February 13, First Sunday in Lent, Brotherhood/Sisterhood Week

Lesson: Luke 23.32-38

Sermon Title: Father Forgive Them

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INTRODUCTION:

Three persons arrived at the Pearly Gates at the same time.

St. Peter came but said he had some pressing business and would they please wait?

He was gone a long time, but finally he came back and called one of the new arrivals in and asked if she had minded waiting.

"No," she said, "I've looked forward to this for so long. I love God and I can't wait to meet Jesus. I don't mind at all."

St. Peter then said, "Well, I have one more question. How do you spell 'God'?"

She said, "Capital-G-o-d."

St. Peter said, "Go right on in."

He went outside and got another new arrival, told him to come on inside, and said, "Did you mind waiting?"

The man said, "Oh, no. I have been a Christian for fifty years, and I'll spend eternity here. I didn't mind at all."

So St. Peter said, "Just one more thing. How do you spell 'God'?"

He said, "G-o-d. No, I mean capital-G."

St. Peter said that was good and sent him into heaven.

St. Peter went back out and invited the third person in and asked her if she had minded waiting.

"As a matter of fact, I did," she replied. "I've had to stand in line all my life - at the supermarket, when I went to school, when I registered my children for school, when I went to the movies - everywhere - and I resent having to wait in line for heaven now!"

St. Peter said, "Well, that's all right for you to feel that way. It won't be held against you, but there is just one more question. How do you spell 'Czechoslovakia'?"

  1. Jesus is hanging on the cross when he prays a rather strange prayer.

    1. To understand the prayer we need to understand that a person has these characteristics:

      1. Attitude.

      2. Attributes.

      3. Action or performance.

    2. In a very real sense these are positive characteristics.

    3. You cannot have one or the other, you need all three.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. Attitude

    1. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, in Handbook for the Soul, observes: (1)

Over the years, I have learned that every life circumstance, even a crisis, can nourish your soul. Recently, the farm and home that I have loved so much for so many years burned down in a horrible fire. Everything that I owned, without exception, was lost. There was even speculation that foul play was involved.

At moments like this, we stand at a fork in the road. If we take the fork most commonly traveled, we collapse, we give up, feeling hopeless and defeated. We focus on the negatives, losing ourselves in the "problem." We point to our unhappy circumstances to rationalize our negative feelings. This is the easy way out. It takes, after all, very little effort to feel victimized.

We can, however, take the other fork. We can view the unhappy experience as an opportunity for a new beginning. We can keep our perspective, look for the growth opportunities, and find an inner reservoir of strength.

    1. So many people live with a negative attitude.

In Love in the Time of Cholera, Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez portrays a marriage that disintegrates over a bar of soap. (2)

It was the wife's job to keep the house in order, including the towels, toilet paper and soap in the bathroom. One day she forgot to replace the soap.

Her husband exaggerated the oversight: I've been bathing for almost a week without any soap.

She vigorously denied forgetting to replace the soap. Although she had indeed forgotten, her pride was at stake, and she wouldn't back down.

For the next seven months, they slept in separate rooms and ate in silence.

Their marriage had suffered a heart attack. Even when they were old and placid, writes Marquez, they were very careful about bringing it up, for the barely healed wounds could begin to bleed again as if they'd been inflicted only yesterday.

How can a bar of soap ruin a marriage? The answer is actually simple. Because neither partner would say, Forgive me.

      1. Does this apply as well to relationships in the church?

      2. What about the community?

    1. William Andrew Ward noted:

We can choose to throw stones, to stumble on them, to climb over them, or to build with them.

    1. What's it like to live with a positive attitude?

      1. Rev. Martin E. Pike, Jr. (Kingsville, Texas), writing in The Upper Room, February 14, 1996, relates one of his own personal experiences:

Three minutes had elapsed since I had taken my seat at the counter. Waitresses passed me by; two cooks and a busboy took no notice of my presence. My ego was soothed only because the truck driver seated next to me was ignored as well.

"Maybe this counter is off-limits," I said to him.

"Maybe they are short of help," he responded.

"Maybe they don't want our business," I said.

"Maybe they are taking care of those at the tables," was his reply.

The hands on the clock continued to move.

"Maybe they don't like us," I insisted.

"The air conditioning feels so good I don't mind waiting," he said.

