By Ray Trygstad
A Sermon given October 8, 1995
Wesley United Methodist Church, Naperville, Illinois, USA
In the two verses just before where today's Gospel lesson begins, Jesus tells
us: ''If your brother sins rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. If
he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you
and says, I repent,' forgive him.'' Luke 17:3-4
Being a Christian was never meant to be an easy path. Oh, becoming a Christian
is easy enough; a confession of faith, renouncing sin and so on. God's grace
is freely given; all we have to do is repent and ask forgiveness, and there
it is. But if we look back on the vows we took at becoming a full member
of Christ's church, at confirmation or acceptance into membership, there
is that one annoying line: ''...to promise according to the grace given to
you to live a Christian life...''
Despite God's freely given grace through faith, there is that expectation
that through God's freely given grace we will live Christian lives. Not for
salvation mind you; we can't live a good enough life to merit God's grace.
No, we are pledged to live a Christian life out of love for Christ, who said
to us, ''If you love me, keep my commandments.''
Aha! Here's the rub: in most cases, despite the transformation brought about
in our lives by our faith in Jesus Christ, it doesn't seem much easier to
live that Christian life. In the past, some even gave up on the idea. In
one of the more outrageous perversions of Christian belief, one heretical
sect decided that the way to obtain more of God's grace was to sin more,
so that they would receive more of the grace of Christ's salvation. Appealing
as that prospect may seem, that's just not the way it works.
One of the reasons we gather as a congregation goes beyond the needs to learn
and grow and worship: we are a mutual support group in this attempt to fulfill
our promise to live Christian lives. As a mutual support group, kind of a
''Sinners Anonymous'', if you will, with God's help we must strengthen and
support on another in our Christian lives. This is a ministry of the laity
to each other. As a starting point for this ministry, Jesus gave us a new
commandment in John 13:34: ''A new command I give you; love one another.
As I have loved you, so must you love one another. By this all men will know
that you are my disciples, if you love one another.''
When we do not show this love for one another, we are failing in Christ's
new commandment. Christ's church has no room for backroom politics, for whisper
campaigns, for secrecy and deceiptregardless of the reason. William
Penn wrote ''A Good end cannot sanctifie evil means; nor must we ever do
Evil, that Good may come of it.'' These types of activity are the antithesis,
the very opposite, of how our relationship as Christian brothers and sisters
should be conducted. In Romans 12, God speaking through the apostle Paul
tells us how to relate to one another in the church: ''For by the grace given
me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you
ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with
the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with
many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in
Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to the others.
We have different gifts, according to the the grace given us.'' ...According
to the the grace given us. That has a familiar ring to it! Paul goes on to
say ''Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be
devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.''
If part of your body decides to rebel against your body and tries to take
over, we call that a cancer. Cancer is an invasive scourge. We cut it out
and then bombard it with radiation and chemicals to kill it, to eradicate
every trace. We cannot do that with the body of Christ; we are bound to a
path of forgiveness, healing and reconciliation. This is what God expects
of us. We all must forgive. Some are easy to forgive; there's no challenge
there. As Samuel Butler said, ''We all like to forgive, and love best not
those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make
it most easy for us to forgive them.'' It's the ones who sin against us seven
times in one day that we really have a tough time with. ''Seven times in
a day...''; seven is a very significant number in scripture that is sometimes
lost on us today. It signifies completeness, so someone sinning against you
seven times means that they have completely cut themselves off from you.
Have any of us sinned seven times against our brother or sister? Maybe it's
time for all of us to look at our role in our ministry to one another. Do
we need to repent? Can we truly forgive one another? Look around you. Is
there someone there you need to forgive? Is there someone you need to show
repentance to?
Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we have to do as Christians. First,
it's hard to be sincere, but just as Paul tells us ''Love must be sincere'',
so must repentence and forgiveness. When children learn to apologize to each
other, they many times say ''I'm sorry'' because Mom or Dad told them to;
learning to say it with this conviction and sincerity only comes with maturity
and a real understanding of what it really means to be sorry. Just as we
grow from a child to an adult, our faith must grow, so that someday it will
be at least the size of a mustard seed, and will allow us to sincerely repent
and forgive.
Secondly, it's a lot easier to condemn, to ''rebuke'', than it is to forgive.
It is SO hard to put aside our anger when we feel we have been wronged! Again
in Romans 12, we hear: ''Do not repay evil with evil. Be careful to do what
is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends
on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but
leave room for God's wrath.'' To forgive someone, when what we really want
to do is punch the blankity-blank in the nose, we really need to draw on
our grace from Christ. ''According to the grace given you...'' That's what
we pledged about living a Christian life, following the words of Paul. Just
as our sinful natures cut us off from God, they also prevent us from being
able to truly forgive one another. But we are not expected to do this on
our own! That same measure of grace by which God forgives us of our sins
is there to allow us to forgive others; I for one do not have it in me to
forgive trespasses against me without this grace. We must draw on this freely
given grace to forgive; forgiveness is the first step on the road to healing
and reconciliation.
We must heal the hurts and we must be reconciled with one another before
Christ's body at Wesley Church can be a sound, healthy body. Old hurts may
subside to a dull ache, while new wounds are the sharpest, but in the case
of all of those wounds we have given each other by failing to live as Christians,
we must forgive before the healing can begin. Let's draw on the grace given
to us to forgive each other. Remember, we are all parts of Christ's body
at Wesley, with many gifts to share, but one sanctifying and healing Spirit
that binds us in Christian love.
Let us pray:
Lord, open our hearts. Let your love flow into them and fill them to overflowing.
Send us your grace in full measure, that we may pass the love and grace you
give us to each other. Bind our wounds and heal our hearts, that we may be
one body, one Spirit, united in faith to minister unto one another, and to
spread the message of your salvation to Naperville and beyond. We pray this
in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.