W. Arthur Kale - "Can We Forgive?" (May 2, 1965)
MP3
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| - | Open thou these lips, oh Lord, | 0:04 |
| that this mouth may show forth thy praise. | 0:06 | |
| Open thou our hearts, oh God, | 0:12 | |
| that as a community of worshipers | 0:15 | |
| we may together show forth thy praise. | 0:19 | |
| Amen. | 0:25 | |
| Then Peter approached him with the question, | 0:30 | |
| "Master, how many times can my brother wrong me | 0:36 | |
| "and I must forgive him? | 0:42 | |
| "Would seven times be enough?" | 0:45 | |
| "No," replied Jesus, "not seven times, but 70 times seven." | 0:50 | |
| Have you ever found it difficult to overcome a grudge? | 1:03 | |
| You need not hesitate to confess it. | 1:12 | |
| In each of us and in all of us, | 1:16 | |
| there is an abundance of the attitude of Shylock, | 1:21 | |
| who has likely, many of you can recall, | 1:29 | |
| in the first act of the Merchant of Venice | 1:31 | |
| gave bold expression to his harbored resentment of Antonio. | 1:36 | |
| Listen to his words. | 1:46 | |
| "How like a fawning publican he looks. | 1:49 | |
| "I hate him for he is a Christian, | 1:55 | |
| "but more for that in lowly simplicity, | 1:59 | |
| "he lends out money gratis | 2:04 | |
| "and brings down the rate of usance here upon us in Venice. | 2:08 | |
| "If I catch him once upon the hip, | 2:16 | |
| "I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him." | 2:21 | |
| Now, minus the Shakespearean idiom | 2:33 | |
| and with different motivations likely | 2:37 | |
| are we not also perennially employed | 2:40 | |
| in nursing and nourishing our hostilities, | 2:46 | |
| our jealousies, our resentments? | 2:52 | |
| At the end of his speech, spoken as an aside, | 2:59 | |
| Shylock concluded, "Cursed be my tribe if I forgive him." | 3:03 | |
| Now, there are many of us who would defend Shylock. | 3:11 | |
| There are persons who would argue that it is appropriate | 3:17 | |
| and necessary for all people to protect their own rights. | 3:22 | |
| Hostility in defense of one's rights is no vice. | 3:29 | |
| These persons are convinced | 3:37 | |
| that one should always keep up one's guard. | 3:39 | |
| That to be tough-minded is simply to be plainly practical. | 3:44 | |
| These persons are convinced | 3:53 | |
| that the way of forgiveness will not work. | 3:55 | |
| The forgiving spirit is indicative of weakness. | 4:01 | |
| It involves loss of face. | 4:08 | |
| It includes making concessions that are hard to make | 4:11 | |
| and, indeed, quite risky to make. | 4:16 | |
| It is like being chicken | 4:20 | |
| and results in encouraging others to push us around | 4:23 | |
| and, perhaps, to crush us. | 4:28 | |
| Moreover, many of us are aware that there is a limitation | 4:32 | |
| to one's ability to forgive. | 4:39 | |
| George Buttrick, I believe it was, wrote some years ago, | 4:44 | |
| "No man can say I forgive you. | 4:49 | |
| "He can only say I forgive you as I ought | 4:55 | |
| "within the measure of my power to forgive. | 5:02 | |
| "And that measure is not wide. | 5:09 | |
| "No wider than one's own dim righteousness and love. | 5:14 | |
| "No wider than one's power to trace | 5:22 | |
| "and cancel the black legacy of his own righteousness." | 5:26 | |
| For some of us, the claim that we possess | 5:34 | |
| the forgiving spirit would be sheer hypocrisy and arrogance. | 5:41 | |
| We are involved in each other's failures. | 5:49 | |
| There are really no innocent parties in a society | 5:52 | |
| that cannot solve the problem of war | 5:58 | |
| or overcome racial tensions | 6:03 | |
| or adequately control the spread of emotional illnesses. | 6:06 | |
| Each of us, must we not confess, is implicated | 6:14 | |
| to some degree in every act of faithlessness, | 6:21 | |
| every scene of violence, every period of apathy, | 6:27 | |
| every mood of hopelessness. | 6:34 | |
| In some quarters, we have developed a pseudo-forgiveness | 6:42 | |