At this point, a harried waitress stopped to tell us that the water had been cut off and the dishwasher was not functioning.

My nameless compatriot smiled, thanked the waitress and left. I did not like him.

Three times I had sought his support for my obnoxious attitude, but he had let me down.

Only later did I realize that he had chosen to practice what I preach.

    1. Jesus had attitude.

      1. He is hanging on the cross but he utters not a discouraging word.

      2. He could have said:

        1. Their cruel.

        2. They don't care.

        3. They don't appreciate me.

        4. They don't understand.

        5. They have rejected me.

        6. They didn't stand by me in my distress.

    2. Jesus demonstrates that there is a way to overcome the negative and create a positive.

      1. It is well exemplified in the words of James Nayler (1618-1660).

      2. Nayler second only to George Fox in the history of the Quakers, spoke these last words after having been persecuted mercilessly by the Puritans.

      3. First published in 1660, they ring even more true today than when he first aired them:

"There is a spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations; as it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thoughts to any other; if it be betrayed it bears it; for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God." (3)

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  1. Attributes

    1. What turns a C student into a leader?

      1. Energy and enthusiasm

        1. To achieve anything one must be dedicated to it; what appears to some as being wrapped up in work and workaholism can actually be devotion to a task or energy and enthusiasm about a project.

        2. Jonathan Edwards believed that I am bold to assert, that there never was any considerable change wrought in the mind or conversation, of any person, by any thing of a religious nature that he ever read, heard or saw, that had not his affections moved.
          --Religous Affections(1746), 218.

      2. Endurance and Steadfastness

        1. Robert D. Young in Religious Imagination: God's Gift to Prophets and Preachers (4) relates

          1. Paul Hindemith describes many of Beethoven's works going through five or more intermediate steps from the first structural treatment to the final version.

          2. Hindemith also notes that some of the first versions are in quality so far below the final form that we should be inclined to attribute them to some undistinguished composer.

          3. Yet Beethoven must plod through the many stages of development, chiseling and molding desperately in order to produce a convincing form.

        2. Learning How to Limp

          1. Anyone with a broken leg who remains bedridden will have muscles that atrophy and contract, but too vigorous exercise will reinjure and even rebreak the leg.

          2. Learning to limp means putting just enough weight on the leg to bring back strength, but not build it up too rapidly so that it is strained. Place just enough pressure on your C spots to encourage healing and forward movement.

      3. Jesus attributes are abundantly clear!

        1. Jesus had great resources of energy and enthusiasm

        2. Jesus had unlimited resources of endurance and steadfastness

        3. But did he learn to walk with a limp?

          1. Learning to limp means putting just enough weight on the leg to bring back strength, but not build it up too rapidly so that it is strained. Place just enough pressure on your C spots to encourage healing and forward movement.

          2. Did he encourage healing and forward movement?

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  1. Action (Performance)

    1. Stanley Huerwas, Performance, Here is a bit of an interview that was reported in Homiletics Magazine.

    HOMILETICS: Your recent book on Bonhoeffer, Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence--I thought "performing" was an interesting word. Faith as performance. (5)

    HAUERWAS: That was very intentional. One of the things that liberal democratic society has encouraged Christians to believe about what they believe is that what it means to be a Christian is primarily belief![laughter]. So you hold to these 26 absurd propositions before breakfast, you know.

    This is a deep misunderstanding about how Christianity works. Of course we believe that God is God and we are not and that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit but that this is not a set of propositions--but is rather embedded in a community of practices that make those beliefs themselves work and give us a community by which we are shaped. Religious belief is not just some kind of primitive metaphysics, but in fact it is a performance just like you'd perform Lear. What people think Christianity is, is that it's like the text of Lear, rather than the actual production of Lear. It has to be performed for you to understand what Lear is--a drama. You can read it, but unfortunately Christians so often want to make Christianity a text rather than a performance.

    The crucial chapter in the book is the chapter "Performing the Faith" in which James Fodor and I try to display what it means for Christians to see the practice of the faith.

    I could have started the book with that chapter, but I didn't want to do that because I wanted to pull you in by attending to the "performance" of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a performer of Christianity.

