The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost - The Reverend Colette Hammesfahr

How many of you have heard of the book and movie, The Hiding Place?  

It’s the autobiographical story of Corrie ten Boom and her family who were leaders in the Dutch Underground during WWII. They lived above her father’s watch store and when the Nazis invaded and occupied Holland, they began hiding Jewish people in a specially built room over the store and assisted the Jewish people in escaping from the Nazis. In 1944, an informant told the Nazis about the Ten Booms and Corrie, her sister Betsie, and her father were soon arrested.  Corrie’s father died 10 days after their arrest.   

She and her sister were sent to a concentration camp at Ravensbruck. Life was not pleasant in the concentration camp. Over time, Betsie got weaker and weaker and died in the concentration camp. Twelve days after her death, Corrie was mistakenly released. One week after her release, all the women of the concentration camp were sent to the gas chambers and died.   

In her book, Corrie writes: “It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. It was at a church service in Munich where I spoke. As people were standing up in silence and leaving the room, I saw him, a former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, my sister Betsie's pain-blanched face.” 

“He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming, and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.’ He said. ‘To think that……as you say…….He has washed my sins away!’ His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people of the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.” 

“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin in them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more?  Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.   

I tried to smile, but I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I prayed, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.” 

Seventy-seven times. Jesus tells Peter that he must forgive seventy-seven times.  

Jesus uses a parable to explain the importance of forgiveness. It starts with a lord (little “l”) who is owed an exorbitant amount of money from his slave. 10,000 talents! At that time, one talent was worth about 15 years of wages.  

The slave asks for patience, saying that he will pay the lord what he is owed. If we do the math here, that’s 150,000 years of wages the slave promises to pay back to the lord. This is absolutely impossible. There are not enough years in his life to be able to repay this.  

He asks the lord to have patience with him. Instead of the lord selling off the slave and his family, the lord forgives the slave of his debt. No questions asked. No strings attached. No agreement made. He is simply forgiven.   

Later, this forgiven slave comes upon another slave who owes him much, much less than he owed the lord – 100 denarii. That was equal to about four months wages, compared to the 150,000 years of wages that was owed the lord. When this man asks for patience in repaying the hundred denarii, the slave who had just been forgiven of his debt of 10,000 talents refuses to forgive him and he throws him into jail.  

When the lord hears of the slave who did not forgive that minor, small debt, when compared to the debt he had just been forgiven, he throws the slave whom he had forgiven, in prison, until he can repay the huge debt to the lord.   

Seventy-seven times. Jesus tells Peter that he must forgive seventy-seven times.  

As far as Jesus is concerned, there should be no limit on the extent of our forgiveness. We are to forgive because we are forgiven unconditionally.   

I have to believe that every one of us has someone in our lives who we have not forgiven. Whether it be someone in our lives today or someone from way in our past who hurt us or cheated us in some way.  And we’ve all come up with logical reasons as to why the other person does not deserve to be forgiven. But God wants us to heal these relationships, no matter what. Seventy-seven times. 

We ask God to forgive us every day in our prayers. It’s how Jesus taught us to pray. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  

Today and every Sunday, we come together as a brothers and sisters in Christ and in this place, shoulder to shoulder, we pray this prayer.  

Every week we come together in Confession and confess our sins, asking for God to forgive us. And when we ask, God forgives. No questions asked.  

One of Jesus’ final acclamation on the cross was, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” Forgive the people who just beat him and nailed him to a cross.  

Seventy-seven times. Jesus tells Peter that he must forgive seventy-seven times. 

Forgiveness is not an option for us. It is the character of our lives as Christians. When we look at the parable of the lord and his servants, we know that the lord (little “l”) represents God and the slave represents us.  

When we can understand God’s remarkable love toward us and vast forgiveness of our sins, it’s only then that we will be filled with the desire to share that love and forgiveness.  

Sometimes we don’t want to forgive because we are bitter and we want the other person, who did us wrong, to suffer. We want them to somehow have to pay for what they did. But most of the time, it’s the one who was done wrong who is suffering.  When we forgive, it ends OUR suffering. It ends that bitterness.  Most of the time we are wishing for repayment over a debt that can never be repaid.  

Imagine the courage it took for the S.S. guard to approach Corrie ten Boom. Imagine the fear and pain she must have felt as she saw him walking toward her.  

Corrie said that as the guard held his hand out for hers, she kept her hand by her side and prayed a silent prayer for Jesus’ strength of forgiveness.  

She ends her story saying, “As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so, I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” 

Our Big Questions for the week are these: Reflect on the idea that forgiveness isn't just about the act but also about the heart. What does it mean to truly forgive from the heart, and why might this be challenging?   

In what ways can forgiveness be a powerful act of self-liberation? How does forgiving someone else benefit the forgiver?  

How can we encourage a culture of forgiveness and reconciliation in our families, communities, and workplaces?  

These questions will be posted on Facebook and we ask you to think about them and talk with your family about them. There will also be a table in the parish hall, set aside for people who want to talk about these questions during fellowship.  

Dr. Larry Petton says this about Forgiveness…. 

“FORGIVENESS IS NOT EASY. It is one of the most difficult things you will ever do to forgive someone who has stolen from you, lied about, hurt you or broken a vow to you. 

FORGIVENESS IS NOT NATURAL. The normal, human response is revenge – we always want to get even.  

FORGIVENESS IS NOT DENIAL. You can’t just put hurtful things under another rug. Someone hurt you. Someone wronged you. How will you deal with that? 

FORGIVENESS IS NOT A ONE-TIME EVENT. Forgiveness is an active verb. You have to get up daily and die to the anger in your heart. It doesn’t normally happen overnight. 

FORGIVENESS IS NOT APPROVAL. Just because you forgive someone, that does not erase the wrong they have committed. 

And finally…FORGIVENESS DOES NOT NECESSARILY RESUME A RELATIONSHIP. Good relationships are built on trust. If someone has hurt you and broken that trust, you can forgive them, but you may not necessarily be able to resume the relationship.” 

Seventy-seven times. God forgives our sins, overlooks all of our weaknesses and imperfections, and transforms us in Christ. Let us do the same.  

Amen.