Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Ashes: Matthew 6 + John 4
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Now last week, we started our new year and a new series which we have called Ashes. And it could seem like a heavy way to start the new year together and to talk about forgiveness and pain and hurt and how hard it can be to leave old wounds behind. But our goal in this conversation is to do our best to make sure that each of us here is able to start this new year Where there is always a lot of excitement about making changes and starting new patterns, we wanted to start this new season off on the right foot. Present to the moment. With all of our energy here with us, not trapped in the past, holding on to things that perhaps we should have set down a long time ago.
Speaker 1:And that's really what forgiveness is all about. Sending our hurt away and moving forward, and that's actually the image we're gonna talk about today. But really what we're doing in this series is we're taking each week in this month to give you a different image or a different metaphor, perhaps just a new way of thinking about forgiveness. And hopefully, one or two or perhaps even all of these different images will resonate with you in some way. And that will help to begin you to practice forgiveness in a more deliberate and a conscious way in 2017.
Speaker 1:And I think even if each of us could take just one step forward in that area, that would be an amazing way to start this new year together. And so we actually started our conversation on forgiveness last week by talking about what it isn't. So we talked about three things last Sunday. About three unhealthy expectations that we sometimes carry into forgiveness that make it hard for us to do it well. And the first was that forgiveness isn't a moment.
Speaker 1:Now sure, sometimes someone offends you and you brush it off and you move on, no big deal. In fact honestly, we could all probably stand to do that a little bit more. I mean you realize that not everyone on the internet needs you to put them in their place right now. It's not in this moment. You got all week for that so slow your roll.
Speaker 1:But when someone has really truly hurt you and they have offered you, have offered a piece of your story to someone and they have not treated it with the dignity that it deserves, then that will take more than a moment. And it will take more than a single decision for you to forgive well and that's okay. Forgiveness is a process that we enter into not a moment. Second, we talked about the fact that forgiveness is not forgetting. And that should seem obvious to us.
Speaker 1:I mean, you can't make yourself forget anything. I forget things all the time but never the things I want to forget, Which makes me think that the most effective way to study for a test would be just to try really hard to forget everything that you learned. That may not be good advice, take it at your own risk. But, you can't forget what happens so don't try. Instead, to forgive well is to work to respond in an appropriate healthy healing way that moves you into a better future.
Speaker 1:Now sometimes that will mean there are new boundaries and consequences that need to be put into place. Sometimes that will mean complete restoration and reconciliation. I think that's always our hope. But you can't heal from what you don't understand. And that starts with remembering.
Speaker 1:Then finally, we talked about the idea that forgiveness isn't for them. And I think Jesus shows us this one so clearly and beautifully in the parable of the prodigal son. And when we hold on to unforgiveness it really only ever hurts us. The end of Jesus story. The father is overjoyed because his son is home And the son is welcomed home and embraced with a celebration, but it is the older brother.
Speaker 1:The one who is holding on to all of his bitterness. He is the only one who is left outside of the party. And sometimes, forgiveness is setting someone free and then realizing it was you. And that's important. So forgiveness is not a moment.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness is not forgetting. And forgiveness is not for them. Let's pray and then we'll jump into our conversation today. Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden. We give ourselves over to your perfect knowledge this day.
Speaker 1:To that transparency that defines your window into the deepest parts of our soul. And we ask that we might learn to rest in that vulnerability. Fully open, fully known and yet fully loved. Might we begin to sense how your grace and forgiveness flows down to us and then through us until it courses through every heartbeat and breath into every cell of our existence so that we might be ready for it to flow out of us to those around us and to those who need it, to those who have hurt us in some way, and to those who perhaps we have had misunderstandings or miscommunications with. Maybe to those we may have seen imperfectly, perhaps those we may have misjudged, maybe to those we have injured in our attempts to protect ourselves.
Speaker 1:Might the expansiveness of your forgiveness challenge and change and transform our responses to each other. And might your forgiveness flow down to us and then through us the way that it was designed. In the strong name of the risen Christ, pray. Amen. Alright.
Speaker 1:Today, some thoughts about what it is, some ideas about what it means to forgive God, and then I wanna talk a bit about why it's so important that we learn to forgive ourselves. But I wanna start really simply by looking at the words that we use for, the words that we translate forgiveness in our bibles. And there are basically two Hebrew words in the Old Testament and one Greek word in the New that sit behind the references to forgiveness in our English Bibles. Now the Hebrew words are nasa and salak, and the Hebrew word is afiyami. And nasa is an interesting one because the primary meaning of this word is actually to carry or to burden something.
Speaker 1:And that seems like almost the opposite of what we might think of when we think of forgiveness. But the meaning here comes from the idea of lifting something. That's part of the word nesah. You lift something to carry it. You lift something, to burden someone with it.
