A reading comes from the Gospel of John 16:12-15. 12 I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when the Spirit of truth comes, she will guide you into all the truth. She will not speak on her own; she will speak only what she hears, and she will tell you what is yet to come. 14 She will glorify me because it is from me that she will receive what she will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Creator is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what she will make known to you. This ends our reading from the Gospel of John. Thanks be to God. Page 1 of 5
When I was about eight years old which would mean my brother Wayne was six and my sister Natalie was ten so when I was about eight years old, the three of us kids starting building the largest, most magnificent, amazing and architecturally stunning creation from our Lego s that the world had ever seen. My mom had built a wooden platform that was three-feet by four-feet and sat on top of the coffee table in the living room. Each of us saved up our weekly allowances so we could buy even more Lego s. And then we saw that there was a Mega-Box of Lego s for sale at the Meijer Thrifty Acres store. I mean this box of Lego s was huge and it would be the crowning jewel in our creation if only we could save enough and pull our resources. So every week we got together and counted how much we had saved; we carefully calculated how much we still needed to save before we could buy the Mega-Box. It only took a couple of weeks before our pool of money grew faster than we had imagined. It seemed like incredibly good luck that our pool of cash had the full $35. So we announced to our parents that we had the money right here in this envelope and would they please take us to Meijer s for the big purchase. We agreed to go all together on Saturday. Later that night, my Dad came into my bedroom that I shared with my sister. I was working by myself at my desk and he said he wanted to talk. He pulled up a chair and he very carefully set on the desk a leather pouch that snapped close. He said, Annette, do you know what this is? No, I lied. He said, Well, this is where your mother and I keep our cash. This is the household kitty. Every time we get paid from our work, I go to the bank and take out the cash we will need for groceries and gas and church and other expenses for the next couple of weeks. Oh, I said. He said, I have noticed the last couple of weeks that it looked like I was missing a couple of dollars; but I asked your Mom and she thought maybe she had taken some extra money for groceries. And then, this morning when I counted the cash, I was missing $10.00. That s a lot of money to go missing, isn t it? Yes, I said. He said, Do you know anything about it? Because I couldn t help but notice that you had extra money to put in the Lego fund today. By this point, I was staring at my shoes and fidgeting with my fingernails and finally, after a very uncomfortable silence, I burst into tears and admitted I had been taking a dollar a couple of times a week from the household kitty that was kept in his dresser drawer; and just this morning, knowing that we needed only $10 more to buy the Lego s, and, and, and, I couldn t wait any longer. Sobbing, sniffling, shaking. I was a mess. Page 2 of 5
He said, Annette, I love you and you cannot take what isn t yours. Waiting to save the money for the Legos was supposed to part of the fun of anticipating the giant Lego village. And your mother and I depend upon the household kitty for all of our expenses. The money will need to go back. Between the sobs I said, I m so sorry. I ll put the money back. And so the hard work begins. The hard work of forgiveness. Because, have no doubt about it, forgiveness is hard work. My dad didn t seem to have a difficult time forgiving me. As I recall, the words of forgiveness came up from his heart through his mouth and into his arms that he wrapped around me. But my hard work had just begun. How do you forgive yourself when you have hurt someone else? How do you forgive yourself when you have let yourself down and not been the person you intended to be or the person you thought you were? I think this amazing grace of forgiveness is incredibly hard work, whether you are forgiving yourself or forgiving others. Forgiveness is like a garden that requires care and attention. Forgiveness is not the dismissive yeah, whatever that flips off our tongues so quickly. Forgiveness is about finding a way to hold the truth, the pain, the problem in one hand and to hold in the other hand the love and compassion for the one who has done great harm. William Willimon writes: "The human animal is not supposed to be good at forgiveness. Forgiveness is not some innate, natural human emotion. Vengeance, retribution, violence, these are natural human qualities. It is natural for the human animal to defend itself, to snarl and crouch into a defensive position when attacked, to howl when wronged, to bite back when bitten. Forgiveness is not natural. It is not a universal human virtue." Recently the Templeton Foundation has started calling for an increase in calls "forgiveness research." They funded a major nationwide study on people's attitudes toward forgiveness. The study found that 75% of Americans are "very confident" that they have been forgiven by God for their past offenses. The lead researcher, Dr. Loren Toussaint, was very surprised at such high confidence, especially since many of these same people are not regular church attenders. Still, three-quarters of the people surveyed had no doubts about God's ability to forgive; for God to grant us grace and love us unconditionally still. The picture was less bright, however, when it came to interpersonal relations. Only about half 50% -- of the people surveyed claimed that they were certain that they had forgiven others. Most people admitted that whereas God may be a galaxy-class forgiver, ordinary folks struggle with forgiveness. It's difficult to forgive other people with whom you are angry. It's even difficult to forgive yourself sometimes. Yet where forgiveness does take place, the study found a link between forgiveness and better health. The more inclined a person is to grant forgiveness, the less likely he or she will suffer Page 3 of 5
