an invitation to forgive...

This past Sunday was the last week for my husband and I to attend service at our church… it was a place we thought was going to be a rest stop but it ended up becoming a home. It’s a church that values grace & truth, wholeness, generosity, mission, and creativity. And as we move on to the new church we’ve been called to serve at, it’s a tad bittersweet because of the growth we’ve experienced and the friendships we’ve made during this past year. {Don’t get me wrong, though, we are extremely excited too!}

Our leaving is taking place smack dab in the middle of a series of messages centered around the invitations of God… looking at what exactly it is that Jesus invites us into when we choose to follow Him. I came to church on Sunday hopeful and expectant for this final message there.

This week’s invitation was: “The Invitation to Forgive”… and one of the first things our Pastor said was that we will never experience the heart of God more than when we are participating in forgiveness and showing others grace. Because forgiveness IS the very heart of God.

I guess I never thought of it that way. Dang.

Our text was Matthew 18:21-35, a parable Jesus himself spoke that illuminates this tendency we all have to want grace for ourselves, but justice for everyone else. Why is it so easy to justify and explain away our own actions and attitudes, but so hard to extend that same benefit of the doubt to those who have wronged or hurt us?

The parable ends with a harsh statement that, quite honestly, I’ve never really known what to do with. Jesus says that the fate of the unforgiving servant is the same fate that awaits us unless we forgive our brothers and sisters from the heart. I’ve wrestled with this because it seems to put restrictions and qualifications on this grace that we so often speak of as being “free” and unwarranted by anything we do ourselves.

I’m starting to get it though… to see that it’s not a statement meant to strike fear, but rather it’s an invitation to experience the freedom Jesus offers. If we are so stuck in the shackles of bitterness and anger, then either we haven’t really grasped or accepted God’s forgiveness or we’re allowing something/someone to block its power for transformation in our lives.

So how are we to respond to someone who has wounded or wronged us? We seek to have the same reaction as the king had with his servant- “The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go.” There is so much to this simple statement that we unpacked in church but here’s the nutshell recap:

- To pity means to allow our hearts to go out to them… to allow our heart to see a bigger picture, a picture in which we’re all sinners and broken.

- To cancel the debt doesn’t mean to just brush it off and pretend it never happened… there’s healing in acknowledging the damage done, but we then “absorb the debt” like the King did and move on.

- To let them go… take them down from the hook you’ve hung them up on and release them to the Lord. Why is it important to do this? Because by this act of grace, that person might be changed.

Over and over again in scripture, we are told to “forgive as you have been forgiven”… God is the standard and the foundation of this invitation {my pastor’s words- wish I could take credit!}. We need to remember that we are not the king or the judge, we are but a servant. A servant who has been let off the hook for a debt we could never repay. A servant who is invited to be in the presence of a King who is loving and who is just.

May we never lose sight of how much we’ve been forgiven… and may we learn to live lives that exude that same grace to others so that they too may be drawn to the King.