Seventh Sunday After The Epiphany
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle C
Object:
Theme For The Day
Forgiving requires a very special sort of forgetting.
Old Testament Lesson
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Joseph Forgives His Brothers
This passage from the story of Joseph is impossible to preach without providing extensive background on the events from this epic tale that have preceded it. This excerpt opens at the precise moment of dramatic climax, to which the pentateuchal narrative has been leading for many chapters. In the very first verse, Joseph makes his dramatic announcement, revealing his identity as the long-lost brother of the destitute sons of Jacob who are now grovelling before him. What comes next is a remarkably magnanimous gesture of reconciliation. Joseph beckons his brothers to come closer, violating the court protocol that ordinarily kept supplicants distant and lower than such an exalted personage as the Pharaoh's chief administrator. Joseph speaks gently to soothe their troubled spirits. "God has sent me before you to preserve life," he says (v. 5). In these words is the theological heart of the entire Joseph epic: No matter what distressing and confusing turn the events of our lives may take, God can be trusted to be at work behind the scenes, bringing good out of evil, justice out of injustice, joy out of pain.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
A Spiritual Body
Paul has been speaking about the necessity of the resurrection of the dead. Now he comes to the question of what particular form that resurrection will take: "With what kind of body do they come?" (v. 35). Although he at first rejects the very question as nonsensical, he goes on to answer it anyway, using the metaphor of a seed planted in the ground. Just as a seed must first die to its own seed-nature before it takes on the body intended for it, so we too must shed the form of our present bodily existence if we are to attain the resurrection-body won for us by Christ. Paul's argument builds to a climax in a powerful series of couplets: The human journey is to move from perishable to imperishable, from dishonor to glory, from weakness to power, from a physical body to a spiritual body. What he means by "spiritual body" is unclear. It is a metaphor, an image -- chosen to suggest the barest outlines of a reality too great for the human mind to comprehend. Between the perishable and the imperishable there is a chasm too great for even the human imagination to cross. Christ is the bridge by which we may, through grace, cross over.
The Gospel
Luke 6:27-38
Radical Generosity
The Sermon on the Plain continues, with a collection of radical ethical instructions. These would have challenged the imagination of Jesus' listeners, for he takes the ethic of love of neighbor farther than most other teachers of the law. Love not only your neighbor, but also your enemies (v. 27). Do not simply evade those who curse you, but bless them (v. 28). Turn the other cheek; give the robber your shirt as well as your coat; give until you have no more; never ask for a loan to be repaid or for stolen property to be returned (v. 29). "Do to others as you would have them do to you," he says (v. 31) -- although the ethical instructions Jesus has just given go far beyond what most of his listeners would have dared to hope others might do for them. Jesus is calling his disciples to a higher ethic than any hitherto known (vv. 32-36). This selection concludes with the command not to judge others (v. 37) and with an encouragement to give freely, knowing that God will eventually reward generosity in equal measure (vv. 37-38).
Preaching Possibilities
Somebody hurt you -- and you can't forget it.
Maybe it was yesterday; maybe last month. Maybe it was years ago, and the memory of that injury still lurks in unguarded corners of your mind. It's a monster, that irrepressible hate -- a dreadful monster.
You aren't alone. Everyone else has felt it, too. Every human person knows what it's like to feel injured, maybe by someone we once loved or respected. The resentment builds into an overwhelming flood, until one day it bursts forth in the form of rage. Or it becomes anxiety, eroding our souls as surely as dripping water wears down solid rock.
Jesus has some stern advice on the subject of resentment, and how to deal with it: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek," he says, "... offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt." A little earlier in today's passage, he says, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."
Those hard, hard words are a high ideal that seems to most of us all but impossible. It's all right for Jesus, we tell ourselves -- after all, he was God and he went to the cross -- but for us ordinary folks, it's different. Turning the other cheek is an idea we honor, but never seriously believe we'll accomplish. Yet every time we read Jesus' words, they burn: "Love your enemies." "Pray for those who abuse you." "Turn the other cheek."
There was one family who managed to live up to Jesus' words, a Korean family. Their son had journeyed to America as an exchange student, to the University of Pennsylvania. One day, as he stepped out of his dormitory to mail a letter, he was brutally assaulted by a street gang. The leather-clad toughs beat him with a blackjack and a lead pipe, and with their own fists and feet. When they were done, their victim lay bleeding and dying in the gutter.
