Sermons

September 6, 2009
Paths to Forgiveness

Paths to Forgiveness
a sermon by the Rev. Mark Worth

READINGS:
1. From the Qur’an, Sura 42:40
“He who forgives, and is reconciled with his enemy, shall receive his reward from God; for God does not love those who do wrong.”

2. From Alden Nowlan (1933-1983) Canadian poet, journalist, and educator:
“The day the child recognizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.”

3. From Lewis B. Smedes (1921-2002) American author, ethicist and Christian theologian:
“There are at least two things that forgiveness is not. First, forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgetting is not hard, and is not painful. We forget what does not matter very much for us anyway. You need no miracle of grace to get you to forget. All you need is a bad memory... Forgiving is not forgetting; forgiving is remembering and still forgiving.
“Second, forgiveness is not excusing. ... Excusing is an end run around the crisis of forgiving. It is a way of telling a person he does not need to be forgiven after all. ...
“Forgiveness, at bottom, is a very simple sort of miracle. Forgiveness is a new beginning.”

THE SERMON
According to a 1988 Gallup Poll, 94% of Americans say it is important to forgive, but 85% said that they needed some outside help to be able to forgive.
What is forgiveness? Can we forgive? A dictionary would tell us that forgiveness is a process of ending resentment or anger, as a result of an offense, whether real or perceived. That sounds a bit too clinical for me. A dictionary definition has no emotional impact.
Unitarian Universalist minister Marilyn Sewell writes, “Forgiveness is getting beyond that impulse to judge and punish. It is the healing of your own heart, a softening, in response to pain or injustice. You become no longer willing to keep the power of this hurt and anger alive in your heart.” Author and educator Christina Baldwin says, “Forgiveness is the act of admitting that we are like other people.”
In his book, How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong?, author and theologian Lewis B. Smedes tells the story of Michael Christopher’s play, “The Black Angel.” The play is about a former World War II German army general named Engel who had been convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg, and sentenced to thirty years in prison. After his release, he tried to make a new life for himself and his wife, incognito he hoped, by building a cabin in the mountains.
He hoped to put his past and his guilt behind him, paid for by three decades in prison. But a certain French journalist named Morrieu was not going to let him forget. Morrieu’s family had been massacred in a village Engel’s army had attacked during the war. Every person in that village had been killed by Engel’s soldiers, and Morrieu was not going to forget. Because the Nuremberg tribunal had not ordered a death sentence, Morrieu would pronounce his own death sentence. He went to the village to stoke up the embers of hatred and fear among village radicals and hotheads. He did his job thoroughly, and the hotheads made plans to go to the cabin that night to burn it down and kill Engel.
But Morrieu wanted to confront Engel, and get answers from him. So he went to the cabin in the afternoon before the evening attack, introduced himself to a shaken Engel, and spent the afternoon interrogating the old man. He wanted to get the whole story straight, in all its details, before Engel died with his memories.
As the afternoon’s dialogue wore on, Morrieu began to have doubts about the planned attack. His taste for vengeance was turning sour. He plunged into Engel’s soul, and tore his own soul in pieces. Finally, Morrieu changed his mind. He warned Engel of the coming attack, and offered to take Engel and his wife to safety.
But Engel, hesitating, said he would only go if Morrieu would forgive him. Morrieu could not forgive, he said. He would save him, but could not forgive him.
That night the villagers came as a mob. They walked with the cowardly courage of a lynch mob, courage given by the hoods they wore over their faces. They burned the cabin to the ground and shot and killed Engel and his wife.
Lewis Smedes writes, “The play left us gasping for an answer to the question of forgiveness. What was it that Engel wanted more than life itself? What was it that he needed so badly that he would rather die than live without it? What was the one thing beyond vengeance that Morrieu did not have the power to give? What is this miracle we call forgiveness?”

