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The closing words of Jesus are stark this morning, to say the least.

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They're not harsh, but stark, and there's an important difference there.

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Harshness is saying hurtful things in order to hurt.

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Jesus is saying something stark. It is meant to cause alarm.

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It's meant to wake us up at 9:15 on a Sunday morning.

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But he's doing so not in order to hurt us, but in order to heal us.

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He's offering a true diagnosis of the state of our heart, news about our well-being

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that we may not want to hear, but that we need to.

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He's telling us something important about reality so that we can become a healed

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people, capable of being vessels of healing for others.

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So here is that stark claim. If you do not forgive your brother or

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sister from your heart, then your entire life's debt to God

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himself will be paid by you. We pray a version of this many days a week,

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perhaps without even noticing it in the Lord's Prayer.

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Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

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In other words, apply forgiveness to our lives, Father, to the extent

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that we apply it to those around us.

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If you're already comfortable with this teaching of Jesus, then one of two things

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is probably true. Either one, you have achieved a level of holiness that

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few of us will get to experience this side of eternity.

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If that's you, please make yourself known so that we can all spend time with you.

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Or two, you have no idea of the extent of the forgiveness

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that you need from God or that you need to offer others.

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But my guess is that most of you are joining me this morning in being uncomfortable

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with the idea that my forgiveness of others from my heart is somehow linked

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to God's forgiveness of me. Being uncomfortable is not a bad thing.

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In fact, it's essential if you're going to grow.

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And to grow from this place of discomfort this morning, we need to answer three

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questions. First, what is the human heart?

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Second, what is forgiveness? And finally then, what does it mean to forgive

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from the heart? So first, what is the human heart?

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We could have a longer conversation sometime about who is right, but here's the

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reality. When people living in our century encounter the word heart,

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we imagine something quite different from those who experienced it in the

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time of Jesus. I tend to think that the ancients were right and we are wrong,

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but at least this much is clear. We should understand what those living in the 1st

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century meant when they used the word heart, if we want any chance at understanding

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what it might mean to forgive from the heart.

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In the wisdom of the ancient world, a widely held understanding of the human person

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in Jesus' day, you and I are made up of a head, a heart, and a gut,

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and we are all of these things together.

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According to the ancient world, the heart is where you process what matters most.

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You have a head, a mind, that can interpret what your senses experience, but you

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dwell on those things in your heart.

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You relive moments in your heart. You act out ways things could

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have gone differently in your heart.

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The heart to the ancient world is also where you decide.

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It is where your will lives. You choose with your heart.

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This is why we call a medieval Scottish rebel, Braveheart, when he has

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chosen to act courageously in the face of injustice and danger.

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We are called to take heart when things are difficult, to choose to hope even in

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the face of despair. And then finally, the heart deals with emotions,

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but not as the primary seat of the emotions.

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In the ancient world, the emotions don't live in your heart.

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The emotions live in our gut. They live in our stomach.

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It's why we get butterflies in our stomach when she walks in the room, or why it

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felt like a gut punch when she rejected our offer to be boyfriend/girlfriend.

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These are all hypothetical situations.

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I'm not being instantly brought back to 1997 McDonald Junior High lunchroom

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when I share this story with you.

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So the emotions don't live in the heart.

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In fact, in the ancient world, the heart takes what your mind

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knows and what your gut feels and then chooses to act

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rightly. And sometimes, I would argue, at least in my own life, more often than

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not, the right action, the good choice, is one that conflicts either with

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what you know or how you feel. The good life is one that goes beyond pure

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rationalism, where you are ruled by your head, and pure emotionalism, where you're

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ruled by your gut. The late Wendell Berry put it beautifully.

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"Be joyful," he said, "though you have considered all the facts." Ours is a culture

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ruled by our feelings. You can't escape it.

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Follow your feelings wherever they go is the cultural Kool-Aid that everyone in

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this room has been drinking since they were born.

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You can know it's there, you can try to avoid it, but you and I are still shaped by

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that way of viewing ourselves. The answer is not to abandon your feelings or to

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pretend they don't exist or that they don't matter, but it does help to view

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our emotions properly. And when your emotions are making the right

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decision difficult, that's a warning flag.

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It's your heart telling you something about who you are.