| which has only aided and contributed to our corruption. | 6:49 | |
| A British psychologist by the name of W.L. Northridge | 6:59 | |
| tells the story of a woman who had a grievance | 7:04 | |
| against a fellow church member. | 7:09 | |
| The accused fellow member brought to the other | 7:13 | |
| an offering of apology, an ample one, | 7:20 | |
| and sought forgiveness whereupon the other responded, | 7:25 | |
| "I see that as a Christian, | 7:32 | |
| "I must not hold resentment against you. | 7:35 | |
| "So I forgive you, but remember, | 7:38 | |
| "we can never be the same to each other." | 7:43 | |
| Here, forgiveness was extended so resentfully | 7:50 | |
| that it was not forgiveness at all. | 7:55 | |
| Now, are we forced to conclude from all this | 7:59 | |
| that we cannot forgive one another? | 8:04 | |
| Admitting that we are but corrupting ourselves, | 8:07 | |
| if we claim to forgive a neighbor | 8:12 | |
| or a nation when we have not | 8:15 | |
| and acknowledging the difficulty | 8:20 | |
| of making concessions and renouncing our own will | 8:22 | |
| and restraining our own resentments, | 8:29 | |
| is there more to be said? | 8:34 | |
| Well, something more has been said. | 8:39 | |
| It was spoken by the man we call Jesus the Christ. | 8:45 | |
| What he said was startlingly different. | 8:50 | |
| What he said came into dramatic focus | 8:55 | |
| in this conversation between himself | 8:58 | |
| and a follower called Peter. | 9:00 | |
| How many times can I forgive somebody who has wronged me, | 9:05 | |
| was Peter's question. | 9:10 | |
| This was in line, I'm persuaded, with a number of questions | 9:13 | |
| that friends of Jesus ask him regularly. | 9:18 | |
| He seemed to have a profound interest in persons | 9:21 | |
| who cannot control their feelings of resentment. | 9:26 | |
| Remember that on another occasion, | 9:32 | |
| Jesus said if thy brother sinned, rebuke him, | 9:34 | |
| but if he repent, forgive him. | 9:38 | |
| If he's sinned against these seven times in one day, | 9:42 | |
| but seven times turn to thee again saying, "I repent." | 9:48 | |
| Thou shall forgive him. | 9:54 | |
| Now, let's not be too interested or get too interested | 9:58 | |
| in the mathematics of these statements. | 10:03 | |
| How often must I forgive, Peter wanted to know. | 10:08 | |
| The answer was an incredible one. | 10:12 | |
| As Jesus said, not seven times, as you suggest, | 10:14 | |
| but 70 times seven times. | 10:19 | |
| In this disturbingly impractical statement, | 10:24 | |
| Jesus is not merely indulging in hyperbole. | 10:29 | |
| This is no clever use of words for the purpose | 10:34 | |
| of making an impression upon Peter | 10:38 | |
| and upon succeeding generations. | 10:41 | |
| Here Jesus is proposing a new dimension for living. | 10:43 | |
| Here Jesus is turning a spotlight | 10:51 | |
| upon men's potential for greatness. | 10:54 | |
| Here Jesus is dramatically proclaiming | 10:58 | |
| that man can move beyond himself, | 11:02 | |
| beyond the limitations of his fears, | 11:06 | |
| beyond the restraining power of his jealousies, | 11:10 | |
| beyond his moods of mistrust and hostility, | 11:14 | |
| beyond his pretended forgiveness. | 11:18 | |
| Man can move beyond himself into ever expanding regions | 11:23 | |
| of risky behavior, of unprecedented behavior, | 11:31 | |
| behavior based not upon suspicion but upon respect, | 11:38 | |
| behavior based not upon failure | 11:44 | |
| but upon the possibilities of restoration, | 11:48 | |
| behavior based not upon antagonisms, not upon hopelessness, | 11:52 | |
| but upon the very genuine and real prospect of life | 12:00 | |
| built upon hope itself. | 12:06 | |
| Such an act is in the beyond. | 12:10 | |
| It is located at the end of man's limitations. | 12:14 | |
| It's in the future. | 12:19 | |
| What is passed by way of failure and mistake, | 12:22 | |
| what is passed by way of clashing human relationships, | 12:26 | |
| what is past is past. | 12:34 | |
| This new dimension involves beginning at the extremities | 12:37 | |
