It is Elizabeth O’Connor who says, “Forgiveness is a whole lot harder than any sermon makes it out to be.”

There is a hunger in every human soul for forgiveness, both to be able to give it, and to receive it. In one of his stories, Ernest Hemingway tells about a young man who wrongs his father and he runs away from home to the city of Madrid. Out of great love for his son, the father takes out an ad in the Madrid newspaper, “Paco, meet me Hotel Montana, 12 noon Tuesday. All is forgiven. Papa.” Now Paco is a rather common name in Spain, and so when the father gets to the hotel, he finds eight hundred young men waiting for their fathers.

We long for forgiveness, to be able to forgive and to be forgiven. If that is so, then why is it so hard to forgive? It isn’t any easier for the first followers of Jesus.

Peter comes to Jesus and says, “Lord, when somebody tools me around, how many times should I allow that to happen before I stop forgiving them? Seven times?

The Rabbinic teaching of that day says that when someone wrongs you, you should forgive up to three times, and then you could stop forgiving. Jesus’ answer is somewhat startling. ‘No”, he says. ‘Not seven times. Seventy seven times.”

The literal Greek can be translated either seventy seven times or seventy times seven, which would be 490. Now I want everybody to know that I take the words of Jesus very seriously. And I’m keeping track. Several of you are already pushing the limit. A couple of you are already over four hundred. And you know who you are!

I am glad that you are smiling because the teaching of Jesus is the exact opposite. Jesus tells us, “Don’t keep track.” Jesus says, “Don’t hold anger and resentment in your heart.” Jesus says, “Don’t look for vengeance and payback.” Instead he says,”Treat one another the way God treats you.” Be forgiving the way our generous God is forgiving to us. In fact, in many ways, forgiveness is the signature and I.D. of those people who try to follow Jesus. But it is very very hard to live out.

How do the people of the world live out forgiveness in Iraq with Saddam Hussein? How do you live out forgiveness around the events of September 11, 2001 or Columbine High School? How do you live out forgiveness around the innocent victims of broken trust, as in abuse, or drunk driving, or even murder?

And yet, these are the easy ones. It is much, much harder to deal with forgiveness that is up close and personal. It’s not dealing with foreign policy, or with major national tragedies, or with headline worthy offenses, but rather dealing with the hurts and wrongs inflicted on us by those close to us, by fathers and mothers, by brothers and sisters, by children, by partners, by co-workers with whom we are in daily contact. How do you live out forgiveness there?

Today, I offer ten tenets for forgiveness. Not ten commandments, but ten ways to frame forgiveness as a core commitment of the community that seeks to follow Jesus. These first five may be very hard to live with. But I think, at least up here in our heads, we accept them. I think. Here are the first five.

#1 Forgiveness is not easy. It takes time and it takes effort.

#2 Forgiveness is not forgetting. It doesn’t mean a change in memory. It means a change in heart.

#3 Forgiveness does not overlook evil. In other words, it is not avoidance. It is not denial.

#4 Forgiveness is not destructive. It doesn’t mean that we let the damage continue.

#5 Forgiveness is not the same thing as approval. In fact, the reason that we need forgiveness is that we don’t approve. Something has happened that we do not approve of. We will not approve of it. What we can do is forgive.

Now, that’s the first five. But I think it gets more difficult. Which of these next five do you not only have trouble living with, but which ones would you say, for you, you are not even sure you can accept?

#6 Forgiveness is based on recognizing and admitting that people are always bigger than their faults. In other words, I can’t define people by just the way they have treated me. There is more to their lives than that.

#7 Forgiveness is willing to allow a person who has offended me to start over again. Or, do I say, “No room! No second chances! No, I will not ever let go and let you begin again.”

#8 Forgiveness recognizes the humanity of the person who has wronged me. It also recognizes our own humanity and our own shortcomings and our own contribution to what went wrong.

#9 Forgiveness surrenders the right to “get even”.

And finally,

#10 Forgiveness means we wish the person that has hurt us well. In fact, we wish them the best.