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So it is in the heart that we decide to act justly, despite what we think and what

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we feel. So what, then, is forgiveness?

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Our Old Testament reading gives us a pretty helpful summary of what it means to

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forgive, and that summary comes in the form of the words of Joseph's brothers.

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Listen to what Joseph's brothers feared when they prepared to face Joseph after

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they had previously sold him into slavery and convinced their father that he was

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killed by a wild beast. Joseph's brothers said, "What if Joseph

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still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the

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wrong we have done to him?" A purely rational being, a head with

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no heart and no gut, would look at this situation rationally.

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Joseph's brothers did him wrong. He should exact payment from them for the wrong

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that they did. A purely emotional being, a gut with no head

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and no heart, would look at this situation from a purely emotional perspective.

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Joseph deserves to hold a grudge against his brothers.

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They hurt him, so he at least should get to enjoy hurting them back in his

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imagination. But how does Joseph respond? Does he retain a grudge?

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Does he exact revenge or demand a payment for the wrong that they did?

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Listen again to the final lines of the reading. "Have no fear," Joseph says.

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"I myself will provide for you and your little ones." And we are told in the

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scriptures, in this way, he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.

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Despite what Joseph knows about what they did to him and the real harm it caused in

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his life, and despite how he feels towards them because of this, he

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forgives. He cancels their debt, and he cancels his grudge.

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His emotions towards his brothers were justified and real.

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Joseph wept in this passage when they were speaking to him.

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In an earlier passage in Genesis, Joseph had to leave the room in order to weep

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when he was speaking with his brothers.

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But here in the final scene, we see that Joseph has the strength to know what he

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knows and feel what he feels, but still choose to forgive.

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So this is what it means to forgive from the heart, to have that strength to know

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what you know and feel what you feel, and still choose to free the other

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party from the weight of payback and from the guilt of a grudge.

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Forgiveness is not the purely rational choice, and it is not the choice that will

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satisfy what you're feeling now, but it is the good choice, and it is the path

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towards healing, your healing and theirs.

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Now, forgiveness does not always mean that you need to continue in that

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relationship or ever be in the same room again as the offending party or go back to

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the way things are. That is called reconciliation, and it can be a very

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beautiful thing. Reconciliation and forgiveness sometimes go hand in hand,

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but there are plenty of scenarios where they can't, at least for now.

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To forgive is to cancel a debt and to cancel your grudge.

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Both of those can be done on your end, regardless of how the other person

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responds. Now, in our gospel passage, the one that closes with these difficult

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words of Jesus, we are given the one and only path to growing strong

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enough in our hearts to forgive those who have hurt us.

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This parable of Jesus shows us that way.

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Only when we truly recognize the forgiveness of God in Christ that has already been

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extended to us, will we then have enough strength to rightly choose in

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our hearts to forgive those that have offended us as well.

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This parable exposes the hypocrisy that lives inside each of us, of running to

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God for forgiveness of a lifetime of compounded offenses, and yet

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refusing to pass along forgiveness to a fellow creature.

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So how do we tangibly get there? How is it that our heart is strengthened to

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recognize the forgiveness God has already extended us so that we can forgive from

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the heart those who have sinned against us?

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Here's one very practical path. Confess your sins.

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You can do this every day on your own in the daily office.

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You can schedule a time to do this with a priest.

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If you're here with us on Sundays or throughout the week, we do this corporately

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every time we gather. However you do it, regular confession of your

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sins is a baseline practice that begins to make forgiveness from

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the heart enter into the realm of possibility.

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My wife and I recently picked back up a book that we started reading a couple of

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years ago. It's called "How to Stay Married" by Harrison Scott Key.

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And yes, that's his real name. I won't spoil anything other than to say this book

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beautifully illustrates how powerfully confessing your own sin can

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be as you journey down the path towards being able to forgive the sins of

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others. Now, in just a moment, we will actually confess our sins together as we do

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each week, and perhaps this week, before you join in that confession, you and I can

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search our hearts for grudges. What's the chief grudge that comes to mind?

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And as you approach confession this morning, bring that grudge before God.

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"God, I cannot shake this grudge.

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As I separate myself from that and confess my own sin,

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please strengthen my heart so that I'm more prepared to forgive than I was when I

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walked in the sanctuary today."

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.