| of man's failure and defeat, including his resentment, | 12:43 | |
| and a new dimension for all the futures. | 12:48 | |
| Back of this mathematical exaggeration | 12:56 | |
| lies the proposition that man can live in harmony | 13:01 | |
| with the will of God. | 13:06 | |
| That's the sort of being man is | 13:09 | |
| and nothing less than that potential will satisfy. | 13:13 | |
| Now, God is merciful. | 13:19 | |
| Cannot man also learn to be merciful? | 13:24 | |
| Now, God is forgiving. | 13:31 | |
| God's forgiveness is multiplied many times, | 13:36 | |
| seven times, 70 times seven times and more. | 13:43 | |
| In the life of every person God has created, | 13:53 | |
| in all his dealings with his creature man, | 14:00 | |
| the great creator and sustainer of life | 14:04 | |
| must ever possess the forgiving spirit. | 14:08 | |
| Now, the question is, cannot man also learn to be forgiving? | 14:12 | |
| Christ tried to make certain that the practice | 14:23 | |
| of the forgiving spirit is a requirement, | 14:27 | |
| a requirement of all persons who would approximate | 14:32 | |
| their potential for greatness. | 14:36 | |
| To be forgiving, one must keep at it. | 14:40 | |
| It must be a sustained practice. | 14:43 | |
| It must be unprecedented. | 14:47 | |
| It involves risks, but the practice goes on ceaselessly. | 14:51 | |
| One time, seven times, 490 times and beyond. | 14:58 | |
| In interpreting this point, | 15:09 | |
| the late Ernest Fremont Title, | 15:11 | |
| long famous as the distinguished pastor | 15:17 | |
| of the first Methodist church of Evanston, | 15:20 | |
| said our forgiveness of others | 15:26 | |
| is not the condition of God's willingness to forgive us. | 15:30 | |
| It is the condition of our ability | 15:35 | |
| to receive the forgiveness of God. | 15:39 | |
| A man cannot be in the fellowship of God | 15:46 | |
| if his own spirit of forgiveness is out of harmony | 15:53 | |
| with God's spirit of forgiveness. | 16:00 | |
| In a shorter sentence, | 16:05 | |
| man cannot be forgiven unless he forgives. | 16:08 | |
| Now, this does not mean being chicken-hearted. | 16:21 | |
| To forgive as Jesus instructs us does not mean to be stupid, | 16:28 | |
| so stupid as to be blind to the nature of one we call enemy. | 16:37 | |
| We are not asked to deny the realities | 16:46 | |
| of human failures and animosities. | 16:49 | |
| Let us admit that there is evil | 16:54 | |
| in the heart and in the plots of one's enemies. | 16:58 | |
| The enemy is full of greed | 17:05 | |
| and narrowness and prejudice and selfishness | 17:09 | |
| and continue the list of items on indefinitely, if you will. | 17:14 | |
| Let us agree that there is cause | 17:19 | |
| for being suspicious of him. | 17:22 | |
| And it is logical that one should be afraid of him. | 17:24 | |
| But this is precisely the reason I must forgive him. | 17:31 | |
| I too am full of greed and narrowness | 17:39 | |
| and prejudice and selfishness | 17:45 | |
| and on item by item to the full extent of your list or mine. | 17:48 | |
| Jesus is proposing that when I look at my enemy, | 17:57 | |
| I see myself. | 18:02 | |
| When I am afraid of him and hate him, | 18:06 | |
| I am really looking upon the evils in my own life | 18:10 | |
| which produce fear and hatred. | 18:14 | |
| What I would like to see in him | 18:19 | |
| would, of course, be a change of heart. | 18:22 | |
| I would like to see him make some kind of gesture | 18:27 | |
| of friendly regard for me. | 18:33 | |
| I would like to see him indicate | 18:36 | |
| by some kind of word or gesture | 18:38 | |
| that the fearful emotions he awakens in me are unjustified. | 18:44 | |
| But what Jesus wants me to see is that, in turn, | 18:54 | |
| I must do precisely that for him. | 18:59 | |
| I must seven times and 490 times and beyond | 19:03 | |
| ceaselessly gesture in his direction, | 19:09 | |
| indicating some evidence of my sincere purpose | 19:13 | |
