5th Sunday of Easter

The Rev. Rod Sprange

I want to commend you for being here today - on this fine Sunday morning of the Victoria Day weekend. I thank God for you and that you want to be here. It would be so easy to be somewhere else. What are we all looking for or expecting to find here this morning?

One of the things we should expect from our worship together is to be challenged - challenged by scripture, by the words of the hymns, by the prayers and maybe even the sermon! We should want to be more than challenged; we should expect to be changed. Maybe not all at once in one great revelation, but slowly and gradually, week by week, year by year, a life-long process.

It is critical that we acknowledge our need to change or repent if you prefer that word. So it is important that we pay attention to scripture and prayer and yes, even the sermon.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness. It started with the Lenten study I led while we were in Mexico this past winter. Each week we took a line from the Lord’s Prayer and examined it’s meaning, particularly as it related to our lives today and in the context of the challenge to change presented by the lenten season. The line “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” took on deeper meaning as we spent time thinking and talking about the nature of sin and forgiveness.

I don’t know about you, but there are people whose actions have left me feeling hurt or injured and some I really struggle to forgive. There are some people I don’t even want to forgive. I know I need to change - but part of me doesn’t want to, because it feels good to pick at the scars of those old wounds. And you know what, I’m not convinced the other person really deserves to be forgiven. They haven’t even apologized, and I’m not sure they have any intention of changing. How do I forgive that person?

We have to learn that not forgiving another, holding onto a hurt, imprisons us. When we think about a deep hurt, it doesn’t just have mental and spiritual implications, but actually causes changes in our bodies. It can make us physically ill. We become tense, our stomach knotted, our breathing laboured and we might feel a tightness around our heart. Try and smile while having these dark thoughts and you will find you just can’t and probably don’t want to smile. If we are not willing or feel unable to forgive we become prisoners and our humanity becomes diminished.

I need God’s help with all this. I also need some strategies and ways to deal with the pain and injured pride so that I can free myself by really forgiving the other person. During our Mexican Lenten program we prayed for God’s help. And when we pray for God’s help, if we look, we will find it has been given. My help came in the form of a forgiveness challenge made by none other than Archbishop Desmond Tutu! Who should know more about forgiveness and reconciliation than Tutu!

I have been taking part in his world-wide project called ‘The forgiveness challenge’. It’s a month long daily exercise in learning about forgiveness and a challenge to work on forgiving someone who has hurt us in the past. (http://forgivenesschallenge.com/) I encourage you to have a look. In his invitation to join the forgiveness challenge Archbishop Tutu says:

“Dear friends, each of us is broken; and out of that brokenness, we hurt one another. Forgiveness is the journey we take towards healing ourselves, and our world. You may be thinking, “I could never forgive” or, “I could never be forgiven”. From what I have witnessed, I can tell you, there is no one who is beyond hope; and nothing that is unforgivable. I know forgiveness will change your life; and change our world. I invite you to join me and countless others in a global forgiveness challenge. Are you ready?”.! !

When I read this week’s scripture readings, I was struck by the message of forgiveness in the passage from Acts. Acts 7:55-60 describes an angry mob of religious leaders killing St. Stephen by throwing rocks at his head and body. It’s a brutal, ugly, terrible scene. Yet in his pain and suffering, Stephen demonstrates his great faith by praying! “Lord Jesus receive my spirit” echoing Jesus’s prayer from the cross, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”. and then remarkably Stephen prays for his torturers and killers “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”. Once again echoing his Lord’s words from the cross “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”.

Stephen, even while the rocks were delivering their terrible blows, forgave his enemies, and prayed for them. Surely if Stephen could forgive them, we can learn to forgive those who have hurt us. We need to learn from Stephen how to really forgive; it means giving up the hurt and praying that the ‘sin’ of our enemy won’t be held against them. It means asking God to release them and in so doing to set us free. We need to remember and be thankful that God loves us just as we are. All of us, even our enemies. If we truly accept that love, we will be changed and grow more fully into God’s grace.

After we have given our attention to scripture, prayer and perhaps the sermon; and after we have offered our confessions, been reassured by the absolution, shared the Peace, made our offerings and received the Holy Sacraments; we are sent out to act. It is not enough to be moved to good thoughts, we need to be moved to action. Let’s practice.

I invite you to a short time of guided reflection and prayer. You may wish to close your eyes for this.

- take a moment to bring to mind someone who has hurt you in some way, and who you have not yet forgiven

- Remember what happened. How did this cause you hurt or harm? How does it feel today

- Try to take that hurt or injury and give it to God.

- Ask God to help you feel forgiveness for this person - to free you from continuing to carry the burden of animosity, resentment, anger.

- Ask God to bless this person.

Amen

Remember “…there is no one who is beyond hope; and there is nothing which is unforgivable”.

Let us pray: Loving and Gracious God, we thank you for the gift of your Son through whom the whole world may be healed and reconciled. We thank you for the example of faith and forgiveness given by St. Stephen. We need your healing grace to help us to forgive. We ask you to open our hearts to know that we also have caused pain. Help us to recognize our brokenness and sinfulness, and strengthen us to sincerely seek repentance. Help us to change. Through your Holy Spirit inspire us to pray for those who have hurt us and for those who we may have hurt. Amen