{"id":116,"date":"2016-03-07T10:52:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T15:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=116"},"modified":"2021-03-28T10:42:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-28T14:42:47","slug":"de-nada-learning-the-lords-prayer-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2016\/03\/07\/de-nada-learning-the-lords-prayer-4\/","title":{"rendered":"De Nada: Learning the Lord’s Prayer 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

The summer I turned 14, I had an operation to remove most of my thyroid. When I woke up, I hurt every time I lifted my chin; it took all summer to heal. I was left with a bright red raised scar of which I was painfully conscious. I made up stories about it: that I\u2019d been in a knife fight, and I wore a lot of turtle neck shirts. The scar faded but I still saw it every morning, first thing, in the mirror. I still explained about it, increasingly as I got olde,r to people who hadn\u2019t noticed it. It\u2019s still there. Do you have scars? Don\u2019t we all? What would it take to heal them?<\/p>\n

\u201cForgive us as we forgive,\u201dJesus says. Let\u2019s start with the problem. I\u2019m sure you noticed when I quoted Jesus, I left something out. In both versions of the Lord\u2019s prayer, he doesn\u2019t say \u201cForgive us\u2026\u201d He says, \u201cForgive us\u2026\u201d and then there\u2019s a word. If you grew up Methodist or Catholic it\u2019s trespass; if you grew up Congregational, it\u2019s debts. If you have been around Lutherans, chances are you say \u2018sins\u2019, which is also popular in a lot of newer churches. Forgive us our debts. Forgive us our trespasses. Forgive us our sins. What does he have in mind?<\/p>\n

This is the point where there is a temptation to wander off and show you what I know about Greek, the language the New Testament is written in. I could talk about this for a long time, long enough for you to snatch a nap. But I\u2019m not going to. For one thing, it\u2019s too early for a nap and for another, Jesus didn\u2019t say the Greek word either. Jesus almost certainly spoke Aramaic, not Greek. And he used an Aramaic word here. What does it mean? That\u2019s hard to say. Say trespass and you think, or at least I do, of going to a construction site and taking lumber to build a tree house. But I\u2019m not sure Jesus was worried about lumber or boys or tree houses. Say debt and I think of my credit card bills; did Jesus care about credit scores? Probably not.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re left with sins. That\u2019s a tough one. Congregational ministers don\u2019t talk about sins much anymore; we leave that to Baptists. When we do, we tend to like to talk about sins we don\u2019t do. I remember once sitting with a bunch of ministers at a meeting. This was quite a while ago, when \u201ca bunch of ministers\u201d meant middle aged men who are a little too jolly and can tell you to a decimal point the average attendance at their church and who tend to be a bit fluffy. It\u2019s not their fault. Every church has someone like Arvilla or Joanne who makes cakes and things and it would be rude not to eat them. We grow out of concern for their feelings.<\/p>\n

So we are sitting there, munching on pieces of cake some woman in the church had prepared. It was long enough ago that the big issue was gay folks in church. I always thought this was a weird issue; I mean we\u2019ve always had gay folks in church, the real issue wasn\u2019t about having them it was about letting them be honest about who they were without fear. So they were discussing this and gay marriage and most of them were against it. They could really talk about the sin of homosexuality, Bible verses and all. It was impressive. I didn\u2019t have much to say. So I just sat there eating cake and I looked around and realized every one of us was married to a woman. And every one of us was overweight.<\/p>\n

So when it was my turn to talk, I said that I thought the cake was really good and since we were all straight there, and all overweight, maybe we should talk about the sin of gluttony, of eating too much. Then I shut up and tried to think how I could get another slice of cake and the table erupted. They did not think this was appropriate; they thought I was making fun of them. We\u2019d all rather talk about someone else\u2019s sins than our own. But we all have them, just like we all have scars.<\/p>\n

What does Jesus mean? The word he uses certainly means doing wrong. In our culture, we tend to associate sin with sexual stuff but Jesus actually talks more about economic sins, that is, the sin of letting money get in our way. The word he uses also means \u201cfoolishness\u201d. Now that\u2019s something because throughout the Hebrew scriptures there\u2019s a constant play between the notion of being wise\u2014doing what God wants\u2014and being foolish\u2014doing whatever we want, regardless of what God says.<\/p>\n

In fact, the original sin had nothing to do with sex, it rose out of the desire to be God like. The serpent says to Eve that she can be like God and she goes for it, inviting Adam along with her. It\u2019s the choice of self over God that makes her stumble.<\/p>\n

In fact, The same word also means stumble. That\u2019s something I can understand: I stumble frequently. I mean, I\u2019m walking along and not paying attention and POOF! ouch. Something brings me to a halt. So foolishness, stumbling. Those are part of what he\u2019s talking about, along with scars from injuries and things that make us cover up what we\u2019ve done because we\u2019re ashamed. So from here on out I\u2019m going to use the word \u2018sins\u2019 but I trust you to remember it means all these things: scars, selfishness, stumbling.<\/p>\n

What he says then is this: Forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others. Look what he does here: he connects these two. That is to say, the experience of forgiveness\u2014being forgiven\u2014is linked to the expression of forgiving: forgiving someone else. You get both or you get neither one. Think of the story of the prodigal we read this morning. You know, I have to admit right here that there is such a temptation for me to preach on this text instead of going along with the Lord\u2019s Prayer. I\u2019m trying to resist but if this sermon goes over 45 minutes, you\u2019ll know I failed. I hope you\u2019ll forgive me. I\u2019m going to try to resist; come back in three years, when the text comes up again, and hear a sermon on it then.<\/p>\n

