The Platinum Rule Ephesians 4: 29-32 I love you. Surveys taken have found, not surprisingly, that this is the most beautiful sentence in the English language. It s a sentence that transforms the one who hears and the one who speaks. As we read in I John: No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in union with us, and His love is made perfect in us. Now, I m not sure what sentence was second in any of these surveys, but I would speculate that the second most beautiful sentence in English is I forgive you. For that transforms the hearer and the speaker, too. And, if we are to love like God does, then forgiveness is a central part of the equation. And I also suspect that if ever a survey was taken to find the ugliest sentence in English it would be I don t forgive you, I can t forgive you, I won t forgive you. Because forgiveness is a choice. It s a decision we make as we deal with the relationships in which we are involved. As a matter of fact, so is love. Yes, it is an emotion a powerful one. But as we live with people, we choose to love them, choose to show them love. Choose, even, to forgive them. Otherwise, our words of love are shams. Bart Millard, a Christian singer/songwriter, wrote a song called I Can Only Imagine, dedicated to his father, who had died of pancreatic cancer shortly before his band, Mercy Me, released it. It is the best-selling Christian single ever recorded. But there is a story behind it. You see, Bart had a terrible childhood. His father abused him mercilessly, beating him physically, mentally, and emotionally. Often, his father would tell him that he just didn t care. And Bart pleaded for the day when he could have the father he always wanted. One day, after the worst beating Bart ever got, he lay in his bed crying. His father burst into his room, screaming at him to stop crying, but saw the bruises and welts he had left on his son s body. And he started to cry. Which was the beginning of a whole new relationship. True, there were still some rocky moments, but Bart turned to his church youth group for support. His father turned to the Lord as well. And healing came. And when Bart s father died, Bart was mad at God: I finally got the father I wanted, and God took him away. Which led to his awe-inspiring song about the glories of Heaven. He could only imagine what his father was seeing. And the thing that was just as important was that Bart could sense that same glory he could only imagine. Because he had forgiven his father. He refused to allow the pain and trauma of his childhood years to distort his soul. He chose - that s the operative word he chose to forgive his father, to love his father, to let his father know that he was not going to live his life with a broken soul by refusing to forgive him.
Unforgiveness is a choice. So is forgiveness. It s a conscious decision we make each day to leave behind the brokenness we often feel, to let go of the anger and pain we feel, and to lay the first brick not in a wall but in a bridge. We choose to forgive. Which, let s be honest, is a difficult choice to make. Perhaps we never went through what Bart Millard went through, but we all have an unforgiveness laying deep in our soul maybe not so deep. And only by lifting it up and out do we get the freedom we are seeking; do we find the peace we can only imagine. But how? How do we let go? Especially when we know that maybe, just maybe, things won t become like we wanted them to be. After all, Bart Millard got the father he always wanted but then lost him. How do we forgive not just the neighbor who mows his lawn at 7:00am on Saturday morning, or who sets up a spite fence, or the driver who ignores the yield sign as he enters the highway in front of us, but the relative who turns every family gathering into a battleground by manipulating to get his way, or the boss who tries to dehumanize us, or the neighbor whose tongue should be registered with the police department as a deadly weapon? How do we forgive those whose actions and words have broken a place in our souls? Especially when we don t want to choose to forgive them! Well, let s look at a story about forgiveness in which Peter, good old Peter, is the protagonist. You know, I ve often said that Peter should have worn chocolate socks because he spent a lot of time with his foot in his mouth. And on this occasion, he proudly comes up to Jesus, and says it loudly enough so all the other disciples could hear him: Lord, how often should I forgive my brother when he offends me? Seven times? You see Peter knew that the rabbis taught that you only needed to forgive someone three times before you could give them a sucker punch in the solar plexus. So, Peter is being SO forgiving! (And I ve often wondered just what Peter s brother Andrew is thinking about this exchange, as well as the other disciples.) But as we know, Jesus gives Peter a look that is His equivalent of get with the program, Peter. Not seven times, but seventy times seven times. And no, Jesus didn t mean that on the 491 st time Peter was offended, he could give that old sucker punch in someone s solar plexus. Jesus just meant keep on forgiving. After all, was Peter going to carry around with him a little notebook and record every single offense against him by Andrew or any of the other ten? And are we going to carry around a little notebook and keep track of how often Mary or Bob or Bill has hurt our feelings although there probably is an app for that on our Smartphones?
