EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Jan. 28, 2018.
On July 1, 2005, I got home from work about 8 p.m.
It was a Friday, and I worked at a twice-per-week newspaper that published on Wednesdays and Saturdays. This meant that I worked many late Tuesdays and Fridays, sometimes until well after midnight.
So I was ecstatic to be walking in the door to greet my family so early this Friday. My wife, at the time, and our two young sons hated those late nights, as it usually meant that I would sneak home for dinner, and then I’d be off to work again, not seeing them until the next morning.
But this Friday was going to be different; I was going to surprise them by being home early. … As it turned out, I was the one to receive the surprise.
I walked into our house and found no one home. … Only a note from my wife, left on our dining room table: “I’m leaving you, and I’m taking the boys.” … That was it. That was all it said.
That scene started a traumatic series of years that stretched for nearly a decade, and frankly, in some ways, still reverberates in my family’s life yet today. I will spare you the details, but just imagine the sense of betrayal I felt, the financial ruin that came to follow and the subsequent difficult years of co-parenting with a former spouse who would do such a thing. … The experience almost broke me, but I got lucky. In those most darkest of years, I found my way back to the church, where I found the comfort to endure and grow through the trials. And that is why I stand here today, in a better place, happy, joyful and content with my place.
But this was not accomplished with some magic elixir, nor do I have superhuman capabilities. … What took me nearly a decade to learn, was that the magic secret to me finding my way through the darkness was simply what we call … forgiveness. That very same grace that our Father extends to us when we hurt him and do not do his will here on earth.
I will not deceive you. … It took me a long time to regain respect for my ex-wife as the boys’ mother and also come to view her as just another broken human being like the rest of us, even me. … I hated her for years, and wished her out of the picture more than once when she was making it difficult for the boys and I to move on, or even just to lead a normal day-to-day life.
But gradually, over time, and day by day, the hate receded, the chaos in her life decreased and I was able to start anew with a new marriage, a blended family and eventually new pastoral aspirations. … But it all took time, and a little something more, a little thing we call … forgiveness.
Trust me, it didn’t come easy, especially after many, many years in which my first wife continued to act in ways that disrupted life for the boys and I, and then later tried to disrupt the life of my new family. … But, after I had the time to put my transgressions into perspective, the forgiving came easier, and what also grew was my awareness that the forgiveness process would never be finished because we had children together. I figured out that this was going to be a process that had its ups and its downs forever because even though I had changed, she had not. And, yet, I still embraced my change. I recognized that I had to.
I also will be honest in that I never made a conscious decision to forgive my ex-wife because Jesus called me to do so. That realization that I actually was called to forgive all who “trespassed against me,” didn’t come until much later. … Truthfully, I only decided to forgive her for a more practical reason, which was that I couldn’t stomach the energy it took to hate any longer. After years of resentment, I finally decided that I was just “hated” out, and that to take back my life, I had to forgive. … And so I learned how to, but in a slow and painful way.
Today I can look back and see that this painful process that took so long is intricately woven into my own call story, and is a testament to Jesus’ call to forgive others as our father has so graciously forgiven us. As I can see now, with some perspective, the Holy Spirit was certainly at work in me all of those years, slowly and steadily helping me to release the anger and vitriol and offer forgiveness, not for my ex-wife’s sake but for my very own.
All these years later, what I understand is that it was my lack of forgiveness that had kept me apart from God all of those years, and it most decidedly is not coincidental that my reconciliation with the church came at the same time that I was learning how to forgive my ex-wife. … What I figured out was that while my pain may have been justified, what I couldn’t see is that we are all sinners, and through grace God has forgiven us and sees us as righteous. And so, if God could forgive us all the awful things we’ve done, we can learn to forgive others. After all, it’s Matthew 6:14-15 that tells us: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
I fully recognize that there are people sitting in this room today whom probably have been the bearers of even more traumatic hurts than I. But what we all have to come to terms with is that at some point, we all have been the transgressor and the transgressee. We have been hurt and we have done hurting. But this is not the state in which God calls us to live. This continuous pattern of hurting and being hurt rips the very fabric of God’s creation and continues to keep us separated from our father, and from one another.
The “Good News,” however, is that there is a different path, a way to live in Christ’s footsteps and to heed the words he spoke in Matthew 18:21-22: “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.’”
I don’t know where you might be on this continuum of hurting and being hurt, but there’s reason to take heart. Because what you will find is that ultimately when we give release to that pain -- regardless if the one who has hurt us even cares about the forgiveness -- is that you will be setting yourself free and bringing yourself closer to the Kingdom of Heaven. Because, after all, forgiving is really about you anyway. It’s for your benefit and gives you the power to lay down the burden you’re carrying. Choosing not to forgive actually keeps us stuck in our past, trapped in our cycle of anger and despair.
But when you truly make that decision to forgive -- even though it’s a long process and may never ever be truly complete -- you give yourself room to grow, both in mind and in spirit. Laying down those heavy burdens is going to free up space in your heart and your mind for the Holy Spirit to do its comforting work. And that’s when you’ll truly see the healing, not only mentally, both also physically and spiritually!
And when that spiritual healing begins, it will lead to a purification of your inner spirit as 1 John 1:9 tells us: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” … And you’ll be bringing yourself back to your Father!
Some of you may be thinking the very thing that I thought for so many years: “How is it that God expects me to forgive this person for the unspeakable thing they did?” ... I get it. I really do. I asked myself that very question day after day after day … for years. … How can our God demand that we forgive those “who trespass against us?” After all, doesn’t he know what they did to me?
I can only speak from my experience, and I feel that I have had to endure some pretty bad hurts in my lifetime. … And, truthfully, I can’t imagine putting myself in the shoes of someone who has lost a loved one at the hands of another, or walked the path of someone who was traumatized on a mass scale, such as by war or genocide. … As a matter of fact, I can completely understand how they might not be able to overcome their rage or devastation.
But I am not God, and God does know the pain they bear all too well, as he had to stand by and watch the world not only spurn his only son that he sent to save his beloved children, but watched us mock him, ridicule him, hunt him, torture him and ultimately kill him. He watched his son suffer and die and have to be reborn to save the very people who took his life. .... And so while I can’t comprehend the pain that some here on earth have to endure at the hands of others, I do know that our God does understand that pain, and he still tells us to lay it down and forgive. Because what’s at stake is our very own salvations as we learn in Mark 11:25: “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I know not what hurts you bear today, or where you might be in the process of forgiveness. … Or maybe you are even one who needs to seek the forgiveness. … But what I do know is that with God’s help it is indeed possible to lay those burdens down, no matter how heavy there are, nor how long you’ve been carrying them, and forgive. And what you will find in return for giving up your hold on that pain is that you will be less angry, stressed and depressed, and become more hopeful, optimistic and compassionate.
And in the process you’ll find that you are closer to God’s Kingdom than you ever were before, and that you truly will be practicing his will here on earth.
And that is the Good News for this Sunday. ... Amen.
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