Last Sunday, Sharon brought us an excellent message concerning "ethical words" - from Ephesians chapter 4. I am going to pick up a theme from the last verse of that same chapter.

As I was contemplating the scriptures in today's reading in Ephesians 5, Jan and I had a surprise visit from her niece, Mary, and husband Steve. The experience they are going through focussed my thoughts for today. It also happens to be a theme very much in awareness this week., the subject of Forgiveness.

When we visited Arkansas a year ago, the story I will recount was just beginning. Mary and Steve's daughter Sarah was at the place in her marriage to John that she had given him a decree: "we go for counselling or you don't come home." John refused the counselling, separation followed and then anger and resentment surfaced, toward Sarah, but also toward Steve and Mary. It culminated this past spring in a tragic series of events. There had been harassment, threats, some property damage by John. The police were aware of the circumstances.

John arrived in front of Steve and Mary's house in his truck with a loaded hunting rifle. Then he went to Steve's dental office to find him. The doors and windows had been locked. John tried all of these, and possibly unknown to John, Sarah and her lawyer were inside the office. When John heard the police coming, he put the rifle to his head, and blew his head off. They found in his vehicle bullets marked for Sarah, for Steve, and for Mary. The shell found from the bullet that had killed John was marked, "Ha, I win".

Now, I have never had anything like this to deal with . I had people who managed to torpedo my career. But the challenge to respond to the scripture, To "be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ forgave you" can be an awesome challenge. That is the last verse of Ephesians 4.

Steve and Mary are still struggling to forgive John, and to further complicate their situation, John's family is on an ongoing vendetta against them as well. So they have to deal with what is past, and also with what is presently occurring.

Now I am using their story to illustrate issues about forgiveness that likely we all have had to deal with, and maybe some in which we are currently enmeshed. This week we have followed the horrid circumstance of the murder of Ardeth Wood along the bike path along the Ottawa River. The Citizen reports that Ardeth's mother is able to say she forgives the perpetrator of the murder.

Paul's exhortation has one clear basis: We are to forgive, because we have been forgiven by God. The business of forgiveness faces us with the very essence of the Gospel, and that is the Grace of God. Our assurance is that we have been unconditionally, unilaterally, absolutely , forgiven by God, the unmerited, undeserved Grace of Almighty God.

The theme of forgiveness runs through the New Testament. Oddly enough forgiveness is often the most difficult reality for us to accept. My experience is that until we really accept the fact that God has forgiven us, there is little movement in our spiritual lives , and our ability to forgive those who have wronged us is crippled.

Maybe it would help to emphasize that forgiveness does NOT:

1. Imply approval of what was done, nor
2. Excusing what was done, nor
3. Justifying what was done,
4. nor even pardoning what was done.

In scripture reconciliation is the ultimate end of forgiveness:

1 Corinthians 5: 19 "That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them, and he has committed -unto us the message of reconciliation".

One author states that the "ultimate proof of total forgiveness takes place when we sincerely petition the Father to let those who have hurt us off the hook - even if they have hurt not only us, but also those close to us. "

Additionally, forgiveness is part of the actions of Love: 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that Love "keeps no record of wrongs". No storing up the accumulating garbage bag of hurts that many carry along. Were we to follow this rule of living, carrying grudges, nursing bitterness, clinging to the feelings of hurts from the past would all be eliminated. If I am not to "keep the record of wrongs", I am left free to express forgiveness. If I cling to the memory of the wrongs, I am held captive.

The important reality is that forgiveness is not an option. It is God's call to enter into His forgiveness , then be prepared to extend forgiveness to others.

Some of us have handled the reality of wrongs done to us in self-defeating ways. I know this route well. It is the way that I have unfortunately dealt with wrongs in the past. These policies might include:

1. Denial of what has really happened.
2. Blindness to what has occurred.
3. Forget it.
4. Refuse to take the wrong seriously
5. Pretend that we really are not hurt

Following any of these paths does not amount to forgiveness. It leaves the residue inside, eating away at us, and may leave us unable to function in healthy ways, and will keep us from really accepting God's grace of forgiveness.

We are not alone in struggling with forgiveness. In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 18 we have the record of Peter asking Jesus: "When my brother wrongs me, how often must I forgive him ? Seven Times ?" The Rabbinic teaching was that if wronged, you should forgive up to three times. You remember Jesus' reply, I assume it knocked the socks off the disciples, Jesus said , "not seven times, I say seventy times seven".

That follows with the story of the king who graciously chose to forgive his servant an enormous debt, after the man had pleaded with him for mercy. The story then shifts to the forgiven servant harshly refusing to forgive a minuscule debt by another and had him thrown in jail. When the king heard this, he called the official back, and said he should have extended mercy as he had received it.

Forgiveness is a choice, it is not a feeling. It is a choice always available to us. I had a client one time whose stated motive was, "don't get angry, get even". Forgiveness was not in his vocabulary.

Jack Kornfield, an American Buddhist teacher and psychologist writes:

"The act of forgiveness is one of the great gifts of the spiritual life. It enables us and the world to be released from the sorrows of the past. Forgiveness is an act of the heart, a movement to let go of the resentment and outrage that we have carried for too long. It eases the burden of pain in our heart. To forgive does not mean we condone the misdeeds of another or ever allow them again . . . . Forgiveness is fundamentally for your own sake, a way to let go the pain of the past".

Someone has stated: "The person who gains the most from forgiveness is the person who does the forgiving".

Ernest Hemmingway tells in one of his stories about a young man who wrongs his father and 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.

Forgiveness is a universal longing, an ongoing reality in our lives, and an ever-present reminder to us of what we have received in Jesus Christ.

Forgiving YOURSELF: Does it not seem strange that forgiving ourselves is such an issue. There is no secret process here. Whatever it is that holds us captive: Pride, Fear , self-loathing , refusal to accept our own mortality , or just plain stubbornness - whatever it is that stands in the way, forgiving self is crucial before moving into the issue of forgiving others.

Forgiving GOD: Many years ago I was selling Bibles to help finance my college education. I knocked on a door one day, and the lady came out on the porch and she was a very unhappy looking lady. She let me know clearly that she was not interested in the Bible or anything to do with religion. She looked down the street and said that every one of the young men from that street who had gone overseas had come home, except her son, and she could not believe in a God who would take her son.

This is an interesting contrast to the story of Joseph after his brothers had sold him into slavery. As you recall, he emerged as a powerful figure in Egypt. He said to his brothers on the occasion of their reunion, "you meant it for evil but God used it for good". Rather that Bitterness and anger, Joseph met his brothers with compassion and forgiveness, and rather than rejecting God in all his struggles, he saw Good emerge.

The challenge is always with us: forgive and be free, or hold on and be enslaved. The option is ours.