Inner-city Philadelphians, jaded as they are by street violence, were shocked by the senseless brutality of this case. There was a popular outcry for justice. The D.A. appealed to the judge to try the teenagers as adults, so they could receive the death penalty. Then a letter arrived, from the boy's parents in far-off Korea:
Our family has met together and we have decided to petition that the most generous treatment possible within the laws of your government be given to those who have committed this criminal action.... In order to give evidence of the sincere hope contained in this petition, we have decided to save money to start a fund to be used for the religious, educational, vocational and social guidance of the boys when they are released.... We have dared to express our hope with a spirit received from the gospel of our savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins.
A remarkable story, from a country where Christianity is little more than 100 years old. Those Korean Christians take Jesus at his word.
How do they do it? The last line of their letter offers an explanation: by "the gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins."
That Korean-Christian family felt very aware of their own forgiveness -- which is not something that can be said of all of us. We may come to church faithfully, pray prayers of confession, and hear the assurance of God's pardon week after week, yet despite the good news of the gospel, the old "tapes" from childhood continue to play inside our heads. These are the blaming tapes we use to punish ourselves.
Sometimes it seems remarkable that any of us ever get over early childhood. Those who spend time with the elderly can attest how vivid their childhood recollections often are -- and in those cases when Alzheimer's disease is present, it's the early memories, the ones sixty or seventy or even eighty years old, that are the last to fade. With those persistent childhood memories often comes pain, guilt, and shame -- and the gloomy conviction that we are unredeemable.
In order to turn the other cheek and forgive others, we've somehow got to stop brooding over our own heartaches from the past, and take on the burdens of others. It's as though we were spending all our time gazing vainly into a mirror; yet the image we see there is not our smiling face, but a scowling, wrathful countenance -- an angry child. Someday, in the fullness of God's time, the mirror of hurt and self-pity we grasp in our hands may be transformed. It may become a window -- a window through which we can see the hurts and pains in others' lives, and respond to them in love.
That vision through the window may not always be crystal clear. We all know how windows are -- how we can look through the same window from one angle and see ourselves, or we can shift position and look through it to the world beyond. Turning the other cheek is like shifting position, so we see through the window. Then we will know, for the first time, the hurt and pain of others -- even the one who strikes us.
Forgiving in Christ is not a matter of trivializing the offense, of saying to the other, "Just forget it. It was nothing!" Forgiving in Christ means confronting our hurt head-on, and grappling with it. It means acknowledging the pain we've experienced, yet not permitting that pain to master us.
We've all heard the expression, "Forgive and forget." There's a lot of wisdom in that phrase, but sometimes we get the wrong idea about it. "Forgiving and forgetting" does not mean wiping our minds clean of whatever it is the other person did. Would that we could force ourselves to forget our pain that way! No, the forgetting that follows forgiving is an act of the will, a conscious decision not to allow painful memories to sway us.
A longtime friend of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, once asked her if she still remembered a wrong done to her by someone in the distant past. "No," Clara replied, "I distinctly remember forgetting that." Forgiving is an act of the will. It is a conscious decision to slam shut the ledger-book of offenses we have been carefully entering in indelible ink, and to allow its numbers to influence us no more.
Tax time is approaching -- the moment of truth when we show our true financial colors. Some of us keep intricate records throughout the year, and can tell to the penny how much we can deduct in every category. Others of us throw the receipts into a bottom drawer -- until April 14, when we pull them out in fear and trembling.
When it comes to records of past hurts, neither approach is correct. Whether we keep mental ledger-books of complaints, or whether we stuff our frustration deep into our subconscious, we are failing to turn the other cheek. It is only when we consciously choose to hurl that ledger-book into space, or to empty out that bottom drawer, that we are free of malice.
When we fail to turn the other cheek, when we hate and revile those who persecute us, we are indeed prisoners -- prisoners of evil, as surely as the one who injures us is a prisoner of evil. The difference is that, where once there was only one who was under evil's influence, now there are two. When we throw open the doors of the arsenal of revenge and arm ourselves for battle, we forsake our calling as disciples.
