that, but what I really want to see is a change in behavior.” Or think about the spouse who asks for forgiveness for an indiscretion. The other spouse may indeed grant forgiveness, but that doesn’t mean the consequences immediately go away. There are things that have to be worked out. Again, forgiveness is about the health of your soul, and even those who confess some crime or ask forgiveness of their victims still have to face the penalty for what they did. Only in God do we find perfect forgiveness, where he chooses not to remember the offense (cf. Jeremiah 31:34).

But what about the big sins? What about Boston? Can we ever forgive such an act? Not right away. There is a sense of righteous anger that comes out of such an event. And we will need time, as individuals and as a nation, to come to grips with what happened, if we even ever learn a reason or who did it. But the hard work of rebuilding the health of our nation’s soul began on Tuesday. I think part of the never-ending news coverage is our attempt to deal with the horror and the tragedy without having to talk about forgiveness. Eventually, the news will move to something else, but we will still need to work on healing our nation’s soul. Remember, this is the Jesus who said when we forgive, we will be forgiven, and that if we don’t forgive, we won’t be forgiven (cf. Matthew 6:14-15). Tom Wright pictures that as being like breathing. If we try to hold in our anger, our hurt, our bitterness, it will poison us. We need to breathe out, let it out, so that we can experience the new life and new hope and the fresh air of God’s spirit. When we’re open and willing to forgive others, we will also be open to receiving God’s forgiveness. But if we’re closed off to the one, we’ll be closed off to the other (Wright 40). There’s a member of our church who has experienced this over the last few years, and she’ll be very quick to tell you that forgiveness is most definitely a process, not an event. There are events along the way, but forgiveness takes time. I could tell you her story, but it’s better if she tells it. Take a listen.

VIDEO: Annette Wray, forgiveness

You see, forgiveness does not come when we ignore the hurt. Forgiveness says it did happen, it did hurt, and I’m going to deal with it (Wright 35). And, ultimately, freedom comes when we stop keeping track, when we turn it over, give it up to God who is the only just judge. We are not. So let me ask the question we’ve been asking over these weeks: who is it you need to forgive? Or who is it you need to talk with to pursue forgiveness and reconciliation? Let me give you just a moment of quiet, as you get their name and face in your heart and mind. <SILENCE> Do you remember? Now, let me ask you this: what have you done to pursue healing? Not what have they done to hurt you. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably rehearsed that over and over and over again. What have you done to pursue healing? So, what’s the next thing you need to do, according to Jesus? I want to challenge you to do that this week. Don’t put it off. Let’s be people who are obedient to Jesus this week, and push back just a little more of the darkness in our world. Forgiveness will do that, and it’s really the best and most important thing we have to offer our world, especially in a week like this, where we’ve been confronted with tragedy and crisis. Our nation, our communities, our relationships long for wholeness, healing, and forgiveness. What will you do this week to pursue those things? It’s costly. It’s hard. But waiting just around the corner from bitterness and anger is hope, joy and peace. It’s worth the risk. Let’s pray.

Mind the Gap

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Psalm 32:1-5; Matthew 26:20-30

April 7, 2013 • Portage First UMC

In the church year, at least unofficially, this morning is called “Low Sunday.” After the celebration and the pageantry and the excitement of Easter, the Sunday after seems a bit low, a bit of a letdown. Clergy sometimes take this Sunday off because after all the energy expended during Lent, it’s natural to be tired, to feel a bit low on energy and power. It’s also come to be known as “Low Sunday” because, after the boost that you get at Easter, attendance numbers usually much lower today than the week before. “Low Sunday” can feel powerless and disappointing. But we all go through times like that in our lives. There are moments, maybe even long periods in our lives where we feel a bit “low” or powerless, as if there’s something missing, something unplugged. You know what I’m talking about: the things we once did to find satisfaction, the things we once did to gain approval, the things we once did to feel good about ourselves stop working, and life seems to be a bit out of kilter. So we try harder. We search the internet to find other things to try. We look at our life and say, “Why isn’t this thing working?” And sometimes there are physiological reasons for the lowness, or even psychological. Sometimes there are circumstances that we may or may not have control over. But sometimes the problem is deeper than what we do or even what we say. Sometimes the problem is a disconnect from the one who gives us the power we need for living. Sometimes we’ve allowed a gap to open between us and the one who strengthens our lives.

