Jim Gill December 31, 2006
“Forgiven”
Luke 15: 8-10 2Corinthians 5:16-21
INTRODUCTION TO LUKE 15:8-10
This week I heard on the radio about a man who carjacked an SUV in Florida but called 911 because he got lost making his getaway. He said, “I stole this SUV and drove here and now I don’t know where I am.” It wasn’t long before he was picked up. He once was lost, but now he’s found, and so is the stolen SUV.
The gospel lesson is about being lost and then found. It comes as the second in a series of three parables about being lost and found. Before it is the parable of the shepherd who has 100 sheep and one was lost but then found, and it is followed by the parable of a man who had two sons and one was lost and then found.
All three parables have one thing in common, the joy over being found. Each one celebrates with great joy the return of that which was lost.
Hear the gospel of our Lord from Luke 15:8-10.
I think it’s interesting that the woman had ten coins and lost one. She lost her tithe! It was December 31 and she needed that tenth coin to fulfill her year end pledge to Cheerful Giving 01!
The one thing that the coin doesn’t have in common with the other two parables is that the coin is inanimate. A sheep can wander away from the flock. A son can choose to go to the far country. Once lost, a sheep can bleat and baa so it’s shepherd can hear it and find it. A son can “come to himself” and realize that his fathers’ servants have it better than he does. A coin can’t do either. It was here, and now it’s not. It hit the floor and rolled somewhere. It is helpless to do anything to be found. It is dependent on the tenacity of the searcher to find it.
Some of us, like sheep, wander away, chasing after the grass that is greener on the other side and find ourselves bleating from a ledge over a cliff until the shepherd’s crook reaches down to lift us up. Some of us, like younger sons, leave home willfully under our own power thinking we can do a better job of running our lives than our father, till we find ourselves longing to eat pig slop. Some of us, however, like the coin have just “fallen and we can’t get up.” We can bleat. We can’t reason. We are utterly dependent on the one who owns us to search and find us and bring us back to our rightful place where we can serve the purposes of our Lord and Master.
Paul asserts in Romans that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us, whether wandering sheep, rebellious sons and daughters, or rolling coins have fallen. We all once were lost, but now are found. And the status of our foundness is a cause for great celebration.
Paul writes that “If any one is in Christ he, she is a new creation. The old is past and gone, behold the new has come.” When we are found by our Lord, when we are sought after and rescued, when we are welcomed home by our Lord, the past is forgotten and forgiven. God is not only the God of the Second Chance, but God is also the God of the fresh start.
Do you realize that no one in this room is the same person they were seven years ago? Approximately every seven years, we are entirely new. Every cell, every atom, in our body dies and is replaced with new ones in that period of time. There is not one atom in your body today that was there seven years ago. Someone has called this the "seven-year switch."
I don't know about you, but I find that quite refreshing. The process of dying and returning to life is going on in our bodies all the time. And yet our soul ” our personality, who we really are deep within ” remains the same.
We have lost 2006. It is past and gone. There is nothing we can do to live it again. We cannot undo our mistakes, our sins, our wrongs. They have been committed. The consequences of those actions have been put into play. There is one thing we can do to counteract those consequences. We can seek forgiveness and we extend forgiveness to others.
We’ve been forgiven, so must we forgive. What does the prayer our Lord taught us to pray say? Forgive us our debts AS we forgive our debtors.
This week we have lost two world leaders--Gerald Ford and Sadaam Hussein. One man’s death was marked by his nation’s mourning. The other man’s death was marked by many people of his nation cheering.
Sadaam Hussein showed no mercy. A witness who was at his execution said, I looked in his eyes and there was no remorse. His last words were words of defiance. “Palestine is Arab.”
President Bush, during his weekly radio address on Saturday, called Ford a "courageous leader, a true gentleman and a loving father and husband. Gerald Ford distinguished himself as a man of integrity and selfless dedication. He always put the needs of his country before his own, and did what he thought was right, even when those decisions were unpopular. Only years later would Americans come to fully appreciate the foresight and wisdom of this good man."
Bush was referring obliquely to Ford's decision to pardon Nixon, a step so divisive it was widely thought to have contributed to Ford’s defeat in 1976. In the years since, some critics of the pardon, as well as a number of historians, have come to see it as a wise move that spared the nation further pain from Watergate.
Ford extended forgiveness. It was a lesson that the man who defeated him in his race to be elected president also knew.
Many of you will remember back in the late 1970's when former Vice President Hubert Humphrey died. A memorial service was held in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Washington's elite gathered to say good-bye to their much-beloved friend. Richard Nixon was there that day. He sat off to himself as if he were quarantined. Senator Howard Baker, remembering that day, said, “Nobody would talk to him.” The awkward ostracizing of the former president ended when President Jimmy Carter walked over to Mr. Nixon, shook his hand, and welcomed him back to Washington. Newsweek magazine concluded that this simple act of humanity and compassion changed Nixon's future. Newsweek wrote, “If there was a turning point in Nixon's long ordeal in the wilderness, that was it.”
