Back to the Basics - This We Believe!
I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sin
October 19, 2008
1 John 1:8-2:2
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
2 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 1:8-2:2
At the heart of the Christian faith lies the promise of forgiveness. Which is a very good thing because we need it-we truly need it.
Not that we don't try to convince ourselves otherwise. We humans are masters at making excuses for our behavior. We stomp all over someone else's feelings and then say, "But I didn't mean to!" We break rules and then claim we didn't know better. We steal from our bosses, betray our friends, and cheat on our spouses and then blame our misbehavior on them. If only they'd been fair, if only they'd loved us more, if only they'd been there for us, then we wouldn't have done what we did. But they didn't treat us as we deserved so it is their fault we have behaved the way we have!
In our most honest moments, we have to admit that we put our needs, our wants, and our desires ahead of anything or anyone else-including God. As Paul says in Romans, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." And we choose to do it, again and again and again.
Oh, I know there are people who claim to not sin, but I think that either they are very good at rationalizing their actions and convincing themselves that what is bad is good or they have a very deficient understanding of sin.
The simplest definition of sin that I can give is this: Sin is anything that places a barrier between us and God, us and our neighbor, or even us and ourselves. Basically, sin is anything that breaks what Jesus calls the greatest commandment: to love God with all our heart, mind, strength and soul and our neighbor as ourselves. And given that definition, it is easy to see that sin consists of things we do as well as things we don't do. We sin when we purposely break rules, but sin is much more than that. Sin is ignoring the pain and need of the person beside us. Sin is talking about people behind their back. Sin is judging others on the way they dress, the friends they keep, the kind of house they live in, or the car they drive. Sin is putting our family, our church, our nation above God. We sin when we actively do things to hurt others. And we sin when we simply don't do anything to help others.
I'm reminded of a plaque I read once: Dear God, so far today, I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy or grumpy, selfish, or over indulgent..... But, in a few minutes, I'm going to get out of bed. And from then on, I'm probably going to need a lot more help....
At the heart of the Christian faith lies the confession that there is something seriously wrong with humans and we need help-at lot more help! Or as our scripture says today: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
But the author of 1 John doesn't stop there. He goes on to say: If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Thanks be to God, we have been forgiven! Thanks to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are accepted and loved by God despite our sinfulness. In God's mind, the sins are gone, our record wiped clean, and we can begin again! Not only that but, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit within us, we can repent-a word which literally means turn around. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can turn from being self-focused to being God-focused.
This is good news! This is the Gospel!
And this good news means that we can be honest with ourselves and with others. We can admit when we fall short. At our best, Christians should be more ready than anyone else to admit their wrongs, to apologize for them and then to go forward making every attempt to avoid that sin again.
As James puts it: "Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed."
Yet how often do we avoid confession-choosing instead to wallow in guilt and shame---thinking that somehow if we don't confess then no one will know. But the truth is that there is no greater stalker than unacknowledged, unconfessed sin. The only way to be freed of its power is to name it and place it in the light of day. That's why the first and most important step in any 12 step program is to admit and acknowledge the problem: "Hi. My name is Sherill. And I am a sinner!"
And the church is the place where God intended us to be able to speak the truth about who we are, to ask for forgiveness, to ask for pray, and to be healed. So that we may also proclaim: "But thanks be to God, I am a forgiven sinner."
Good news! The best news really for broken sinful people like us! And this is the kind of news that we shouldn't keep to ourselves! We should be shouting this news from the mountaintops! While you were yet sinners, God loved you and God loved you enough that he sent his son for you!
Interestingly enough, you don't find this proclamation of forgiveness of sins where you would expect to find it in the creed. Rather than finding it in the section dealing with Jesus, we find this wonderful truth almost tacked on to the end-as if the last few things are sort of a laundry list of additional ideas the writers had forgotten to include.
Part of the reason is that this line came out of a dispute in the early church. In the days when it was a crime to be a Christian in the Roman Empire, many Christian leaders were threatened with death if they didn't turn over their scriptures to be burned. Some choose to die. Others hid their scriptures pretending to follow the law. Others choose to turn the scriptures over to the authorities assuming that their relationship with God and their lives were more important than a copy of the scriptures. Later when the Roman Empire embraced Christianity, there was a dispute about whether or not those who had turned their Scriptures over to the authorities could be forgiven. And the church's answer to that controversy was this proclamation: We believe in the forgiveness of sins!
We are not only a people who have been forgiven but we are also a people called to forgive!
At the heart of the gospel is not only the good news that we have been forgiven but there is also the call for us to forgive others. That is why Jesus taught us to pray: Forgive us our trespasses-our debts-our sins as we forgive those who sin against us!
