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"Who Can Be Forgiven"
March 21, 2004
The Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson
Who can be forgiven? In the Bible we see lots of people--as a matter of fact, everyone--in need of forgiveness. But not everyone is forgiven. Two Scriptures for you this morning with examples of people who were forgiven, and a person who was not.
First, from Psalm 51, a Psalm of David, written particularly after he had sinned grievously, after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered. And this is what he said, Psalm 51: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
From Luke chapter 18, a parable about the tax collector and Pharisee.
Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
The time is just before dawn. Two men leave their houses in different parts of the city of Jerusalem and make their way toward the steep hill, Mt. Moriah, the temple mount, the holiest place to any Israelite. They are on their way to the morning sacrifice, which was offered every day at dawn. One was a Pharisee, a man who is known to keep the letter of the law, a man who is a respected teacher among his fellow Jews. The other is a tax collector--a Jew by birth, but an employee of the hated Romans, a man who was considered a traitor by his fellow Jews, both because he works for the Romans and because, like his fellow tax collectors, he is known for his corruption and graft. Each day two public sacrifices are made at the temple. There are many kinds of sacrifices made there, but each day two lambs were sacrificed for the people of Israel--one was at dawn, the other about three in the afternoon.
At each of these times the priest would ascend the steps leading up to the altar, which stood just outside the temple. He would slaughter a lamb, and then burn it, as an atoning sacrifice--a payment to God for the sins of the nation of Israel. The priest would announce a benediction and incense would be burned, symbolizing prayers of the people. And, indeed, many came to these sacrifices. After the benediction, all would rise and pray--not only them, but many all over the world. This was a special time. Atonement had been made. Blood had been spilt. Payment made. Because of the sacrifice, the Jew could approach God through his prayers. They way was clear. So, many came to experience this time of true worship, to see the sacrifice, feel the cleansing, and offer prayer to God.
So, two men came, each with the same purpose. Both came to the temple mount and the steps leading up to the Huldah Gate named for the prophetess Huldah, whose tomb was nearby--the prophetess who had spoken to King Josiah long ago. They walked where the moneychangers and sellers of animals for sacrifice set up their tables for the day's business and into the higher Court of the Gentiles, where the Gentiles were allowed to come, and then to the temple complex through the Beautiful Gate, and the Court of the Women, and on up to the upper court, to the Court of the Israelites, where only the men of Israel were allowed. Just before the entrance to the temple, a little to the left, stood the altar, high above the ground. Around the altar, a large crowd gathered, waiting for the ceremony.
Soon one priest ascended the steps leading up to the altar, carrying the wood. Another carried oil to place on the wood. Finally, the last priest brought a lamb. When he reached the top, he expertly killed it, cut it up, and put the pieces on the wood. While they cut up the animal, another priest would go just inside the temple and burn incense, symbolizing prayers. After all this was accomplished, the priest would call out a blessing upon the people,. In that blessing they would put God's name upon the children of Israel, as His people. And when they heard God's name, they would fall prostrate on the ground and arise and join together in prayer.
It was here that we come upon the Pharisee and the tax collector. I want you to get the picture of what is going on. While the sacrifice was made, prayers were offered. But especially after the blessing was pronounced, the men would stand and all would offer prayers out loud. Jesus tells the story. The Pharisee is standing apart from the crowd. As he came into the courtyard in front of the altar, he looked for a place apart from everyone else. He considers himself better than others. And, so, Jesus tells us the Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed aloud, "I thank you I am not like these other people--murderers. . . even like this tax collector." And the other, a tax collector, would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."
Who can be forgiven? That's a good question. The Bible pretty much says anyone can be forgiven. And I think this story illustrates that fact that anyone can be forgiven. You know, I find a lot of people in this world have a hard time believing that they can be forgiven. Some of us have probably heard of Carl Meninger. He's a famous psychologist who wrote a book called Whatever Happened to Sin? But he said this: He said, of all the people in mental hospitals today, if he could convince 75% of them that they could be forgiven, they would walk out well. But anyone can be forgiven.
There are some of you here today who are struggling with things--struggling with the idea of being forgiven. I want to say to you that you can be. You know, all you have to do is look in the Bible to see that. We are of the habit of thinking of Bible characters as heroes--and in some sense, they are. But just begin at the beginning and name the heroes and see what kind of people they were. They were all sinners.
Take Abraham, for example. Abraham went to Egypt with his wife Sarai (actually, his name at that time was Abram). And when they got there, Pharaoh liked the way Sarai looked. He said, "Oh, boy!" and took her into his harem because Abram lied about her and said, "Well, she's my sister," thinking, "If I tell him she's my wife, he'll kill me." He did it not only that time, but in another area.
His son Isaac did the same thing. And later on, Isaac was physically blind, but it symbolized his spiritual blindness. And he wanted to choose Esau over Jacob because Esau happened to be "a man's man" and Jacob, he thought, was a little bit on the feminine side. But Jacob was the one God had chosen.
