I want to start this morning with a visualization. So if it's easier, close your eyes. Picture yourself in a rock-walled room. The wall to the left is rock. The wall to the right is rock. The back wall is rock. In the front is a door with a grille so you can see outside, but it's locked. Then the sun hits at a slightly different angle, and you see a gleam of gold in the back corner. You pick it up, and it's the key to the door. How long would it take you to use it? Not long, I'm guessing.

But back to the room. The walls have names. This wall is called "resentment." This one is called "pride." The back wall is named "hurt feelings." The roof is called "I am a victim." And the key? The gold key you hold in your hand? Its name is "forgiveness." It is the key that will free you from resentment, pride, hurt feelings and being a victim.

Now there are a lot of misunderstandings about forgiveness.

Sometimes we think that forgiveness means having to forget what happened. That if we forgive someone it means that what they did to us doesn't matter. But that's not true. It does matter. What happened happened, and that can't be changed.

Sometimes we think that we can only forgive someone if they ask for forgiveness. If they acknowledge what they have done to us and are sorry. But that's not quite true either, since the prison around us is of our own making, not theirs.

Sometimes we think that forgiveness is some huge esoteric thing, especially in Christian circles. We think that we must say the right words or do the right thing or have the right attitude or the right beliefs in order to be forgiven, that it can't be anything as simple as saying "I forgive you."

Sometimes we get forgiveness mixed up with judgment, believing someone can't be forgiven unless they receive some sort of punishment for the wrong they have done. But that's a different thing then forgiveness, which is about grace, not justice.

Let's look at forgiveness in the words of Jesus. I've chosen a familiar passage. It's part of the larger teaching in Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount. It's in the 6th chapter as part of what is usually called The Lord's Prayer. There Jesus says, "kai aphes emin ta opheilemata humon os kai emeis aphekamen tois opheiletais emon." Of course he actually spoke Aramaic, but that's how the Greek sounds. The first word we are interested in is from the verb aphiemi, which in the Greek means to dismiss, to release someone, to pardon (as a judge pardons), to move away from, to let go, or to tolerate. It is translated as "forgive" in every English version of the Bible. The other word is opheilema, which is something owed to someone else either literally as money, or an obligation in a moral sense. The translation is split on this one. This is translated as "debts," as forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, but because the parallel passage in Luke 11 says "sins," instead of debts, you may also have heard forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

So, okay, that's probably more than you wanted to know, but I'm getting to the point. This is a metaphor. If we say forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, Jesus is telling us to look at the wrongs done to us as if they are part of a balance sheet. I like this because it's easy for me to visualize. Let's take a hypothetical situation. I have a piece of paper that says Peter Smith owes me $1000.00. Now I happen to know that Pete has just been laid off work, and is pretty badly off financially. So across his debt to me I write "Paid In Full." I have forgiven his debt to me. And this is the point really. My forgiving Pete's debt is an act of will on my part. Pete hasn't asked me to forgive his debt, or for more time to pay, I have decided to forgive this debt because I choose to.

The word trespass gives a slightly different metaphor. When we trespass, we go somewhere we aren't supposed to go, such as walking in a woods that doesn't belong to us, or stepping off the path onto the grass. If we say this as forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, we get a picture of a place with all the areas marked out. Somebody owns each spot in our town or field, or whatever this is. And each plot is labeled with a no trespassing sign. I might accidentally stray onto your part, or you might accidentally stray onto mine. In these cases, we simply forgive each other for our clumsiness. Now, of course, when someone deliberately crosses into our area, and is not sorry, that makes it harder, but we still forgive because what that person did deliberately, we can so easily do accidentally.

That's a nice picture and makes everything all neat and tidy, but we know real life isn't that way. I've told this story before, but before I came to Klamath Falls, I worked at a place where I was the fall guy, so to speak. Anytime there was any kind of disagreement or problem, it was my fault. You know how it can be - one person gets chosen as the one to dump everything on. That person was me. I suffered through quite a long time of this, because I had obligations holding me there, but finally I walked away. I had tried even while there to forgive those who were persecuting me, because I knew it was the right thing to do, but somehow it didn't stick. Whenever I thought of that time, I got angry all over again. But finally, a woman who used to attend here called Nancy Thurston spoke one morning on forgiveness, and something clicked at last. I was able to really forgive those people who had been so unkind to me. Now when I look back at that time, I feel sorrow, not anger. Part of this, of course, is just getting the distance needed to put things in their proper perspective. But it did take an act of will on my part to finally and forever forgive them. And here's the really interesting part. It was only after that, that I was able to look back at the that time and see what I had done to make things worse. I had to ask God to forgive me, and to forgive myself. One reason this verse speaks so strongly to me is that for me at least, I know I had to forgive before I could even see where I needed forgiveness.

And this speaks to a couple of points I made earlier. I did not have to have those people tell me they were sorry. Actually if they ever think of that time, they probably aren't sorry, because they thought they were right. And I didn't need to have justice done in that situation. The prison that was built around me was of my making. Once I took the key of forgiveness and used it, my prison melted away and I was free. That is, I was free of resentment, anger, hurt feelings and victimization. It does not mean it didn't happen or that it didn't affect me or that I wasn't hurt. But those things no longer control me.

Of course, this is an example where what was done affected only me. There are cases where someone has done something to another that requires restitution, that is, there must be some sort of payment to society because of what was done. But that is a thing related to justice, and not forgiveness. They are two different things.

There is another way to look at this too. Sometimes the prison around us consists of something we have done that we have not asked forgiveness for. Let me tell you another story. When I was still working at the library, I took the bus home every evening. I made connections at the fairground to catch the bus that would take me to my home. As you may or may not know, buses to the outer areas like the South Suburbs run only once an hour. So if I miss connections at the fairgrounds, it means either I walk the two miles from there, or if I take the next bus, it's another hour before I get home. This is not something you want to happen after working eight hours when you are tired and only want to get home to supper. Well this one particular day, we had left downtown a little late because the bus driver was talking. And because of that and a few things that happened on the way out of the city, we were late getting to the fairgrounds. The driver asked, as they often do, "Is there anyone who needs the Wal-Mart bus?" I shouted back yes, but the next thing I heard was him on the radio telling the 4/6 to go on. I called again that I needed that bus, but they weren't willing to hold it for one person. So I missed my connection. I was not a happy camper. As I was getting off, the driver asked me if I wanted to stay on while he went around again. I snarled back that what I wanted was to have caught the bus that just pulled out, and I stomped off to begin the long walk home. I was angry. I knew I shouldn't have yelled at the driver, but I didn't care. For about half or three quarters of the way home I told God exactly why I was angry with God and why I wasn't about to apologize for what I had said. But finally I cooled off, and slowed down, and began to realize that I was going to have to apologize. And because God has a sense of humor, it was three weeks before I saw the driver again. That was one prison I was glad to be out of!

The big question is how we forgive someone who has really hurt us very badly. I think it takes time, and I think it is a process. I think it takes practice. And I think it takes remembering that even this person who did this thing to us is also a child of God.

So what do we know or have we learned about forgiveness?

• It's an act of will
• It's not easy
• It is related to grace, not judgment
• It doesn't erase what was done or make it any less significant
• But it is the key to set us free.

As we go into open worship, you might want to consider the queries that are found on the back of the quotations paper in your bulletin.

Queries

• Is there someone I need to forgive?
• Is there someone from whom I need to ask forgiveness?
• What is the hardest part of forgiveness?
• Are there things that can't be forgiven?
• How do we make forgiveness part of our everyday lives?
• It is harder to forgive or to ask forgiveness?