from any stress-related illnesses. You have probably read this type of research yourself that learning to forgive improves your overall health, your productivity and even your love life. Yet for us simple humans, this is so much harder holding both forgiveness and guidance; holding both love and justice. You see, we hurt, we hate, and we heal. Forgiveness is the garden. Forgiveness is not a meadow of wildflowers; it does not happen by accident or with some natural flow or lifecycle. Forgiveness is an intention; it requires us to be open and vulnerable. Forgiveness requires a decision. You first must recognize and name the pain and the hurt; you have to see it, look at it; you cannot sweep it under the rug or pretend it doesn t matter. If you are holding onto it, then it matters. Then you have to decide whether you want to make an effort to bring healing and hope; you have to decide you are willing to live without holding onto the pain, the grudge, the disappointment. Now you are thinking through your options of how to address it. It is interesting, I think, that forgiveness does not mean you forget what has been done, or that you go back to an abusive or bad situation, or that you suddenly trust the person you has wronged you. Forgiveness is not the same as waving a magic wand to remove the need for restitution and justice. No, forgiveness is the movement of the Holy Spirit to open your heart and let go of the desire for retribution and revenge; and by forgiving others, you have also freed yourself. I have gone back my mind a million times to my eight-year-old self and this difficult conversation with my Dad. There are many emotions for me still wrapped up in this story. One of the things during the conversation that I have for the rest of my life tried to repeat is, yes, obviously, not stealing... there is another lesson. Almost overlooked. So subtle that you might have missed it. My father said to me, I love you AND you can t do this. My father did not say to me I love you BUT you can t do this. Or I forgive you but. No, my father said to me I love you AND. You hear the difference don t you? The usual way the world approaches a conflict and resolution and forgiveness -- we say to people I hear what you re saying but I disagree. Or I love you but I hate it when you do this other thing. You hear it, don t you? The but in the middle of the sentence completely negates whatever initial idea was expressed. The but in the middle instantly puts us on the defensive. Forgiveness is not a but. It s an and. We don t say, I forgive you but don t every do that again. That is a conditional forgiveness only if you never do it again will you be forgiven. I don t know if this was one of those intention choices my Dad made in talking to the eight-yearold me. I only know that it allowed me to hear and to remember over and over again the I love you part of that sentence, the I forgive you part of that conversation. There's a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to Page 4 of 5
find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father. On that particularly Saturday, 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers. This is the power of forgiveness. When my father was in the hospital in his final weeks of life, I sat in his hospital room with the chair scooched up beside the bed and my hand touching his arm, or holding his hand, or rubbing his back while he slept. I read him all of the cards and letters that came pouring in. He would have lucid moments and want to talk, though talking was difficult. He said to me, I m so sorry, will you ever forgive me? I said, Whatever for? You are like the best Dad ever! He starting telling me a story, but I couldn t understand his words; they were jumbled and quiet. So I listened. There was obviously something very pressing on his heart and mind. When he had finished, what else could I say so I said, Dad, I love you and I forgive you. All I heard was a sigh of relief wash over him. What are you holding onto today? If love is in one hand, are you holding anger and rage in the other? Are you holding hurt and injury? Are you holding disappointment and fear? This is the thing, isn t it? The Holy Spirit comes into our lives and into our hearts and fills us with this capacity to forgive to forgive ourselves and to forgive others. This capacity to hold love in one hand and offer forgiveness in the other. This is the Spirit of Truth of which Jesus spoke. This is God making known in our lives how we might be liberated from all that is locked deep inside. This is grace. People can be illogical, unreasonable, self-centered and mean. Love them anyway. Nations will war against nations. Love your enemy anyway. Families will tear into each other like only families can. Make a family anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build something anyway. Days will come and things will happen and you will be filled with anger and hurt and the desire for revenge and retribution. Forgive them anyway. Yes, the Holy Spirit comes. She comes with truth and courage and work to do. She comes with grace and love. She comes with wind and fire. She comes with grace. Yes, the Holy Spirit comes. Amen. Page 5 of 5