Turning the other cheek; forgiving and consciously willing to forget; loving even our enemies -- these are not easy commandments. Yet this is what our Lord has commanded us to do. In those moments when we find ourselves faced with a choice between receiving undeserved punishment and fighting back, may we find the strong presence of the Lord beside us. For he will lead us in the way we should go.
Prayer For The Day
God of all mercy,
there are many commandments we seek to follow,
but none is so difficult as this teaching of your Son:
"Love your enemies."
We would so much rather love those who are like us,
or those whom we clearly see to be so weak
that they pose no threat to us.
In those moments when rage threatens to break forth,
when fists clench
and blood pressure is on the rise,
help us to journey to that calm center deep within --
that place where we encounter you.
Then, help us do what Jesus would do. Amen.
To Illustrate
Many know the name of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian girl who -- with her family -- was sentenced to a concentration camp for sheltering Jews. In the camp, she and her family endured endless indignities, and when the war was over, Corrie still carried the psychological scars. She emerged from the camps as a sickly, emaciated, young woman who had lost most of her family.
Years later, she happened to encounter one of her former guards, a man who had treated Corrie and her sister with unspeakable cruelty. When their eyes met for the first time and they recognized each other, the man stretched out his hand and asked Corrie to forgive him.
Corrie ten Boom was a woman of remarkable faith, but even so, she tells of how perplexed she felt at that moment. She knew Christ would want her to forgive, but she simply could not bring herself to do it. So she prayed a quick and urgent prayer to Jesus, for strength -- and she reminded herself, in her words, that "the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart."
Here's how she tells it, in her own words: "Woodenly, mechanically I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me and I experienced an incredible thing. The current started in my shoulder, raced down into my arms and sprang into our clutched hands. Then the warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. 'I forgive you, brother,' I cried, with my whole heart. For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard, the former prisoner. I have never known the love of God so intensely as I did at that moment. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover the prisoner was you."
***
"Evil propagates by contagion. It can be contained and defeated only when hatred, insult, and injury are absorbed and neutralized by love."
-- G. B. Caird
***
There's an unforgettable scene from David Attenborough's movie, Gandhi. The British occupation soldiers are about to break up a demonstration for Indian independence. They form a line against the demonstrators, but the protesters keep on coming. The soldiers tear into the crowd with their billy clubs, and the front row of protesters falls, their heads bloodied. Another rank slowly advances, silently receiving the same abuse. Row upon row of men and women stride forward, not raising their arms in either attack or self-defense, but taking the punishment, falling down bloody and bruised.
The British soldiers, veterans of many a hard-fought campaign, cannot take this. They have, quite simply, never seen anything like it. Tears come to the eyes of some, and others are overcome with nausea. Their resolve falters; their superiors have no choice but to order retreat.
Mohandas Gandhi was not a confessing Christian, but he is known to have studied carefully the teachings of Jesus. There is the utmost irony in this image of a Hindu leading his people to turn the other cheek, in a way the Christian foot-soldiers of the British empire had never seen.
***
A young boy realized something important about forgiveness while riding in the car with his mother. He had behaved very badly that day, and his mother was angry with him. "Mom," he said, after a long and dismal silence, "is it true that when Jesus forgives us, he throws our sins into the deepest sea?"
"Yes," his mother answered curtly, "That's true."
"Well," the boy went on, "I've asked Jesus to forgive me, but when we get home I'll bet you're going fishing for those sins of mine, aren't you?"
When Jesus forgives us, he does throw our sins into the deepest ocean, but more than that, he posts a sign that says, "No Fishing."
***
There is a story that comes from Reconstruction days in the American south. The great Robert E. Lee -- by then, no longer the commanding general of the Confederate army, but an ordinary citizen in retirement -- had gone to visit a woman whose plantation had been devastated by invading Union troops. The most agonizing reminder, to her, was the great oak tree that still stood outside the pillared portico of her mansion. A Union artillery shell had split it right down the middle.
The woman went on and on about the indignities she had suffered at the hands of the Yankees, but always she returned to the subject of the oak tree. Finally, Lee had had quite enough. He abruptly ended his visit -- and, as he turned to leave the house, his last words were, "Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it." He knew she had been keeping the splintered tree as a monument to her own pain.