Speaker 1:And you can actually see this in a passage like Exodus 34 verse six where it says, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to the thousands, forgiving or perhaps we could say lifting off of us our wickedness and rebellion. And so the word can mean to carry or to burden, but when it gets used for forgiveness, it actually has this idea of lifting the burden, to take away what we carry. So when you forgive, you are lifting that weight, perhaps off of someone else, but almost certainly off of yourself as well. Now, salak is actually the more common Hebrew word. It is also more complicated though.
Speaker 1:The literal meaning of this word seems to be something like to sprinkle water. But by the time in the Hebrew scriptures, it basically means forgiveness. It's taken on a religious meaning primarily. And the meaning is probably best understood as pardon. So God pardons us.
Speaker 1:When you forgive someone, you pardon them. You release them from any debt that they might figuratively or perhaps even literally owe you. I do find this word interesting though because if you go and you dig into the etymology, you find that in ancient Ethiopic, the word originally meant to draw water. And so it could be that you start with this idea of drawing water perhaps to bring to someone as a gift, sign of reconciliation. And over time, that became a ritual of sprinkling water, a ceremony that demonstrated pardon and forgiveness.
Speaker 1:And eventually, it just simply became a word that meant forgiveness. Now either way, I like the idea that when we forgive, we are the ones carrying water. And we are the ones bringing the water, the gift. We're not waiting. Forgiveness is an active posture of pursuing grace in our relationships.
Speaker 1:Now, part of what you find is that even this word is only used 46 times in the entire Old Testament. There are a lot of pages in there. I looked. Forgive is just simply not a very common word in Hebrew. And the reason for that is that Hebrew is a far more concrete language than English.
Speaker 1:And so, concepts like forgiveness generally will give way to metaphors in Hebrew. You'll read about covering something up or washing it away. You might read about putting something behind you or even taking away sin or brokenness or hurt. Now, these are all the images that we hear more frequently in Hebrew than we do just the idea of forgiveness. And I wonder if that actually might be part of our problem when it comes to forgiveness in our lives.
Speaker 1:That we are trying to be far more high minded, more abstract than the scriptures actually call us to when it comes to this idea. And that brings us to by far the most common word associated with forgiveness. And that's the Greek, aphiemi. Now aphiemi is actually used over a 130 times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It gets used to translate a whole host of different Hebrew words that carry all these different metaphors around forgiveness.
Speaker 1:But then it gets used another 143 times in the New Testament as well. And basically means to let go of, to set down, or to send away. I think this is helpful. It's oftentimes what I hear from people is, well, I I don't know if I should forgive them because I don't know they deserve it. Or I don't know if I should forgive them because I'm not sure they understand what they've really done to me.
Speaker 1:But by taking forgiveness out of this abstract conceptual realm and talking about it in the terms that the scriptures do. In the terms of a fiemi, it helps to recenter that conversation. Because if forgiveness really is essentially to take the hurt that has been done to you and the injury that has been inflicted upon you and to send it away. Then all of a sudden we start asking very different questions about who and how and when we should forgive. I once had a friend that was in ministry and he made some very unfortunate decisions that hurt a lot of people.
Speaker 1:He let a lot of people down including myself and it hurt a lot. Like it or not, when you are a pastor, when you have any role where a lot of eyes are on you, then the personal choices that you make impact a lot of people even if they are not directly part of the story. Now fortunately, over time, I was able to move past things and I took that hurt and I set it down and I chose to walk away from it. And once I had some time and some distance, I was even able to reconnect with my friend and rebuild that relationship to some extent. It was never the same but it was good.
Speaker 1:But I remember having conversations with people years after the fact. And that situation would come up again. And people would say, well, I don't know how you can forgive this person because I don't think they've owned it yet. That was a phrase that kept coming up over and over again. And I remember one conversation in particular over coffee where someone said this to me and I replied.
Speaker 1:I just said like, first of all, how would you know? I mean, unless you are deeply present in this person's life, how would you have any idea whether they have owned anything? And I mean, how would they even prove that to you to your satisfaction? And second, why would that change anything for you? I mean, if someone has hurt you, especially someone you think has done this maliciously or has refused to own it, why would you ever allow that person to decide how long you carry that hurt around with you?
Speaker 1:That seems insane. I mean, the the person who injures you, the person especially who doesn't seem to own it or apologize for it, especially the person who doesn't make any changes after it, that is the last person you should ever cede control of your forgiveness to. But what happens is that we confuse our process of sending it away with someone else's process of coming to terms with their own mistakes. And those are two separate things. Remember, forgiveness isn't for them.
