Pre-emptive Forgiveness

“Pre-emptive Forgiveness”
Sermon by Bill Levering, preached at the First Reformed Church of Schenectady
January 21, 2007

People are likely to make mistakes.

Odds are, I am about to make a mistake. There are thousands of rules about grammar and word usage and chances are in the next few minutes, I will violate at least one of them. In fact, it is almost a certainty that I will make several mistakes.

Anthropologist Gregory Bateson wrote a book called the Steps to the Ecology of Mind that begins with a series of interactions with his daughter that attempt to portray, in simple terms some critical issues in human life. One of these essays is “Why do things get in a muddle?” His daughter asks:

[...] people spend a lot of time tidying things, but they never seem to spend time muddling them. Things just seem to get in a muddle by themselves. And then people have to tidy them again.

Bateson answers her by explaining, ‘it’s just because there are more ways which you call “untidy” than there are ways which you call “tidy.”’ He explained that there are far more places for her dolls to be out of place, than in the right place.

This is true across a broad range of issues in life. There are plenty of ways to be wrong, and only a few ways, often one, of being right. So, like this sermon, it’s almost impossible for any of us to be anything but incorrect many times a day.

Most married people understand this. Abby, my wife, has a clear idea about how an adult ought to act in the world. Now Abby is not a judging person at all, but I suggest to you that before breakfast is over, I have made several grave errors in her eyes. She may not say anything. In fact, she may forgive me completely, but the fact is that it isn’t long at all before mistakes are made.

Army people have long understood the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way. However we measure ‘rightness,’ it’s much easier to be wrong. There are many many wrong answers to the problem of 1+1. In an effort to experience the vast way in which we could be wrong about this, I’d like everyone to shout out an incorrect answer to the problem of 1+1. (shouts) I know that some of you said “two” just to be obstreperous, but, given the assignment, that would have been a mistake, so all is well.

God and Forgiveness.

If often seems as though our relationship with God is in the same terms. There are apparently a millions ways to get God mad. Many, many commandments, rules, and moral injunctions to break in all sorts of creative new ways.

One of the most popular exercises in confirmation classes I have run is the task of figuring out one act that breaks all the commandments at once. Young people who would normally have trouble engaging a set of rules become more animated when trying to break them. We usually end up with someone lying in court about murdering their parents on Sunday, . . . well, you get the idea.

In the Judaism of Jesus’ day, there were rules and sacrifices to be made. The sin offering, for example, was an important offering made by observant Jews for sins that they may have inadvertently committed. The law had gotten so complicated, you literally needed lawyers to figure out what should happen when certain mistakes were made.

Jesus bring about a whole new way of dealing with these mistakes. Forgiveness. First of all, he forgives the people about him, even those who are murdering him. He broadens this and establishes a new ethic for forgiving each other. “ You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth . . . . “ Most importantly, though, he is the instrument of our forgiveness with God.

Forgiveness is Jesus’ major theme. It is at once the hardest teaching to accept and the most important one to integrate into our lives. We are forgiven, we need to forgive. It affects international relations, criminal justice, marital relations, and institutional

I will be here for the life span of one of your pets. Hopefully, your only pet isn't a gerbil. In that time, I will talk to you about many of the dimensions of forgiveness, but in blatant self interest this morning, I’d like to address pre-emptive forgiveness.

Possible Upcoming Errors

We have established that I am about to make a mistake, but let me sketch the possibilities for you.

I may be too flip, or too serious.

I may not wear a tie when one is clearly required.

I may forget your name.

I may repeat myself.

I may forget your name.

I may be impatient or strident in my desire to change the world.

I may not care about something as much as you want me to.

I may begin to horribly split infinitives.

I may like someone you don’t want me to like.

I may be insensitive to a cherished tradition.

I may use a Presbyterian word when I should use a Reformed church word.

I may not call you back fast enough.

I may get too excited about technological toys.

I may speak in language that is too political or too religious.

I may spill coffee on your new slacks.

I may break your brother’s arm while playing squash.

For all these potentialities, I need your forgiveness. In fact, I need to know that you might forgive me even before I do anything, because I don’t want to live in fear. Now, I don’t intend to break your brother’s arm. Quite the contrary. But we have already established, as Paul said “I do the very thing that I don’t want to.”

For this boon, I promise to do my best to forgive you. Forgiveness is a street with many lanes. Just as those of you who are Republicans may need to forgive the fact that I am a Democratic, so I will forgive you for being Republicans.

All this warm talk of forgiveness between us may be fine in the abstract, but in application, it may be more challenging.

Future forgiveness.

The early disciples must have had trouble with this idea of forgiveness, because they come to Jesus looking for clarification and ways out of this crazy idea. They ask how many times do we have to do this and Jesus’ answer rather mocks the idea of counting at all. As it I could keep track of each time I forgave someone and then stop at forty nine or seventy seven. If there are literalists in the crowd, however, feel free to start the counter going now. Personally, I think Jesus is more complex and more interesting than a simple rule giver. Also, it would be counterproductive for him to just give more rules that needed forgiving.

The question the disciples ask implies action in the future. Unless they are remembering a whole series of events that need forgiveness, they are looking with trepidation into the future of forgiveness and wondering about its limits. Surely if people are obnoxious enough to make the same mistake over and over we don’t need to forgive them,

Of course an attitude of forgiveness can be corrupted and taken advantage of. But that is for another Sunday. The first word is forgiveness. Before we say, “yes, but . . .”, we need to say, “yes” to forgiving even as God has and will forgive us.

There is a great fear about talking about God forgiving us in the future. That it will somehow create sociopaths undeterred by guilt. But for people who are trying to find the holy, understanding that God will forgive us in the future gives us the courage to act in the world at all. We need no longer be cowed by complexity or muted by the chilling judgment of any church structure. In response to the overwhelming moral codes of medieval Roman Catholicism, Martin Luther’s disturbing breakthrough is, “Love God and do as you please.”

Forgiveness is a gracious attitude that is not just about the past. It extends into the future. It is an acceptance and a humility that seeks goodness in each situation.

Once we begin to nurture the attitude of forgiveness that goes beyond measurement, we can let go cherished wounds, we can begin to forgive ourselves even as we do something weak, begin to forgive God, begin to establish relationships of hope, not of fear. To err is human, to forgive - through God’s help - also human.