Will We Learn To Forgive Ourselves?
Good Morning Friends,
It is not as easy as it looks when you are trying to forgive yourself for something that you have done wrong. As a society there are several things, we have done that in retrospect are not healthy mentally or physically. Cultural forces have an effect on our health. For example, despite the existence of a vastly improved health care system and a multi-billion-dollar antidepressant industry, the rates of depression in the US remain high. Some age populations have exceedingly high incidents of depression and it has been associated by some with a disconnection of those populations with a spiritual family that lives on…a connection with community. The rates of teen suicide are alarming. An exploration of lifestyle changes over the past century suggests that we, not only as a community are bowling alone but that the level of physical activity necessary to provide life’s basic resources, referred to as effort-based rewards, has diminished. Another good reason to garden. Still at some level we might just be fighting over these scarce reinforcement resources not so linked to social media and the virtual world. In our industrialized, technologically advanced, service-oriented society our minimal engagement in beneficial endeavors may be leading to a compromised resilience when we are exposed to life’s stressful challenges. But do not get depressed about it. That is part of the problem. So today we explore the need to bounce back from failure. Today we explore the nature of resilience and ask… Will We Learn To Forgive Ourselves?
Scripture: Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Mark 1:15 (NRSV)
and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world. Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
1 John 3:22—4:6 (NRSV)
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles–the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Matthew 4:12-17 (NRSV)
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
Matthew 4:23-25 (NRSV)
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep. ‘He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.
John 21:15-17 (NRSV)
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:3-12 (NRSV)
Message: There are certain things that I have done in my life that I punish myself for …over and over again. Collectively we can have the same problem. At times these failures seem almost impossible to overcome. But we can we glean from scripture some things that will help us get past those things that keep us chained to the past. Today as we look to the New Year, I am exploring the need to be connected to something that will last. I have been starting off the year contemplating the Beatitudes as a way of confession and in it I discovered that seeking to understand the nature of the Kingdom of God…the nature of resilience…requires us to repent… and to receive forgiveness, for here in God’s moment we discover fulfillment…we encounter a living God. Here repentance takes real effort and is not an end or a season but a proclamation that signifies the nearness of God as a way of life. Here blessings and happiness are not far from reach. For here in our hearts, in our minds and in our relationships with others Jesus will reign if we but repent and believe. To enter this Kingdom, we are asked to do those two things…repent and believe. And yet it is not so easy for us. Here in the Beatitudes we must confess that the traditional wisdom of the world is worthless. Here we discover that the world’s priorities are opposite of God’s.
And So, it is that in truly repenting we discover that only the Kingdom of hope has arrived…and though it has arrived with power…. it has also arrived powerfully upside down and very messy. So, we await the invitation as we realize we must deal with our past in order to experience not only the forgiveness that Jesus brought to us on the cross, but to understand that his grace is sufficient to guide us into what we are becoming. Forgiving ourselves is part of the Christian package. And the reason we need to forgive ourselves is so that we can love in abundance.
We are compelled by the love of God to continue to return to the love of God as the basis for our lives. We are compelled by the Word of God to make behaving in loving ways toward others a part of our character, part of our conduct. The problem is that love can be missing in our lives. The solution is to discover forgiveness as we each day walk more closely with God and submit to the will of the divine in the Spirit of God. The call is to love. The call is to live a life of loving God and loving others. The way Jesus loves us is by giving of Himself. The way Jesus wants us to love others is by giving of ourselves, and when we do the darkness is broken and the light of life rules.
Pray for mercy. Pray we seek righteousness. Pray
the poor in spirit find heavenly hope in the Kingdom. Pray we too
we are not depressed. Pray we comfort and receive comfort despite our misgivings. Pray that we be confessing and convincing Christians worthy of the name. Pray we revisit, repent and renew our lives in the power of the Holy Spirit before the throne of God. Pray we be humble. Pray that the attitudes of our hearts and the outward visible way we live change in response to Jesus. Pray we pursue right thinking and right living. Pray we ask for help. Pray we be open to the Holy Spirit and our collective call to repentance. Pray we forgive others. Pray our joy in the Lord be our strength. Pray the fruits of confession, forgiveness and reconciliation are always ripe for harvesting. Pray our efforts and rewards are more about meaning than measurement. Pray our efforts be collective in naming our affliction, regretting our actions and changing our directions to allow God to connect us to something eternal and in the process transform us. Pray we become free to seek the Good News and rewards found in both patience and true repentance. Pray we are called and recalled by the amazing love of God to discover a resilience that lasts in relationships of love. Pray we feed and are fed. Pray we learn to forgive and be forgiven.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 
Well… Brother John, I think the answer to today’s question is maybe… or perhaps. But first we have to learn how to look at old ideas and (perhaps?) reconsider how we approach them.
