"Forgive Me!" by Rev. A. LaMar Torrence, Pastor of the Cross of Life Lutheran Church
Luke 6:27-38, John 15:12, 1 John 4:7-21
Once again I find the words of Maya Angelou appropriately for my initial response to today’s divine edict of loving our enemies. In her poem, “Lord in my heart”, she writes..
Holy halos, Ring me round,
Spirit waves, On Spirit sound
Meshach and Abednego, Golden chariot,
Swinging low I recite them, In my sleep,
Jordan’s cold, And briny deep
Bible lessons, Sunday school,
Bow before, The golden rule
Now I wonder If I tried,
Could I turn, My cheek aside
Marveling with afterthought,
Let the blow fall saying naught
Of my true Christ-like control
And the nature of my soul
Would I strike with rage divine
Till the culprit fell supine
Hit out broad all fury red,
Till my foes are fallen dead
Teachers of my early youth,
Taught forgiveness stressed the truth
Here then Is my Christian lack,
If I’m struck Then I’ll strike back....
Her words seem to speak the honestly that many of us find deep in our hearts: forgiveness is the hardest Christian discipline to implement in our lives. Oh we know that the good book says to forgive and you shall be forgiven. We know the various nonviolent responses to social injustices that we as Godly people are called to invoke. Yet, inside each and every one of us is the desire to go fist for fist and toe to toe with our enemy. You cuss me. I’ll cuss you. You cut me. I’ll cut you. Deep down inside, we often find ourselves dealing with our demons of vengeance and hate. Come on, now let’s be real. When was the last time you willing walked away from an argument out of love for your opponent? When was the last time you prayed that your boss would get even richer and blessed at the expense of the long hours you put in at work? When was the last time you met hate with love, chaos with charity, conflict with compromise?
The reality of our Christian journey is that we are lacking in the art of forgiveness. We lack the necessary tools to forgive and love those who get on our last nerve. Oh, we talk a good game of love but the truth of the matter is that our love is still at its lowest level – carnal. We have a fleshly love. Our love is based on our passions, loyalties, and kinship. We love because we are loved or to get love in return. We love to get what we want and have our way. Our love is based on satisfying our desires and ourselves.
But the gospel challenges us to seek a deeper love. Tell somebody we need a deeper love. God wants us to seek the highest good from the highest motive. He wants us to go deeper and move up a little higher. To ascend to the heavenly heights we must climb his staircase of love. To reach those pearly gates we must proceed through a divine passage of nonviolence. In this antithesis on love, the divine love doctor himself exposes the reality of our situation. When it comes to love we have a love-hate relationship. And that relationship can fall into three basic categories, three dimensions, or three levels.
First some of us are trapped at a level of hate – that is we hate those who love us. There are just some people who received love but only know how to return hate for that love that’s given. They are trapped a on ground level of hate. There, you may find some of our children who verbalize hate towards parents who discipline them out of love. There, you may find abusive spouses who hate themselves but beat on those submit to them out of love. On that level of hate are the racists who hate minorities so much that they would refuse blood transfusions and organ donations on the mere thought that their donors were people of color. At this first level of hate verses love, you will find folks who regardless of how much love you give them they only know how to give back hate. Ask your neighbor, “are you in that ‘hate your lover’ category?”
Then there is the category of “people who hate those who hate them.” I call it “haters vs. haters”. They give hate for hate. There are some of us who simply hate those who hate us. You don’t speak to me. I won’t speak to you. You talk about my daddy. I’ll talk about your mama. You pull out a knife. I’ll pull out a gun. Hate for Hate. You know. We call it ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Yet meeting hate with hate only escalates to segregation, apartheid, and war. Oh we see it every day: Palestinians against Jews, Kappa’s’ against Sigma’s, neighbor against neighbor. Relatives who have not spoken in years – saying ‘well she never called me, so I’m not going to call her.” Hate for hate. Ask your neighbor; is that your category of love?
