Pray for Forgiveness (Gena Koeberl) 
John 21:19-23 [1] & II Corinthians 5:16-21 [2]
          

Last Sunday I attended Redeemer Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis. A member of the congregation shared an insight about racism. She said that racism is like dust. It does not happen all at once, but settles in and is all around. It's always with us, wherever we are there is dust. Like dust one good cleaning isn't enough. Although, I wish I only needed to dust once in a while, it just isn't so. You gotta dust every week and it always accumulates the next week. Cleaning up the dust in our lives is a daily practice. Jesus knew this. The Lord's Prayer is given as a daily prayer and daily practice. Forgiveness is part of our daily dusting. We are to forgive habitually.

When we pray "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us" two conditions are being required in the prayerful habit. First, is the condition of real "repentance" for our failures, which means no mere emotional regret but a steadfast purpose to do better. Second, is the condition of possessing a spirit of forgiveness toward our debtors.

An example of meeting such conditions is from a few years ago, when Amish families forgave the gunman who killed their schoolchildren. Reporters tracked down Professor Robert Enright, educational psychologist, who has spent his career researching forgiveness from a scientific point of view. They asked him, "How can they forgive?" He said, "The Amish have spent years building their forgiveness muscle." Forgiveness, he says, is not to be earned or manipulated by the wrongdoer, but given freely by the victim. 

Rest assured we don't start the daily exercise of forgiveness by bench lifting two tons of sin against us. Forgiveness starts with rage. Anger can be productive and energizing, but it is not the place to stay. When Enright began his study of forgiveness he formed a study group. After two years of debate they settled on a psychological definition for forgiveness. Forgiving occurs when people who have been treated unfairly reduce their resentment and are good to offenders who may be undeserving. Their pathway to forgiveness included the following steps: Uncovering anger. Deciding to forgive. Working on forgiveness.  Enright and a former student, Suzanne Freedman, carried out a two-year study testing forgiveness as a therapy for incest survivors. The study, published in 1996, found that women who sat through weekly sessions encouraging them to forgive their abusers reduced their anxiety and depression, and increased self-esteem and hope more than women who did not receive the therapy.

Forgiveness works to heal the pain of the past, but it's hard medicine. Forgiveness tests both individuals and societies. It is easy to get caught up in the shame of not "feeling forgiving" as fast as you think you should in order to be a "good Christian" or "be healed" or "get over it." Enright says "Rehab is painful. That, in essence, is what we're doing when we're forgiving. We're trying to rehab our heart....We're trying to rehab a community." (Dec. 9, 2007 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

God is at work through Jesus to rehab humanity. In the cross, Jesus took in the horror of this world alienated from God to release forgiveness into the world. Forgiveness is free but it is not cheap. Forgiveness is not fair. It is extravagant, extraordinary, disconcerting, and outrageous. Forgiveness turns the world upside down. Central to this topsy-turvy discipline, the church is called to be an agent of healing brokenness. We are called to teach and practice daily the lessons of forgiveness, to move on and not use the past against each other.

Consider the lesson from this past Sunday when we studied the text of John 4 [3] - Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman. She was a dusty woman, misunderstood, gossiped about, and outcast. Yet he spoke to her. He ventured to look into her well so deep and name all that she had done and love her anyway. That is radical forgiveness. Consider the Prodigal son. He wasted everything his father had given him. In desperation he returned home to be a slave to his father. Yet his father ran to meet him and threw a party for him. This is outrageous forgiveness. So really, is the older brother so wrong to cry out, "But father, that's not fair."? He's right. It isn't fair. It's forgiveness.  

Jesus is at work in us to rehab our lives. Forgiveness breaks down the walls. It wipes up our dusty souls and says: go and do likewise. Keep in mind that forgiveness does not mean eradicating healthy boundaries. God wants us to be happy and set limits on any behavior that hurts us. Setting healthy boundaries helps us to see the Christ in another without having to put up with abusive behavior. Forgiveness is a daily practice within those boundaries that allows us to break down the barriers that keep people out and keep pain in.

As you rehab your heart, you are a new creation in Christ. In John 21 [4] Jesus enters the room of fear where his disciples have gathered to hide. They've locked the doors and established their barriers. Yet Jesus enters in the middle of them and shares his peace. You can just feel the barriers melt away and the relief of those gathered. They received a corporate forgiveness for all they had done and not done. Then he breathes into them. Like God breathed into the first man, a dust creature, and gave him life, so now the disciples' new spiritual life comes from Jesus. They are made a new creation. This is our promise and salvation. Jesus bestows his newly forgiven, new creations, the power to forgive or retain forgiveness; to be the church that heals communal brokenness.

We are at work to rehab others. In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. Release the old hate, resentment, sorrow, and negative thinking. Be Reconciled! Be born to forgive.

There's an old story about Reverend Norman Vincent Peale walking into a tattoo shop and looking at the various tattoos. He is appalled to see the tattoo "Born to Lose." He asks the tattoo artist if anyone asks for that tattoo. The artist says "Yes." Peale is outraged. "How could anyone want to bear that tattoo?" The tattoo artist responds, "Before the tattoo is on body, it is in mind."

What mind tattoo do you bear? What limits do you set upon yourself in relationships? In your pursuits and dreams? In your willingness to forgive? Bear the tattoo of forgiveness in your life. You see you are not mere creatures of dust. You are cleansed with the breath of life and made a new creation daily, marked with the cross of Christ. Practice this daily prayer, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." Experience the pain of such a prayer as you give birth to a new life, a transformation of self and relationship. Feel the pain and experience the gain of strengthening your forgiveness muscle, every day.