Tag: forgiveness

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Healing and Forgiveness – Mark 2:1-12

In the words of the immortal Marshawn Lynch, the story of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry is “all about that action, boss.” He went on a “healing tour” of the region, and despite urging everyone to keep things quiet, he drew so much attention that he was forced into the outskirts and lonely places – yet the people still kept coming.

And so in chapter 2 we see Jesus back in Capernaum, so mobbed by people that he was unaccessible to the a paralytic man who wanted healing. But this man had such close friends that they hoisted him up to the roof of the house and dug through that roof to lower him down to be healed.

And what Jesus did was not quite what anyone expected. He forgives them man of His sins. This causes grumbling, though, from legal experts who note that only God can forgive sins. So to underscore his authority, Jesus heals him at all.

This story is in part about the relationship between sin and suffering. Jesus came to do away with both, and while sin is clearly his priority, the man came to him without being forgiven, without having dealt with the sin he is forgiven of. He had to come to Jesus first.

We also see here some of why Jesus was trying to limit the crowds. When the crowd becomes a mob, there for what they can get, the person of Jesus can be lost, and those in true need are kept to the outskirts.

Jesus is addressing a couple of systemic issues here. First, by treating sin and suffering as separate issues, he is addressing the “purity culture” of the time, the concept that suffering itself was caused by sin and that misfortune is in fact punishment for having done something wrong. Second, surrounded by the crowds of the common people, many of them trapped in cycles of debt and taxes, and also being watched by the priests with the authority to forgive debts, he pointedly heals and forgives freely, drawing a contrast between his heavenly kingdom and their earthly one.

Jesus came to give forgiveness freely, to knock down the obstacles people put in between people and God. He came to undermine the authority of religious leaders who put themselves in the place as gatekeeper, doing out forgiveness in tiny drips. Jesus wants it to flow like waterfalls.

We can take comfort in this also, whatever we are struggling with. If we come to Him, no obstacles of roof or religion or authority can keep us from His love and goodness and forgiveness.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church Lynnwood, WA, October 8, 2023

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Forgiving One Another – Colossians 3:11-15

Our choices of clothes are a function of what tasks we have ahead of us, how we are feeling and what we want to convey to others. In this passage, Paul instructs us as to what “clothes” what identity we should put on as renewed people of God. The change that Christ has made in us, as a community erases the divisions among us, and creates a new people devoted to “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” And over all of these, we are to put on love. If patience is a scarf, love is the whole ensemble.

But this isn’t a mystical experience that happens to us without our participation. We have to work it out within ourselves and between each other. The crux of this section comes in verse 13, as all those virtues, especially love, find themselves called upon to support the effort of forgiveness: “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

We see this unity of love and forgiveness in Luke 7, where a woman washes Jesus’ feet to the chagrin of the religious leaders. Jesus says that “her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Love plays itself out in forgiveness.

The hard part here is that the onus of forgiveness is put onto the wronged party. What if the sin is ongoing and repetitive? What if it’s systemic? What is if it is manipulative and abusive? Forgiveness is hard.

But that’s why Paul calls us back to Christ. He is our “all and is in all” and His peace is to rule in our hearts.

Forgiveness and reconciliation requires vulnerability and transparency. When we are hurt, our natural inclination is to move to avoidance. When we are hurt by someone or we disagree with someone, we just don’t spend time with them. But in the Body of Christ we are called to more. We are called to unity, even if we are not very good at it.

And that’s why we always fall back on Christ. Lord, help us put on Your clothes and help us forgive one another.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, October 2, 2022

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Living Face to Face – Genesis 33:1-11

This is a continuation of the “Embody” series, examining how we as a church are to embody the love of God for those around us. As the pandemic deconstructed church, we are putting it back together around the essentials, and that embodiment is indeed the deepest essential.

This passage is one of two in the scripture that demonstrates (or embodies) the forgiveness of God. The other is the Prodigal Son, a direct parable of God’s forgiveness. In both stories, a reconciliation occurs, and the offended party runs out to meet the offender and embraces him, weeping. As Jacob says, this forgiveness is “like the face of God.” In reconciling face to face, he sees the face of God and experiences His forgiveness as well.

