It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:1-6)
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From time to time when I'm working with a congregation's Search Committee helping them to find a new minister, I'll give them this advice: “be very wary of a minister who seems to want to be loved, because they won't challenge you, they'll just spoon-feed you what you want in order to try to keep everybody happy.” Now, as wonderful as keeping everybody happy might sound, the truth is that it's death for a church – because the moment we stop being challenged in our faith is the moment that our faith stops having any meaning, and being challenged in our faith doesn't necessarily leave everybody happy! Today, I want to give you some serious advice that you might want to follow for the next few minutes anyway: “be very wary of a minister whose sermon title starts with 'Why God ...' and who then presumes to explain why God does anything – because, really, who is anyone to explain God or God's actions? And, yes, I'm talking about myself here today. So – be very wary of what I say today; or, at least, take everything I say with a grain of salt – because who am I to explain why God does anything? I believe in an omnipotent God, which means that, at heart at least, I believe that God does what God chooses to do; no explanation or justification required. However, as I continue to explore the idea of forgiveness (which is a far more complicated thing than most people realize) it seemed to me that I couldn't not devote at least a little bit of time to try to do my best to relate forgiveness to God.
As Christians, forgiveness in one way or another is at the heart of what we believe about God. We proclaim it week after week in worship. I call it “The Assurance of God's Love” while many churches call it the “Assurance of Pardon” but whatever name it goes by it speaks to us of God's grace and God's forgiveness. We proclaim it regularly because there are, unfortunately, people who don't believe that God has forgiven them. In the early 20th century there was even a recognized psychological condition that revolved around people who felt that God hadn't forgiven them and that they were condemned to hell, and they would fall into periods of deep depression and despair as they contemplated what they believed was their hopeless future. The condition was called “religious melancholia.” One person who suffered from it was The Reverend Ewen MacDonald – a Presbyterian minister who's probably most remembered as the husband of Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote the “Ann of Green Gables” books. If you ever read Lucy Maud Montgomery's diary (which has been published) you'll find that her husband's periods of religious torment and conviction that hell was awaiting him were torture for her, and their life together wasn't an especially happy one. But as much as that problem exists, I suspect that many of us (and maybe most of us) take divine forgiveness for granted, don't we? But why do we take it for granted? What is it that so convicts us about the nature of God that we think we can take this for granted? So, with forgiveness as the background, this struck me as an ideal opportunity to speak a little bit not just about forgiveness, but about the very nature of God – as ill equipped as I (or anyone else) am to do that!
There are many things that we say with great boldness about God. The authors of Scripture – inspired to write as they were by the Holy Spirit – were completely convicted about some things by the Holy Spirit, so that John could write with absolute assurance, boldly proclaiming that “God is love.” A modern example comes from our own United Church's newest faith statement - “A Song Of Faith” - which proclaims with no hesitation that “We witness to Holy Mystery that is Wholly Love.” In other words, “A Song Of Faith” proclaims, on behalf of the United Church of Canada, that while God is mysterious (and that means that there's a lot about God that we don't understand) we can say without doubt and in unison with John that God is love! When you think about it – that's a pretty bold statement. And to be even more bold – love and forgiveness go hand in hand. So – if God loves, then God must also forgive, as uncomfortable as I am with saying that God “must” do anything! But it's simply logical – and God is not a God of illogic.
It isn't that God is willing to forgive those whom God loves. That's getting it backwards. It's that because God loves, God is always willing to forgive. Love in God's case is not an emotion; it's a quality. It's not a noun; it's a verb. Love is what God does. And, therefore, forgiveness is what God gives. This is one of the ways in which Jesus brought us to a deeper understanding of God. If you read through the Old Testament, you discover that most of the references to God's forgiveness are in the nature of pleas for forgiveness; of God's people hoping for forgiveness, longing for forgiveness, pleading for forgiveness, even begging for forgiveness. There are some exceptions. The prophet Jeremiah mentions a couple of times that God is willing to forgive His people, and Psalm 130 tells us that “with [God] there is forgiveness. But mostly there seems to be apprehension, uncertainty and even fear. God's people didn't seem quite convinced that God was forgiving.
But then there was a change with Jesus. Suddenly, as you read the New Testament, you discover that there's an emphasis not on pleading for God's forgiveness but on simply claiming God's forgiveness – of understanding that God forgives. Now, a lot of people see a difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament – but it isn't God Who changed; it's how people perceived God that changed. And what caused that? It was that they suddenly had a direct experience of God; a direct encounter with God. And that was Jesus. Jesus lived both love and forgiveness. He wasn't beyond calling people to account. He wasn't beyond pointing out that there were consequences for not living as God desired. But he lived both love and forgiveness. And when people encountered Him they encountered those qualities. And they understood God more deeply than ever. And so, “God is love,” John could write. And in the same letter, John could write, “if we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.” God is faithful; this is simply what God does.
The passage from Paul in Galatians this morning helps us understand this issue. Paul writes that “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” Here was the difference Jesus made. What I call the gospel of law – the need for obedience to a set of rules – was done away with by Jesus. If you follow the gospel of law (and unfortunately a lot of Christians do) then you have little choice but to plead for forgiveness. The gospel of law requires complete obedience, not just pretty good obedience – just like you can't go before a judge and say “you can't convict me of murder because I've never stolen anything.” It doesn't work. One violation of the law is all that it takes, and it puts you in the position of constantly begging and pleading for forgiveness – which we see throughout the pages of the Old Testament, before Christ. But Jesus brought a new way. He brought a gospel of grace – a gospel that says that no matter what you've done forgiveness is there, simply because it is God's way. Law alienates us from Christ – and therefore from God; grace takes away the alienation – and that's what God desires from us; it's why we were created – to be in relationship with our God. In old words from the Westminster Catechism, “the chief end of man is to glorify God.” To seek relationship with God in other words; and if we seek, we will find. Jesus promised us that.
We know that we've taken hold of God's forgiveness if we carry no burdens from the past; if we're not tormented by anything we might have done. If we have the faith to simply acknowledge our past before God and admit our failings. Then, God forgives. I've had that experience. It's a blessing. There are things in my past I'm not proud of; things I would do differently if I could have a do-over. But I can't. But the thing is that with God – the past is the past, and because of that we should look to the possibilities of the future rather than the failures of the past. Because God has forgiven whatever in our past needs to be forgiven. Why? Just because God is God, and it's God's nature to love, and it's love's nature to forgive! That's why God forgives!
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