What about Jacob himself? I wouldn't trust Jacob for a minute! If you know anything about Jacob, would you want to be with him in a dark alley? He got Esau (being a little smarter than him) to give him his birthright. He lied to his father by dressing up like Esau so that his father would give him the blessing rather than Esau. Later on, his uncle--in a foreign land when he was taking care of the sheep, he came up with kind of a sheep-breeding scheme so that he became rich and his uncle became destitute. And then he took his uncle's daughter and another daughter. And Jacob was a terrible father. He married not only those two, but two others. And you talk about a dysfunctional family! The brothers--all the twelve tribes of Israel, you know, all of those guys--were riffraff at the beginning. And they all plotted to kill the youngest son, Joseph. And who would blame them? Joseph was arrogant! (Now, he became better, but he walked around in his coat of many colors saying, "Look at me!")
That's not all bad, is it? But let's get a little worse. What about Moses? Well, the first thing Moses does is he kills someone. He kills an Egyptian. He is a murderer from the beginning! And what about the children of Israel themselves? I get tired of reading the Old Testament because it's like every twenty years they go off and follow other gods. And then God forgives them and brings them back.
And what about some of these biblical characters? You know, if you're a Sunday School teacher, please don't tell your children to be like Samson, because Samson was an idiot! Some of the characters are to be, "Don't be like them!"--chasing after all kinds of women. The Bible's pretty colorful, by the way.
But what about later on? What about David? David is "a man after God's own heart," right? That's what the Bible says. But he committed adultery with a beautiful woman. He already had several wives. And then he had her husband killed! Adulterer. Murderer.
What about Solomon? Solomon was OK at the beginning, but then he worshiped other gods and did all kinds of things.
What about the disciples? Were they any better? Well, no. Peter was a very profane man, as was his brother. Now, I'm not putting down fishermen, but in those days fishermen were kind of rough characters. And what about the rest of them? We're not told a lot about them, but we know one of them was a zealot. Did you know that to be a zealot you had to have killed a Roman with your bare hands? And what about Paul? Paul stood by while Stephen was murdered--actually arranged for it. Our Stephen Ministers are named after Stephen. Paul had many Christians put in jail, and those were not nice places.
And what about this tax collector? Well, tax collectors, by and large, were hated for good reason. They worked for the Romans. Can you imagine being occupied by another country, by another nation in this country, and having someone work for that country--what you would feel about them? But not only that--they shafted everybody they could, because they would collect taxes and who could stop them from collecting a little bit more?
Now, if these people can be forgiven, so can you. And so can I. We can be forgiven. And if you're struggling with God forgiving you, I want to lovingly challenge you and say, "Don't be so arrogant! Because you can't sin any more than these people did." God loves you and will forgive you in Christ. You can be forgiven. This man was.
But, at the same time, in the same story, we see someone who was not forgiven. And why was that so? You know, Jesus isn't quite as "nice" as the pictures we have about Him. You know, I see all the pictures with Jesus holding a lamb, you know, and the children surrounding Him. And those are OK. Those are OK. You know the medieval pictures with the halos and all that kind of thing, looking like He's looking at God all the time. But the picture of Jesus is really not quite like that. After all, He was kind of a construction worker, so I tend to think of Him as being rather large in the chest, maybe about this high, very Jewish-looking. He did not have blond hair and blue eyes (which a lot of our pictures have). But Jesus got angry! Jesus got very angry. We don't think of Jesus that way. We think of Jesus as being "nice" all the time. He was not. And what made Him angry most of all were people who would not admit the fact that they needed forgiveness.
What did they do that made Him so mad? Well, they were involved in making comparisons. Ah--aren't we good at that? Making comparisons. We do it all the time. We compare our ball teams. (And, by the way, "Go, Duke!" I was telling someone that I always look forward to the "Duke Invitational" every year in the NCAA . . . I know. . . I think I just lost half my audience--I'm not sure.)
We're always comparing, aren't we? We're comparing jobs, abilities, color of skin, color of hair, north, south, east, west--everything we can think of. The whole society is built for that, is it not? And sometimes it's OK. But not with God. On a relative scale of 1 to 10, if we compare ourselves with one another, some are definitely zeros and some are eights. That's true. But if you compare each other to God, it's a different thing. We are encouraged in the Scripture to compare ourselves to God's righteousness. And when we do that, we immediately fall prostrate on the ground because we do not compare to God and His righteousness. And it was probably true on relative terms that this Pharisee was a better person in some sense than the tax collector. But not before God.
We human beings are a prideful bunch. And when we compare, we always tend to exaggerate the faults of others and lessen those of ourselves. I heard a wonderful story about a man who--it's one of those St. Peter stories. He went to heaven and visited heaven. He was surprised to find that there were clocks all over heaven. He asked St. Peter, he said, "Why are these clocks here?" And he said, "Well, we have a clock for each person on earth. Each time the big hand clicks, the person has sinned." "Oh, OK. Can I see some of my friends' clocks?" So he took him into a room and he saw Tom there, and he saw Ray there, and he saw his friend Bill. Each time Tom's would go "click," "Oh, Tom! I know what you're doing now!" And Ray--"click, click, click"--"I know what you're up to!" And Bill--"click, click, click"--"You ought to be a better person!" And he looked at St. Peter and he said, "Where's my clock?" And Peter said, "Well, we have it in the kitchen--we use it as a fan."