For instance… you offer the Beatitudes as a starting place… almost suggesting that a strong attempt to fulfill their “commands” will grant us some relief from the things we cannot seem to forget or forgive. Your observations are very “traditional” somewhat confirming the claim of many Christians that these words from the Sermon on the Mount are Jesus’ 10 (9?) commandments for the NT… perhaps even super-ceding the OT ones delivered by Moses. But I believe that these Be-attitudes are not the central idea of his sermon.
These comments are the opening words of this sermon (the only sermon) that Matthew records for us. The sermon goes on for 3 chapters (5-7) and covers a lot of ground. Jesus was a very good speaker and knew how to “work” a crowd. So… I find it very unlikely that his opening comments are the theme of his sermon.
First of all, every good speaker (and some preachers) know that you have to grab your audience before you can give them the main point of your sermon or speech. It’s called a hook… somewhat like pulling in a world record snook. Tempt your listeners, get them interested in what you are saying… then drop the other shoe.
The Beatitudes function just like that in this sermon. These 9 “blessings” really read like if-then clauses. If you want to gain the kingdom of heaven, be poor in spirit. If you want to be comforted, learn to mourn (particularly for others?). If you want to inherit the earth, be humble (meek). If you want to be satisfied, hunger and thirst for righteousness. And so on… If the crowd sitting below Jesus on the mountain had been Baptists, there would have been a lot of Amens… or if Pentecostal, a lot of hand and arm waving. This is what they had heard in the Synagogues and the Temple all their lives. Parents and Rabbis alike had drilled this mantra into them… good actions will bring good rewards, bad actions will not.
And we are just like them… we live in an if-then world. We were born into it, we were trained how to live in it, and, without too much thought, we pass along this viewpoint to others (especially our children). Mamma told me to eat more carrots if I wanted to see better, and now I wear tri-focals. She said if I ate my spinach, I would be strong like Popeye… I did, but I’m not. Get a college education, you will be a success. Put money aside for the future, and retirement will be joyful. Buy the newest car, and others will know you are successful… and on and on and on. Our computer age thrives on if-then thinking… but it isn’t what Jesus wants from us… or for us.
Just when the crowd thinks that Jesus is affirming everything they have been taught, Jesus drops his main message in their laps. “You are the salt of the earth,” he says, “You are the light of the world.”
Huh? What? You can almost hear a pin drop (or at least the wind whistling over the mountain top).
These are people who have been told that they are not good enough… they make too many mistakes… they are not holy, like the leaders in the Temple or the Synagogues. They are burdened with taxes and live hand to mouth… and they believe they deserve what they have (or don’t have?). But this Jesus says they are salt and light. How can this be? What have they done to be defined in this way. Salt and light are valuable, and necessary for life… is Jesus really saying that they are important…that they have worth?
The rest of this sermon (the rest of Matthew for that matter) can be read as a treatise on how we can live into our salt-ness and our light-ness. As long as we live in an if-then world, we can take credit for the good happens to us… and we can blame others for their problems because it is obvious that they have not done their homework. But… in a world where we are what God created us to be, we can only give thanks for all that happens to us… no matter how we define ourselves and our lives.
For example… in an if-then world, it makes sense for us to punish ourselves for the things we did that haunt us so much. We cannot forgive ourselves (or others) that our lives have not turned out the way we wanted… or we thought they should. We tend to think less of ourselves and of others when we see the brokenness and the hurt all around us. And we honestly believe that things could have, and would have, been different if only I had zigged instead of zagged. This sermon refutes this viewpoint.
You are who you are, I am who I am, everybody else is who they are, because this is the reality God has created. Life is hard… and sometimes can be excruciatingly painful. But life is also beautiful and love is all around. We just don’t see it because we are too busy trying to make it something else. We are too busy playing God instead of being who God has created us to be. If we were to change any of those things we remember from the past, we would not be who we are today.
As I write this I am thinking of Jesus in the garden just before his arrest. According to Matthew, Jesus goes apart from his friends three times and asks God if this is the only way to finish his life as a human being. He knows what is coming and he is not looking forward to it. But this cross is his… and his alone. And Jesus accepts this reality… thanks be to God for that.