Pretty tough stuff! Pretty hard to live up to. And Jesus says that the foundation for it, the motivation, the energy that allows it to happen, the power that founds and fuels our forgiveness is trying to treat others the way God treats us.

The very nature of our God is to forgive. Our God, who is at the heart of the Universe, lets go and forgives. Our God, who is the author of unconditional love, lets go and forgives. Our God, who in Jesus models living (and dying) well, lets go and forgives. Our God is the foundation and the reason for us to offer forgiveness.

But it is still very hard.

As I participate in Godspell, watching the Jesus’ community take the shape and flexibility that transcends even crucifixion, I see two pathways to forgiveness.

The first is compassion. We can begin to forgive if we begin to understand another’s choices and behavior, at least a little bit. And compassion makes that possible. Compassion is not feeling sorry for somebody. It is feeling along with somebody. If we can just for a moment, just for a moment, glimpse things through their eyes…if we can just for a moment hurt with something of their feelings…if we can just for a moment walk in their shoes…or, if we can just for a moment, look at the world or the incident that happened from their confused, complicated, and slightly distorted viewpoint, instead of looking at it from our confused, complicated, and slightly distorted viewpoint, then we can begin.

Compassion is the first way.

The second way is close to the first. It is humor. I think that humor is the other side of faith. Even in our language, it shows up. When we tell a joke and when we express our faith, we say the same thing. “Don’t you get it?” We use the same kind of language. “Don’t you get it?” They are so close. It’s hard to imagine a humor-less friend of Jesus. I can imagine a well-behaved, rule-keeping religious person; but not a disciple of this man, who has no humor.

Humor is the other side of forgiveness as well. And that shows up in our language…because we say the same thing to someone who doesn’t have a sense of humor or someone who is angry and won’t let go with forgiveness. We say to both of them, “Will you please lighten up?” “Will you lighten up?”

It’s hard to imagine someone who is good humored about life and miserly about forgiveness. Forgiveness is very close to humor. With both of them, we have double vision. We see the bad, what’s out of kilter; but, we also see the good and are able to smile. That’s why there are so many good news/bad news jokes. “I know things are wrong between us, but let’s look at it this way.”

Rodney Dangerfield goes to his doctor and says, “Doctor, there is something the matter with me. Every time I look in the mirror, I get a stomach ache and I want to throw up.” And his doctor replies, “Look at it this way. Your eyesight is perfect.”

In a recent biography of the comedian, Woody Allen, John Baxter is praised for his analysis of the Jewish holocaust. He writes, “After the death camps, there are at least six million reasons not to laugh any more, and at least six million reasons to try and laugh again.”

No pit is so deep that our God is not deeper still. No forgiveness is so difficult that our God is not there first. And no wound is so bad that our God does not invite us to healing from within.

Compassion.

Humor.

Faith.

Forgiveness.

And justice.

God help us.

Actually, God will help us.

Amen.

TEN TENETS OF FORGIVENESS
#1 Forgiveness is not easy. It takes time and it takes effort.

#2 Forgiveness is not forgetting. It doesn’t mean a change in memory. It means a change in heart.

#3 Forgiveness does not overlook evil. In other words, it is not avoidance. It is not denial.

#4 Forgiveness is not destructive. It doesn’t mean that we let the damage continue.

#5 Forgiveness is not the same thing as approval. In fact, the reason that we need forgiveness is that we don’t approve. Something has happened that we do not approve of. We will not approve of it. What we can do is forgive.

#6 Forgiveness is based on recognizing and admitting that people are always bigger than their faults. In other words, I can’t define people by just the way they have treated me. There is more to their lives than that.

#7 Forgiveness is willing to allow a person who has offended me to start over again.

#8 Forgiveness recognizes the humanity of the person who has wronged me. It also recognizes our own humanity and our own shortcomings and our own contribution to what went wrong.

#9 Forgiveness surrenders the right to “get even”.

#10 Forgiveness means we wish the person that has hurt us well. In fact, we wish them the best.