Speaker 1:And here's the hard truth that we sometimes don't want to acknowledge when it comes to our pain. That person that hurt you an hour ago, a month ago, a year ago, that's on them. But all of the pain that you have felt since that moment, all of the hurt that you have carried with you into this moment, that has been your choice to hang on to it and to bring it with you here. They aren't the one hurting you anymore. Now I'm not blaming you.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you need to hold on to it for a season. And absolutely, need to take time to process it. You need to carry it with you for a time that's natural and it's normal. But at some point, assuming that person is not still actively in your life injuring you, that's why we're gonna talk about boundaries in a couple weeks, but assuming they are not still inflicting hurt on you, then whether you live with that pain or not, that is ultimately up to you. And when I talk with someone and I ask them, why don't you want to forgive?
Speaker 1:What I hear over and over are things like, well, I don't want them to think it's okay. I don't wanna condone what they did. I want I don't want them to be off the hook and immediately I wanna say, woah. Woah. Woah.
Speaker 1:But those are two separate things. You are not responsible for ensuring they get what they deserve. That's about consequence. And that's important but it's a separate thing. To forgive is to let go.
Speaker 1:And to forgive is to send away. To forgive is to choose not to live back there in the past with that hurt anymore. And this might sound harsh, but it's important to recognize that the person that hurt you does not get to make the decision about when you will let it go. And these less abstract, these more concrete images of forgiveness that we find in the scriptures, I think they actually help us here. Because they show us that this is an active posture we are taking with forgiveness.
Speaker 1:We're not passive when we forgive. We're not at the mercy of the person who hurt us. We're not waiting for forgiveness to magically come in through the doors and find us and fix us. Forgiveness is something that we choose. And even if it takes an incredibly long time, sometimes it does.
Speaker 1:Even if we have to choose it again every single morning when we get up, even if we have to choose to forgive every time that person pops into our head over and over again, it is our choice. It's not theirs. Now, of course, God is present to us in that process. And his spirit is near to us and guiding us and healing us as we choose to follow his example of grace. But ironically, I think this is also why it's okay to talk about forgiving God.
Speaker 1:Because forgiving isn't about assigning blame. It's about leaving our hurt behind. Now, theologically, we could probably all say, well, God doesn't need to be forgiven. He hasn't done anything wrong. He's perfect.
Speaker 1:Well, fine. Sometimes, the most difficult moments to forgive are the ones where we can't point at someone to blame. Now this is gonna sound silly, but when I was a kid in high school, I played in a few bands. Now that's not the silly part. I'm getting to that.
Speaker 1:But we played in a bands, we played a lot of shows, it was a ton of fun. One of my closest friends all through high school was in this band with me, and I have great memories of it to this day. In fact, I'm still convinced that that's how I caught Rachel, my wife's attention. And truthfully, that's actually why I'm afraid to cut my hair because I still want her to think that I'm a rock star somewhere inside. And by rock star, of course, I mean 18 year old kid playing for a 106 people in Peterborough, Ontario.
Speaker 1:But regardless, at some point, we had played all the local venues in town and we were all busy with other things in life, and so we decided that we were gonna shut this band down. I think it's a couple months later, my best friend and another guy who was in our band together, they hooked up with a few new guys and they started a new band. And there was nothing shady about this. Like they they told me about it, nothing was going on behind my back, there was no drama like that but it really hurt. And and truthfully, it completely changed the dynamic in my relationship with my friend.
Speaker 1:It it took me years to realize that what I actually needed to do was to forgive him. Not because he did anything wrong, not because he had anything to apologize to me for, but simply because I was hurt and I had been carrying that around for far too long. Now I warned you that story was all teenage angst but, maybe you have been hurt by God. And it's not that he did anything wrong. It's not that God has anything to apologize for, but maybe you prayed for something and it just wasn't his plan.
Speaker 1:Or you suffered through something and he didn't save you. Maybe you poured out everything that you had before God and she still died. Or he still left. And sure, the moment hurt but so did the fact that God wasn't there in the way that you hoped he would be. It's okay to affirm that God is good and perfect, that God wants the best for you, but at the same time to acknowledge that his action or his lack thereof hurt.
Speaker 1:It's okay to name that. It's okay to feel it deeply but it's also okay to choose to send that away and to leave it back there where it happened so that you can be present to God in a new way in this moment right here. I promise you, God has never wanted you to hurt, But he knows that you have. And far more than God is interested in you perfecting your theology or using the right language when you talk at him, what he wants is for you to be present with him now. And sometimes that means you need to forgive your concept, imagination of the divine.
Speaker 1:In fact, I think that this is why when Jesus teaches us to pray, when he teaches us how to come before God and be with him, he very specifically brings us back to a focus on the present. He says, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Let's ground ourselves by remembering who God is. Good and gracious and full of love. That is the source of every breath you take.
Speaker 1:May your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Next, let's begin where we are. By remembering that you and I, we live in a participatory universe where things don't just happen to us. We get to respond. We get to act.
