Bible Reading: Galatians 3:23-29
Verses of the week:
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Romans 5:10, 11
It was the second day of my internship at Parkview Presbyterian Church. I was walking with Rev. Aart van Beek to see the kids at the school just a few blocks from here. I was so thrilled to hear about what the church has been doing for some families and their children there.
As you may know, Carol is one of the children there; a twelve-year-old girl who did not know how to read, but now she can. Rev. Aart told me that he helped Carol to read. And it was a privilege for me to hear her reading a story to me.
It was a good experience. One last thing I remember about that experience was when we were about to enter the school building, Rev. Aart told me, “The kids need to see men around here, so they know that not all men are bad.”
Today is Father's Day.
I wonder if you have seen the movie called “Smoke Signals.” It is about two young Native Americans named Victor and Thomas. Victor’s father left home when he was a young kid, leaving his mother and Victor behind. Thomas’ parents died in a fire accident when he was a baby and he was raised by her grandmother. This movie ends with a poem written by Dick Lourie: How do we forgive our Fathers?
How do we forgive our Fathers?
Maybe in a dream
Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever
when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.
Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?
For Divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning
for shutting doors
for speaking through walls
or never speaking
or never being silent?
Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs
or their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it?
If we forgive our Fathers what is left?
Maybe in a dream
Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever
when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.
Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?
For Divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning
for shutting doors
for speaking through walls
or never speaking
or never being silent?
Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs
or their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it?
If we forgive our Fathers what is left?
It is such a powerful poem: How do we forgive our fathers?
Let’s keep this question for a moment, and take a look at our text today. This text, on the contrary, speaks about God who forgives and reconciles us to himself.
“What does God have to forgive and how does God forgive?” we may ask.
This is a serious question. The seriousness of this question can be seen on the cross.
Some people say that forgiveness is to choose mercy upon justice, but God chose both. In the language of the book of Isaiah “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us.” (Isaiah 53:6)
Paul’s way of saying it to the Galatians “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree" (Gal 3:13). All of these mean that it was us, who made the offense, yet it was God who came to forgive us, by saying to us, “You don’t have to pay the price, I have paid it myself.”
On the cross justice and mercy were united because of God’s love for us.
What Paul is saying to the Galatians, as well as to us today, is that by faith we are put right with God. It is not because of our work, not because of any merit we deserve, but it is the work of God in Christ. To be reconciled with God, to be justified before God, is to receive God’s forgiveness in Christ.
God initiated reconciliation so that we may have relationship with God. Relationship means that our communion with God which was broken because of our transgression is now reestablished. In other words: God makes peace with us. We are again in full communion with God, thanks be to the Lord Jesus Christ.
This relationship with God is not defined by an outward mark of the flesh, as circumcision¸ but an inward mark of the heart that transforms us! Faith (3:7).
By faith in Christ, we partake in the work of redemption on the cross. By our baptism we are sealed in the new covenant with God. We are no longer living by law but by Spirit of Christ. Love is one word for this, another is forgiveness. We are free, but do not use our freedom to indulge in sinful nature, rather, serve another in love (5:13). Love one another, forgive one another.
A Japanese proverb that I learned recently says:
水に流す mizu ni nagasu
Literally it is translated “let flow in the water,” meaning “forgive and forget.” Many people can forgive but cannot forget; many can forget but cannot forgive.
Forgive and forget; Mizu ni nagasu. But at the same time, the Lord taught us to pray “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” It implies to remember our debtors, and it tells us what forgiving in Christianity is: “remember and forgive.”
We need to remember what Christ has done for us when we remember those who we have forgiven, or those who need our forgiveness. Remember, that God has forgiven us in such a way to show us that God is a forgiving God.
How do we forgive our fathers?
Or how do we forgive our mothers?
How do we forgive our brothers and sisters?
How do we forgive our friends? Our leaders? Our strangers?
How do we forgive those who have come before us?
How do we forgive those who betrayed our trust, our love, our faithfulness?
How do we forgive those who abandoned us?
How do we forgive those who have hurt us?
How do we forgive ourselves?
Let all these questions become a reminder for us that God has forgiven us. It was not easy on God’s part to forgive us. It was Jesus Christ, God’s Only Begotten Son, who was on that cross for you and me; yet let us live in love, let us forgive.
The God that we worship is not only the God who is capable of rescuing us from our troubles, our problems, our struggles, but God is also the God who is able and will lift up our burdens, heal our wounds, comfort us when we are mourning.
Our God is able to help us to forgive and to remember, to remember that we are forgiven.
Our God is able to help us to forgive and to remember, to remember that we are forgiven.
How do we forgive our fathers?
Now, I do not want to leave you with the impression that all fathers are bad fathers. Today is Father’s Day, isn’t it? It is the day to remember and to honor all the fathers for the good examples, values of life, all the risk and sacrifice they made for their children, for their family.
Last week, a dear friend and I went to visit a special person, a grandmother, in Upstate New York. When we were sitting together, I saw some poetry books under the table, which she did not mind for us to see. I was surprised to read the first poem of the book was written by a person with the same name as hers; and even more surprised to learn that she actually wrote that poem. It was about fathers. She said, “It was inspired by my late husband. He was the model of that father.”
We still have many good fathers in this world, and sometimes we need to encourage them more to show up. But we also need to remember that they are human beings just like all of us. That makes the difference with God.
One of the biblical images for God is Father. Jesus called God: Father describes “the tenderness of relation and wealth of love and grace.”[1] God as Father, a divine fatherhood, the first Person in Trinity, gave Jesus Christ for us, that by faith in him we may be forgiven from all our sins. To make us live in freedom, walk in love, and grace, and forgiveness.
When Carol read through that book, when she read the word father and mother, some hurt thrust me right in my heart. I knew she was homeless.
When we ask this question again, how do we forgive our fathers, or anybody else, or ourselves? We need to remember that God has forgiven us. We need to remember and to live a forgiven life. This way we can touch people’s life, like Carol’s. Amen
Summer Internship 2010 at Parkview Presbyterian Church, Sacramento.
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