Forgiveness
Probably because it was Remembrance Sunday today I was thinking about what I can do to stop all the war and conflict in the world. I was thinking about how to live in the life and power that takes away the occasion of all war as the early Friends put it in the Peace Testimony.
When contemplating this issue in meeting I began to see how forgiveness plays such a crucial role in this. I ended up ministering from Matthew 18:21-35, which is the parable of the forgiving king. The outline of the story is that a servant owes a king 10,000 talents, a debt he could not possibly repay. The king demands repayment which will include the sale of the servant’s wife and children. The servant falls to his knees and begs for forgiveness as he cannot possible pay the debt. The king took pity on him and cancelled the debt. Later the servant who had been forgiven by the king meets a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii. The servant demands payment and throws the other man in jail until the debt is repayed. This gets back to the king who calls the servant in and says “you wicked servant! I cancelled all the debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” The king then throws him in jail. Jesus then says “This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart”
I believe we have to take the phrase “from your heart” very seriously. God knows when you are really forgiving someone, not just saying the words but believing it. It is God that gives us the capacity to forgive those who sin against us, if we accept the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus’ death on the cross. I need to pray more that God will give me the capacity to forgive those who sin against me from my heart and not just say the words.
On Remembrance Sunday exactly 20 years ago an IRA bomb exploded at a service at the cenotaph in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. It killed 11 people including the daughter of Gordon Wilson. When Gordon Wilson was asked afterwards what he thought of the people who had planted the bomb he said, I forgive them. This was seen as a remarkable thing to say, how could anyone possibly forgive someone for doing such a thing to his family? It didn’t make sense in the human world but Gordon Wilson was living in God’s world. He was living in the life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars. Having accepted God’s forgiveness of him he had opened a way for God to work through him allowing him to forgive from his heart.
I pray that the forgiveness that can only come from God could permeate all our lives and this would remove the need for war and conflict.