In transportation parlance, the phrase “mind the gap” showed up in the late 1960’s in England to warn train riders of the physical space that exists between the train platform and the opening door. “Mind the Gap” was a way of warning riders that they could get their foot caught in this gap and twist their ankle or even break it. “Mind the Gap” meant, “Watch out, there’s danger here if you’re not paying attention,” and it’s a phrase that has spread to many parts of the world. It’s also come to be used on busses in some parts of the world. The “gap” can be dangerous, just as much on trains as it can be in our lives. So what is this “gap” that sometimes shows up and saps us of our power for living? Well, if our power comes from the one who made us, from God, then the thing that causes a “gap” or breaks the relationship is sin. And the way we “mind the gap” is through seeking forgiveness.

This morning, we’re beginning a series for the month of April focusing on forgiveness, and the many ways we need and want to experience that. Last Sunday’s Gospel reading included a verse that we didn’t really deal with. Perhaps it caught your attention. There, in John 20, after he is raised from the dead, Jesus says to the disciples: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (20:23). What a strange thing to say, especially at that moment, in the midst of the disciples’ realization that he really is risen. But I think one of the reasons he said that is because forgiveness is at the heart of what it means to live out the Christian faith. Jesus is risen—now, go and forgive, for it’s in forgiving that the world will see something is different about you and me. And that’s not the first time Jesus said something like that to his disciples. In the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15). Similar sayings, but different. Two sides of the same coin, perhaps, but both emphasizing that if we’re going to live out the resurrection of Jesus, if we’re going to be able to walk The Way Jesus showed us, forgiveness is going to be at the heart of that life. The gap has to be minded, and more than that, for the “abundant life” Jesus promised, it has to be closed. So next Sunday, Pastor Deb will be sharing about finding forgiveness within marriages, and then we’ll look at forgiveness between family and friends, and finally we’ll talk about what it means to offer forgiveness, but this morning, we’re going to start in a very basic place. What does it mean to seek and find forgiveness from God? How do we close the gap that sin has created?

There are, of course, innumerable texts in the Scriptures we could turn to in order to begin to tackle that question; some of them you’ll read if you keep up with the daily readings this week in the bulletin or on the YouVersion app. But this morning, I want to take a look at one of the seven penitential psalms in the Old Testament (cf. VanGemeren, “Psalms,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 5, pg. 270). The psalms, you might remember, are the worship book of the Old Testament. These were songs written by a variety of people or in honor of a variety of people, and then preserved through the centuries to be used in public worship at various times of the year. The psalms are the songs they sang, and seven of them are songs that focus specifically on repentance. Psalm 32 is one of those, written by or for King David. David’s most famous penitential psalm is Psalm 51: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (51:10). That was written when his sin of adultery and murder was discovered. But Psalm 32 is a mystery of sorts. We don’t really know when it was written, or in what sort of situation, except that the author is realizing the effects sin has, the consequences of the gap. Out of his experience, he seeks to teach the people and help them avoid what he has been through (cf. Wilson, NIV Application Commentary: Psalms Volume 1, pg. 545).

