Forgiveness is a Choice

 

Matthew 18:21-22, NIV - 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-seven times.

 

This week, we are talking about what forgiveness is and yesterday, we talked about the starting place of forgiveness is acknowledging that there was an offense.  Forgiveness is awareness.

                Next, forgiveness is a choice.  This might seem obvious to many, but I have been surprised to talk to so many people who are waiting on the moment when they feel forgiveness.  There are reasons for this, for most of us have had the experience of our feelings changing about something that happened in the past.  The intense feelings experienced when the event happen somehow fade over time.  We get new information about the event that changes our perspective.  For example, the experience of becoming a parent helped me see much of my childhood from a different perspective.  I feel differently about things that happened when I was a kid because I have now had kids of my own.  Being on the other side of that experience has caused my feelings to evolve.

                This also sometimes happens in relationship to situations that require forgiveness.  A new perspective and/or new information can help us feel more ready to forgive.  However, that change in feeling is not forgiveness.  Even with a more receptive heart, forgiveness is still a choice.  This will become more evident as we talk about other aspects of what forgiveness is, but right now, it’s important to note some other problems with seeing forgiveness as a feeling. 

                If we have to wait for a feeling to develop before we can forgive, than there is no hope for some offenses to ever be forgiven.  New information and new perspective might arise that actually intensify our feelings of anger and hurt instead of cause those feelings to subside, pushing us further away from feeling like forgiving.  We might not ever get new information or perspective.  In many, if not most cases, our feelings about the offense may never change, which leads us to our next problem with forgiveness as a feeling.

                Forgiveness is not passive.  In the passage above, Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive an offender.  The question itself assumes that forgiveness is a choice.  Peter wants to know how many times he must make that choice before it alright to make the different choice not to forgive a repeat offender.  Without getting into biblical numerology, let me just say that Jesus’s answer effectively means “as many times as there are offenses.”  Jesus says this because forgiveness is a choice to free oneself from the entanglement created by the sins committed against us.  It is to claim the victory that Jesus Himself has won over sin in our particular situation.  God doesn’t get entangled in our sin because God chooses to forgive it.  God never gets to the point where God says, “well, that’s it;  I’m done forgiving.”  God’s eternal “yes” to the question, “will I forgive this time?” is never negated by our propensity to keep sinning.  Jesus essentially says to Peter, “you don’t want to stay entangled with others’ sin anymore than God does.”  Forgiveness is not only always a choice; it is always the best choice. 

                Actively choosing to forgive begins to break the hold that the offenses others have committed against us have on our hearts.  It can and often does begin to change the seemingly intractable negative feelings we have about what has been done to us.  Instead of passively waiting for forgiveness to move into our emotion, we can choose to actively move toward our own healing and freedom from the past.  This choice opens up more possibilities than we had before. 

 

Question:  Are there offenses others have committed against you that you have been waiting to feel differently about?

 

Prayer:  Thank you, Gracious God, for always choosing to forgive us.  Making that choice ourselves sometimes seems impossible.  Help us see the way toward making the choice to forgive as well.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to bless someone who you currently hold resentment toward.

 

Song:  Losing – Tenth Avenue North

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHcVTbyJqis

The Forgiveness Revolution

 

The Forgiveness Revolution

 January 20, 2022

Matthew 18:21-35, CEB - Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times?”

Jesus said, “Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  When he began to settle accounts, they brought to him a servant who owed him ten thousand bags of gold.  Because the servant didn’t have enough to pay it back, the master ordered that he should be sold, along with his wife and children and everything he had, and that the proceeds should be used as payment.  But the servant fell down, kneeled before him, and said, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’ The master had compassion on that servant, released him, and forgave the loan.

“When that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred coins. He grabbed him around the throat and said, ‘Pay me back what you owe me.’

“Then his fellow servant fell down and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’  But he refused. Instead, he threw him into prison until he paid back his debt.

“When his fellow servants saw what happened, they were deeply offended. They came and told their master all that happened.  His master called the first servant and said, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you appealed to me.  Shouldn’t you also have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’  His master was furious and handed him over to the guard responsible for punishing prisoners, until he had paid the whole debt.

“My heavenly Father will also do the same to you if you don’t forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

 

In Genesis 4, there is an account of Cain’s children.  One of them, Lamech, who had two wives (their names were Adah and Zillah), said this: 

“Adah and Zillah, listen to my voice; wives of Lamech, pay attention to my words: I killed a man for wounding me, a boy for striking me; so Cain will be paid back seven times and Lamech seventy-seven times. (Gen 4:23-24)

This odd little pericope from Genesis illustrates the sense of justice present in early Judaism.  Shifting back to the Matthew text above, we also see the shadows of Lamech’s statement in Peter’s question about forgiveness.  He asks if seven times is enough forgiveness for a repeat offender, reversing Lamech’s statement that vengeance for Cain will be carried out seven times.  In Peter’s seemingly simple question, we are able to see how the Jewish sense of justice has shifted in the thousands of years from vengeance to forgiveness.  Peter is asking if completing reversing Lamech’s equation is enough; instead of carrying out vengeance seven times, is it enough to instead forgive seven times?

                As usual, Jesus blows up convention by replying, “not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times,” also recalling Lamech’s statement of extreme vengeance.

                Jesus then tells an outrageous story which we have come to call the “parable of the unmerciful servant.”  I quoted this story in the CEB today because the outrageousness of this story is more obvious.  A servant who is forgiven a debt that he could not pay back in a hundred lifetimes immediately jails a fellow servant who owed him a manageable debt.  Anyone can see how ridiculous this servant’s actions are; to label him “unmerciful” is to be extremely generous. 

                Here’s the kicker.  Jesus is teaching us here that this contrived story about a miserable servant is about anyone who refuses to keep on forgiving forever.  All are offered the same unthinkable mercy that this hopeless servant was offered.  That mercy is given because of the character of the One who gives it.  God wipes unrepayable debts clean because that is who God is.  The hope God has in lavishing such mercy upon us is that we too, will become more lavishly merciful as well.  To receive God’s unimaginable gift and then use it as leverage against others is such a violation of God’s gift that it is no wonder it provokes such anger. 

                This parable portrays the “forgiveness revolution” Jesus incites.  It is a multifaceted revolution that includes many caveats and nuances that I haven’t the time to describe here.  I have been working on a book (off and on) for years that attempts to more adequately explain it, but for today, let’s just focus on one thought.  It is this.  When we nurture a ledger of offenses in our heart, we will be tortured by that very ledger and more than that, we have betrayed the  unfathomable mercy of God.  Forgiveness is the revolutionary alternative.   Jesus embodies that alternative with the whole of His life and death.  The invitation to move toward living our life that way as well.

 

Question:  Can you describe for yourself the pain you have endured, not from the offenses others have committed against you, but from holding on to those offenses in your heart?

 

Prayer:  Lord, you know how I have been hurt by others.  Help me but glimpse how that measures up in comparison to the debt I owe YOU.  Though it seems impossible at times, help me to learn how to forgive like You do.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the people you struggle to forgive today.

 

Song:  Broken Vessels – Hillsong Worship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiyYoe678yI