The Joy of Forgiveness
Psalms 32 (NRSVUE)
Of David. A Maskil.
Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
While I kept silent, my body wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up[a] as by the heat of summer. Selah
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
Therefore let all who are faithful
offer prayer to you;
at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters
shall not reach them.
You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah
I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,
else it will not stay near you.
Many are the torments of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
INTERACTION: Everyone was given a chance to choose a stone out of a basket on their way into worship. The stones were of different sizes, shapes, and colors. During the opening announcements, everyone was instructed to hold the stone in their non-dominant hand and to continue holding it until they were given further instruction.
SERMON NOTES:
How many ads have you seen on television or in magazines that promise all kinds of life-changing things? “Lose twenty pounds in a week.” “Make a million dollars while you sleep.” “Buy a beautiful home for less than $350.” They all seem crazy, don’t they? And to be honest, most of them are what we call “scams,” because when something seems too good to be true, it usually is. However, sometimes, there are things that we can do that can change our lives forever, but it usually takes some work.
Folks, what would you say if I told you that your life could be filled with joy? What if I told you that you could be happier and feel less weighed down by the stresses in your life? What if I told you that you could start to see goodness in the world around you rather than constantly feeling irritated and angry? And what if I told you that you could worry less and feel less anxious about the things you can’t control? (Okay, now I feel like I’m on one of those infomercials!) The truth is that all of that is possible through weekly worship and through living out and practicing your faith every day. Sound easy? Well, it’s not quite easy. It takes hard work and dedication, but it does open us up to living a freer, happier, and more joy-filled life.
If we look back to our scripture reading for just a moment, we hear the psalmist say: My body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Friends, I wonder, do you ever feel that way? Do you feel tired all the time? Do people constantly irritate you? Do you just want to complain about everything? Do you have trouble sleeping at night? Do you feel weighed down by the world? For those of you that do, I want to stop for a minute. I want to invite you all to take a deep breath with me. (breathe) And I want to remind you that we are in a safe space right now. In this safe space, no one is hurting us. No one is judging us; no one is expecting anything from us. We are just sitting here as human beings. And as children of God.
In the book of Genesis, we are told that each of us is made in the image of God, just the way we are. And God has made each one of us unique and one of a kind. We each have our own personalities and our own fingerprints! It is up to us to decide what we do, how we feel, and who we love. And God gives us the ability to make our own choices and to do our own things. Pretty cool, huh? But as human beings and children of God, as unique and one-of-a-kind individuals with our own personalities and fingerprints, we have lots of choices to make. And we are responsible to not only love God and our neighbor but to love and care for ourselves, too.
Now, as you may know, throughout the fall, we are wondering about worship and why we do what we do here in Oldtown. And this week, we are focusing on the joy of forgiveness. Now, for generations, the church universal, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, was known for being very judgmental. And I know that there are many people here in our congregation who have been hurt by a church in the past. Church leaders filled their congregations with feelings of shame and guilt, and fire and brimstone sermons made parishioners feel terrible about themselves because they were hopeless sinners. Luckily, there has been a shift in the way that we understand our faith and our worship, and drastic changes have been made.
Now, here in Oldtown, we try our best to celebrate and praise God for the unconditional love and grace that each and every one of us is given. Every week, I try to fill your hearts with love, joy, peace, and hope so that you might then go out into the world to share it with others. But, as your pastor, especially because we are talking about forgiveness today, I feel a need to call myself out for a moment. Because you know that saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater?” Occasionally, I think we have done that.
Here in Oldtown, we don’t like to talk about sin and the fact that we are all sinners because that makes us feel bad. But the word sin simply means something that keeps us away from God. Somehow over the years, we have even taken the prayer of confession out of our worship service because we didn’t want people to feel bad about themselves. But in trying to bring comfort, we lost track of a very important tool. You see, confession–saying sorry for something you have done–and forgiveness–letting go of a wrong done to you–are both so important when it comes to experiencing love, hope, peace, and joy and living a free and happy life.
Folks, as human beings, we were created in the image of God, but we were not created to be perfect. We make mistakes, every single one of us! And we need to take time each week to talk to God. and to admit our shortcomings and our missteps. Not so we will feel guilty, but on the contrary, so we can let our guilty feelings go. Friends, when we hold onto our sins, our wrongdoings, and our mistakes, they weigh us down, they make us tired, they keep us up at night, and they fill us with guilt, shame, and irritability. They cause us to get frustrated and complain about everyone and everything around us and keep us from experiencing joy.