In these five verses that we read, the psalmist sets up a stark contrast between the one who is forgiven and the one who is refusing to “mind the gap.” In verses 1-2, he says the one who is forgiven is “blessed.” They have a sense of contentment that comes from a right life. It’s more than “happy.” It’s a sense of life being rightly ordered (Wilson 94). It’s probably the same sort of thing Jesus meant in the Beatitudes when he pronounces various sorts of people “blessed.” But here, in the psalms, the blessed person has “transgressions forgiven, sins covered and sins not counted against them.” Now, you don’t see it in the English, but the author uses three different and distinct words here to describe that thing that breaks the relationship with God, the “gap.” “Transgressions” is a word that refers to outright rebellion against God. It’s disloyalty. It’s choosing to do what you know God doesn’t approve of. It’s the child who is told clearly, “You’re not to have friends over when we’re gone,” and they choose to do so anyway—only it’s much more serious than that. God says, “Do not murder, do not commit adultery,” and yet David takes Bathsheba, sleeps with her, and kills her husband (2 Samuel 11). God says, “You shall have no other gods beside me,” and yet the kings repeatedly worshipped idols, even sometimes putting them inside the Temple of God itself. Transgression is an act of rebellion. The next word, translated “sin,” is what we normally think of. In fact, it’s the way I defined it for you last Sunday: missing the mark, straying off the path. This is the most common image in the New Testament for sin. Last week, I compared it to failing to follow the GPS instructions, but you can also think of it in terms of shooting an arrow at a target and missing. It’s a sense that you’re headed one way, get just slightly off, and before you know it, you’re somewhere you don’t want to be. Then, the third word in verse 2 is also translated “sins” in the NIV, but in some of your Bibles it might read “iniquity.” This word means “evil, a crooked or wrong act.” This is more than rebellion against God; this is acting as if God doesn’t even exist. Some folks today don’t like to use the word “evil,” but there are some actions in our world that defy any other description. These are the incidents of child abuse or neglect, of rape, or genocide and violence against innocents. Read the headlines each day and then try to deny that evil exists. Sometimes, it even seems to win the day (VanGemeren 271; Wilson 545).

But the good news of Psalm 32 is that even that can be forgiven. We shouldn’t spend a lot of energy trying to divide “sin” into these categories; obviously, there are overlapping areas here. But the psalmist’s point is this: there is no “gap,” no sin that can’t be forgiven. God’s ability to forgive is just that large. I want to come back to that thought in a moment, but let’s continue to follow the psalmist, because the in the next two verses, he describes what it’s like to not be forgiven. “My bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer” (32:3-4). That sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it? I don’t know that the psalmist is describing an actual physical condition, though he may be. More likely, he’s using metaphor and imagery to describe what was happening to him mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The image in verse 3 is of an inward pain that causes groaning, like someone for whom the pain never goes away. You can hear extreme depression in these verses, an interior darkness that threatens to consume the psalmist. It’s as if he has no strength to do anything, no power; every waking moment, every action is colored and pushed down by the thought of his sin, of the ways he has broken his relationship with God. He’s the person with a foot caught in the gap, twisted and turning. It’s painful. It’s broken. It’s continuous. And it feels broken beyond repair (VanGemeren 272; Wilson 546).

In a small way, it reminds me of getting lost in Germany three years ago. We were visiting a monastery, and we had gone into the chapel, but nosey me found an open door that I wandered through. It took me to the chancel, and I got some really good pictures of the altar and such, but when I went to go back through the door I had come through, it was now locked. In fact, it seemed like every door was locked in that hallway. I kept going around until I finally found one open and I went through it. It took me outside, but I was now on the opposite side of the monastery and in the middle of what appeared to be a garden party. Now, I know very few German words, so I just kept my head down and walked the way I thought our group would be. And the longer I walked, the more uneasy and upset I became. I was going to be left at a foreign monastery, knowing no one and not speaking the language. I was lost. And why did I get so lost? Well, because I wandered off the path. I left the place we were supposed to be, but more than that, like a true man, I didn’t ask for directions. Even though we were in Germany, undoubtedly one or more of the monks spoke English. But I kept quiet, and just tried to do it myself, getting more upset by the moment. The same thing is what has happened to the psalmist. Why is he feeling this way? He tells us in verse 3: “I kept silent” (32:3). I hid my sin. I didn’t let anyone, least of all God, know what I had done. And so he’s lost. He’s upset. He’s off the path, and he knows it. And he refused to confess it.

