Pastor Dan Mangler's Sunday Sermon

Forgiveness Gives Thrice

Matthew 18: 21-35

September 11, 2005

Forgiveness Gives Thrice

Ron Lee Davis in his book Mistreated tells about a millionaire who owned a lot in an exclusive residential area of a large city. This lot presented an unusual problem. It was only a couple yards wide by nearly a hundred feet long. There was nothing he could do with such an oddly proportioned piece of real estate but sell it to one of the neighbors on either side. He went first to the neighbor on the east side of his lot and asked if he was interested in buying it.

The neighbor said "Well only as a favor." Then he named a ridiculously low price.

The millionaire exploded. "Why that's not even one-tenth what the lot is worth!" He stormed out and went to see the neighbor on the west side. To his dismay the neighbor on the west side bettered the previous offer by only a few dollars. "Look" the neighbor said smugly "I've got you over a barrel. You can't sell that lot to anyone else and you can't build on it. So there's my offer. Take it or leave it."

The millionaire was beside himself with rage. Within a few days he hired an architect and a contractor to build one of the strangest houses ever conceived. Only five feet wide and running the full length of his property his house was little more than a row of tiny rooms each barely able to accommodate a stick of furniture. The neighbors complained that the bizarre structure would blight the neighborhood and lower their property values. But city officials could find no code or regulation to disallow it as long as the structure was occupied.

So when it was finished the millionaire moved into his uncomfortable and impractical house. There he stayed until his death. The house that became known in the neighborhood as "Spite House" still stands as a monument to one man's hate.

What a sad story. What a pathetic man. This millionaire could have lived a life of ease and pleasure anywhere he chose. Instead he chose to live the rest of his days in misery because he would not forgive what he perceived to be an injustice.

Forgiveness is a theme in both the reading from Genesis 50 and Matthew 18 this morning. In Genesis 50 Joseph forgives his brothers for selling him into slavery some fourteen years earlier. In Matthew Jesus, in answering Peter’s question of how often one must forgive, tells a parable of a king forgiving a servant's great debt while that same servant refuses to forgive a fellow servant's small debt.

We know that the cornerstone of our relationship with God is forgiveness. What we need to come to understand is that forgiveness is the cornerstone of every human relationship. Someone has said "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Baloney. "I'm sorry" and "You're forgiven" are the words of love. Many of you are familiar with Heifer International. Its slogan is "Gifts that keep on giving." Money sent to Heifer International buys an animal or animals for poor families either in the U.S. or the Third World. These are "gifts that kept on giving" because they not only gave food (for example, eggs from the chickens or milk from a cow) but the animals would have offspring to be passed on to another poor family. (The ELCA now has a similar program and it will be introduced at next Sunday’s adult forum as a proposed project for our congregation. Its purpose is to give a gift that keeps on giving as well.) Forgiveness too is a gift that keeps on giving.

Forgiveness is a gift given three times. Forgiveness is first of all a gift I give to my neighbor. This is the most obvious gift of forgiveness. Joseph's brothers were obviously relieved that Joseph forgave them and promised no revenge. The servant in Jesus' parable was obviously relieved that instead of going to jail for the debt he owed the king the entire debt was forgiven. I have to believe that everyone here (listening) has been forgiven something by another and you know the joy and release that comes with that forgiveness. Little more needs to be said about the gifts of forgiveness in the eyes of the one forgiven.

What is less obvious is the gift that forgiveness gives to the forgiver. In forgiveness the one wronged benefits as much as the one who has done the wrong. In some ways forgiveness is self-serving. When I forgive I give a gift to myself. If you would be good to yourself you would learn to forgive.

Holding on to hate, garnering grudges, refusing to forgive can cause us no end of grief. Last week’s quote applies today as well. “For that worn out feeling, carry a grudge all day”. Holding on to resentment can shorten our lives, poison our memories, weaken our relationship with God, and even afflict our own feelings of self-worth. This is in addition to the damage to the relationship with the person we choose not to forgive. That is a high price to pay in order to hold on to resentment.

The word "resentment" means to re-feel - to feel again. (Sentient beings are feeling beings). Someone wrongs or wounds you; in resenting it you re-feel the injury. And you re-hurt yourself. No rational person would do that. The Hebrew Talmud says that a person who bears a grudge is "Like one who having cut one’s hand while handling a knife avenges himself by stabbing the other hand." Holding on to hate, garnering grudges, reveling in resentment are ways we re-hurt ourselves. Give yourself a gift; grant forgiveness to one who has wronged you.

There is a gift in forgiveness for the one who receives it. There is a gift in forgiveness for the one who gives it. There is also a gift in forgiveness for the God who inspires it. We need to recognize that forgiveness is the most powerful witness we have to the activity of God's grace in our lives. Missionaries tell of entire villages on the mission field being swept into an evangelical fervor by the reconciliation of two longtime enemies because of the powerful love of God. When we can forgive another who has wronged us it tells the world that God is alive and at work... and that kind of witness is one of the most precious gifts that we can lay before the throne of God.

That forgiving witness can have a transforming power in ways we can never expect and in lives we may never know. A dentist moved into a new house. He soon found neighborhood teenagers littering his yard and riding their bicycles over his lawn.

One night the leader of the teenage group had a bad toothache. The boy's mother sent the young man to the dentist to be examined. The dentist found the tooth in need of extensive repair and offered to take care of it. The boy refused. He said his family could not afford it. The dentist persuaded the boy to let him do the repairs.

The dentist didn't send the boy’s family a bill. Soon he forgot the incident. That summer the dentist left town for an extended vacation. When he returned he found that the teenager whose tooth he had repaired had cared for his lawn during all that time. The boy just smiled and said "A tooth for a tooth".

Forgiveness can also have impact on a third party. C.F. Andrews in his book Christ and Prayer gives a moving witness to the effect of such forgiveness. He tells how his family gathered each evening for a family prayer circle. One evening just before they were to gather his father discovered that a man whom he thought to be a very good friend whom he had entrusted with the management of his property had robbed him of all his estate. It was a crushing blow, one the family did not get over financially. Nevertheless in the family circle that evening his father prayed so lovingly, so understandingly for the man who had wronged him that something happened in the heart and life of his little son C.F. Andrews would later write "That night my soul was born."

This may all sound like I have forgiveness figured out that at the first opportunity after being wronged I jump to forgive. That is simply not true. I find it as hard to forgive someone who has wronged me as you do in forgiving someone who has harmed you. But I am learning and I am trying. I am gradually beginning to understand that forgiving one who has wronged me is not only a way of loving him it is also a way of loving myself and of loving God. Forgiveness is a gift that gives to all three. Amen.

May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.