2/21/24

I really wrestled with my Ash Wednesday sermon. I thought reconciliation was an odd subject for Ash Wednesday. However, since Wednesday I’ve heard from several (both in-person and online) who said they needed to hear it.

Reconciliation can be difficult because at the heart of reconciliation is forgiveness. I started last week’s Pastor’s Note with a quote from one of my favorite comedians, Groucho Marx: “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Is it possible to fake honesty? Probably. But do you know what you CAN’T fake?

Forgiveness.

I think forgiveness is the one practice that sets Christians apart from non-Christians. It’s the one virtue that is the most “unnatural” for humans. I say unnatural, because my human (sinful) nature, my innate self-preservation calls for me to strike out and hurt someone who’s hurt me or mine. My natural tendency is not forgiveness; it is revenge.

AND I want to hold on to that hurt. I want to replay it over and over in my mind. I want to take it out like a pet and nurture it, play with it and tell everyone about it. I want to plan my revenge, patiently planning each lucious detail of how I’m going to repay that injury . . .

Of course, the best revenge is to not become like the person who wounded you.

There are some people who it may never be possible to reconcile with. Just make sure it is their problem and not yours. Make certain that your heart is free and your hands clean, that your attitude toward them is pure.

I have a young friend who every so often I have to counsel about this very issue. After 5 years, he still mourns the loss of some “friends” who cut him off years ago when he was going through a tough time and really needed their understanding and support. I told him recently that I didn’t understand why this still bothered him after all these years. These are not good people. I wouldn’t want them liking me. In fact, I would be worried if they did.

He told me that was a revelation.

Naturally, we want everyone to like us (or we think we do). But, as a minister, I’ve had several people over the years that I have no problem with their not liking me. Their motives and their methods are unhealthy. They are not good people. I don’t want to be associated with them.

But saying that, I have to be sure that my heart is right toward them. I would love for them to change. I would love for them to see themselves for who they really are (in a couple of cases, I think they do and they think their rottenness a virtue). I pray for them (not an easy thing but a necessary thing). But until they change, I’m content to keep my distance.

And some of them are religious leaders.

Some people are just destructive. They’re like Fitzgerald’s description of Daisy and Tom Buchanon at the end of The Great Gatsby, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . . .” I’ve known religious leaders (I hesitate to call them ministers or pastors because, although they may hold that title, they’re not) who go from church to church leaving each congregation in worse shape than they found them.

They are simply not good people, and, no, I don’t care if those people “like” me or not.

But as I said, my heart has to be right toward them. It has to be their problem and not mine. It’s not an accident that when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, forgiveness was a part of it: “and forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Paul echoes Jesus’ words in Colossians 3 (one of my favorite chapters in the Bible) when he writes, “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

But how do you do that? How do you do that when someone has hurt you deeply? When they’ve betrayed you? Wounded you at your deepest level?

And when you need it, how do you forgive yourself?

I’m going to write more about this over the next couple of weeks, but as I’ve said already, it begins with me. It begins with me being honest about my feelings. It begins with me praying for the other person. It begins with me praying for the grace of God to help me. It begins with me asking the Holy Spirit to do the work in my heart that’s necessary. And it is work . . .

Will it happen overnight? Probably not. My experience is that when it does happen, though, it’s like a switch flipping. . . but it can take awhile to find the switch!

But it can be found. We can forgive.