Speaker 1:We get to choose how our world will unfold in front of us. Give us today our daily bread, not tomorrow or next week, but this moment right here, grant us what we need. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. God, would you help us not to get stuck in the past. With those old hurts and those expired debts, God help us to be here now with you in this moment.
Speaker 1:Leave us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. God again would you help us to be not then or there or where or when but again would you pull us back into this moment with you right here. You see temptation and anxiety, they wanna drag us too far into the future with things we can't control. But unforgiveness, he wants to trap us in the past where we weren't meant to live our lives. And Jesus says, both of those are going to be toxic for you if you get stuck there.
Speaker 1:And so when you pray, pray that you are present. I've heard it said that forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past so that you can live in a more healthy present. And this is why I think it is so important that we learn to forgive ourselves just as much as it is anyone else. Because if you get stuck back there on your own mistakes, then I promise you, you will get stuck back there on someone else's. Like, it's just about where we choose to live.
Speaker 1:And so forgiveness is not about digging up the past and punishing ourselves for it. It's not about endlessly wishing we had done things differently. It's about learning the lessons but then sending that hurt away. Because the incredible thing about the Jesus story is that we are never defined by our worst moment. In Christ, you are always forever defined by your next moment.
Speaker 1:Then there's this great story in John four where Jesus meets this woman out at midday at a well. And they start to talk and Jesus starts to tell her about her story. They talk for a bit, but eventually, Jesus says, listen, you don't need to hide anything from me. It's okay. I get it.
Speaker 1:You've had multiple different husbands and the person you're with now isn't your husband. Trust me, I am far less interested in who you were than who you are in this moment right here. And so he starts to tell her about this time that he says is coming where people, regardless of their backgrounds or the histories, they will gather and they will worship in spirit and in truth, and it will be beautiful. But after all of this, what the text then says is that leaving her water jar, the woman went back into town and said to the people, come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. And think about that for a second here.
Speaker 1:I mean, this woman meets a stranger out at a well in the middle of the day who tells her that he knows about all of her secret sexual misdeeds. And her response is to run back to all of her friends and say, you've gotta meet this guy. He's incredible. That is what looking back is meant to look like in the presence of God. It's not shameful.
Speaker 1:It's not embarrassing. It's not ugly. It's not judgmental. It's not condemning. It's joyful and it's open and it's freeing and it's beautiful because this is forgiveness at its most raw.
Speaker 1:Is God coming to help you send all of that away because that's who you were, it's not who you are. This is what happens when you give up all hope for a better past so that you can live in a more beautiful now. And if you have struggled to let someone else off the hook because you're not sure if they deserve it yet, then listen to me. You deserve it. It's time to let go.
Speaker 1:And if you have struggled to forgive God because you're not sure if it's okay to say that, you don't need to betray him to acknowledge that sometimes our conceptions of the divine hurt. And if forgiveness isn't about assigning blame, if it's about consciously choosing to move past our pain, then if it seems like God has hurt you in the past, I promise that God is waiting with open arms to receive you in this moment right now. Finally, if you have struggled to forgive yourself, if the image of you that you see in the mirror comes from a year ago or a decade ago, if what you see comes from some place back there in your past, then understand that this is not the you that God sees. For God, the least interesting part about you is your worst moment. And the only reason that God is interested in helping you look back is so that you can leave it there to be with him here.
Speaker 1:So may you forgive others because you deserve to be free of that pain. May you forgive God because he is so much bigger than your imagination of him. May you forgive yourself because you are more than your worst moment. And who God longs you to see yourself as is who you are in this moment right now. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, help us as we continue to wrestle with these images, these metaphors of what it means to forgive, To sink them somewhere deep into our soul. So that if we are struggling to forgive someone in our lives, we would recognize that we are the one who controls when and how and if we will choose to leave that pain behind. God, sometimes there are consequences and there are boundaries that need to be put in place. But the hurt that we carry with us is a choice that we make. God, if we have struggled to forgive you because we have this imagination about who you are, this conception that has sometimes let us down or has hurt us, then God, would we recognize that it's okay to say we forgive?
Speaker 1:Because that means we're taking that hurt and we're setting it down and we're walking away towards who you really are. In all of your fullness, in all of your invitation, in everything that you welcome us into. And God, we are struggling to forgive ourselves, because our imagination of who we are is wrapped up in this worst moment, this thing that we've done that we just can't seem to get past. When we come to understand just how uninteresting all of that is. And that this moment, the step that is in front of us, this is the step that your spirit is present to helping us and guiding us and encouraging us to take one step in one moment right now.
Speaker 1:God, might we begin to be present to you and to ourselves, one step at a time into a more healthy and beautiful future. In the strong name of the risen Christ, pray. Amen.