Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Forgiveness and Reconciliation
I recently preached my second sermon as a guest speaker at a small chinese-american church in Virginia. I’m sharing a condensed, written version of it here
Scripture
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents[which is about 200 years of labor or $15M]. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii[about 100 days of labor or $20,000], and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Sermon
Forgiveness is not a popular concept these days. We often view forgiveness as weakness, as being taken advantage of, or as in fundamental conflict with justice. More personally, I’ve seen many long friendships end over disagreements that pale in comparison to the history and breadth of a relationship, simply because one or both parties are unwilling to come together and resolve the issue. Today, I want to examine what Scripture has to say about forgiveness and how Christians are called to live their lives in light of the work of Christ.
This sermon’s scope is strictly for forgiveness in interpersonal relationships, usually between two christians. There are many important topics related to forgiveness, around mass shootings, police violence, and sexual assault (including within the church) - important topics that the church urgently needs to respond to. But that is not the focus of today, if only because I feel unqualified to address such issues from my personal experience. So the principles I will lay out today are not addressed for every situation, but I hope will spark the beginning of conversations in our own personal relationships.
We are called to always be moving towards the Other
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault” (Matthew 18:15)
We see Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount has a similar command when preaching on anger:
So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:23-24)
Notice that regardless of if “your brother sins against you” or if “your brother has something against you”, Jesus calls us to always be moving towards the Other. We are to be actively striving and constantly moving towards reconciliation. Indeed, reconciliation is so urgent and important that it comes before worship.
Oftentimes, when we talk about the work of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins through His death, we focus on His transcendence: how great our sin is and how great a death He died! And those are indeed good, important things that a church must remember.
But we can often forget that if God is the life-giver and the Creator, then Christ’s revelation is not only a revelation of His character, but also a model of ourselves. The most commonly made connection through this theme is that Christ is a demonstration of what it means for us to love one another. But we often forget that Christ is also a demonstration of what it means for us to forgive.
Just like with sin against God, when we hurt and transgress one another, we create a distance between us and the other person. And just like with Christ’s work, closing that distance through forgiveness requires dying to the self. In some sense, regardless of the magnitude of the wrong or the extent to which the other person tries to repent and ask for forgiveness, forgiving always requires a small part of you to surrender, to move through and past the hurt, and forgive the other person.
But why should we do this - what motivation do we have to be moving towards others when other people are often the cause of hurt and sorrow? One simple answer is that Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life” and “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly”. When we forgive, we are participating in the mystery and life of Christ.
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. (Matthew 18:20)
Forgiveness is also related to the mystery of unity. I don’t think it is any mistake that when Jesus talks about unity, it is sandwiched between lessons on forgiveness. Why are the bonds of unity in church so weak today? It is at least in part because we don’t know how to pursue forgiveness, we don’t practice the difficult conversations over small things, so we cannot resolve the bigger problems.
Finally, forgiveness is not just for ourselves in our walk with Christ, nor is it just for the church. When we forgive, we are spreading the kernel of the christian message. We can talk about sin, but if we are not open with how someone has hurt us, how will they realize the extent of their sin? And if we do not lovingly pursue forgiveness, how will they understand what it means to be forgiven?
As Christ’s ambassador, we are not called to simply repeat His words but to live them out, and part of is to participate in and pursue forgiveness with others.
But if we are to pursue forgiveness, then we must ask: what constitutes forgiveness? What does the practice of forgiveness entail?
And here we run into a common misconception, one that is common even inside the church. I have heard people inside the church say to someone, “oh you should forgive them” and what they mean is “you should forgive them in your heart and move on”. We think of forgiveness as the drawing out and formation of an internal emotional state. But that is an incomplete view of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not just an internal change in attitude, but is completed with interpersonal reconciliation, which requires common agreement on the nature of harm done.
Forgiveness is not just an internal change in attitude, but is completed with interpersonal reconciliation, which requires common agreement on the nature of harm done
It’s easy to almost miss this in the passage, where the sucess of forgiveness is conditioned on “if they listen to you” (verse 15), with a clear escalation if they don’t.
Again we see this in the subsequent parable. In both encounters, there is clear agreement on the debt i.e. the nature of harm, and both times, the debt-laden servant is repentant and wishes to “pay back” the debt. At no point is there any question of or disagreement on what is being forgiven and who is at fault.
Similarly, we can understand this when we think about the work of Christ. Even though Christ died for the forgiveness of sin, not all are saved, because not all are reconciled to him. Because the act of forgiveness is not completed until there is acknowledgement of the sin and repentance over it.
Forgiveness then is fundamentally a two-party affair. It is the healing and repairing of what is broken in reality when someone wrongs another. We often mistake forgiveness as “moving on” or “forget[ing] about it”, but as we see in the work of Jesus, it actually begins with a clear statement of what was wrong, not a mitigating or covering up of it.
And in today’s postmodern society, with a plurality of value systems present, I think forgiveness is hard because oftentimes, it is hard to even agree on the nature of the harm done. The exact magnitude and proportional blame for harm cannot even be agreed upon, so we cannot begin to truly forgive. Instead, we are left with a shallow, internalized forgiveness, that requires the imposition of forced emotion, without justice and redemption for what was broken. It’s a forgiveness that leaves you more alone at the end of it, rather than more loved and united.
But what we gain when we undertake the difficult process of forgiveness and reconciliation? You “gain your brother” (Matthew 18:15). It speaks volumes to the nature of the Christian faith that we are both called to be constantly moving towards the Other and that the reward for our effort and striving is fellowship with one another.
Finally, there is the well-known, if slightly controversial passage:
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
This passage feels deeply unfair. But unfairness presumes that we ourselves would never do such a thing, that we would never repeatedly wrong someone in the same way. As for me, I am reminded daily of my faults and the harms I do to others, both in prayer to God and in fellowship in the church. How then can I deny from others what Christ, and others, have continually done for me?
To the modern ear, this passage sounds like being taken advantage of. But hopefully, with the previous discussion on what constitutes forgiveness, we understand that the forgiveness being referred to here is constituted by authentic repentance and reconciliation. Distinguishing between the true desire for forgiveness and the false appearance of contriteness is a similar discussion to those who would distinguish true repentance of a believer from those who performatively take advantage of the Church and the Cross.
Forgiveness stems from “humility of spirit and wealth of love”
To borrow from Tim Keller’s phrasing
, our forgiveness must ultimately stem from “humility of spirit and wealth of love”. A humility of spirit that recognizes that we ourselves are not perfect, that we too are constantly being forgiven daily, and a forgiveness powered by the wealth of love that we have in Christ.I know from personal experience how much there is to forgive and to be forgiven for, even if we ourselves are not aware. The application for this sermon is easy: go to someone, seek them out, and ask for their forgiveness or be open about how they have hurt and wronged you. When we do so, we are partaking in the life of Christ; we are spreading the aroma of Christ’s salvation to those who do not know God; and we are building up the mysterious and invisible unity of the church.