Confession is, though, what he says finally solved his quandary: “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord” (32:5). Do you hear those three words again? He’s confessing everything. In fact, he uses three words to describe what he does here, one for every sort of sin that he’s telling God about. “Acknowledge” means “to make known,” and it probably refers to more than just letting God know what he’s done. In some sense, it’s a matter of admitting it to himself as well, and perhaps to a trusted friend. He’s admitting he’s done something wrong, that he is the one who caused a gap. That’s a critical thing for us to be able to do, because we’re masters of self-deception, of convincing ourselves that, even if we think something is a sin for someone else, it’s not for us. It’s okay for us. Those who find themselves trapped in various addictions know about this. Early on, they have to admit their own self-deception. In fact, the fifth step of the Twelve Step program is this: “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs” (Wilson 552). “I acknowledged my sin to you,” the psalmist says, “and [more than that, I] did not cover up my iniquity” (32:5). This means to take the lid off, to expose whatever it is to the light. Darkness, which is the way sin is often described in the Bible, cannot stand in the presence of light. Light always wins. Even if it’s just a little bit of light, it will break through the darkness. John, in the prologue to his Gospel, in words we read every Christmas, promises that: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). I uncovered my sin; I stopped hiding it, the psalmist says.

And then, he confessed his transgression to God (32:5). He gave voice to it, and I find it very interesting that, in the Hebrew language, this word is used not only for “confess” but also for “praise.” Confession is a form of praise, of worship, because when we confess what is wrong, what is broken, the gap, we are then freed to give praise to God (cf. VanGemeren 273). At the end of the psalm, then, the writer is singing: “Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart” (32:11). Praise results from confession. And so does freedom. The feelings the psalmist was having are replaced by a sense of being blessed, of being filled with joy, of being loved by an “unfailing love” (32:10). Hope overcomes despair when confession enters the picture, because the promise is simply this: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Confession bridges the gap between ourselves and our creator.

So, the question becomes, why don’t we? Why do we, like the psalmist, most often hold back and hide our failings, our sins, our brokenness? Two reasons, I think, in our modern world, and the first is our deep concern for privacy. We’ve even passed laws that help us protect our privacy, and laws that protect our privacy even sometimes when we don’t want to protect it. We have the mindset that what I do is no one else’s business but my own. You mind your gaps, I’ll mind mine. And then we wonder why we end up with such superficial relationships. It’s because we never take the risk to break the privacy wall and share on too deep a level with anyone, sometimes even with our spouse, which is something Pastor Deb will look at next week. What’s fascinating to me is the double-mindedness we have about privacy. We want it protected, and we want people to stay out of our business, but then we’ll get online and many will say things there that they wouldn’t say elsewhere. And it all combines to keep us from being whole persons.

Couple that concern for privacy with the deep-rooted American and Protestant passion for perfectionism. We must do everything right, and if we don’t, we must at least appear to do everything right. We’ve grown up being told more often what we do wrong that what we do right. I mean, think about the way we’re educated. Ten questions on a quiz, and you miss one. What does it say at the top when you get it back, usually? Minus one. Not plus nine. Minus one. We focus on being perfect, and we allow each other little room for mistakes, so something inside of us has determined that we’ll make sure we’re seen as right more often than not. When it comes to church, when it comes to eternal things, we convince ourselves that everyone else has it all together, and we hide behind a facade of apparent success, happiness and control. The problem is—everyone else is hiding behind their own version of that facade. None of us is perfect, but we struggle in the church maybe more than anywhere else with perfectionism. It limits our ability to honestly and truly confess our failings, our sins, and our brokenness, even to God (cf. Wilson 551-552).

And being honest about it is important. The psalmist says the one who finds forgiveness is the one “in whose spirit is no deceit” (32:2). In other words, you can’t trick God. “Don’t pretend you’re seeking forgiveness if you’re really not” (Hamilton, Forgiveness, pg. 27). We’ve probably all known people for whom repentance is an act, a show. We’ve had our share of politicians and preachers, entertainers and leaders who publicly repent for some act, but then continue to live the same way. Repentance means to turn around, to go the opposite direction. It’s getting back on the path, on God’s path. And if we go to God and repent just to get out of a jam—you know, make a deal with God, like, “If you get me out of this, I’ll go to church for three weeks in a row,” or something like that—then we’re not seeking true repentance. Forgiveness sometimes becomes one more way we seek to manipulate God. The psalmist likely knew people like that, too, which is why he says we can only find forgiveness if we have “no deceit” in our spirit. Or, as Eugene Peterson translated it in The Message, if we’re holding nothing back from God, that’s when God will hold nothing back from us (The Message: Psalms, pg. 45).