Finally, there is the popular category – the third dimension – people loving people who love them. “Lovers to Lovers.” Oh many of us love those who love us. As long as you do for me, I’ll do for you. You meet my needs. I meet yours. I’ll love you as long as you show me some love. Many couples based their relationship on that principle. We call it mutual respect and understanding. Many of us find comfort in that notion of only love those who love us in return. Yet when that person does something that is unloving towards us, we get disappointed and begin to seek to end the relationship. We will love only those who love us in return.
But the gospel challenges us to ascend to another level in love- a fourth level one that is a more excellent way: that is to love those who hate us. Jesus said boldly and unapologetically that we as his followers are to love our enemies. Not just folks who tend to rub you the wrong way but your enemy. Not just people who tend to disagree with you but your enemy. You see your enemies are not just folks who make you feel uncomfortable, unloved, used and abused but your enemy is anyone who tries to limit, destroy, and subvert your divine destiny in God. Listen to the words of Jesus. When it comes to determining who exactly is our enemy, he breaks it down like this: “do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.” Jesus says that your enemy is not that woman who wants child support. Your enemy is not that husband who walked out on you. Your enemy is not that boss or company that lay you off. But your enemies, saint, are those who hate, those who curse, those who abuse and strike, and those who take what you have. Your enemy may be a disease seeking to destroy your family. Your enemy may be an abusive spouse who told you that if you leave they would kill you and your children. Your enemy may be the crack, heroine, or pills you can’t stop taking. Your enemy may be debt, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, or racial prejudice. Your enemies are those things that seek to destroy and devour your future. They hate you; hate to see your kind get ahead and move into their neighborhoods; hate to see your kind get a promotion and become their boss; hate to see your kind go to school with their children and marry their daughters. Your enemies are those who hate and curse your name. Now, I’m don’t mean cuss you but curse your name. Everyone who calls you a four-letter word ain’t your enemy but anyone who wishes for misfortune to occur in your life can be. You know the kind. You’ve heard their statements. “They should lock all of them up. They should gather up all the troublemaking students and just put them in one class or one school. Or, I hope they all get aids and die. Why can’t they just go back to their country and stop taking over our neighborhoods?” Those are the cursers – folks who pray for your demise.
And I don’t know about you but I don’t know who are worse: folks who hope for your demise or folks who try to take you out themselves. I don’t know who are the most dangerous: people who tell you face to face that they hate you or those who smile in your face and later stab you in your back. But like it or not the word of God tells us to love them all. Love your enemies.
I don’t have to like it but I do have to love you. I don’t have to forget about how you may have done me wrong but I do have to forgive. I don’t have to feel in love with you to forgive you. I still may not like you but I can forgive you. Me forgiving you doesn’t have to make you feel good or make me feel better. The reason I forgive you is so that there may be a lifting up of a burden that hinders my destiny. In fact, to forgive in Hebrew actually means, “to be lifted or removed.” When I forgive you and you forgive me, I’m removing a barrier that hinders my growth. And you see, that’s the key to forgiveness. We must not focus on the event or the person but we must focus on the purpose.
So our question is how do we love those who tend to get on out nerves and step on our toes? How do we let bygone’s be bygones without looking like clumps and wimps? How can we forgive and still have a sense of self worth and purpose? Well the prince of peace would have us to know that genuine forgiveness stems from our attitudes, our allocution, and our actions. To forgive you must put your attitude in check, your words in context, and your actions in motion.
Jesus says to us that our forgiveness of our enemies is contingent upon and attitude of love. “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.” We must take on an attitude to love them by doing them some good. Do that which is good for your enemies. Not what they think is good for them but actually what is good for them. Think about it. This is tough love at its best. It’s tough for us to do it and it’s tough towards those to which it is done. I’m going to love you by doing that which is good for you. I’m going to give you some tough love. For those struggling with addiction, I going love you by getting you some help rather than give you money to support your habit. For those struggling with violent tendencies, I’m going to love you by getting you some rehabilitation rather than let you continue to endanger yourself by hurting others. The crux of Jesus’ antithesis is determining what is the good that must be done. We can do more good for folk by implementing discipline than remaining complacent. You do more good for your child by giving them rules and regulations than by just letting them express themselves. Do well to those who hate you. Check your attitude.
