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Forgiveness: Pro & Con


WELCOME TO TODAY'S WORSHIP SERVICE


Sept. 13, 2009

Rev. Wilma Wake

 

FORGIVENESS:  Pro & Con

Open your Bible



Light a candle



 
OPENING SONG
Bird on a Wire
Leonard Cohen
Sung by Johnny Cash





READINGS


BIBLE

1Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3So watch yourselves.
"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him."

SWEDENBORG

Another popular misconception is that when sins have been forgiven they are also set aside. This misconception is characteristic of people who believe that their sins are forgiven through the sacrament of the Holy Supper even though they have not set them aside by repenting from them. It is characteristic also of people who believe they are saved by faith alone or by papal dispensations. They all believe in direct mercy and instant salvation.
When the sequence is reversed, though, it is true: when sins been set aside, they are forgiven. Repentance must precede forgiveness, and part from repentance there is no forgiveness. DP, NCE, #280


I have also heard from heaven that the Lord forgives everyone’s sins
and never takes revenge or even assigns spiritual credit or blame, because
he is love and goodness itself. Yet for all that, our sins are not washed
away. Nothing washes our sins away except repentance. Since the Lord
told Peter to forgive up to seventy times seven instances of sin, at what
point would the Lord stop forgiving us?  TC,  NCE,, #409



MESSAGE

FORGIVENESS: Pro and Con
Sept. 13, 2009
 
A couple of years ago, a therapist was meeting with a group of men who had all been convicted of child molestation.   They were required to attend this treatment as part of their sentence. The men  kept talking about  faith, so the therapist called in a minister to help lead the discussion. She  was the Rev. Dr. Marie  Fortune.
 She led the group in a lively discussion of sin and forgiveness. She later wrote:
But the thing I will always remember was towards the end of our time together. They said, “Whenever you talk with church people, tell them not to forgive us so quickly.”
Of the twenty-seven men who had molested their own children, twenty-five were active Christians. Each one of them said that when he was arrested, he went first to his pastor. Each one had been prayed over by his pastor and sent home “forgiven.” Each said it was the worst thing anyone had done to him. His pastor’s “forgiveness” meant he didn’t have to face what he had done to his own children and be accountable.
Real forgiveness, she says, has to involve justice. 
Marie Fortune has been saying that for many years. She helped found the Faith Trust Institute in Seattle --  training and educational Center which criticizes the teachings of many  Christian churches about forgiveness.
Dr. Fortune says:
In fact, Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness builds on his understanding of Judaism and ethics which expects repentance from an offender who has caused harm to another.  In Luke 17:1-4, Jesus is clear that repentance is a prerequisite for forgiveness.  …
Carter Heyward, lesbian feminist Episcopal priest says:
 Whenever we are in a relatively powerless position - and gay people seeking the civil right to civil marriage is an example - our forgiveness requires several "steps":
Humility : We are mindful of our own capacity to sin, to violate others, and of our actual ongoing participation in the sins of the world. =
Willingness to forgive : This may be the hardest part for most of us because it requires us to imagine making right relation with those who are violating us and others. …
Patience : Dorothee Soelle spoke of "revolutionary patience" and that is certainly what we need in order to wait for the Spirit to soften the heart of the enemy and, if not in this generation, then in the next, or the next.
 
Both of these out-spoken clergy women claim that most of our churches have missed the boat on forgiveness. When we do harm to another – individually or collectively  – the church quickly forgives us and sends us on our way. When we have been harmed by another, we are encouraged to quickly forgive, forget, and move on with our lives. Forgiveness becomes as quick and easy as a fast-food pick-up window. Name your sin, pick up your forgiveness, and drive on down the road of live.
 
What gets missed in this approach is what Swedenborg has written about “regeneration.”   He says that our spiritual growth is dependent on our ability to repent of the harm we have caused to others and to make amends to them; an attitude reflected in the 12 steps of AA.
Swedenborg writes of this as a seven- stage process. The 5th stage, our focus for September, is where we speak with conviction. We speak the truth of own life experience with repentance and reformation, which is a long process of learning to change from our sinful ways
When Bill Wilson was in his final hospitalization for alcoholism, he had an experience of a  white light. It was dramatic and overwhelming, and he never drank again.   But his abstinence was not because of a moment of seeing a white light. It was from the years of going to meetings, asking for help, and making amends to others.
In the same way, it is easy to say, “I see the light … I will sin no more.” But most of the time, the process of repentance is a long one of changing our behaviors; not just our attitude.  
Modern psychologist Janis Abrams Frank has written a book called   How Can I Forgive You? The Courage to Forgive, the Freedom Not To. She recently appeared on Good Morning America,  saying that authentic forgiveness depends on authentic repentance.    She sees the process of offending against others, and being hurt, as part of life together in this world; and genuine forgiveness as “a healing transaction, an intimate dance.”
Rev. Carter Heyward also says that most of us play multiple roles as victims of injustice, and the perpetrators of violence. She says it “is the context in which Jesus invites us to practice forgiveness:  Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven," he tells his disciples in Luke 6:37.
 
Emanuel Swedenborg wrote about similar concepts over 300 years ago. He was critical of Christian concepts of God’s forgiveness coming through sacraments or mere faith. In today’s reading, we have this:

I have also heard from heaven that the Lord forgives everyone’s sins
and never takes revenge or even assigns spiritual credit or blame, because
he is love and goodness itself. Yet for all that, our sins are not washed
away. Nothing washes our sins away except repentance.   TC,  NCE,, #409


Part of the reason that Swedenborg could accept so many faith traditions was that, for him, spiritual growth depends on how we live; not what we believe.
He says that regeneration is not easy. However, “the time arrives when we first start to live.” That time is now; as we begin the fifth stage.   It is the day of creation when fish and birds appear on the earth.

We began our worship with  song about a bird on a wire.  Let's end with a blackbird flying.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

 
CLOSING SONG
Blackbird
by the Beatles
Sung by Carly Simon

 





Extinguish your candles
 
   




And close the Bible.            





 

Go forth; celebrating that your life has fully begun.