Forgiveness and Western religious traditions ~
In the Jewish Bible, animal sacrifice was used in rituals for those who had sinned and repented of their sins – but sacrifice had to be accompanied by a proper attitude of repentance. The Hebrew prophets often testified that God desires to forgive human sins and asks for our repentance. While God can forgive our sins against God, God does not forgive sins we have committed against other humans. We must go to our fellow humans and ask forgiveness for our sins against them.
The Christian New Testament continues the tradition of a merciful God, shown in forgiveness of sin. Christian tradition says that all people have fallen short of perfection, and so we are all sinners. The parable of the Prodigal Son, one of Jesus’ best known parables, teaches us to forgive in the same way that God – or an ideal parent – would forgive a wayward and lost child.
The Qur’an (Koran), the holy book of Islam, says that God is merciful, and we should be merciful like God. God (“Allah” in Arabic) is the most forgiving, and is the original source of all forgiveness. We should be reconciled with our enemies whenever possible. But Islam also allows for conflict and warfare with those who refuse to make peace.
All three of these great monotheistic traditions have a concept of forgiveness of sin. But “sin,” to Unitarian Universalists, is a word that has a lot of baggage attached to it. It is a word that is thrown around in the conservative churches we abandoned long ago, and by TV evangelists, and door-to-door missionaries. We don’t like the word “sin.” The Bible – written in ancient Hebrew and koine Greek – uses words that we translate into English as “sin,” words that might also mean “transgression,” or “missing the mark.” There is sin implicit in the failure of a person to do the right thing toward one’s fellow human beings; the failure of a person to use their God-given abilities; and even the sin of ignorance, where one commits an unintentional sin. Perhaps the most heinous biblical sins are the ones that are committed deliberately and arrogantly, and the sin of hypocrisy among those who claim to be religious.
Augustine of Hippo (384-430), named a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, taught that all people are born with something he called “Original Sin.” Original Sin, a phrase not mentioned in the Bible, is said to come from Adam and Eve, and to be passed on through sexual intercourse, through the male sperm. Augustine reasoned that only Jesus was free from Original Sin, since no male sperm was used in his conception. All the rest of us have it, and so we need the Christian form of salvation.
Being the heretic that I am, I disagree with this concept of Original Sin. Pelagius (354-420), a British monk who was contemporary with Augustine, said that we are not born in Original Sin, but we learn to sin by bad example. He said that we are not responsible for anything that Adam and Eve did. Their sin was their sin, not ours. Pelagius was declared to be a heretic, but I prefer the heretic, Pelagius, to the saint, Augustine.
Little innocent babies are not guilty of any sin, original or unoriginal, and are not born in sin. We are not hopeless sinners. Most people are mostly good most of the time. Of course, we all make mistakes. Some of us, sometimes, do things that are terribly hurtful and wrong. But I do not believe that a loving God would create a torture chamber called “hell” and then create people so imperfect that we need to be sent there.
I do not believe the nonsense that God was so angry because Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit, that He condemned us all to die; but was so happy we killed his only Son, that He forgave us all.
I do believe that we are all finite and fallible. And so I do believe that part of the doctrine of Original Sin. None of us are perfect. We all do the wrong thing sometimes. And many of us, maybe most of us, do some things we regret for the rest of our lives.
We don’t like to use the word “sin.” It sounds old-fashioned, right-wing, too evangelical. But we must be able to say that certain things are clearly wrong. And some things are so wrong that I am willing to call them sins. Rape is a sin. Child molesting and abuse are sins. Slavery is a sin. Racially-based segregation is a sin. The systematic oppression of a whole class of people, simply because they are black, or Jewish, or women, or Native American, or gay, is a sin.
Murder is a sin. Nuclear war is a sin.
I am very sympathetic with the Quaker, Amish and Mennonite view that regards all war as a sin. It is not a simple question, but it is a question we should ask ourselves.
I’m willing to use the word “sin.” I understand why many Unitarian Universalists don’t use that word, won’t use that word, think it is inappropriate. I respect that point of view. And still I think that some things are so wrong we need to have a strong word like “sin” for those harmful, hurtful acts.
And because we do wrong – some of us do little wrongs, some have done large wrongs – because we all do wrong, we need repentance and forgiveness. Canadian poet Alden Nowlan said, “The day the child recognizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.”