Ford may have given Nixon a presidential pardon, but Carter gave Nixon a presidential handshake of welcome and forgiveness.
So when are we most like Christ? We are most like Christ when we are doing what He did in his extravagant gift of love on Calvary -- forgiving.
Now, let's come at it from another direction. We need to not only forgive others, we need to receive forgiveness, we need to experience forgiveness. We need to forgive ourselves. Receiving forgiveness offers freedom to others -- and claims freedom for yourself. There is a sense in which your enmity and estrangement from another hold both of you in bondage.
Mary Levack, is a former Roman Catholic nun, now working as a program director for a Methodist Church, whose testimony of this love of Christ for each and for all is powerful. Her father left her mother with 14 children when Mary was only 5 years old. You can imagine what that would do to a little girl -- feeling abandoned, unloved, unwanted.
She entered the Convent when she was young. Two sisters had done so before her. Hear part of her story. She writes,
"I entered the Convent for two reasons. One, I felt the Lord calling me to a closer life with Him; and two, I was such a scrupulous individual, and needed direction in the depths of my spirit because I did not really understand that this closer walk with the Lord meant for me; I was of the mind that I had to make up for my sins. And so, as a teenager in the middle fifties faced with a time when it came time to do something with my life, I was of the opinion that it would be difficult for me to love one person to the exclusion of all others, and marriage therefore seemed out of the question even though I felt that was a stronger personal desire than going into the Convent, but I needed to make up for my sins, and so, I thought God must be calling me into the Convent. Two of my sisters had entered the Convent before me, and I was definitely of a mind that I had to do something to make up for my sins. And, having been let into the Convent, I was blessed. I found the Lord in a most beautifully intimate way. But I also found community life, and it was very threatening, and five years later I ran away because it was too difficult for me in the sense that I was in too much inner turmoil. I was very closed-mouthed. I wasn't really a person who shared what was going on inside of me; I didn't know you could do that and be respected for it. So I left the Convent.
Because I hadn't been counseled properly I went right into another depression and thought, well, God, now I've really blown it -- I've divorced the Lord -- and I'm never going to get to heaven. So I went back into my wounded position and cried and wept and prayed, and felt that God moved heaven and earth and Rome, and I was finally accepted back into the Convent. And again I was blessed. This time I had a little more help in finding out what was really the source of the problem.
"The word of the Lord came to me through a priest to whom I had admitted having entered the Convent, among other reasons, for the sake of making up for my sins. When he heard this, he literally wept. And then he said, "Oh, my God, didn't anyone ever tell you Jesus did that. You don't have to do that. You can't do that. Just receive His forgiveness."
Let me underscore this point by addressing a particular issue -- the issue of conflict. Rodney Dangerfield, commented once, "My wife and I sleep in separate rooms, we never eat dinner together, we take individual vacations, and we are doing all we can to keep our marriage together."
I don't believe that a family without conflict is a very healthy family. One writer has declared, "Show me a family that does not quarrel, and I will show you a family that will eventually fall apart." Well, I'm not sure we can be that dogmatic. Statistics do show that most couples on the verge of divorce do not engage enough in open conflict -- that is, they do not confront the issues with which they are dealing because they are afraid of conflict.
Well, some people think that the perfect marriage is one that is unmarred by conflict -- one in which there are no arguments, no expression of differences -- no sign of confrontation and estrangement. In fact there are some who believe that you are truly Christian when you always have your feeling under control, never raise your voice, never lose your temper, never take a person to task or do battle.
That just isn't so. Jesus didn't teach it. He raised his voice. He took on his opponents. He cleansed the temple courts of the moneychangers. Conflict is going to arise anywhere there is intimate relationship. So the sign of health in a marriage or in any relationship is not the absence of conflict -- the sign of health in a marriage and in any relationship is forgiveness.
Like the sheep, like the coin, like the younger son, like the SUV thief, we once were lost. But in Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save the lost we have been found. Or if this morning you would describe yourself as being lost, you CAN be found. Reach out to him. Call out to him. Come to your senses. And if you’re too numb to call or come around, be patient. He is like a woman who had ten coins and lost one, who lit a lamp and cleaned the house and looked carefully for it until she finds it and when she finds it she will call her friends and neighbors and say, Be happy with me because I have found that which was lost! In the same way there is joy before the angels of God when one who is lost is found.
We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God we were created to reflect, but friends, believe the good news of the gospel.
In Jesus Christ…..we are forgiven.
