During the month of July we have been talking about Living
Generously, but we can only experience God’s generosity when we have
experienced God’s forgiveness, and as we are forgiven God calls us to forgive
others. This is perhaps one of most powerful examples of what it means to live
a Generous Life, when we are willing to offer forgiveness to other just like
God has extended forgiveness to all of us.
So, as we consider God’s forgiving generosity, I came across
the interesting fact that August is consider to be Forgiveness Month. I do not
understand where that came from or why do we need to have a forgiveness month
but I can tell you that as I thought about it, it made sense that I should write
something about one of the most central themes of the Christian tradition:
FORGIVENESS.
Therefore, let us start at the beginning. From Genesis to Revelation
we
see in the biblical witness that God has been constantly seeking us out, God
has been trying to bring us in to be in communion with him. So, God forgave
Adam and Eve, God extended forgiveness to the human race again and again. God
always seeking us out, always seeking to develop a relationship with us: the
human race.
But you see, God is not the only example of forgiveness in the scriptures,
as a matter of fact we find that many of the stories of forgiveness in the
scripture are ways for us to learn that as God has been forgiving to us, so
should we be with one another. The interesting thing is that those stories do
not begin with the New Testament, as some people may think.
I’d like to talk about four stories of forgiveness. The first one is that
of Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25, 27, 32, 33). In this story Jacob with the aid of
his mother deceived his Father Isaac in order to be blessed by him (and,
although we would not attempt a deception like his today, it is a great
story). Once the deception is complete
and Jacob had Isaac’s blessing he flew out of town to live with his mother’s
family (because, of course, mama was on the side of Jacob). There he went and
lived for a long time always fearing his brother’s retaliation. But, lo and
behold, the brothers finally met, Jacob was scared, and here comes Esau with a
great number of people (Jacob knew he did not stand a chance to fight his brother’s
men) but to Jacob’s surprise Esau came embraced him and showed him forgiveness.
He was even surprised that Jacob was still thinking that he was upset for that
episode so many years ago.
The second story is a well known story, the story of Joseph (Genesis
37-50). Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers (they really wanted to
kill him) because they were jealous of him for being their father’s favorite.
So he went off to Egypt becomes the Pharaoh’s second in command, and saved his
brothers and families from starvation. Joseph showed forgiveness to his
brothers and saved their lives.
The third story is that of the woman caught committing adultery (John 8).
In this story Jesus challenges the audience, who were ready for a kill, to
think about the many times that God has forgiven them in their own acts of
defilement. Jesus is not justifying the woman’s act (nor the man’s act), he
simply showed that there was a better way to restore people to wholeness than
by killing them (even if that is what was prescribed in the law). Of course, we
know that Jesus offered her his forgiveness, God forgave her, but many times we
missed in this story that the people present also extended forgiveness to the
woman they were about to kill as they were convicted of their own sins. Here is
a powerful story of how Jesus brought restoration to the woman by restoring her
back to her community who had pity on her and understood that the law is
important but more important is mercy and love.
The last story is the story about the servant who after
receiving forgiveness of his debt by his master was not willing to do the same
for his co-servant (Matthew 18:21-35). This is one of the most difficult
stories for us to grasp because it hits very close to home. God in his
generosity has shown us mercy, has forgiven us. Yet, when it comes our turn to
do the same for others we want to apply all the “weight” of the law, we seem to
forget God’s generous act of forgiveness, we seem to forget what God has done
in our lives, and what God wants to do for us.
Therefore, the crux of the matter is that we still need to
be confronted with the reality of forgiveness, for in order for us to be
forgiven we must also be willing to forgive those we believe have offended us,
or have acted against us inappropriately. That is why the Lord taught us in the
way he taught us to pray: “Our father in heaven,… forgive us our trespasses
(debts) as we as we forgive those who trespassed (our debtors) against us…”
Indeed, the gift of God’s grace, of God’s salvation has been given to us freely
but not cheaply. When we ask for our sins to be forgiven we must be prepared to
do likewise. For as John reminds us in his first letter:
Those who say, ‘I love God’, and
hate their brothers or sisters, are liars;
for those who do not love a brother or sister
whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment
we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and
sisters also. (1 John 4:20-21).
This, of course, includes everyone, yes even those people
whom you know are evil and you believe are not worthy of forgiveness. Maybe
because they are the adulterers of this world, they are the brothers of the “Joseph”
of this world, maybe they are like the servant who had no mercy, or maybe they
are those who crucified our Lord. Yet, even then God’s generosity for the Roman
soldiers was extended; at the moment of Jesus’ greatest weakness, he prayed: “Father,
forgive them, for they do
not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:24). God’s generous forgiveness, my brothers and
sisters, is not just an event that takes place in the heart, it is a way of
life, it is Jesus’ way, and it must be ours too.
As John said to his community in Asia Minor
centuries ago, I would like now to remind you: “I am writing to you, little
children, because your sins are forgiven on account of his name” (1 John 2:12).
Let us not forget that we have received God’s abundant grace not to hold it in
but to impart it to the world.
Let us then open our hearts, and our lives, to welcome in
our midst everyone whom God has placed in our communities. You never know, it might
be a Puerto Rican family, it might be a Mexican family, it might be some
immigrant family from somewhere in the world; who knows, it might even be your
neighbor! Let us be open to God’s Spirit who is doing great things in our midst,
and who showers us with his generous gifts every day.
