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It was on a recent trip to the "holy ground" for me that I found it.

"How in the World Can I Forgive?" Cicero United Methodist Church September 28, 2008 Text: Matthew 18: 21-35 Jack Keating

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It was on a recent trip to the "holy ground" for me that I found it. Let me tell you the story. Armed with my most recent Barnes and Noble gift card, I entered the store and hit that sacred place they call the "Bargain Table!" You see, I've discovered that the treasures there are even less expensive than the paperback aisle at the grocery store and you get a hard cover book, that also makes you look really intelligent when you're seen reading it around town.

On this trip I found several great books and among them I picked up a copy of Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, written by 3 authors whom I've never heard of before. I guess it was the title and the leading of the Holy Spirit that directed me to pick it up in the first place.

The book jacket said that the book detailed the response of the Amish community to the horrific shooting of ten schoolgirls at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in October 2006. But as I started to read it on vacation, I wasn't prepared for the incredible words I would read about a pretty incredible group of people. Here is a community that has been violated in a way that few are in our world and the response to this tragedy was anything but what I would have expected. Instead of hating the deranged man who committed the unspeakable crime and then took his own life a few minutes later, in the days ahead the Amish community quietly went about burying the 5 dead children and caring for the 5 that would eventually recover. While dealing with their own grief they would also visit the killer's widow and children and offer both their sadness about the act, and their support in the days and weeks that would be ahead. They would come to attend his funeral, help his widow with expenses and help to care for his children.

Two of the quotes from members of the Amish community cited in the book spoke so loudly to me about the subject of forgiveness that I wanted to share them with you this morning. The first credited to an Amish farmer is "The acid of hate destroys the container that tries to hold it". Here was the dire reality each of us must one-day come to learn. You see, you just can't hold on to hate ... without that act affecting you in a negative way. Just look around you and see how those who harbor hate and intolerance and such terrific grudges against others become changed into something so distasteful to the rest of us themselves. Hate is indeed an agent that will destroy the container in which it is kept.

Now the second quote mentioned in the book, the one attributed to a simple Amish carpenter, sums up the message of today's scripture lessons and this three week look at the subject of forgiveness. The carpenter's words are so simple and yet, so profound and deep that they need further examination. So here they are "if we don't forgive, we can't be forgiven." Simple? Seem so basic? But so difficult a concept!

We all understand the general concept of forgiveness, but most of us are not especially proficient in the specifics on how to do it. So I thought this morning, I'd try to answer the questions: Why do I have to Forgive? And how do I go about doing it?

The first step to answering those questions is this: ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY HURT. The starting point to pursuing forgiveness is to admit that you've really been hurt. We often like to pretend that what he said really didn't bother us or what she did didn't even phase us, but until we are willing to admit that we were hurt by them, we're not even in a place where we can begin to pursue forgiveness.

There are many incidents in life that are not candidates for forgiveness - things like minor disappointments or passing slights. Situations that require forgiveness are ones where the pain inflicted is personal, unfair, and deep. Things like betrayal (physical and emotional) come to mind.

At this point, as we are hurt, we are likely to find some of that hatred in our heart. And, while that hatred will destroy us like the acid the Amish farmer referred to, we need to be careful that we don't try to get rid of it by covering it up. When we discover that hate building in our heart, it's a sure sign that we going to need to forgive.

The second step to forgiveness is SURRENDERING YOUR RIGHT TO GET EVEN. A mother ran into the bedroom when she heard her seven-year-old son scream. She found his two-year-old sister pulling his hair. She gently released the little girl's grip and said comfortingly to the boy, "There. There. She didn't mean it. She doesn't know that hurts."  Her son nodded his acknowledgement, and she left the room. As she started down the hall, the little girl screamed. Rushing back in, she asked, "What happened?" The little boy replied, "She knows now."

Few would dispute our right to get even. The rule of our world seems to be "do unto others as they've done unto you." But as those Amish in Pennsylvania learned, when we choose to forgive, we choose to lay aside our right to extract revenge. And in that moment of making that decision we leave ultimate justice and vengeance to God and we deliberately choose for ourselves the path of forgiveness.

Acknowledging that we have been hurt gets us in the right place, but surrendering our right to get even is the first step down the path to healing and wholeness.

Now some would argue that choosing such a path is inevitably going to make us a patsy ­we're yielding all our power and are going to end up as a doormat. But the Amish have learned that there is a power that is unleashed in this decision that cannot come from any other source. But what does that power look like?

Judge Albert Tomei serves on the New York State Supreme Court. A young defendant was convicted in Judge Tomei's court of gunning down another person execution style. The murderer had a bad record, was no stranger to the system, and only stared in anger as the jury returned its verdict.

The victim's family had attended the trial every day for two weeks. On the day of sentencing, the victim's mother and grandmother addressed the court. When they spoke however, neither of them addressed the jury. Both spoke directly to the murderer. And they both forgave him. The grandmother said, "you broke the Golden Rule -loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind. You broke the law - loving your neighbor as yourself. I am your neighbor," she said, "so you have my address. If you want to write, I'll write back. You see, I've sat here in this trial for two weeks and for the sixteen months I tried to hate you. But you know what? I could not hate you. I feel sorry for you because you made a wrong choice."