If you want to forgive yourself, remember that you are salt and light… and that you are this for the world, not so that you can be “successful” by anyone’s standards. Whatever happened in the past is long, long gone. Today is your opportunity to fully be who you are… enjoy the ride… and if you don’t… it’s okay… tomorrow is another day.
hesed ve shalom,
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Good Morning Malcolm,
I do so appreciate your diving in with comments. It is good for us to sharpen each other. But I am not buying into the premise that these are if then statements but more statements to help us to learn about love and forgiveness in the Kingdom. I agree with you however that these are not to be read with a tradition of limiting there message to an equation. Here in the Beatitudes we must confess that the traditional wisdom and the calculations of the world worthless. Today’s devotional, Will We Take God’s Inspirational Math To Heart? written before I read your comments conveniently responds in a way, as its scripture builds upon scripture to help us to see better. Thank you for reading.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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I must confess that I am not overly shocked that you did not “buy” my If-Then interpretation of the Beatitudes. After all, we are conditioned in the opposite direction. However, before you dismiss me too quickly, go back and read the text… particularly verse 5:16.
I have suggested that verses 5.3-12 are the basic teachings of Judaism (and Christianity?) put into a different format. Then I suggested that Jesus was countering these teaching (or at least using them to set the stage?) with his comments about salt and light in verses 5:13-16. If Jesus did not expect these comments to create a disconnect for his listeners, why would he feel the need to say that he came to fulfill the law not destroy it? I believe very much that his affirmation of who we are, and what we were created to be, is much greater than what we might be or could be, if only we do the right things.
In his essay “The Grand Miracle,” C. S. Lewis makes this observation…
“We, with our modern democratic and arithmetical presuppositions would so liked and expected all men to start equal in their search for God. One has the picture of great centipetal rods coming from all directions, with well-disposed people, all meaning the same thing, and getting closer and closer together. How shockingly opposite to that is the Christian story!”
How ironic that you would put a mathematical twist on this question of forgiveness and faithfulness with your most recent post. The fact of the matter is, we are not all equal. We don’t have the same gifts and talents, nor do we ever encounter the identical situations that others do. Each person is unique, each person has a narrow path to walk. And while we have the ability to walk a few steps with others along the way, and we have the ability to assist them for a moment in their journey (as you do so often), in the end, we each receive the blessing God chooses to bestow. And I give thanks that that blessing is not dependent upon my actions, but, miraculously, is a result of the miracle of the incarnation, life, and resurrection of our Lord.
Lewis argues that God’s way of working is so unlike ours (or our expectations) that it is a miracle. Life itself is a miracle. Love is a miracle. And all things, good and bad alike, are shaped and formed and given meaning by God alone.
By human math, if we are blessed because we have been good mourners, seekers of righteousness, peacemakers, and merciful (et al), then we are un-blessed when we do not mourn, don’t seek righteousness, don’t try to mediate for peace, and reject mercy in favor of justice. We relish the joys of doing right, and we are quick to condemn when things are done wrong (wrong from our perspective of course?). In this mathematical formula, we will never find forgiveness… not for others… and not for ourselves.
You and I both have children. Sometimes we rejoice in their choices and their actions… and sometimes we don’t. When they were little, we could offer critiques on their behavior that they hopefully embraced. As adults (at least in my case) their acceptance of my critique (if and when I might offer it) is limited… and perhaps it always was. However, then and now, they are still my children and they are loved in all circumstances. I cannot imagine a God of miracles who doesn’t always love His children and continue to hope the best for them.
hesed ve shalom,
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I may change, but up to this point I have never found philosophical constructs to be of much help in understanding truth. Maybe I am going to be who I am despite the lack of coherence in the world. But honestly that is our human nature, at least it is mine to be a bit lazy. I am confident, regardless of the data, that God will surprise us in ways that are not just empirically behaviorally driven or even logic driven and that is the point of being inspired to embrace ethical virtues. You see, there are many things about the truth I confess I just do not know and I am ok with that for if I really need it, I trust God will reveal it to me in time. What is interesting is the bond of those seeking the truth and agreeing to call Truth Jesus, and in that belief discovering a peace and love that does not destroy but transforms. This is amazing grace. So, maybe the reward is not ultimately happiness or blessedness but in believing we are loved and forgiven and empowered to love and forgive regardless of what we might understand or think we understand about being humans despite our attempt to be moral creatures. And moreover humans who have a desire to have a friend who is God. We like to make the rules but it is even better to be loved by God who determines reality. Unfortunately we do not always hear God’s voice and if we do, we sometimes do not listen to God’s voice in forming our thinking. Hopefully it is true that if we do our part no matter how small that then God will make up the difference. And that is a math that the world rejects but that is the if then statement in my heart I seek to believe in.
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