One of our struggles with receiving forgiveness from God has to do with guilt—in particular, the guilt we feel over whatever the sin has been. And, honestly, there are some preachers and teachers who haven’t helped with that. Some people today, particularly young folks, have given up on the Christian faith because, they say, it’s nothing but shame and guilt. Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps you’ve been able to see that over the last few weeks as we’ve explored Jesus’ ministry. The central focus of Jesus’ ministry was to help people be freed from their sin, to find grace, redemption, healing, forgiveness and mercy. “A Christianity obsessed with guilt is no Christianity” (Hamilton 17), at least not the kind Jesus taught. Or the psalmist, for that matter. At the end of the passage we read this morning, he promises not only that God will forgive our sin, but also the guilt of our sin (32:5). We do have to talk about sin and be honest about sin, not so we can feel guilty about it, but so that we can be freed from it. Doctors, for instance, study disease, not so that they can make you feel bad about getting sick, but so that they can help you find healing. When we talk about sin, it’s in the process of finding grace, healing and forgiveness. That’s what Jesus came to bring. In fact, that’s what was on his mind during his very last night here on earth.

That night, he gathered his disciples, those who were closest to him, for a final meal in a borrowed Upper Room. Even in the midst of talk of betrayal, in the knowledge that one of those who was closest to him would turn him in within a few hours, Jesus still spoke of forgiveness. That night, he gave them a meal to help them remember that what he was about to do, the horrible brutality of the cross, was for their forgiveness. In ways they couldn’t and we still don’t fully understand, Jesus gave his life to secure our forgiveness with God the Father. He who had never sinned took the punishment for all our sins so that we could find grace and forgiveness. Paul put it this way in his letter to the Romans, that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And so, that night, he took common elements, things they were very familiar with—bread and wine—and he poured new meaning into them so they would forever remind his followers of God’s great desire to forgive, to bridge the gap between himself and humanity. “This bread—my body. This wine—my blood, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin” (26:28). A reminder of what the psalmist had promised so long before: “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered” (32:1).

Do you want to be blessed today? The psalmist says the way to blessing is not found in keeping quiet, in refusing to confess the wrongs, the brokenness in your own life. The path to blessing is found by opening up to God, to acknowledge that our sin, whatever it is, is first and foremost, against him (cf. Psalm 51:4). We may find that confessing that sin to a trusted friend is helpful as well, but the path to blessing begins when we open our hearts fully to God and allow him to forgive both our sin and the guilt of our sin. He wants to. That’s why Jesus came. That’s why he went to the cross. That’s why he rose again.

What is the “gap” in your life? What is it you, maybe, have convinced yourself God couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive? We weren’t meant to carry the burden of that guilt around. The communion table reminds us of that. And yet, so many of us come to this table, and we carry with us the guilt or the sin or the whatever that keeps us at a distance from God, and we fail to mind the gap. We come here twisted and torn up and broken, and we leave the table the same way—but the good news of the Gospel, the good news we just celebrated in the Lenten season, is that you don’t have to live like that anymore. The burden that keeps you distant can be forgiven, laid down at this communion rail and left here. So this morning, as you come forward, I’m going to invite you to do something that may seem a bit strange. When you came in this morning, you were given a small stone. It represents the things in our lives we carry around that we weren’t meant to, the things God wants to forgive. So as you come forward for communion this morning, I want you to bring the stone with you. As you receive the bread and the cup, pray about the things that cause a gap between you and God, the things you’re carrying around. And then, and after you’ve received, I invite you to leave the stone on the communion railing as a symbol that you’re not going to live with that burden, those sins anymore. You may need some moments to pray at the communion rail, and that’s fine, but once you have, leave the stone as a sign that you’re ready to receive God’s free gift of forgiveness. Because the only gap that’s supposed to exist is not the one between you and God, but between you and your sin. Another psalm says this: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:11-12). And that’s good news. With that in our hearts, let’s come to the table and receive all he has for us.