Forgiving requires a very special sort of forgetting.
Old Testament Lesson
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Joseph Forgives His Brothers
This passage from the story of Joseph is impossible to preach without providing extensive background on the events from this epic tale that have preceded it. This excerpt opens at the precise moment of dramatic climax, to which the pentateuchal narrative has been leading for many chapters. In the very first verse, Joseph makes his dramatic announcement, revealing his identity as the long-lost brother of the destitute sons of Jacob who are now grovelling before him. What comes next is a remarkably magnanimous gesture of reconciliation. Joseph beckons his brothers to come closer, violating the court protocol that ordinarily kept supplicants distant and lower than such an exalted personage as the Pharaoh's chief administrator. Joseph speaks gently to soothe their troubled spirits. "God has sent me before you to preserve life," he says (v. 5). In these words is the theological heart of the entire Joseph epic: No matter what distressing and confusing turn the events of our lives may take, God can be trusted to be at work behind the scenes, bringing good out of evil, justice out of injustice, joy out of pain.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
A Spiritual Body
Paul has been speaking about the necessity of the resurrection of the dead. Now he comes to the question of what particular form that resurrection will take: "With what kind of body do they come?" (v. 35). Although he at first rejects the very question as nonsensical, he goes on to answer it anyway, using the metaphor of a seed planted in the ground. Just as a seed must first die to its own seed-nature before it takes on the body intended for it, so we too must shed the form of our present bodily existence if we are to attain the resurrection-body won for us by Christ. Paul's argument builds to a climax in a powerful series of couplets: The human journey is to move from perishable to imperishable, from dishonor to glory, from weakness to power, from a physical body to a spiritual body. What he means by "spiritual body" is unclear. It is a metaphor, an image -- chosen to suggest the barest outlines of a reality too great for the human mind to comprehend. Between the perishable and the imperishable there is a chasm too great for even the human imagination to cross. Christ is the bridge by which we may, through grace, cross over.
The Gospel
Luke 6:27-38
Radical Generosity
The Sermon on the Plain continues, with a collection of radical ethical instructions. These would have challenged the imagination of Jesus' listeners, for he takes the ethic of love of neighbor farther than most other teachers of the law. Love not only your neighbor, but also your enemies (v. 27). Do not simply evade those who curse you, but bless them (v. 28). Turn the other cheek; give the robber your shirt as well as your coat; give until you have no more; never ask for a loan to be repaid or for stolen property to be returned (v. 29). "Do to others as you would have them do to you," he says (v. 31) -- although the ethical instructions Jesus has just given go far beyond what most of his listeners would have dared to hope others might do for them. Jesus is calling his disciples to a higher ethic than any hitherto known (vv. 32-36). This selection concludes with the command not to judge others (v. 37) and with an encouragement to give freely, knowing that God will eventually reward generosity in equal measure (vv. 37-38).
Preaching Possibilities
Somebody hurt you -- and you can't forget it.
Maybe it was yesterday; maybe last month. Maybe it was years ago, and the memory of that injury still lurks in unguarded corners of your mind. It's a monster, that irrepressible hate -- a dreadful monster.
You aren't alone. Everyone else has felt it, too. Every human person knows what it's like to feel injured, maybe by someone we once loved or respected. The resentment builds into an overwhelming flood, until one day it bursts forth in the form of rage. Or it becomes anxiety, eroding our souls as surely as dripping water wears down solid rock.
Jesus has some stern advice on the subject of resentment, and how to deal with it: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek," he says, "... offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt." A little earlier in today's passage, he says, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."
Those hard, hard words are a high ideal that seems to most of us all but impossible. It's all right for Jesus, we tell ourselves -- after all, he was God and he went to the cross -- but for us ordinary folks, it's different. Turning the other cheek is an idea we honor, but never seriously believe we'll accomplish. Yet every time we read Jesus' words, they burn: "Love your enemies." "Pray for those who abuse you." "Turn the other cheek."
There was one family who managed to live up to Jesus' words, a Korean family. Their son had journeyed to America as an exchange student, to the University of Pennsylvania. One day, as he stepped out of his dormitory to mail a letter, he was brutally assaulted by a street gang. The leather-clad toughs beat him with a blackjack and a lead pipe, and with their own fists and feet. When they were done, their victim lay bleeding and dying in the gutter.