The truth is that we will never truly be whole until we learn to forgive. We will never truly experience the forgiveness of our sins until we learn to forgive the sins of others.
Now I don't mean that because we won't forgive that God won't forgive us. Although you could read some of Jesus' words in that way! "For if you forgive others their trespasses, you heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Rather what I believe it means is that when we are unable to forgive we are unable to receive forgiveness.
This is the best way I can explain forgiveness. Clinch both of your hands tightly and hold the clinch until I tell you to let go.
When we are unable to forgive, we find ourselves holding tightly to something. It may be something someone did to us. Something unfair. A betrayal. Perhaps someone let us down by not living and acting in a manner that we expected of them. Perhaps they hurt us-hurt us badly. Or it may be something we did that we can't let go of the shame and guilt of. Whatever the event was, we hold on to it. Sometimes we nurse it and mull over it. Other times we simply hold on to it-forgetting at times that we are still holding it. But there is remains clutched tightly in our hands.
Are you still clutching your hands? Don't let go yet. How does it feel?
If you are still clutching your hands as I asked, I bet you are getting uncomfortable. Are your arms getting stiff? Perhaps you are beginning to feel it in your neck and other parts of your body. But hold on a few moments longer.
Not only is the clutched hand very uncomfortable, but you've got another problem. If someone were to try and give you something, how would you accept it? If I reached out and handed this Bible to one of you, what would have to happen in order for that person to accept the gift?
He or she would have to let go-to unclench a hand in order to reach out and receive.
Now let your hands relax. Shake it out. How do you feel now?
One of the Greek words translated forgiveness in the New Testament means "release." And this is one of the best definitions and illustrations of forgiveness for me. Because when we are unable to forgive, we are holding on to something and it affects every part of our being. What's more as long as we are holding tightly to what happened in the past, we can't accept what God is trying to give us now. But when we release our grip on the past, we are freed. We are free from the hold of what happened. And we are free to accept the forgiveness that God and others have to offer us.
And the church should be the place where that can happen. After all, as the church-as the body of Christ here on earth-we are called out to proclaim the news that sins are forgiven. And we make that proclamation through our words but, most importantly, we proclaim that good news by our actions.
So when we say we believe in the forgiveness of sins, we are saying not only that we believe God forgives our sins but because of that forgiveness we forgive the sins of others. And when we are unable to do that, we are unable to be the church!
I recently watched as a congregation I love tore itself apart. There was a disagreement-it doesn't matter now what it was about. But the congregation chose sides over this particular issue. Both sides thought they were right and the other side was wrong. As a result, people who had worshipped together, attended each other's weddings, and cried together at funerals for years shunned one another. Ugly and hurtful words were exchanged. Some left. Some stayed. But everything was changed.
Not everyone took a side. Some didn't understand what had happened. Others chose to not know what was going on. And still others decided to remain neutral. But even those who didn't participate in the fight felt disillusioned and not just a bit angry. One said to me, "It isn't the same. The love is gone."
I can't begin to tell you how painful it was to see and to hear what was happening among the people who had shown me what love and forgiveness meant! My heart broke for them. And the anger, the resentment, and the refusal to forgive nearly killed that congregation.
But the good news is that wasn't the end of the story! I wish I could tell you that everyone forgave and everyone came back. But then again maybe I don't because God has this way of entering into dying situations and bringing new life. And maybe there were a few things that congregation had to die to in order to move into God's future. However, they are growing again. When I talk to people now there is hope in their voices. And I believe that the love is returning.
I haven't asked them if they've forgiven. I guess I'm afraid of the answer. But I can see from what they are doing and discern from what they say that they are beginning to let go of the resentment and the pain of what happened. And one thing I know for sure is that they must let go if they want to be the church God calls them to be.
So to stand and declare that we believe in the forgiveness of sins is not just to celebrate the fact that God forgives us but it is also to declare that we are a community in the business of forgiving the sins of others-and that is no easy business! But it begins with a single step: the willingness to acknowledge and confess the sin.
In just a minute, you will be given that opportunity. At the front of the sanctuary, you see the cross. This is our resurrection cross-the cross where we place flowers at Easter to remind us of the resurrection that we receive because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Today you are invited to take the cards in the pews. As the music plays, take a few moments to confess your sins to God. On one side, write those things you wish to ask God to forgive you for. You can write specific things, you can draw a symbol, or a picture, or simply write your name. But while you are writing, tell God the truth about yourself. Then on the other side, write down those things or people you need to forgive! Draw symbols, write initials-whatever you need to do to express to God those things and people you need to forgive. Then during the final hymn, you will be invited to come forward and to place your cards on this cross. After the services today, I will gather them and destroy them as a symbol of God's forgiving love.
Remember: If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And I don't know about you-but I believe in the forgiveness of sins-mine and those of the world!
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