Judge Tomei writes, "For the first time since the trial began, the defendant's eyes lost their laser force and appeared to surrender to a life force that only a mother can generate: nurturing and unconditional love. After the grandmother finished, I looked at the defendant. His head was hanging low. There was no more swagger, no more stare. The destructive and evil forces within him collapsed helplessly before this remarkable display of humanness."

In choosing the path of forgiveness, the grandmother unleashed a power that could not be tapped in any other way. And that power was what caused the defendant to hang his head for the first time.

The third step to forgiveness is to SEARCH FOR THE REAL PERSON BENEATH THE EVIL MASK. When we have been wronged, we like to create a caricature of our wrongdoer. We emphasize all the bad things about them, we twist anything that remotely looks good, we are quick to be suspicious of their every motive, because we see them only and always in one way.

The process of forgiveness requires that we look for the real person behind the caricature we've created in our minds. We begin to see that they have not only hurt, they have been hurt. We begin to see that they are weak, needy, and fallible. We begin to find reasons for our hearts to turn toward mercy instead of malice.

Now that doesn't mean that we grant them victim status and excuse all their wrongs - we're forgiving, not excusing. But it does mean that we begin to try to treat them as another participant in this messy adventure called life.

And what is our motivation for doing this? As the Amish folks in Nickel Mines have discovered, we are doing for them what God first did for us. God could have simply seen our sin and said, "I've seen enough, that's all I need to know about them." But God looked beyond our sin and saw something worth loving. And that's what we've each been called to do, as well.

The fourth step the Amish point out to us about forgiveness is that we should DESIRE THA T GOOD THINGS WOULD HAPPEN TO OUR WRONGDOER. I know that sounds impossible at first ... but stay with me for a minute here.

After the Nickel Mines shooting, when a memorial fund had been established to help the families whose children had been killed or seriously injured, the Amish community insisted that the family of the killer also be helped by those funds. They attended his funeral, they met with his wife and children and they brought flowers to her home and they brought meals as they offered their support.

In the process of forgiving they moved from dreaming of bad things befalling the family ... to hoping for good things in their life. And this step causes us to ask does forgiving mean there's no punishment? And the answer is no - forgiving does not necessarily mean there should not be punishment. In fact, if they are unrepentant, punishment that leads to sorrow may be the loving thing to want for them because it will bring them to where they need to be. The key in all this is your motive. While before you might have prayed for them to be punished because of your anger and hatred toward them, when you're pursuing forgiveness you might pray for them to be punished because you want to see their heart changed and that is the most likely route for that to happen. Your motive has changed from wanting something bad to happen to praying for something good to happen.

Imagine that somebody breaks into my house and steals most of my stuff. He is caught and put on trial, but is completely lacking remorse. If I go to the court and plead for his release, he will immediately return to stealing. In that situation, the good things I want for his life are a change of heart and a change of lifestyle. And because this is most likely to happen with punishment, forgiveness does not keep me from supporting punishment. I might want to write or visit him while he's in there to try to share the love of God with him.

When Chris Carter was 10, he was abducted, stabbed, shot through the head, and left for dead. Surprisingly, he survived, but the emotional and physical scars were very difficult to heal. Eventually though, his commitment to Christ helped him to move on with his life. But the perpetrator was never found.

Over 20 years later, on September 3, 1996, Chris received a phone call from a detective in the Coral Gables, FL police department. The detective said that an elderly man in a nursing home had confessed to being the abductor. The man's name was David McCallister.

Chris visited David the following day. Here are his words: "It was an awkward moment, walking into his room, but as soon as I saw him I was overwhelmed with compassion. The man I found was not an intimidating kidnapper, but a frail 77-year-old who had been blind for the last half-dozen years. David's body was ruined by alcoholism and smoking - he weighed little more than 60 pounds. He had no family, or if he did, they wanted nothing to do with him, and no friends. A friend who had accompanied me wisely asked him a few simple questions that led him to admitting that he had abducted me. He then asked, 'Did you ever wish you could tell that young boy that you were sorry for what you did?' David answered emphatically, 'I wish I could.' Then I introduced myself to him. Unable to see, David clasped my hand and told me he was sorry for what he had done to me. As he did, I looked down at him, and it came over me like a wave: Why should anyone have to face death without family, friends, the joy of life - without hope? I couldn't do anything but offer him my forgiveness and friendship." And in the days that followed, Chris was able to share his love of Christ with David.

And finally, if possible, ENJOY THE HEALED RELATIONSHIP. Sometimes the other person can't join in moving toward reconciliation (for example forgiving a parent now passed on) and sometimes the other person won't join you (for example, someone who won't acknowledge that they've hurt you). But that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying the freedom of the healed relationship. God wants each of US to be whole and happy and the one who benefits the most in this process is often the one who forgives.

But having said all this ... forgiveness is not easy. Genuine forgiveness takes a lot of work. Acknowledging that we've been hurt, surrendering our right to get even, searching for the real person beneath the evil mask, and desiring good things for the wrongdoer are hard work.

But like the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania has already found, it's kind of like one of their barn raisings. The hard work of forgiveness is easier when everyone knows their part of the job and everyone lends a hand.

If you're wondering about your part of the job, come to the altar rail for prayer this morning with your prayer slip in hand. Or visit the chapel after this service to speak and pray with members of our Sisters Bible Study group and our Lay Leaders. They'll help you find your part of the process and together we'll all raise a beautiful barn in God's sight.

Amen.