Matthew 18:21-22 Recently, somebody said to me, "Arthur, you talk a lot about forgiveness," in a tone suggesting I was talking about forgiveness a little too much. But I don't agree. I may mention it often but it is so important it needs, I think, to be held before us. Forgiveness is an enormous responsibility and an issue of life that affects everybody. Nobody is exempt--nobody--from dealing with forgiveness issues. They are a part of life. The other day I did a personal inventory of my own forgiveness issues and I was surprised, if not shocked, at two of them which just glared at me, and to which I had given very little thought. They had to do with self-forgiveness, from situations long past, where the persons had forgiven me, and I know God has forgiven me, but I have not forgiven myself. This self-recrimination is painful. I keep working on it. I am reminded of something Evelyn Underhill, that great English mystical writer, said many years ago: "Forgiveness, for the big hurts of life, is rare." I tend to agree with that. I remember one Saturday afternoon a few years ago when I was coming to the church to do a wedding. I was walking down Fifth Avenue, and as I approached the big signboard which announces the subject of Sunday's sermon, I noticed a very short woman peering up at the sermon title. Our eyes met. "Are you Dr. Caliandro?" she asked. I told her I was, and she went on, "I see you're preaching on forgiveness tomorrow." Then she stretched out her open hand and said, "It is easier to put a million dollars in my hand than it is to forgive." My sense was that this woman had been through some very heavy and difficult forgiveness moments. "Ma'am," I said, "you understand the human condition." The popular writer and speaker Carolyn Myss, in her book Individual Acts of Power, notes that Jesus devoted His entire teaching to forgiveness and forgiveness issues. She reminds us that as His very last act on the cross, He looked square at the people who were responsible for putting Him there, His killers, and said, "Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing." Carolyn Myss describes the effects resistance to forgiving can have on a person. To be unable to forgive is to live in hell, burdened, miserable, angry.... But most likely the person for whom you hold a grudge could not care less about your misery. He has moved on and you are stuck. Forgiveness is a powerful act that is healing to you. After all, the person you resent does not have to live in your body. You do. A few weeks ago I heard a powerful and poignant story about forgiveness told by one of our congregants. She told her story to one of our New Member classes. Those who are members at Marble Church know that each Sunday during New Member orientation classes, one of our members shares a part of his or her spiritual journey. This day the theme was change and growth. Tracy is an attorney. She said that several years ago, two pivotal events occurred in her life at about the same time. First, the man with whom she was in love, with whom she had expected to spend the rest of her life, ended the relationship. She felt hurt, angry and betrayed. At that time she was employed in a law firm where she was regarded as a rising star. She was affirmed and complimented and praised. Everything she did was appreciated. She was happy there and they seemed to be happy with her. There was one other woman at that firm, and one day she was fired--Tracy felt, unjustifiably. Soon afterwards, this woman slapped a lawsuit against the firm and Tracy said that for her after that everything went downhill. She was no longer the rising star. She was isolated and criticized. Her work wasn't any good any more and sometimes one of the partners would even yell at her. She was devastated. Soon after, her job was terminated. Tracy said she went home and cried and cried. One Saturday she cried from ten in the morning until eight at night, then went to bed and in the morning had no motivation to get up. This became the new pattern of her life: sleep, get up to eat. Sleep, get up to eat. It became a huge struggle to get up in the morning. She sought professional help and was told she was clinically depressed. When I asked how she dealt with the forgiveness issue with her boyfriend for ending their relationship, she said "That wasn't really too difficult." She said that he hadn't abandoned her but was very supportive during her depression. "He would encourage me to get up, to eat, to get outside. In fact, he was the one who introduced me to Marble Church." So eventually she was able to deal with the anger and pain of rejection stemming from his actions. But the forgiveness issue with her bosses, the law partners, was another matter. As she began to attend worship services here in early fall of 2002, something began to happen to her. She felt she had found a home, a place where she could more easily pray, more easily identify. A new pattern to her life emerged: six days in bed, and every Sunday morning, somehow, the Spirit would get her up, and she would get down here to church. Another six days in bed and back to church. This movement in Tracy's life demonstrates how, when we are in the deepest part of the valley, when we are in the pit, though we don't feel God is with us, God is at work and faithful to us. Often we do not notice it at the time, but looking back on a difficult journey we can see it. Tracy said she was still in the doldrums when Palm Sunday came. "Arthur," she said to me, "you gave us instructions in the prayer period on Palm Sunday to pray for our enemies. And you said to pray for them by name. I thought, 'No way am I going to do that!' I was angry with you for suggesting it. Monday I did not pray. But Tuesday," she said, "with tremendous struggle, I screwed up enough courage and I started praying for those partners by name, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. That became a new pattern in my life. I would take long walks, and on these walks I would pray for the lawyers who had fired me. "After a while I realized I needed to get away, and I went to Paris. It was the first time I had ever been to France. I found myself in Notre Dame, the great cathedral in the center of Paris. Having been raised as a Catholic, I went to a confessional, and I told the priest my story. Do you know what he said to me? 