March 31, 2019 – “The Art of Forgiving: Counting the Cost” by Rev. Cody Sandahl
Lay Reader = Ephesians 2:4-10
4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
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Introduction
We are still in our series looking at the art of forgiving. Last week Pastor Carol talked about living the forgiving – what the forgiving lifestyle looks like. This week we are acknowledging something I’ve heard from many of you over the course of this sermon series. Forgiving is hard! Forgiving isn’t free! There’s always a cost. There’s always an obstacle to overcome. Forgiving is hard. Asking for forgiveness is hard. Sometimes even accepting forgiveness is hard. Can I get an “Amen” on those?
Our text for today puts forgiveness in the starkest relief possible: Jesus on the cross. When you read the Gospels, you’ll see that the Gospel-writers thought Jesus’ behavior and words on the cross were very important. Jesus didn’t just die on the cross, the way he died and what he said while dying are core to our identity as Christians. And they are core to the concept of forgiveness as well.
Luke 23:32-43
32Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” 36The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” 39One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Forgiving Others
It’s one of the most famous quotable lines from one of the most quotable movies: “I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” If you for some strange reason haven’t seen the Princess Bride, Inigo’s entire life was defined by seeking vengeance against the man who murdered his father. He spent years becoming a master swordsman. He asked everyone he met if they happened to have six fingers on their right hand, because that was the distinguishing feature of the man who had killed his father. He was obsessed with righting this wrong, bringing death in exchange for death.
And over the course of the movie, he meets and defeats the man with six fingers on his right hand. And afterwards he tells another character, “Is very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”
His friend responds pretty much exactly as Jesus would: “Have you ever considered piracy?” Well, maybe that wouldn’t be Jesus’ response.
Here’s the point – there is a gap, a void on the other end of vengeance. You could get past vengeance by achieving revenge like Inigo. You could get past vengeance by choosing to forgive. Either way, you’ll find a gap, a void on the other side.
And that’s one of the costs of granting forgiveness. When we choose to forgive, we release something that was part of our identity, a motivator, a driving force. You might actually feel empty when you let go of your thirst for vengeance or punishment.
And this can be a real cost. That fire inside can actually help you achieve great things, as long as you don’t care about the cost to your soul. Michael Jordan famously – or infamously – aired his long list of grudges going all the way back to his high school coach when he gave his Hall of Fame induction speech. Holding onto that anger helped propel his basketball career. You might not achieve as much if you choose to forgive instead of stoking the flames inside.
So when contemplating forgiving others, we have to make a value judgment. Is it more valuable to me, personally, to achieve more even if it makes me bitter OR be more content with less lines on our resume? That’s a real question you’ll have to ask yourself. Would I rather prove I’m right, no matter the cost? Or would I rather have more inner peace?
Whenever we choose to forgive someone else, we pay a price. It might be a dollar cost – forgiving a debt. It might be an emotional cost – swallowing pride. It might be that loss of motivation or driving force. The cost might be the time we spend wrestling with the Holy Spirit before we’re ready to forgive. Forgiveness isn’t free. It isn’t usually cheap. Someone always pays a price. Forgiveness is hard.
Receiving Forgiveness
There’s also a cost when we ask for or receive forgiveness.
A while back, the comedian John Oliver did a show about the debt collection industry. Specifically he focused on medical debts. It’s actually pretty easy to setup a debt collection company and purchase medical debts, which then allows you to come after people to pay those debts. So Oliver purchased $15 million worth of actual Americans’ medical debts – which only cost him $60,000 – and promptly forgave all of it. Poof! No more medical debt!
But later on he chose to form a nonprofit to help a little bit more. Because do you know what happens when someone cancels your debt? The IRS considers that as income! You get taxed on your non-debt! So the nonprofit was setup to pay the taxes that someone would have to pay on the debt that Oliver just forgave. There’s a cost even when you receive forgiveness according to the IRS.
But I think that’s true for us, too. There’s actually an informal social script for asking for forgiveness. It usually goes something like this. Step 1: own your mistake. Without this, no one cares about the rest of the steps. Step 2: apologize. And you usually can’t get away with, “I’m sorry you felt that way…” You’re going to have to say, “I’m sorry I did this that resulted in you feeling this way…” You have to own a specific mistake and apologize for it to ask for forgiveness.
Step 3: outline why it won’t happen again. This is where you can’t say, “I’m sorry I got caught…” You have to say what changes you’re going to make personally to change the outcome in the future.
And then Step 4: ask for forgiveness. The word, “please” helps here, too.
Now there’s an extra step in there that often trips us up. It’s not part of the social script on forgiveness – it’s usually the source of another brouhaha rather than a happy ending. That extra step that’s not supposed to be in there? Excuses. Or maybe you call it Explanations. Whatever “e” word you want to put on it, if you’re asking for forgiveness and you start explaining yourself, you’re not actually asking for forgiveness. You’re trying to convince them that the offense wasn’t so bad, actually, and so forgiveness is only kinda sorta needed because you had good reasons. So here’s a pro tip – if the Holy Spirit is stirring you to ask for forgiveness, skip the explanations unless the other person asks you specifically for them. You’ll sound self-serving if you add explanations or excuses.
But as we walk through that social script for asking for forgiveness, it has a series of costs built in. Step 1: own your mistake. The cost is having to remove your self-justification and admit you’re wrong. That’s hard.