Then Jesus says to follow through with proper allocution. Practice words of forgiveness. Practice comes through blessing those who curse you and praying for your abusers. Don’t just pray about them but pray for them. Don’t go to God complaining about them but come to the Lord seeking compassion upon their lives. Jesus goes far as to say that we should bless them. Your prayers should be a blessing for your enemies. You ought to pray for their well-being.
After you have checked your attitude, watch your allocution, then you must follow through with some action. And that action is to give. Give to them what they are reluctant to give you. For every wrong done to you, you return righteousness. If they give you misery, you show them mercy. For all the heartache and the headaches, you give them some peace and some love. Meet their devilish tongues with words of compassion. Give them what they won’t give to you. Show them love in action. That’s what Joseph did towards his brothers who sold him into slavery. He show them some love. That’s what M. L. King, Meger Evers, and Freedom Riders did whenever meant with whips, water hoses, and bats. They show their opponents some love.
And like it or not, that is what was done for us. God showed us some love. He so loved us that he gave us an attitude of love, an allocution in love and an action of love. By sending his only begotten son to us in the form of a baby – he gave us an attitude of love. When his son went to the cross, was cursed and kill, Jesus spoke only to us words of love. When he got up on the third day with all power and his hands and passed that power on down to us on the day of Pentecost – that was an action of love. When he came to us God only sowed seeds of forgiveness and love. And now those seeds have blossomed into his church, his priesthood, a tree of life with many branches of Zion.
And that is the good news this morning. The seeds of forgiveness that you plant will spout up as a harvest of blessings. Jesus says “give and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap.” For the measure you give will be will be the measure you get back. What the master is trying to tell us is that for every injustice we forgive against us, God will forgive those we committed against him. Those trespasses you let go of down here, will serve as witnesses when you get to heaven. In order words, don’t expect God to let go of your lying and cheating against him, if you can’t forgive those who lied and cheated on you. Don’t expect him to forget about your foul mind of indecent thoughts if you can’t forgive the mishaps of those who have fell from grace. The key to your mansion in the sky is your ability to love your enemy down here. The highway to heaven is mapped to your turning points of forgiveness.
And I don’t know about you but when I think of how much forgiveness I’m going to need when I sit in that judgment seat on that great day, I am incline to pardon the worse of my enemies. I don’t want some fool in my past keeping me from my milk and honey over yonder. I mean think about it. It would be a shame to let those same people who made your earthy existence a living hell to allow you to go to an eternal hell on judgment day.
What we need to realize is that what we are going through right now is a divine set-up for a blessing later on. The mess that you are in right now is preparation for the goodness that is about to overtake your life. Folks mistreating you, people talking about you and won’t talk to you, all the injustices you are enduring right now are a part of God’s plan for your life. What it is – I don’t know. But what I do know is that as long as it’s God’s plan it is a good plan. It’s a plan that’s not design to hurt you but it is design to help you. It’s not design to break you but it will help to shape your life. The key is not getting hung up on the wrong others done to you but focusing on the destination to where God is taking you. The key is forgiving those past hurts so that can you obtain the future. We are to look for what God can do. God uses our foes as instruments to help project us to a place of destination.
So what you need to do is to take that attitude of my girl Whitney Houston. “It’s not right but it’s okay. I’m going to make it anyway.” You talked me and scandalized my name. It’s not right but it’s okay. I’m going to make it anyway. You walked out on me when the chips were down. When the going got tough, you got going. It’s not right. But it’s okay, I’m going to make it anyway. You took my money, stole my name, trampled on my dignity. It’s not right but it’s okay. I’m going to make it anyway.
