"Forgiving the Hurts We Don't Deserve"
Sermon Presented March 9,
2008
Lent V - Forgiveness Series
Colossians 3:12-15
In 1995, the Kansas City Star (May 15) reported a story about June Feinsilver and her daughter Evy Tilzer that illustrates our topic of forgiveness. June, who endured six years in Nazi concentration camps, arrived in Kansas City in 1949 with her husband Isaac, whom she married in a Polish ghetto after the war. They came without family, pictures, heirlooms, or home.
June's life in concentration camps began when she was 16. She was marked like cattle, starved, beaten and tortured. She was forced to sleep among the dead and dying, and felt the blood of a young man splash across her as he was executed while begging for his life. She couldn't bear to hear Schubert because the Nazis played his music as the bodies of Jews were burned at Auschwitz.
When Evy was born a year after June and Isaac came to Kansas City, June vowed that she would not allow fear and hatred to enter Evy's life. When Evy asked why she had no relatives, June explained that there was a war in Europe and all of her family died in the camps.
When June prepared to send Evy to summer camp, Evy cried because she feared she, too, would be killed at camp. As an adult, Evy formed a group for children of Holocaust survivors, and she frequently tells children her mother's story. In the last several years, June has joined her in telling her story. Both women moved toward forgiveness by helping others to understand the horrors of the Holocaust. However, they will never forget!
This story is an account of forgiving an atrocity that was undeserved for six million Jews who died as well as those who survived with mental and physical scars. Through forgiveness, past wounds are healed.\
From his prison cell - probably in Rome, Paul writes a letter to the Church in Colossae. He has a right to be bitter about his incarceration. He has a right to focus on his own problems, rather than what is occurring in the Colossian Church, but he doesn't. He shares the Way that Christ's followers are to live, and one of those non-negotiable tenants is forgiveness. I'm reading from Colossians 3:12-15.
Even those who clothe themselves with love have difficulty forgiving. It's human nature to want to hold onto our anger and resentment toward those who have hurt us or a loved one psychologically or physically. The boss who exploits, the parent who belittles, the teacher who ignores, and the one who abuses are difficult to forgive. Sometimes the abuse occurs because we are part of a group being attacked and other times the affront is individual. It is important to forgive the hurts we don't deserve.
I'm reading the book The Faith Club - written by a Christian, a Jew and a Palestinian Muslim. These three women came together after 9-11 to write a children's book on their faith traditions. As the project unfolded, their understanding and trust of one another grew. As they shared their own pain, forgiveness became possible. It helps to understand the background of a person or group that we mistrust. Often we discover that they, too, have experienced hurts that they don't deserve.
When Desmond Tutu was asked how he could believe in the power of forgiveness, he told the story of Peter and Linda Biehl, an American couple whose daughter Amy was working in South Africa on a Fulbright scholarship, when she was murdered in the last days of apartheid. Her murderers appealed for amnesty and Amy's parents went to South Africa several times to support the appeal. The openheartedness of the Biehls exhibited the nobility of the human spirit that made reconciliation possible. Tutu said: "Without memory, there is no healing. Without forgiveness there is no future." (Parade Magazine, January 11, 1998, p. 5)
When we are forgiven, we change! Jesus said that the one who is forgiven much, loves much! (Luke 7:47) We need to embody forgiveness as a way of life - both giving and receiving. We do this by unlearning old patterns and learning new ways to deal with our hurts and anger. Practicing forgiveness is a path to healing the hurts we don't deserve.
Let me reiterate what I have said in all of these sermons on forgiveness: we need to maintain safe boundaries from abusers who can harm us. Ministers who send an abused spouse back to her abuser with the admonition to forgive and place that woman in a position where she can be abused again is misinterpreting God's call to forgive. We can forgive and still maintain safe boundaries.
We can forgive an abusive parent, child or spouse, but we may need to sever relations with them because of the emotional or physical power they hold over us. We don't overlook the offense; but we forgive the offender.
Forgiveness without punishment can trivialize the suffering of victims. A woman minister that I met at the Courage to Lead retreats was dealing at the time with forgiving the man who brutally murdered her daughter in California. After working with Sr. Helen Prejean - author of Dead Man Walking, she was able to meet with him, forgive him, and speak at his sentencing hearing with a recommendation for prison without the possibility for parole rather than the death penalty. Punishment provides justice in criminal offenses. We need to be able to say: "The offense does matter terribly! It will never be all right! But still I forgive you."
When there is no remorse from the offender, it's more difficult to forgive. I think if I had heard the minister who abused the young people in a church I attended in Missouri say he was sorry, I would have had less trouble forgiving him. But when I heard him say in court that he would never do anything to hurt any young person, my anger erupted! Sometimes an apology from the offender helps us to offer forgiveness. However, we need to forgive - even if there is no repentance, because we are the ones who will suffer if we don't forgive.
It's easier for someone who has lived a relatively trouble-free life to advocate forgiveness than it is for someone who has been raped, cheated out of his life savings, crippled by the carelessness of another driver, paralyzed by a surgical error, or witnessed the hurt of a child or grandchild. Sometimes forgiveness comes slowly because of the deep emotional damage associated with the violation.
God doesn't ask us to do what we are incapable of doing, and God will help us to begin the process. When our yard or garden is weed-infested, we know we need to act. However, because the job is overwhelming, we can begin by pulling a few weeds each day. Then the task becomes doable. When the clutter at home begins to get to us, we can begin by cleaning out a drawer daily during the nightly news, until we see our attitude change.
It's the same way with forgiveness. We first need to tell God AND one other person that we have decided to begin the forgiveness process. Then we need to ask God to help us begin. It helps to list specific acts that we need to forgive - and then begin with one. If we chip away at it daily - sometimes going back and working through it again and again as more hurts surface, we will see progress. Remember, you don't have to like the person you forgive and it isn't necessary to tell him or her that you have forgiven. Sometimes we tell them and other times we don't. With God's help, we can make that decision. Sometimes we need to forgive someone who is dead.
It's not a sign of weakness to seek help, but a sign of strength. Seeking help means that we will do whatever is necessary to break down the blocks to forgiveness.
When we practice forgiveness, we can be good role models for our children and grandchildren. Tell them we're sorry when we make a mistake. Model forgiveness! My parents didn't do well at modeling forgiveness. Mom shoved her anger and gave Dad the silent treatment, and Dad cut off all relations with family members that he believed had hurt him. I had to learn as an older adult to deal with anger and forgiveness in a Christ-like manner, and even though I do a better job than previously, I still have lots of room to grow.
When we work on forgiveness, we find that our communion with God and with others is strengthened. A failure to forgive is a roadblock to all of our relationships. So let's take the time to examine our lives for the hurts that continue to shape us, and then let's begin the difficult work of breaking down the walls. The work we do will make a difference. I promise!
