Living Into Our Forgiveness

            Do you ever have the feeling that you just can’t measure up?  That no matter what it is that you do, however you live your life, it just isn’t enough?  That somehow despite your faith and whatever love you can provide for others, you still don’t come up to the standard that you have set?  That is not an uncommon feeling in this culture, in this time. 

            We all want to be good people.  Often, we just don’t know how, and the feelings that we get from Holy Scripture don’t sometimes help.  There is a passage in the Gospel of Matthew that tells us that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, we can’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  That certainly doesn’t come to me as good news.  My righteousness certainly doesn’t exceed anybody’s righteousness.  I often make judgments that I ought to not make and say things that I ought to keep to myself. When I am driving, I don’t like what other drivers do sometimes.  When I am at an intersection, and I am trying to turn, I hate it when another car turns in front of me.  I say bad things when this happens.  I don’t endear myself to others, or to my Lord when I do these things. Under these terms, how can I possibly aspire to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

            Listen to this prayer at the beginning of our service:  O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

            That is a prayer that I need to say over and over again.  I need the help of God’s grace constantly to pull me out of the messes that I make for myself; and so do you.  We have no chance of pleasing God on our own.  It is by God’s grace that we live lives that are worthy of the Christ whom we all adore.  It is only by God’s grace that we have the ability to enter into the heaven that has been promised to us.  Even though I am a sinner, I know that the forgiveness of Jesus the Christ is mine. 

            We all come before the altar and confess our sins and the priest pronounces absolution.  When I pronounce the absolution of sins, I mean it.  Your sins are forgiven and you are pure in the eyes of God.  I know that many of you don’t believe that, but that isn’t the point.  The point is that you are forgiven, after you have confessed your sins, whether you believe it or not.  It is as pure people that we come to this table to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ who died for all of us.  His death and resurrection is concrete proof of that forgiveness.  I don’t care what you have done, our God offers you forgiveness.

            I spent a number of years as a part-time chaplain at a penitentiary in Pittsburgh.  I had a group of eight men, all of whom had killed somebody.  One of the members of that group had been a teacher who had killed a young woman in a particularly brutal way.  One day, after being in prison for nearly ten years, he got a letter from the family of that woman telling him that they wanted to come to see him.  The group told him to let them come.  It was with fear and trembling that he went to the visiting room to meet with the parents of the girl whom he had killed.  The father told him that they had come to forgive him.  And to give him a sense of how they had come to this decision, he told him that on the day that he was transferred from the jail to the courthouse for his trial, he was on a roof down the street with a rifle and that he had fully intended to kill him.  He said that he just couldn’t do it; and after a number of years of struggle, they had decided to put this all behind them, to live their lives and to forgive him. 

            This utterly changed the man in my group.  He couldn’t believe that anyone could forgive what he had done.  It made his life more meaningful, even though he knew that he would never leave prison.  For the family of the young woman, it changed everything.  They could leave their hatred behind and get on with their lives.  That is what forgiveness can bring. 

            If someone can be forgiven for a horrible crime by a family, certainly we can be forgiven for the things that we have done.  God bless us all as we confess to our Lord our sins and receive back his generous love.