Because if we are keeping track of all the offenses we ve received until the 491 st time, have we forgiven at all? Or are we just nursing a grudge and letting it grow bigger and bigger until we collapse under its weight? And any of us who have ever held a grudge which I would suspect is all of us, including he who is preaching this sermon about Christian forgiveness knows how heavy a grudge can get. Jesus is simply telling Peter, and the other eleven, and all of us, give it up. Give it up. Even if the other person has not apologized. Even if the other person didn t know he or she offended you. Even if the other person is no longer in your life. Give it up. Ask God to help because He will. But give it up. It s the only way to be free. Which leads us to another story about Peter. And his chocolate socks. It happens in the 21 st chapter of John. It s at some point after Easter. Peter and six of the other disciples have returned to Galilee, trying to make sense of what happened and what was yet to happen. They decide to go fishing, but after fishing all night, they catch not a fish. Until a stranger on the shore tells them to put down their net on the other side of the boat. And as soon as they do, the net is full of fish. Which is when Peter realizes that the stranger on the shore is the resurrected Christ. He jumps into the water (no, he doesn t walk on it) and wades to shore, followed by the others. And the Lord takes Peter aside and asks him: Do you love me more than these others do? He asks him three times a way of restoring Peter after his three denials. Even though Peter had not sought forgiveness. Peter, of course, assures Jesus that he does love Him. He chooses to love Him. But if you are familiar with this story, you may have noticed something. When the Lord addresses the big fisherman, He doesn t call him by the nickname He gave him- Rocky Peter. He calls him Simon, son of John his birth name. Simon, son of John. It s as if the Lord wants him to go back to the beginning, where and when it all started. Go back to the first flushes of faith and excitement and innocence. Go back and, spiritually, be a child again (after all, Jesus told His disciples several times that we must be like children to enter the kingdom of God). Go back to the beginning before cynicism and skepticism and frustration set in. Go back to the beginning before hurt feelings and regrets and doubts set in. Go back to the beginning and start over. My guess is that even after three years with Jesus, Peter still had a lot of baggage he was carrying around. So were the other disciples. And until they lay their baggage down they wouldn t be ready for the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. To forgive, that is what we have to do. Lay the baggage down. Go back to the beginning. No, the broken relationships might never be restored, but we will be. No, we might never get in our relationships the wholeness we always hoped we would get, but we will be whole. And no, those with whom we have issues might never want to get past those issues, but we will have gotten past them. And isn t that what Jesus is calling us to do? Because it all starts with Him.
If you watched the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle, you were likely blown away by the sermon preached by Father Michael Curry, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in America. By the way, Harry and Megan specifically invited him to preach. His words were about love, spoken by a descendant of slaves, quoting from Scripture, Martian Luther King, Jr, and the great spiritual There is a Balm in Gilead. And how love changes everything. I m sure Harry and Megan were listening Harry mouthed Wow! to Megan after Bishop Curry finished. But I hope the billion or so people who watched the wedding were listening too. Because his words were of sacrificial love. The kind Jesus modeled for us on the Cross. Of the seven last words of Jesus, I ve always thought that the first were most important: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And He wasn t just praying this it is a prayer after all about the Pharisees and Sadducees or the Roman soldiers or even the crowds whose bloodthirsty cry was: Crucify Him! He was praying this for us. For all the times we dehumanize someone else, for all the times we distort the image of God in which we were created, for all the times we have chosen NOT to forgive, for all the times we have sinned. Yes, I know we sometimes cringe at that word. We hate to hear it. We hate to think about it. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. The very reason Jesus was on that Cross. We put Him there! And He died so we can be forgiven. His sacrificial love and His sacrificial forgiveness was a choice He made. And we might say: Oh well, yeah. Jesus could forgive. But He was perfect. The Son of God. It was easy for Him. But was it? The night before, in Gethsemane, He sweat blood as He begged God to find another way. Three times. But then He chose, He chose the way of sacrifice. The way of sacrificial love. To show us the choice we can make. Or as the Platinum Rule of Ephesians states: forgive others as God in Christ has forgiven you. And that is the way out of darkness. And there is a lot of darkness in this world. In our lives. In our relationships. But Jesus, the one on the Cross, is the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out. And if we live like Him, the light wins. A Jesuit priest concluded a spiritual life retreat he had just led with these words to those who had attended: Go make something possible. Light is possible. Forgiveness is possible. Love is possible. Life is possible. Go, make something possible!
Worship June 3, 2018 Call: Litany Assurance: Litany Children s Message: What do you do when someone you know makes you mad? Prayer: Lord God of grace, forgive us for what we have done, and what we have left undone. Forgive us for being less of what we should be and more of what we should not be. Forgive us for not living up to the image in which You created us Your image. Forgive us for holding grudges, for hanging on tightly to offenses done to us, and for carrying the baggage of hurt feelings too far and for too long. Forgive us for failing to forgive others as You in Christ forgave us. And because it is difficult sometimes to forgive those who have hurt us, help us do it anyway. Grant unto us the faith, the trust, the courage, and the confidence to take the sacrificial life of Jesus on the Cross and live it. Needs, etc. LORD S PRAYER