Likewise, when we extend forgiveness and grace to those around us, we show the face of God to others.

The context of this story is the turmoil, infighting, trickery and other dysfunction that surround the family of Abraham – like something out of a reality show. Though they were God’s chosen people, they were not chosen by merit, but grace. The patriarchs are not the heroes of the Bible – God is the hero of the Bible, and His grace shines through even in the Old Testament. We run into trouble as a church when we see the characters in the Old Testament as heroes in the earthly sense, and then place ourselves (whether as a church, a nation, an ethnicity) at the center of the story as the inheritors of this worldly power and wealth.

The seeds of this story were planted even before Jacob and Esau were born, as the twins wrestled with each other in the womb. Jacob’s very name comes from holding his brother’s heel as he was born, a term that also means “supplanter” or “usurper” – and he lived up to that name, conspiring with his mother to steal Esau’s very birthright as the (barely) firstborn. Esau swears to kill him.

This leads to Jacob fleeing to extended family to find a wife, and a bit of turnabout as his Uncle Laban tricks him into marrying both his daughters and working for him 14 years. Jacob turns that back on him, gaining wealth at Laban’s expense and eventually leaving in the night and taking all his flocks and family. Fleeing from Laban brings Jacob back to Esau in this story.

That’s when he gets the news that Esau is advancing with 400 men, and so Jacob’s reaction is yet another scheme, stacking children and flocks ahead of him in order of importance to him, in order to be able to flee if things go south.

This preparation to flee calls back to the time he wrestled with God (or the angel of God, or something), when his hip is struck, likely to prevent Jacob, whose nature (like many of us) is to respond to problems by running. Again, Jacob is in a place when he cannot run, but has to reconcile.

Reconciliation, to one another and between us and God, is the role of us as the church today. But the next step of this story – when Jacob bails on his brother entirely and goes in a different direction – reminds us that reconciliation is not easy, and is not a quick fix.

But it is still what we are called to, both individually and as a church. We are called to put aside our worldly reactions she striving, and live face to face in the grace and forgiveness of God.

– Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, May 8, 2022

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The Greatest Challenge – Matthew 18:15-35

This passage discusses one of the most difficult things we are called to do as followers of Christ, namely forgiving those who have hurt us.

There are five main blocks of teaching in Matthew. This one specifically addresses the community of faith that He is founding, the Church. In this passage in particular, he addresses how to handle sin in the church. Not disagreements or even just conflict, but actual sin.

When we are hurt in this fashion, our goal is to “gain a brother.” He instructs us to go to them, in an effort to create an environment of humility where we can share our heart and they can share theirs, with the end that they are won back to righteousness. We are to partner with God in the process of bringing them back into the fold – the context here is those who have gone astray, along the lines of the parable of the 100 sheep just before.

If this initial attempt is not successful, we are to bring in others. Those others can serve as a check on our own impulses, validating if the sin is real or not and discerning the hearts of those involved.

If that still does not resolve the issue, next you bring them to the church more broadly. If that does not accomplish the goal, then we are to treat them like an unbeliever. But that does not mean a breaking of the relationship – rather a change from brothers in Christ to that of evangelism. We are, from beginning to end here, seeking restoration of the other person’s relationship with God.

Peter pokes a big further. How much do we forgive? The rabbis of the day taught that three times was enough. Peter goes further, with the number of completion, and yet Jesus pushes him even further. There is no end to the forgiveness we should offer, because there is no end to the forgiveness we have been given.

(Note again that the context here is a wayward brother, not someone who remains unrepentant. There is more to say about forgiveness, but that’s the context here.)

Everyone immediately wants to go to the hard cases here, and while that is understandable, it is critical that we first understand the core principle that is being taught. Before we can address the edge cases, we need to understand the central truth Christ is teaching. Namely, we have been forgiven an immeasurable amount and are called to forgive in that same spirit.

The world around us should see grace and forgiveness when they look at the church. This is in some ways our greatest challenge. Let us seek God’s help in carrying it through.

-Sermon Notes, Jeff Sickles, Snohomish Evangelical Free Church, Snohomish, WA, October 31, 2021