May the
words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight,
O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. AMEN.
Let us
pray! Lord Jesus Christ, one of the only
things You never modeled for us while You were here on earth was asking for
forgiveness for Yourself or Your actions.
This was because You were perfect, sinless and did Your Father’s bidding
perfectly and modeled what we are to do.
Enable us as the imperfect creatures we are to confess our sinfulness so
we may rely upon You and the perfection You create in each of us through our
baptism into Your life, death and resurrection, for all of mankind including
all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this morning. AMEN.
From the movie “Facing the Giants” that
we have been exploring for the last few weeks we have explored issues of trust,
leaving everything on the field, preparing for rain and a new philosophy. But today, the day we celebrate All Saints
Day and remember the saints that have entered their eternal home, we need to
talk about ‘Forgiveness’. There is a
scene in the movie where one of the players of the team, Matt, clearly and
blatantly disrespects his father in front of the team and the coach. Later, Coach Taylor, ‘shoots straight’ with Matt
and confronts him on the issue of his relationship with his father and how he
is so disrespectful. I’d love to show
this clip as well as the follow-up to the clip, because it epitomizes a sacred
truth that we need to hear clearly here at Emmanuel.
The follow-up clips are where Matt fully
convicted by the Holy Spirit confesses his wrong to his friends and God the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit enter into his world in a life changing way. After his acceptance of God’s grace in his
life, and reconciling with his heavenly Father, Matt realizes he needs to make
things right with his earthly father.
And Coach Taylor after embracing the new man he is takes him to his
Father’s office where he confesses his wrong and makes a commitment to making
things right from that moment on with his father. This scene so profoundly impacts the
relationship between father and son that no longer are they antagonists, but
are active participants in and for a positive way in the life of Coach
Taylor. If you can’t remember what I am
referencing, re-watch the movie.
This
part of the movie epitomizes what we have the opportunity to do here at
Emmanuel. From the moment I arrived here
at Emmanuel you could cut the tension that existed between people and from past
events with a knife. There is so much
bitterness under the surface and in hushed conversations or over the phone concerning
events of the past from previous Pastor’s, prior and current members and prior
disagreements that this congregation is bitter about how we have been treated,
how we have treated others and how we ‘think’ that we have been wronged by the
greater church and each other. It has even
contributed to our leaving the ELCA. Nowhere
in this conversation here at Emmanuel has this concept of forgiveness within
the congregation been clearly expressed, articulated or acted upon. This congregation has lost a lot of people
coming to worship God here at Emmanuel long before I arrived in October of
2010.
For a
lot of us sitting in the pews, we either expect someone else to apologize, we
ignore people because they were on the other side of an issue and haven’t come
to us or we hold onto the past and live in the days where this church had two
services, full pews, full offering plates, or the exact opposite of barely two
pennies to rub together and bills were put off until the funds were available.
But the
truth is, today as we celebrate All Saints Day, we need to act upon the forgiveness
that Jesus Christ offers us on the Cross of Calvary and just like Matt with his
earthly father, to make things right.
This is going to require us to step up in three different ways.
First,
it is going to require us to go to our brother.
We as a society have taken the mantle of the ‘victim’ mentality. Unlike Hurricane Sandy that slammed into the
coast of New Jersey where the state was a victim of the storm, West Virginia
that has had over 2 feet of snow, Pennsylvania that has endured tropical
monsoon rains and New York that has flooded from the high tides and storm
surge, our human tendency is to always believe we are the party that has been
hurt or the victim. But the truth is
when we are in relationship and that is exactly what this is, we are not victims,
but participants in relationship. And
relationships are messy because we are sinful creatures that no matter how we
might try to act, all of us fall short of the glory of God.
Thus we
need to go to our brothers and sisters and confess. Let me say that again, we need to go to the
people that we have had disagreements with, even if we were in the right and
confess that we have wronged each other in the relationship by letting the
relationship suffer and become damaged.
There is
no perfect biblical example of someone doing this. This is because the Bible is about the
relationship between God and Man and how Jesus Christ repaired the fractured
relationship between God and Man. What
we get to do is apply this perfect model found in the life of Jesus Christ to
our own individual lives. It will require something of and from us in
order to go to our brother.
The second
thing it is going to require is for us to be humble and obedient. Our obedience and humbleness towards our
brother requires us to confess not the specific sins, because we cannot recount
every sin as Martin Luther reminds us.
But it does require us to in true humility go to our brother and confess
that we are not perfect, like Jesus Christ.
And that we need the forgiveness only each of us can offer. This is our collective opportunity to reach
across the aisle, the pew, the street and ask for forgiveness. For in humbling ourselves, we are following
the obedient model of Jesus Christ Who in true humility and obedience suffered
the torture of the Cross, was obedient to death and offered Himself in order to
set all of mankind, including all of us free from sin, death, the devil, hell
and damnation. For that is truly what we
deserve if we are not humble and obedient, we deserve the punishment Jesus
endured, but that He suffered in order to set each of us free. It is the freedom we enjoy as we partake of
the Holy Supper around the altar of the Lord.
It is the opportunity to receive the forgiveness of sins, life and
salvation through Jesus offering of His life for us on Calvary.
For the
final opportunity is that we can have and should show mercy to one
another. Just as our Gospel from this
morning clearly showed the ruler showing mercy to the wicked servant, we have
the opportunity to show mercy as well.
We can rationalize away that we should be shown the mercy, but when we
do that we turn the focus away from what God can do and does do for each of us
through the forgiveness of sins and turn it towards our own sinful selves. In the Holy Supper we are about to receive
God reaches down and offers us the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation that
we do not deserve, but God shows us mercy and grace that we clearly do not
deserve. This is our opportunity as well.
The
clearest and best opportunity each of us individually has is offered to each of
us every time we come to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Before the actual communion liturgy takes
place and even before the offering is received the words after the prayers
spoken say, “The Peace of the Lord be with you always”. As God’s ‘go between’, I as Pastor by my
office speak God’s peace to each of you here in the congregation. This opportunity is for each of us to share
the peace. It has become for some a mere
formality or a break or opportunity to ‘stretch our legs’ or greet only our
‘friends’, but in actuality, this is the opportunity for each of us to search
out our brothers and sisters in Christ that we have not made peace with and in
true humility and seeking forgiveness offer a heartfelt ‘Peace of God’. That heartfelt peace is the same peace Jesus
Christ offered to His disciples who had scattered when He was betrayed. It is a forgiving peace, a reconciling peace,
an opportunity for all of us to make true peace with each other, because of the
peace that God has made with us through His Son Jesus Christ.
This is the culmination of forgiveness and preparation for all of us to commune with the saints who have gone before us to be in God’s Kingdom. We seize the opportunity to not only connect through this meal where we receive of Jesus Christ precious Body and Blood. We also can feel the forgiveness that only Jesus Christ can offer for all of mankind. For it is this peace and forgiveness that Jesus calls us to truly share with one another and with all of the saints who have gone before us that we share with one another as we gather here at Emmanuel to receive life and salvation through the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, that is given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. May we share in the forgiveness of sins and be enabled to understand this is for all of mankind, especially all the saints who have gone before us and who still remain here at Emmanuel. AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment