The Journey to Forgiveness

The Journey to Forgiveness
Luke 17:1-4
Lent 5
Todd Buegler
March 8-9, 2008
Lord of Life


Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus, the Son of God, and our Savior! Amen.

I was awakened by the phone at 2:30 in the morning. I knew who it was and what was coming. I was 23 years old and in my first apartment and Peter, my roommate was sleeping in his room next door. He slept like a log…nothing woke him up, not even the phone. So I answered: “Hello?” It was the same voice as the night before: “Hi Todd, this is Joy…I’m really sorry to wake you up, but is Peter there?”

Joy, the fiancé, was a nurse on the overnight shift. Every night she would call Peter on her lunch break. And every night, I would answer. After about a month of this, something snapped and that night, when she said “Hi Todd, it’s Joy, I’m sorry to wake you”, I interrupted with “no you’re not.” There was a pause…”No, I’m not what?” No, you’re not sorry…because if you were sorry it would mean that you weren’t going to do it again, but I know that you are.” Long pause. “Oh. You’re right. So is Peter there?”

The next morning when I woke up, after a couple cups of coffee…I realized that I had withheld forgiveness. And I felt a little guilty. Now, 20 years later, we joke about it, and my relationship with Joy was fine. That night, we came to an understanding. She kept calling…I kept answering, and she just quit apologizing.

Forgiveness is a tricky thing. Frankly…we all know what it is. And we all know we should do it. Jesus is actually quite clear. In our Gospel today, he says that as often as people come back to apologize, we should forgive…basically, to “forgive infinitely.”

But it’s not that easy. Forgiving someone who has done something to us…well, it’s complicated. And there are questions.
How do we forgive when the pain is still there?
What if they don’t apologize?
How can we forgive when we can’t forget?

There are many questions and no easy answers. But as hard as it is, we know that the alternative to working out the questions is to poison ourselves and our relationships. To not forgive is to carry around the weight of frustration, anger and despair. It is an emotional load that over time takes its toll on us.

We all know people who are like this. The level of bitterness that angry and unforgiving people carry can seem overwhelming. They are not fun people to be around. And over time, their negativity and pain can begin to influence the world around them like a virus.

This is not how we want to live…it is not how God wants us to live. And to be honest, it is a choice we make. We do not have to live lives of anger. We can all choose to forgive. For many, it takes time…it is not easy…there is much to overcome…but we can choose to forgive.

Erik Lomax is a British veteran of World War II having served in the Pacific. He was captured by the Japanese and was tortured while on the Burma-Siam railway. He wrote a book called The Railway Man. I’d like to share with you an excerpt from his story. He writes that:

“If you are a victim of torture you never totally recover. You may cope with the physical damage, but the psychological damage stays with you forever.
In 1945 I returned to Edinburgh to a life of uncertainty, following three and half years of fear, interrogation and torture as a POW in the Far East. I had no self-worth, no trust in people, and lived in a world of my own. The privacy of the torture victim is more impregnable than any island fortress. People thought I was coping, but inside I was falling apart. I became impossible to live with; it was as if the sins my captors had sown in me were being harvested in my family. I also had intense hatred for the Japanese, and was always looking for ways and means to do them down. In my mind I often thought of my hateful interrogator. I wanted to drown him, cage him and beat him - as he had done to me.

After my retirement in 1982, I started searching for information. The need to know is powerful. In the course of my search I learnt that Nagase Takashi - my interrogator and torturer was still alive; was active in charitable works, and that he had built a Buddhist temple. I was skeptical. I couldn’t believe in the notion of Japanese repentance. I strongly suspected that if I were to meet him I’d put my hands round his neck and do him in.

In 1987 I found “The Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture”. At age 68, I entered therapy. And for the first time I was able to unload the hate that had become my prison. Seeing the change in me, my wife wrote to Nagase. The letter he wrote back was full of compassion. When I read the letter, I lost whatever hard armor I had wrapped around me and began to think the unthinkable.

The meeting took place in 1998 in Kanburi, Thailand. When we met, Nagase greeted me with a formal bow. I took his hand and said in Japanese, “Good Morning Mr Nagase, how are you?” He was trembling and crying, and he said over and over again: “I am so sorry, so very sorry.” I had come with no sympathy for this man, and yet Nagase, through his complete humility, turned this around. In the days that followed we spent a lot of time together, talking and laughing. We discovered that we had much in common. I discovered that he was human. We promised to keep in touch and have remained friends ever since.

After our meeting I felt I’d come to some kind of peace and resolution.“ Lomax concludes by writing that “At some time the hating has to stop.”