| to meet him as a man and to resolve our differences | 19:19 | |
| and to develop mutual understandings and trust. | 19:25 | |
| And this prompts me to add the thought that forgiveness, | 19:30 | |
| as interpreted by our Lord's life and word, | 19:34 | |
| must be a spontaneous forgiveness. | 19:39 | |
| I do not interpret all this New Testament doctrine | 19:46 | |
| in any moralistic sense. | 19:50 | |
| This moralistic kind of interpretation, | 19:56 | |
| it seems to me, would lead us into preoccupation | 19:59 | |
| with symptoms rather than the real disease. | 20:04 | |
| Forgiveness of one's fellows does not say do this | 20:11 | |
| or leave undone that. | 20:15 | |
| It's your duty, therefore, perform it. | 20:20 | |
| This is what is required, get at it. | 20:23 | |
| No, it seems to me, that our Lord | 20:28 | |
| intended that we forgive 70 times seven. | 20:31 | |
| And in so doing, we learn how to behave | 20:38 | |
| towards all other people naturally and spontaneously. | 20:42 | |
| One overcomes his festering hatreds and resentments | 20:51 | |
| not because of pressure. | 20:56 | |
| One's nature becomes changed | 20:59 | |
| through every forgiving thought, | 21:02 | |
| through every kindly spoken word, | 21:06 | |
| through every impulse to forgive, | 21:11 | |
| through every deed that supplements and supports the word. | 21:16 | |
| Presently, in this extended process, | 21:21 | |
| one forgives without prompting. | 21:26 | |
| One learns to trust another without any pressure. | 21:30 | |
| One learns to deal fairly with the other | 21:35 | |
| without some kind of mechanical or forced premeditation. | 21:39 | |
| This makes it possible for me and my enemy to meet | 21:46 | |
| not merely as equal and fellow sinners, | 21:51 | |
| but as persons mutually responsible | 21:56 | |
| for our wrong relationships | 22:01 | |
| and as equal and fellow travelers | 22:05 | |
| moving yet a distance, perhaps, | 22:10 | |
| but moving nevertheless toward the fulfillment | 22:13 | |
| of our intended and potential selves. | 22:18 | |
| Thus forgiveness becomes a creative act. | 22:25 | |
| The imaginative mind of Jesus was never more alert | 22:31 | |
| than when he responded to Peter's question. | 22:37 | |
| "How many times shall I forgive?" | 22:41 | |
| Jesus said go beyond the point | 22:44 | |
| where you think you should stop. | 22:46 | |
| Go beyond your strength. | 22:50 | |
| Go beyond your present capacity. | 22:53 | |
| Forgive 70 times seven. | 22:57 | |
| This makes forgiveness creative, I say. | 23:03 | |
| No longer can I regard it as a sign of weakness. | 23:05 | |
| It is stronger than my urge to retaliate | 23:10 | |
| and my wish for revenge. | 23:13 | |
| There is a British team of writers, | 23:17 | |
| a husband and wife team, | 23:19 | |
| Warner and Lotty Pels, who in a recent book have said | 23:22 | |
| forgiveness is the growing point. | 23:27 | |
| Note that the growing point of life in togetherness. | 23:31 | |
| It is the feeler that reaches out into uncharted space. | 23:38 | |
| It is the tendril of the climbing plant. | 23:43 | |
| And so Jesus intended it to be. | 23:49 | |
| As to Peter and to all others who listen, | 23:54 | |
| he said or he presented an impractical proposal | 23:58 | |
| that, upon more mature analysis, | 24:04 | |
| we recognize to be quite practical. | 24:08 | |
| It seems unrealistic at first. | 24:11 | |
| It becomes reality in practice. | 24:14 | |
| Now, in these final moments, may I propose some implications | 24:20 | |
| of what I have tried to say. | 24:27 | |
| What are the implications of the Christian demand | 24:31 | |
| for the forgiving spirit? | 24:38 | |
| This is a question that relates to my professional life. | 24:41 | |
| I am a teacher. | 24:46 | |
| I am interested in other teachers. | 24:49 | |
| The teacher, capital T, I would say, | 24:53 | |
| the teacher who challenged Peter was no mere technician | 24:58 | |
| and he was not discussing matters of methodology. | 25:06 | |
