SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE 3rd May.

Beside the river in Derry (or Londonderry as some inhabitants say) is a sculpture of two people stretching a hand out to each other -- but the finger tips don’t quite meet. Can these two who represent the two divided communities forgive each other? Can they meet in friendship? That’s the question the sculptor has caught: it’s good to forgive but it is not easy. Perhaps this is the hardest part of the Lord’s prayer to pray: it starts off easily enough -Forgive us our trespasses -- we all want to be forgiven but it suddenly becomes very difficult as we forgive those who trespass against us. If we are honest, we have to identify with Peter in Matthew 18 who was anxious to get a limit on how often you had to forgive. Some of the rabbis apparently said you had to forgive three times; did Peter feel he would get a nod of approval from Jesus for double? If he did, he was disappointed: whether the answer was 77 or 70 x 7 (the manuscripts give different numbers) it is clear that Jesus meant us not to put a limit on forgiveness. Why? The story he told simply points out that we are forgiven so much by God, such a huge debt that the only appropriate response is to be forgiving people ourselves. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians we are to forgive each other, just as in Christ God forgave us (Ephesians 4.32 -5.2) This does not mean that if we make a huge effort to forgive someone we have then earned God’s forgiveness; that would be to put things the wrong way round; it does mean that one main way of showing that we are Christian that we have a real experience of God’s forgiveness is that we want to forgive others; we understand that a bitter heart, a refusal to forgive is simply not compatible with God’s forgiveness of us. The American writer Gordon MacDonald suggests that a gracious forgiving Christ like attitude is one thing that the devil cannot copy. the devil can imitate our praises and our prayers, our charitable work, our spiritual experiences but the one aspect of our lives which he cannot counterfeit perhaps the one thing which he finds unanswerable in what we do because it is the thing that is most like Jesus Christ is when we obey God and seek to forgive. Stephen did this when he was being stoned for his faith in Christ. ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ A prayer answered in the conversion of Saul who was there; Saul who hated the Christians so much had no answer to such forgiveness. But Stephen’s forgiveness does not make it any easier for us And it is a lot less easy for me to preach on this than it was ten years ago when we first went through the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t have anything new to say on this, my convictions are the same; the difference is that you and I know each other in greater detail and will have had much more scope to offend each other many more things for which we need to be forgiven and to forgive.

How can I forgive when it‘s the last thing I want to do?

1 Seek to ‘walk in the light’ (1 John 2.1-11, 4.7-21) i.e. to have a relationship with God that is clear from any shadow that clouds his love for us. If we treasure bitterness against others, it undermines a true friendship with God. and it also poisons our whole lives. I have told you recently the story about Corrie ten Boom a Dutch lady imprisoned by the Nazis for helping Jewish people and her struggle to forgive a former prison guard. Corrie also wrote about victims of Nazi brutality whom she cared for: ‘Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were also able to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives no matter what the physical scars. those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was a simple and as horrible as that.’ If we refuse to let the light of Jesus shine on us and through us then we will be in darkness; it’s as simple and horrible as that.

2 Remember that ‘forgive’ means to let go, send way. Picture your hands unclenching from a hard fist holding on to the grievance like a precious object that you won’t let go. Open up your hand; let the thing go and see yourself greeting your enemy with an open hand, not shaking a fist. If possible, actually go to that person and offer a hand of friendship. 3 If necessary, follow the process outlined in Matthew 18.13-15 and first seek a private meeting with the person who has offended you. If that does not clear the air, although it often does then go with one or two others, preferably people who will be impartial, and will seek to mediate, not necessarily taking your side. It may turn out that it is you who need forgiveness as much as the other person.

4 If you find you still have feelings of unforgiveness, try writing on a bit of paper the thing you found so hurtful. Also write down on the others side of the sheet at least one bad thing you have done, for which you need forgiveness by God. Then, if you want both to be forgiven by God and to forgive the other person, burn the sheet (or shred it into little bits and put in the waste bin). At the same time thank God that there is forgiveness through the death of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4.32 -5.2 live a life of love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

5 Even if you still find it hard to love those who have hurt you, don’t concentrate on how you feel, for love is much more about actions than about feelings. Determine that what you do will reflect Christ’s teaching. Bless your enemies! Luke 6.27-28 Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who ill-treat you. And do not be discouraged if they don’t seem to accept your forgiveness or to change in any way. What you are responsible for is to offer forgiveness. The Chinese writer Watchman Nee tells of the Christian farmer troubled by his neighbour who would drain off the water from his paddy field into his own water that was laboriously pumped up by hand. What did the farmer do? What would you or I do? Complain to the police, grit your teeth and endure? Damage his crops in return? He got up earlier each day to pump up enough water for both fields, his own and his enemy’s. His neighbour was so impressed he repented of his own attitudes and turned to Christ himself but the point remains the same, even if he had remained hard hearted: no matter what we feel we are called to do and to show the attitudes and actions that do forgive.

Which of these is most relevant to you. I was tempted to bring in paper and pencils for us all to write out what we need to forgive others and what we need forgiven ourselves but that might have been too messy! Perhaps that is something you will best do at home, quietly praying at length, not under any emotional pressure of a service working out what God specially wants of you

1 ‘Walk in the light’

2 to let go, send away; an open hand, not a clenched fist.

3 Seek a private meeting.

4 Write it out and tear it up!

5 Bless your enemies! Offer forgiveness.

May you know the love of God the Father the forgiveness and peace of God the Son and the strength of God the Holy Spirit

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Shorter Catechism (modern version) 105 In the fifth request (forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors), encouraged by God’s grace, which makes it possible for us sincerely to forgive others, we pray that for Christ’s sake God would freely pardon all our sins. Different versions of the Lord’s Prayer use different words: ‘trespasses’, ‘debts’ ‘sins’. ‘Debts’ (which is used in Scotland) probably gets nearest to the Greek and links in with the story in Matthew 18. 21-35 of the forgiven but unforgiving debtor.

The forgiveness of our enemies is nowhere set forth as the ground of any sinner’s acceptance before God, but it is often set forth and may be relied on as a most valid ground of assurance of acceptance. Alexander White.