    1. Jesus and performance

      1. Remember Jesus performance on the cross.

      2. He prayed for his prosecutors and executioners.

      3. Same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus

    Philippians 2:5-8, NRSVA

    5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
    6who, though he was in the form of God,
        did not regard equality with God
        as something to be exploited,
    7but emptied himself,
        taking the form of a slave,
        being born in human likeness.
    And being found in human form,
            8 he humbled himself
            and became obedient to the point of death--
        even death on a cross.

    1. Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

      1. They know what they are doing.

      2. Yet, they don't know what they are doing.

    2. Can God forgive those who are prosecuting and executing the crucifixion?

      1. 1 John 1:9 (NRSVA)

      2. 9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

      3. Sins can only be forgiven when they are confessed.

    3. Are the prosecutors and executioners confessing?

      1. No they are not.

      2. So what is Jesus asking for.

    4. Jesus is asking, praying, that the possibility of forgiveness not be taken away from them.

    5. That at some future time, either in the immediate present or the future, when they ask for forgiveness , it will be granted to them.

    6. Jesus followed through and his performance would won more than an Oscar or a BAFTA.

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CONCLUSION

  1. Attributes - Attitude - Action

    1. So can we if we develop the capacity to see others and still perform.

    2. A Turkish officer raided and looted an Armenian home. He killed the aged parents and gave the daughters to the soldiers, keeping the eldest daughter for himself.

    Some time later she escaped and trained as a nurse. As time passed, she found herself nursing in a ward of Turkish officers.

    One night, by the light of a lantern, she saw the face of this officer. He was so gravely ill that without exceptional nursing he would die. The days passed, and he recovered.

    One day, the doctor stood by the bed with her and said to him, "But for her devotion to you, you would be dead."

    He looked at her and said, "We have met before, haven't we?"

    "Yes," she said, "We have met before."

    "Why didn't you kill me?" he asked.

    She replied, "I am a follower of him who said 'Love your enemies.'"

    1. So what then?

    Watch your thoughts,
    They become your words.
    Watch your words,
    They become your actions.
    Watch your actions,
    They become your habits.
    Watch your habits,
    They become your character.
    Watch your character,
    It becomes your destiny.

    --Source unknown.

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Alternate Conclusions

    L. Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 265-266.

    Tradition tells us that Abraham Lincoln went to a slave auction, & he noticed a rather attractive black woman who was about to be auctioned off. So he began bidding. The bidding went back & forth until finally he had purchased her. They brought her over to him, & he instructed them to take the shackles off her wrists & ankles.

    Then he said to her, "You are free to go."

    She looked at him & said, "You mean that I don't have to go home with you?"

    He said, "No, you don't."

    She said, "You mean that I don't have to do what you tell me to do, or say what you tell me to say?"

    "That's right."

    "You mean I don't have to be your slave, I don't have to put up with your whims & your fancies?"

    He said, "No, you don't. You are free to go."

    She bowed her head, & tears started coursing down her cheeks. She looked up at Abraham Lincoln & said, "Then I guess I'll go with you."

    XXX

    A Word With George (6)

    A poor vagabond, traveling a country road in England, tired and hungry, came to a roadside Inn with a sign reading: "George and the Dragon."

    He knocked gently on the door.

    The Innkeeper's wife stuck her head out a window.

    "Could ye spare some victuals?" he asked politely.

    The woman glanced at his shabby clothes and obviously poor condition. "No!" she said rather sternly.

    "Could I just have a pint of ale?"

    "No!" she said again.

    "Could I at least sleep in your stable?"

    "No!" by this time she was fairly shouting.

    The vagabond said, "Might I please...?"

    "What now?" the woman interrupted impatiently.

    "D'ye suppose," he asked, "I might have a word with George?"

1. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Handbook for the Soul (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), 49.

2. Les Parrott III, All For a Bar of Soap, VitalMinistry, September-October 1999, 18.

3. As quoted in Leo Damrosch, The Sorrows of the Quaker Jesus: James Nayler and the Puritan Crackdown on the Free Spirit (Harvard University Press, 1997), 267.

4. Robert D. Young, Religious Imagination: God's Gift to Prophets and Preachers (Philadelphia: The Westminster press, 1979),121.

5. HOMILETICS INTERVIEW: Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University Divinity School, Bonhoeffer: The Truthful Witness (Homiletics, March-April 2005, Number 2, pp 10-11)

6. Retrieved from cybersaltlists.org

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