'Tracy, you must forgive them.'" Tracy kept praying and praying and praying. "One day," she said, "the load was lifted and I had forgiven them." What she was really doing when she forgave is what always happens when we forgive--we let go...we let it go. Forgiveness means let go, surrender it. Tracy let it go. And when she did, something wonderful happened to her. Tracy had a resurrection experience. She was free again. It is well to remember that Christianity is founded upon a great, open-hearted act of forgiveness. There would be no Easter Sunday--the wonderful, joyous, spirited day called Easter would never have been if Jesus had not let go of His enemies, if He had not forgiven. Every time I preach a sermon on forgiveness, people will say, "Arthur, what about self-forgiveness? What about forgiving oneself?" I believe that is the most difficult thing to do. We all have areas where we are still struggling with forgiving ourselves. In my own case, in two incidents where those I had hurt forgave me--and I knew God had forgiven me--yet I had not forgiven myself. Eventually, I realized that I was torturing myself and beating myself up inside. I had to stop.  Ever since then I have been saying every day, "Arthur, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go."  And one day, by the grace of God, I will be able to let it go. There is one big question everybody asks about forgiveness. "Why is it that when somebody else does damage to me, and hurts me badly, I am the one who has to do all the work to make things good again?" That is a good question. I could go into books of theology and report how theologians have tried to give an answer, but that would still not be an absolute answer. I can tell you what my understanding of the answer is, incomplete and imperfect but a way of looking at it that often works for me. I think the reason that the one who was hurt has to do all the work has to do with the challenge of loving and growing up. The process is for the healing and growth of the soul. God, who is a God of peace, God who is a God of forgiveness, is trying to draw us into the largesse of love. The only way we can learn how to love more deeply is to have the love tested, so that we can grow into a fuller love. Tracy is a different woman today than she ever was before. She would have been wonderful if she had not gone through what she did, but she is even more wonderful because she has experienced something of the largesse of love. Gary Zukov, in his book Soul Stories, relates a story told to him by an Indian chief named Brown Bear, about an incident in an Indian tribe in the late 1800s. It happened that a young man murdered another young man and, as tribal law of the time decreed, the family of the killed person had the right to decide how the perpetrator would be punished. The family held a council around the fire the night their son was killed, and outside sat the young man who had murdered him, blood still on his hands. "Kill him!" said the brother. His face was set like stone. "Kill him!" said the mother, through her tears. "Kill him!" said the sister, her voice quivering. Around the council fire each member of the family spoke. In the balance lay the life of the young man sitting restlessly outside... Then the grandfather, speaking out of years of wisdom, asked, "Will killing him return our boy to us? Will killing him help feed our people?" Softly the word "no" went around the council circle. The family deliberated through the night and then they made their decision. They called the young man in to hear his fate. "See that tepee?" they said, pointing to the tepee of the young man he had killed. He nodded. "It is yours now." "See those horses?" they said, pointing to the dead man's horses. He nodded again. "They are yours now. You are now our son. You will take the place of the one you have killed." He looked up slowly to the faces surrounding him. His new life had begun, and so had theirs. As the story went, the young man became known as the model of a devoted son. This is the largesse of love. This is the bigness, the grandeur, the magnificence of the love that Jesus talked about and lived out. He said to us, "Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Do kindness to those that would hurt you." This is hard to do. Yet if we are ever going to live in a world of peace, if we are to ever learn to live in peace with one another both in our personal relationships and internationally, we will have to rise to the level of that largesse of love. Remember the conversation that Jesus had with His disciple Peter? Peter was bold and brash, and macho, and wonderful, because he loved his Lord, and he wanted to do the right thing. One day he said to Jesus, "Lord, how many times should I forgive if somebody hurts me? Seven times?" I wouldn't be surprised if Peter didn't have a list--checking off each time he forgave someone. "Look what I've done. Look what I've done. I've forgiven each one seven times." Jesus in effect said, "Peter, you have it wrong. Forgiving is not quantitative; it is not something you count. It is of the heart. Forgiveness is of love. It is an attitude. It is a presence of being. It is the largesse of love."  No, this is not easy work, but it is the work of the growth of the spirit. So I commend to you growing up in love, growing your soul--and let your bigness be like the bigness of Jesus. Let the largesse of your love approach the largesse of His love. Let the grandness of your love approach the grandness of God's love for you. Choose the option of forgiving. You will never, ever regret it. Let us pray. LORD, for the challenge of forgiving--yes, even for the pain that we must go through in that process--we give You thanks, and ask Your presence. Give us the benefit of Your grace. Amen.