I kind of mussed up that joke! I apologize, but you get the point. There's another tale--about a battleship. This battleship was going through the ocean in a fog and out in front of it was a light. The Captain immediately assumed it was another ship and he said to his Seaman, "Signal that ship, 'Turn ten degrees to starboard.' " Well the signal came back and it said, "You turn ten degrees to starboard." The Captain was getting a little bit mad. He said, "You turn ten degrees to starboard. I am a Captain." The signal came back, "You turn ten degrees to starboard. I am a Seaman First Class." The Captain was furious by this time and said, "You turn ten degrees to starboard. I am a battleship." And the signal came back and said, "You turn ten degrees to starboard. I am a lighthouse."
We human beings are so full of pride. You know, there are many people who think they can't be forgiven, but I think there are more who tend to think they don't need it. Or they don't need it that much. And, the truth is, that we all need it that much.
I'll ask a simple question: Why are you here this morning? Why do you come to church? In my experience of many years in the pastorate, I have found that people come to church for all kinds of reasons. Some people have a drug problem. And I don't mean "drugs"--they were just simply "drug here" by someone. Some people come here because their grandfather did. Or their parents. Some people come to church because they think it looks good on their resume. Other people come to church because they don't really know why. They just come. It's a habit. But one of the main reasons we ought to come is because of what God has done for us--out of gratitude.
Pastor Steve Brown, one of my favorite authors, says before he became a pastor he used to think there were two kinds of people in the world--there were bad people and good people. Bad people were the folks who smoked, and drank, and didn't go to church on Sunday, and mowed their lawns on Sunday. And the good people were just the opposite (they didn't smoke or drink and they went to church and didn't mow their grass). After he became a pastor, he found there were indeed, two kinds of people. There were bad people who knew it, and came to church. And there were bad people who didn't know it, and had nothing to do with church.
In a sense we know who we are. And we come because we find forgiveness in Christ. Out of gratitude is one of the reasons we should be here. And I think this story tells us that. We are not to judge others in the sense of comparison. Now, we are to make judgments about the world and about people in the sense of being discerning. But never, ever, ever in comparative terms. We come standing as individuals before God, and none of us can stand for long without Jesus Christ. And that's what Eastertime is all about. And I think that's what this story tells us.
And it tells us one other thing, kind of indirectly. You see, when these two people go to the temple, they go to witness a sacrifice--a sacrifice of a lamb for the whole nation of Israel. It was a ceremony that was done twice a day, every day, 365 days a year. It was the shedding of blood of the lamb. And when that was done, people went because they felt like the barrier between them and God had been torn down. It doesn't say anything about that in the parable, but this is exactly where the cross of Christ comes from. A lot of Christians don't understand why Jesus had to die on a cross, why Jesus had to die at all. But the Bible says very clearly--and read Hebrews 9 if you want to know where to find it, most of all--that Jesus is the permanent Lamb. The Bible says that lambs had to be sacrificed again, and again, and again. But when Jesus was sacrificed, He became the Lamb of God who was sacrificed once for all. Once for all. No more need for any more sacrifices. And because of that sacrifice, we can be forgiven forever--both now and forever.
Do you know what the nature of the forgiveness is? That all the things you have done and thought in the past have been forgiven. And all the things you are thinking and doing right now, today, have been forgiven. And all the things in the future have been forgiven. That's why Paul says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for anyone in Christ Jesus." No condemnation for anyone in Christ Jesus. Memorize that verse. It's in your bulletin. I put it there for a reason. It should be one of those verses you should memorize, because we are forgiven in Christ. When we come to Him, admitting our need, admitting that we need to be forgiven, and when we do, and say, "I surrender my life to You and I accept Your forgiveness," we are forgiven forever and ever. Isn't that wonderful? And that's why we should be here: To give thanks. To give joy. To thank our God. And to walk out of here as brothers and sisters.
And so I would say to another portion of you, if you have come here and never really known why you have come here, or you've come here for the wrong reasons, or you've come here in pride thinking that "I'm kind of better than other people" (maybe you didn't realize that until now)--come to God and say you're sorry about that. Come to God and say, "You know, I don't want to be like that Pharisee. I want to be like the tax collector. And I want to know You as Lord and Savior, and to be forgiven, both now and forevermore.
Easter is a good time for that. I want to encourage you in that. Because, who can be forgiven? Anyone. Indeed, all of us.
Let us pray. Father, I thank you for Jesus, our sacrifice, our Lamb of God, who brings forgiveness to all the world, to those who will accept it and admit their own failings, and admit their need. Forgive us for our pride, Lord. Forgive us for our comparative natures. Help us to put that aside and to come before you and receive the greatest gift to be received, and that is forgiveness and eternal life. We thank you for all these things and we pray in your name, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson Senior Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota
[Transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00 a.m. worship service on March 21, 2004.] |
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