So, as your pastor, I apologize and ask for your forgiveness, and I promise we’ll add a time of confession back into our worship service so that we all have a moment to let go of the heavy things that we are carrying. Okay, I think that calls for another cleansing breath! (breathe)
But we are not done with forgiveness yet. Though it is important for us to talk to God and let go of the missteps and mistakes we have made, it is also important for us to forgive those who have wronged us. You see, when we confess something or ask for forgiveness, we let go or release our guilt and bad feelings for having done something wrong. But when we forgive someone else for something that they have done to us, it may not actually change the life of the person who hurt us. They may not change their ways, but it still changes us. Our forgiveness allows us to let go so that we no longer have to carry that anger, hurt, and frustration with us.
There are people that I talk to week after week who complain about the same stories and the same people and the same things over and over again. The person who said something to them ten years ago, or the person who did something they didn’t like last February. Let it go, my friends! Forgive them already! Life is too short to hold grudges and to be filled with such hurt and hate. We are all human, and we all make bad choices and decisions sometimes. Don’t let your life suffer because you can’t let go of your anger, resentment, or frustration over what someone else has done. Remember that only you can make yourself feel something. So choose joy, choose freedom, choose love, choose hope, choose peace, choose forgiveness. And you just might find that you start feeling better and sleeping better. You might have less anxiety and frustration and more patience and peace.
Each one of you was given a rock this morning to hold in your nondominant hand, and you have been holding that rock throughout worship. I wonder, did it get in the way when you were trying to do simple things, like open your hymnal or your Bible? Did you spend time thinking about it when maybe you should have been paying attention to something else? Now, it may not actually be big enough to feel heavy, but I’m sure that it may have been awkward or even a little annoying at moments because it is not something that you usually carry with you.
Well, during Household Huddle today, our huddlers all thought about mistakes they made or people who hurt their feelings. Each Huddler was given a backpack, and for each mistake they could remember or each person that they were angry with, we added a stone to their backpack. We talked about how heavy our emotions can be and how, unless we learn to forgive ourselves and others, we never learn to be truly happy.
So let’s imagine for a minute that this backpack represents our lives. Every day we have little things that happen to us that cause us small, little hurts or frustrations. Maybe someone is rude to us (drop a stone in the backpack), or we get yelled at by our boss or teacher (drop a stone in the backpack). Maybe we are running late, and the drive-up line at Dunkin Donuts is too long for us to get our coffee (drop a stone in the backpack). Perhaps we go to the grocery store, and they don’t have our favorite loaf bread (drop a stone in the backpack). Or we get our mail, and it has a $50 speeding ticket in it from one of the school zone cameras in Pawtucket. (drop a stone in the backpack)
Little irritations happen every day. Now, there are some days that we can act like ducks and just let those little frustrations wash off our backs, but then there are those days where, for whatever reason, we just seem to feel everything that is thrown at us (shake the bag). Now, these little things don’t seem like much; they are just little irritations and little rocks. But if we experience just one of these things every other day, that’s a hundred and eighty-two hurts or irritations every year. And then there are bigger hurts. Maybe we are cheated (bigger stone) or lied to (bigger stone). We don’t get the promotion we were promised (bigger stone) or even lose our job (bigger stone)!
And then there is occasionally a really big event when a boulder gets added to our backpacks (point to a LARGE stone on the pulpit), and we can no longer function the way we used to. Folks, many of these hurts we carry with us because we think we can’t forgive, but honestly, it’s because we choose not to. Somewhere deep inside, we want justice, we want vengeance, we want restitution, we want our lives to be back to the way they were before, and we want something bad to happen to the people who hurt us. But as Mahatma Gandhi once said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” I want you to think about this for a moment, honestly. How does someone else hurting make you feel better?
Actually, it’s usually a person who has been hurt that ends up hurting others, so let’s work to break the cycle. If we truly want to make the world a better place, we need to learn to forgive. Friends, so much of our misery is in our own hands, like that stone you are holding. And it’s up to us to name it and confess it, or forgive it and let it go.
Last week, as we reflected on the importance of Celebration and Praise, we also recognized that our Jewish brothers and sisters were celebrating Rosh Hashana as they started out the Jewish New Year with sweet things in order to praise God for the gift of Creation. Well, tonight at sundown, they begin Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement, which is a holiday where our Jewish brothers and sisters reflect on their sins and ask for forgiveness from God and those they have wronged. It is considered the holiest day of the Jewish year.
So, brothers and sisters in Christ, as you go out into your busy week ahead, let us join our Jewish brothers and sisters in forgiving one another. Let’s let go of the hurts and hate that we carry. Let go of the guilty feelings for the things we’ve said and done. Remember that we are all human beings, and we all make mistakes. But the good news is, we are also all made in the image of God and loved beyond measure by our Creator.
My friends, may it be so. Thanks be to God. Amen!
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