Erik Lomax’s journey of forgiveness was be a long one. Our journey of forgiveness can be long too. I would never presume to minimize the very real pain people feel from being hurt…sometimes long, long ago. But in the journey, we often become stuck. And when stuck, we are not able to forgive. We are not able to progress. We are not able to grow into the people God hopes and calls us to be.

Erik Lomax went through a process to forgive. And frankly, it was his process. No one could tell him how to make this journey. There is no template…no step by step process to forgiving. Everyone’s journey is unique.

But Lewis Smedes, in his book The Art of Forgiving that our congregation has been studying this Lent, identifies some helpful stages for us in the forgiveness journey.

Smedes believes that to forgive, we need to think and to evaluate. We cannot forgive if we do not have clarity as to what actually happened. This takes time. It is not easy. We need to process the events and discern what happened, and to ask ourselves questions: Could it have been an accident? Was it a misunderstanding? Or did he or she know what they were doing? Was it a lapse, or has this been a habitual problem? Am I annoyed, or was I truly wronged?

Our primary human reaction is to assume the worst. Because we have been hurt, we want to assume that there must be someone who created the hurt with intent. That might not be the case.

The next stage Smedes discusses is to talk. Talk to another person. Use them as a sounding board, as Lomax did at the Foundation for Victims of Torture. Often when we are emotionally hurt, we are too blinded by the pain to see and think objectively. Often I’ve had a good friend tell me “You’re not thinking this through clearly…could it merely have been (fill in the blank)?” Maybe it was an accident when my brother locked the house when I took the garbage out…or when he “forgot” to drop my car payment envelope in the mail. It could have been! Usually, the people I talk with are right. On the forgiveness journey, we seek out wisdom and good advice.

The next stage is the one we tend to blow by the quickest: we need to name our feelings. We need to be able to identify the emotions we experience. Naming these things is important, because when we forgive, we need to be able to identify what it is we are forgiving for. “I forgive you for causing me anger…disappointment… frustration…pain…for making me feel bad about myself, or someone else… If we cannot name the feelings, we cannot honestly say that we are willing to forgive someone for causing them.

Finally, Smedes says we pray. To be honest, we are all sinful and broken people. I am just as sinful as the person who has done wrong to me. You are just as sinful as the person who has done wrong to you. It is only through the work of God’s Holy Spirit that we can forgive and let go. So we pray. We are honest with God. We tell God how much we hurt…how full of anger we might be…we admit we need help…

In prayer, we rely on God. We remember that it is God who first forgives. You receive that gift every time you confess…every time you ask…every time you receive the sacraments… God forgives you of all of your sins, unconditionally.

Dr. Alvin Rogness was the president of Luther Seminary. I’ve told this story about him to our confirmation leaders in the past. Once a student came into his office for pastoral counseling. She had been unfaithful in her marriage vows. They talked for a long time. She confessed and Dr. Rogness gave her the words of absolution…of forgiveness. After they had finished with prayer, she stood up and said “Well, I guess I’m going to have to go tell my husband about it.” Dr. Rogness looked up at her, puzzled and said “about what?”

His point was that God’s forgiveness is complete. Our sins are wiped clean. She might still need to come clean with her husband…but as far as God is concerned…our sins are gone. God has moved on.

We might not be able to forget. But we are able to forgive. And while what has happened may remain in our mind, God’s call is for us to forgive and to move ourselves as far away from that event as possible. To come as close to “forgetting” as we are capable.

The journey to forgiveness is one that was first paved in the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And because of this gift, we can walk on that road as well. We all have the capacity to forgive, as God forgave us.

Again, I don’t mean to suggest for a single moment that this is a “one size fits all” solution to forgiveness. I wish it were this easy. But the journey to forgiveness is different for all of us. There are a thousand variables. For some of us the journey may be short…for others, like Erik Lomax, it is long,. Some may spend almost all of their time and energy in one of these stages, while another else skips right past a stage.

So all of this begs the question: Who do you need to forgive? The odds are good, that there is someone in your life that you carry a hidden resentment towards. I do. There are people in my life that I have been angry at for a long time. I am not proud of this, but it is true. And these are people who I know that eventually I am going to have to forgive…for the sake of our relationship…for the sake of my spirit.

What about you? Who do you carry anger towards? What name, or face comes to mind right now? Are you on a forgiveness journey towards them? Are you moving on that journey? Or are you stuck? When we confess where we are, we can begin to move forward. So I invite you to think, to talk to someone you trust, to name your feelings and to pray. I invite you to take the next step on the journey to forgiveness.

It is difficult…it is hard…it can be a rocky road. But the journey to forgiveness is one that is a gift from God, because God first forgave you. It ultimately sets you free from the pain and anger of your wounds. It is a path to life…it is a journey to healing.

It is a journey that Christ calls us to take. Take it…forgive…and be healed.

Amen.