| He proposed a dimension beyond the levels of techniques | 25:11 | |
| and status and recognition. | 25:16 | |
| To teach creatively, I and other teachers | 25:20 | |
| are challenged to master the art of forgiving spontaneously | 25:25 | |
| that colleague of whom I am jealous, | 25:32 | |
| that student who misjudges me as an instructor, | 25:37 | |
| that rival who slanders | 25:43 | |
| and that administrator who is unfair or indifferent | 25:48 | |
| and the whole situation in which I live and labor | 25:56 | |
| that I describe usually as frustrating. | 26:00 | |
| Indeed, the whole area and set of wrongdoers | 26:04 | |
| toward whom and toward which I am resentful | 26:09 | |
| must be reconsidered. | 26:14 | |
| Shall I forgive 70 times seven in my professional life? | 26:18 | |
| This same question by implication | 26:27 | |
| is related to my life as a citizen. | 26:31 | |
| I am a native-born American. | 26:36 | |
| I need not add the details about the proximity | 26:39 | |
| to the Southland in which I have grown up. | 26:43 | |
| To live as a loyal American, | 26:47 | |
| I am summoned to press toward a new dimension | 26:50 | |
| of relationships with political leaders | 26:54 | |
| with whom I differ, with opponents of the causes I cherish | 26:58 | |
| and for which I labor. | 27:03 | |
| I am called also to forgive nations | 27:06 | |
| whom I have called enemies | 27:10 | |
| and peoples who spitefully use us and condemn us. | 27:13 | |
| This question also applies to my family | 27:20 | |
| where the dimension of forgiveness is often avoided. | 27:24 | |
| And, finally, this question relates to my religion | 27:30 | |
| and to my life as a churchman. | 27:35 | |
| There is much to be forgiven of the church in our day. | 27:38 | |
| The artificialities, the superficialities, | 27:44 | |
| to mention only two. | 27:48 | |
| In my personal religious faith, | 27:50 | |
| I regularly acknowledge my need | 27:52 | |
| of the forgiveness of God for my sins, | 27:56 | |
| but the question remains, am I really prepared | 28:00 | |
| to say that God cannot forgive my sins | 28:06 | |
| until I am ready to forgive the sins | 28:12 | |
| of all against whom I am grudgingly related, | 28:18 | |
| resentfully related, against whom I harbor | 28:26 | |
| these feelings of ill will? | 28:32 | |
| We have counted seven statements | 28:37 | |
| spoken by our Lord from the cross. | 28:41 | |
| I have tried to speculate upon some of the thoughts | 28:45 | |
| that he did not express. | 28:48 | |
| To be sure, it's an impossible task | 28:51 | |
| but among others, perhaps, somewhere | 28:54 | |
| in the three-hour period of anguish and torture, | 28:57 | |
| our Lord might have recalled the words | 29:03 | |
| spoken to Peter about forgiveness. | 29:06 | |
| There were more than 490 persons | 29:09 | |
| present at the crucifixion likely. | 29:12 | |
| He forgave all of them. | 29:16 | |
| There were to be unnumbered others to be forgiven. | 29:20 | |
| He still remembered. | 29:26 | |
| As in the midst of the torture of that hour, | 29:30 | |
| he prayed, "Father, forgive." | 29:35 | |
| For me as the human person, | 29:42 | |
| it's impossible to go as far as Jesus proposed. | 29:45 | |
| But still from the cross itself, | 29:50 | |
| there comes to me the call, forgive, forgive, forgive. | 29:54 | |
| Let us pray. | 30:09 | |
| Eternal God who through thy son, Jesus Christ, | 30:20 | |
| has called us into hope that our sins may be forgiven, | 30:26 | |
| help us to remember that he also called us | 30:35 | |
| to forgive one another. | 30:40 | |
| Send us forth in his name and in his spirit | 30:44 | |
| to face all the irritations of human relationships | 30:48 | |
| in the tomorrows determined to be something | 30:52 | |
| like the persons Jesus Christ calls us to become. | 30:57 | |
| And now may the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, | 31:07 | |
| and the love of God, the Father, | 31:11 | |
| and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. | 31:15 |