I just want you to notice one thing in the story. When the son returns, his father embraces him. Wow: would you do that? Think how angry the father must have been when the son left. That dad knew just what would happen, parents always do. And it did. So the son comes back; there must have been a temptation to say, \u201cOk, fine you\u2019re home, I\u2019ll give you one more chance.\u201d There must have been a temptation to set a condition on that love but he never once does: he just embraces him. That\u2019s forgiveness. We usually talk about it as the father forgiving the son but there must have been something between them, some ugliness for the son to want to leave and what his bad experience helped him do was forgive his father. The father embraces his son; but the son also embraces his father. It\u2019s the mutuality of the moment that inspires. We can\u2019t experience forgiveness without expressing forgiveness; we can\u2019t express forgiveness without experiencing it.<\/p>\n

Forgiveness is a key part of Jesus\u2019 mission. One of the things that angers his opponents is forgiving sins. When his own disciples ask for a rule on just how much forgiveness they have to do, when they want a church policy on forgiveness, he tells them 70 times 7, meaning\u2014unlimited, unlimited forgiveness. The reason is something we talked a bit about last week: Jesus wants us here and now, in the present, in the presence of God. We can\u2019t get there without forgiveness, which means we can\u2019t get there without forgiving, since the two are so tightly linked together.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t get there because of what I call \u201cthe ghosts\u201d. The ghosts are all those things in our past that influence our behavior in the present. Maybe someone hurt you in the past; you\u2019re not going to talk to them again. Maybe someone made you angry in the past; you\u2019re not going to have lunch with them again. Maybe someone betrayed your trust; you\u2019re not going to trust them again. We could go on and on but here\u2019s what Jesus knows: all these ghosts in our past are whispering in our ear who not to talk to, who not have lunch with, who not to trust. Look at the story of the prodigal again: all the elder brother at the end talks about is the past, the past where he worked, while his brother went off to play. All our stumbles, all our scars, all our sins are still there, all our past is still there, all our hurts are still there, until they are forgiven. All our guilt about the times we made someone stumble, the time we injured someone, the times we sinned against someone are still there, until they are forgiven. It\u2019s all about the past but as William Faulkner said in Requiem for a Nun, \u201cThe past is never dead. It’s not even past.\u201d As long as all that past is still influencing us, it\u2019s here and we\u2019re living in the past.<\/p>\n

How do we do this? I think many of us just assume somehow it will happen, like grass growing, like geese returning in the spring. Jesus calls us to choose forgiveness and t these are some of the choices we can make. One is simply to focus ourselves on the present and future. I mentioned last week how hard it can be to choose the present sometimes. Nevertheless, hard choices train us spiritually. When we live in the present, we choose what\u2019s here, not what was here. A second thing we can do is to control our own internal conversation. A woman I know who was terribly hurt through the betrayal of some people she trusted said, \u201cI wanted to stop reading the obituaries with hopeful anticipation. That turned out to be too much. So I started with just not reading the obituaries.\u201d One person I know said about forgiveness, \u201cEvery time I got angry, I would just pray. Sometimes the prayers were angry but they were still prayers.\u201dPrayer turns us toward God and God is love. When we let that love in, we heal.<\/p>\n

If you are serious about praying, \u201cThy Kingdom come, thy will be done\u201d, as we talked about a couple weeks ago, there\u2019s no option, there\u2019s no choice: you have to learn to forgive; you have to learn to accept forgiveness. Forgiveness, forgiving: they mean to put the past in the past. They mean to embrace the present; they mean to let us feel God\u2019s embrace. Neither is easy.<\/p>\n

Forgiveness comes in many flavors, from dealing with little bumps and scratches to a full on, long term process. Either one begins with a choice: I\u2019m not going to live in the past, I\u2019m going to choose to walk forward with Jesus, and shoo away those ghosts. Like my friend said, stop reading the obituaries, if that\u2019s the one step you can take. Refuse to remember the hurt. Of course you will remember it\u2014at first. But what we refuse to bring back, subsides. Like the scar on my neck, things fade and if we let them fade, we are free to move forward. We\u2019re still going to stumble and that’s where the dailiness of this prayer comes in: every day, we need to forgive to move forward, every day we need to be forgiven, to move forward along the way of Jesus.<\/p>\n

We can do it because we\u2019re following Jesus; we can do it because it\u2019s where he\u2019s going. Remember what he said on the cross? \u201cForgive them.\u201d He hopes we will do the same, when we stumble, when we sin, when we believe our scars are so obvious no one could love us. He wants to heal those scars; he wants us to feel forgiveness for our sins. He means to make us over into the people God intended. So we can choose to keep stumbling along on our own, keeping track of every hurt, every failure of hope, every time someone wronged us. We can live in that past\u2014or we can get up, get going with Jesus, asking forgiveness and accepting it as well.<\/p>\n

I don’t really speak Spanish but there’s a Spanish expression I love. You say it when someone says “thank you” or “I’m sorry”: de nada. It means something like “It’s nothing”. When we come to God, with all our scars, all our stumbles, all our sins, Jesus wants us to know God says, “De nada”\u2014and embraces us. He wants us to practice that by doing it for each other. “Forgive us our debts, our trespasses, our sins, as we forgive our debtors, trespassers, those who sin against us.” If we pray it, if we do it, if we learn it, one day we discover: we know that God is hears the prayer, and we can go home to our true home.<\/p>\n

Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor Fourth Sunday in Lent \u2022 March 6, 2016 The summer I turned 14, I had an operation to remove most of my thyroid. When I woke up, I hurt every time I lifted my chin; it took all summer to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,3,2],"tags":[24,18,26,25,5],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lent","category-sermon","category-worship","tag-forgiveness","tag-lords-prayer","tag-parable","tag-prodigal-son","tag-sermon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1274,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}