Step 2: apologize. The cost is having to empathize, not just sympathize. The cost is that you have to acknowledge how they might feel or the damage that has been done to them. You have to get outside of yourself. That’s hard.
Step 3: outline why it won’t happen again. The cost is that this requires you to credibly change your behavior. Every January we remind ourselves that changing our behavior is hard when we make and then break out New Year’s Resolutions. Change is hard.
Step 4: ask for forgiveness. The cost is giving power to the other person. When you ask for forgiveness you grant the other person the power to say yes or no. That’s hard to swallow.
Asking for and receiving forgiveness is a very hard thing. It has a cost. Forgiveness is hard.
God’s Forgiveness
So here’s where things get a little dicey. Do we still think forgiveness is hard when it’s God forgiving us? Or do we think God’s forgiveness is cheap – or even free?
Imagine your conversations or behavior with God when it comes to something you’re habitually doing that would land on God’s “naughty” list, not God’s “nice” list. And if you can’t think of anything, just ask the Holy Spirit to reveal where you’re off-track. If you pray that, I bet it won’t take long for the Spirit to unmask something in your life. Last I checked, Jesus was the only perfect person.
So imagine one of your habits that God would put in the bad category. How do you justify it to God? How do you talk to God about it – or do you just ignore it? Why is it so easy to justify or ignore it?
And if someone else tried to use those same excuses with you, would it fly?
Sorry, honey, I know those websites are bad, but I knew you’d forgive me so why bother trying to stop? Would that fly?
Sorry, boss, I know I’m late to work for the twenty-ninth day in a row, but I just have a hard time getting going in the morning. I was just born this way, you know? Would that fly?
Or how about ignoring it – that’s a popular approach with God. In my last year of college I had a new roommate. And he wasn’t the best at doing the dishes. Ever. Now my previous roommate of three years would probably chime in that I had a pretty high tolerance for leaving dishes in the sink – but this guy made me look like Mr. Clean incarnate.
My parents came over once, a mistake they didn’t make too many times again. And they wondered what the repugnant smell was. I told them I was taking a stand. I absolutely WOULD NOT clean up my roommate’s chicken that had been sitting in the sink for over a week – in water. My strategy was to spend as much time out of the apartment as possible and just pretending it didn’t exist.
For the record, I did win this contest of wills. But it was gross. And that’s what we – and I do mean “we” – do when we ignore the parts of our lives that separate us from God. It’s like there’s a pile of rotting chicken in the sink, and we’re pretending it’s not there. When we do that with God, it’s like we think God doesn’t care about it.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
If God didn’t care about the rotting chicken in our lives, would Jesus have come in person?
If God didn’t care about the rotting chicken in our lives, would Jesus have voluntarily gone to the cross?
If God didn’t care about the rotting chicken in our lives, would Jesus have stayed on the cross to the point of death – even though he could have stepped down at any time?
I said before that forgiveness always has a cost. Jesus paid the ultimate price to grant us forgiveness. And he didn’t do it so we could let the rotting chicken pile up in our sinks. He did it so that we could choose a better way forward. He did it so that we would have life and have it to the fullest. Take it from my personal experience, everyone’s life is better off when the rotting chicken gets cleaned up.
When the Holy Spirit convicts us that we need forgiveness from God, when the Holy Spirit convicts us that we are heading down the wrong path, when the Holy Spirit convicts us that we need to clean out the sink, it’s not just because God is a stickler for rules. It’s not because God wants to see you hop on one foot while rubbing your belly and singing Danny Boy because eternity is boring. No – when God comes knocking it’s because God wants something better in our lives.
There was definitely a cost for God. So let’s not cheapen that. Let’s not pretend that was easy. If a police officer gave you a warning instead of a ticket, would you peel out and speed off even faster than you were going before? Probably not. But that’s what we do when we pretend that God’s grace is cheap. It was costly. And God’s forgiveness isn’t God coming over, seeing the rotting chicken in the sink, and saying it’s OK. God’s forgiveness is more like God coming over and asking if he can help us clean up the sink.
In our text today, with Jesus on the cross, he offers two different kinds of forgiveness. First, Jesus freely offers, “Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” That’s pretty generous. For those areas of our lives that we don’t realize are separating us from God, Jesus offers forgiveness due to our ignorance.
But what about the places in our lives where we know exactly what we’re doing.
Well we have this fascinating scene with the two thieves next to Jesus. Both are guilty. They knew what they were doing. They were caught. One mocks Jesus for being so foolish. The other acknowledges his failings – he admits to the rotting chicken in the sink – and asks for a glimpse of hope. Jesus’ response should give all of us the same glimpse of hope – “ Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
So which thief are we acting like? Are we like the thief who changes nothing and mocks Jesus? Or are we like the thief who acknowledges our faults and asks for hope where there seems to be none?
Summary
Sisters and brothers, Jesus paid a terrible price to offer us forgiveness. Let’s not cheapen that forgiveness by pretending like we don’t have some rotting chicken in the sink. Jesus’ forgiveness includes an offer to help clean out the sink. Take that offer. Everyone’s better off.
Forgiveness is hard. It’s hard and costly when we offer it to others. It’s hard and costly when we ask for forgiveness from another. It was hard and costly for Jesus to forgive us.
What needs to be cleaned out in your life in response to that costly forgiveness? Amen.