Forgiveness in Buddhism ~
In Buddhism, forgiveness is seen as a practice to prevent harmful thoughts from causing havoc on one’s mental well-being. If we cannot forgive, we remain angry, and that anger does damage to our own inner well-being. Hatred and ill-will have a lasting effect on our karma (“actions”), and forgiveness creates emotions with a wholesome effect. So Buddhism encourages the cultivation of thoughts that leave a wholesome effect, such as forgiveness.
The following story, “A Bag of Nails,” is told on an internet Buddhist web site, viewonbuddhism.org:
“Once upon a time there was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he should hammer a nail in the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. But gradually, the number of daily nails had dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive the nails into the fence. Finally, the first day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He proudly told his father about it and his father suggested that the boy pull out one nail for each day he was able to hold his temper. The days passed, and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were all gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. ‘You have done well my son. But look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out, but it won’t matter how many times you say that you’re sorry. The wound is still there.’”
The Dalai Lama has said, “When reason ends, anger begins. Therefore, anger is a sign of weakness.” Some people believe that “righteous anger’ is a good thing. Buddhism says that “righteous anger” is like “righteous cancer” or “righteous tuberculosis.” All of them are absurd concepts.
Forgiveness, according to Buddhism, is a form of realism. It doesn’t deny, minimize, or justify what others have done to us or the pain that we have suffered. It encourages us to look at those old wounds and see them for what they are. It allows us to see how much energy we have wasted and how much we have damaged ourselves by not forgiving.
We have all been hurt. To be angry is to let others’ mistakes punish yourself. To forgive others is to be good to yourself.
Forgiveness is moving on, letting go of the past. It doesn’t erase what has happened, but it does allow us to lessen and perhaps erase the hurt of the past. When we forgive, the pain from our past no longer dictates how we live in the present. And it no longer determines our future.
There is a Tibetan Buddhist story about two monks who were released from prison after many years of mistreatment and torture. One monk asked the other, “Have you forgiven them?” “No,” said the second monk. “I will never forgive them! Never!” “Well, then,” said the first monk, “they still have you in prison, don’t they?”
The Buddha said, “You will not be punished for your anger. You will be punished by your anger.”

Forgiving is not forgetting ~
I think it is important to remember, however, that forgiving is not forgetting, it is not denying, and it is not excusing. Forgiving is not condoning. Forgiveness must not be a kind of cheap grace in which people don’t have to be accountable for what they have done.
Some people say, “Forgive and forget.” If we can forget, then it must not have been a very big thing. If you have been truly hurt, you will remember. You still can forgive, but you do not have to forget.
Remembering helps us to be cautious. Sometimes you need to separate from someone who has hurt you repeatedly and perhaps will never change. It is good to stay away from that person. Sometimes the person who hurt you has done something that brings about a jail sentence. There are consequences for our actions. Forgiving is not excusing.
American novelist Faith Baldwin says, “I think we should forgive and remember... If you forgive and forget in the usual sense, you’re just driving what you remember into the subconscious; it stays there and festers. But to look, even regularly, upon what you remember and know you’ve forgiven is achievement.”
When we seek forgiveness from another, we need to be able to say, “I’m sorry. I understand what I’ve done, and I realize that I have hurt you. I promise that I will never do it again.” And we need to really mean it. Saying “I’m sorry” isn’t enough. We need to change our behavior. “I’m sorry” means nothing at all if we don’t change, if we don’t stop doing whatever it was that caused the hurt.
Finally, can we forgive ourselves? When we understand how imperfect we are, how imperfect we all are, we gain the humility to ask our higher power – God, if you prefer – for forgiveness. When we accept that we are all flawed, we can learn to forgive ourselves. And then we can go forward and practice kindness and compassion toward others.
Just as it is not healthy to hang on to anger against others, it is not healthy to continue to be angry with ourselves. Anger turned inward is what we call depression. When we admit to our faults, and are sincere in our efforts to do better, we need to soften our hearts, let go of our anger with ourselves, forgive ourselves, and move on.
The prayer that Jesus taught his disciples in the New Testament is quoted, in English translation, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” He was not speaking about financial obligations. Jesus spoke Aramaic. We have the first written versions of his prayer in Greek, and we say it in English. Maybe a better rendering would be, “Forgive us our failures, just as we forgive the failures of others.”
Can we forgive one another for our failures, flaws, imperfections – and yes, even sins? To forgive is to heal what is broken in ourselves. When we forgive, we free ourselves from the damage that our anger can do. And when we are forgiven, we are free to make a new beginning.
Amen.