{"id":153,"date":"2019-02-24T20:43:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T20:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=153"},"modified":"2019-02-25T01:46:19","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T01:46:19","slug":"seventh-sunday-after-epiphany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/02\/24\/seventh-sunday-after-epiphany\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh Sunday after Epiphany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Genesis 45:3-11,15, Luke 6:27-38<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love\nyour enemies, forgive and you will be forgiven; these are some of the words Jesus\nspoke during his sermon on the plain. In principle these words sound wonderful,\nbut I think most of us would rather go down to the Mexican border and build a\nwall by hand, one stone at a time, than love our enemies and forgive those who\nhave hurt us. I struggle with the issue of forgiveness. I question myself, have\nI forgiven, fully, my brother for beating me up, now and then, when we were kids?\nI think so, but there are still those times when my brother and I get into one\nof our \u201cdiscussion challenges\u201d when I get a little edge over him (and I have to\nadmit) I sometimes get a little too much pleasure out of putting him down; it\u2019s\npart of the game, but it is supposed to be friendly. Forgiveness is not easy;\nour hurts stay with us much longer than maybe they should; I certainly carry none<\/strong> of the bruises that I once had and\nthey certainly were not as bad as time has made me think of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nstory of Joseph gives a great example of forgiveness. Joseph, admittedly, was a\nbit of a tattletale in his youth, but that was no justification for his\nbrothers putting him in a pit and selling him into slavery and then telling their\nfather that he was torn apart and eaten by a lion. Walking to Egypt in chains (or\nbound by ropes) and later sitting in a prison in Egypt, I don\u2019t doubt that Joseph\nwas a long way from forgiving his brothers. But here, in today\u2019s OT reading,\nJoseph was past his hard times and was in a position of power and living in\nluxury, he had maybe 10 years to think about these things and he had come to the\nrealization that what his brothers had meant for evil, God had meant for good,\nto save his people. It is certainly easier to forgive when in such circumstances.\nBut even then, Joseph, initially, made his brothers jump through hoops and it\nwould not surprise me to learn that he got some pleasure from their suffering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forgiveness\nis hard for me, it was hard for Joseph. Forgiveness, I don\u2019t doubt is equally\nas hard for you; I see it, and I struggle when you fail or refuse to forgive\nfamily members, church members and friends. Refusing to forgive is not what\nJesus expects from us. I think, often, forgiveness comes so hard because we\nhave a totally wrong understanding of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not about the other admitting their wrong. Forgiveness\nis not about restitution. It is not about forgetting past bad experiences. And\nit\u2019s not about everything being all happy and good. All of these things are\npossible, but what forgiveness is about, is you, me trying to resolve a bad\nsituation; it is about you, me wanting to restore relationships; it is about\nyou, me praying for the wisdom and strength to forgive and let go of our anger;\nit is about you, me wanting to be like Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forgiving,\nis what Jesus did for you and me on Good Friday. Did you think that Jesus was going\nto wait for each of us to admit all of our sins before taking his place on the\ncross, suffering and dying?  And let\u2019s be\nhonest, half of the sins that Jesus has forgiven us, we don\u2019t even remember, or\nwe don\u2019t consider to be sins or we are not ready to repent. Do you think that\nJesus is waiting for each of us to make full restitution for our sins? It would\ntake more than we have to make full restitution, if we could in fact find the\npeople to whom we need to make restitution, and we could never make full\nrestitution to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forgiveness\nis about opening our hearts to those who very likely may not deserve it or even\nwant. In our Bible study class, we looked at the book of Philemon; Paul had the\naudacity to ask Philemon to forgive his runaway slave, without imposing a\nsingle consequence and in fact receive him back as a brother. Who forgives that\neasily? Well, Jesus! And keep in mind, we are the real beneficiaries of that\nforgiveness, grace and love. I\u2019m with you, in saying that forgiveness is not\neasy; I\u2019m with you in the struggle to forgive, but I am sometimes frustrated\nbeyond my limits, by all of you who refuse to, even try, to reach out to those\nwho have wronged you, with an olive branch and forgiveness. Tell me that I don\u2019t\nunderstand the circumstances; okay, I\u2019ll admit to that; but then, tell me also that\nyou\u2019ve confessed to God all your sins and you\u2019ve made full restitution; tell me\nthat you are deserving of Jesus\u2019 forgiveness, that you have earned your place\nbefore God and I\u2019ll accept your explanation, accept that you have good reason not\nto forgive you brother, sister, parent, son, daughter, church member, friend, and\nneighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus\nin our reading suggests that God is about justice and that God is about\nbalancing the books, or giving the measure that we deserve. We could, none of\nus, stand up to such scrutiny and survive the punishments we deserve. Do you\nknow what else frustrates me? Jesus by his death, has made it so that you and I\ncan each get away with (even) our refusals to forgive and still enjoy Jesus\u2019\nforgiveness. We are all in this together; it\u2019s not just you; it seems, I too have\nnot fully forgiven my brother; I am trying; are you? I\u2019ve even settled my\ngrudge against Sears for not carrying pants that would fit me as a teen (either\nthe waist was too large or the pant legs were too short); it took me years go back\nand shop at Sears. I\u2019m, without a doubt, a work in progress; aren\u2019t we all? My\nworry is that a lot of you are not even trying to progress. I so hope I am\nwrong; so many of you seem to be missing out on family, friends and close\nchurch ties that could give your lives so much more joy, that is, with the help\nof prayer and the Holy Spirit! And even if we get nothing from our willingness\nto forgive, we will know that we have tried; we will have the weight of our\nanger, resentment or grudge removed from our hearts; we will have a better\nunderstanding of how God feels, as he forgives us while we continue to sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep\ntrying to forgive; Jesus does; God does! I pray that be your forgiveness you\nwill regain your family member, friend, church family member, or neighbor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genesis 45:3-11,15, Luke 6:27-38 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Love your enemies, forgive and you will be forgiven; these are some of the words Jesus spoke during his sermon on the plain. In principle these words sound wonderful, but I think Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}