Inner-city Philadelphians, jaded as they are by street violence, were shocked by the senseless brutality of this case. There was a popular outcry for justice. The D.A. appealed to the judge to try the teenagers as adults, so they could receive the death penalty. Then a letter arrived, from the boy's parents in far-off Korea:
Our family has met together and we have decided to petition that the most generous treatment possible within the laws of your government be given to those who have committed this criminal action.... In order to give evidence of the sincere hope contained in this petition, we have decided to save money to start a fund to be used for the religious, educational, vocational and social guidance of the boys when they are released.... We have dared to express our hope with a spirit received from the gospel of our savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins.
A remarkable story, from a country where Christianity is little more than 100 years old. Those Korean Christians take Jesus at his word.
How do they do it? The last line of their letter offers an explanation: by "the gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins."
That Korean-Christian family felt very aware of their own forgiveness -- which is not something that can be said of all of us. We may come to church faithfully, pray prayers of confession, and hear the assurance of God's pardon week after week, yet despite the good news of the gospel, the old "tapes" from childhood continue to play inside our heads. These are the blaming tapes we use to punish ourselves.
Sometimes it seems remarkable that any of us ever get over early childhood. Those who spend time with the elderly can attest how vivid their childhood recollections often are -- and in those cases when Alzheimer's disease is present, it's the early memories, the ones sixty or seventy or even eighty years old, that are the last to fade. With those persistent childhood memories often comes pain, guilt, and shame -- and the gloomy conviction that we are unredeemable.
In order to turn the other cheek and forgive others, we've somehow got to stop brooding over our own heartaches from the past, and take on the burdens of others. It's as though we were spending all our time gazing vainly into a mirror; yet the image we see there is not our smiling face, but a scowling, wrathful countenance -- an angry child. Someday, in the fullness of God's time, the mirror of hurt and self-pity we grasp in our hands may be transformed. It may become a window -- a window through which we can see the hurts and pains in others' lives, and respond to them in love.
That vision through the window may not always be crystal clear. We all know how windows are -- how we can look through the same window from one angle and see ourselves, or we can shift position and look through it to the world beyond. Turning the other cheek is like shifting position, so we see through the window. Then we will know, for the first time, the hurt and pain of others -- even the one who strikes us.
Forgiving in Christ is not a matter of trivializing the offense, of saying to the other, "Just forget it. It was nothing!" Forgiving in Christ means confronting our hurt head-on, and grappling with it. It means acknowledging the pain we've experienced, yet not permitting that pain to master us.
We've all heard the expression, "Forgive and forget." There's a lot of wisdom in that phrase, but sometimes we get the wrong idea about it. "Forgiving and forgetting" does not mean wiping our minds clean of whatever it is the other person did. Would that we could force ourselves to forget our pain that way! No, the forgetting that follows forgiving is an act of the will, a conscious decision not to allow painful memories to sway us.
A longtime friend of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, once asked her if she still remembered a wrong done to her by someone in the distant past. "No," Clara replied, "I distinctly remember forgetting that." Forgiving is an act of the will. It is a conscious decision to slam shut the ledger-book of offenses we have been carefully entering in indelible ink, and to allow its numbers to influence us no more.
Tax time is approaching -- the moment of truth when we show our true financial colors. Some of us keep intricate records throughout the year, and can tell to the penny how much we can deduct in every category. Others of us throw the receipts into a bottom drawer -- until April 14, when we pull them out in fear and trembling.
When it comes to records of past hurts, neither approach is correct. Whether we keep mental ledger-books of complaints, or whether we stuff our frustration deep into our subconscious, we are failing to turn the other cheek. It is only when we consciously choose to hurl that ledger-book into space, or to empty out that bottom drawer, that we are free of malice.
When we fail to turn the other cheek, when we hate and revile those who persecute us, we are indeed prisoners -- prisoners of evil, as surely as the one who injures us is a prisoner of evil. The difference is that, where once there was only one who was under evil's influence, now there are two. When we throw open the doors of the arsenal of revenge and arm ourselves for battle, we forsake our calling as disciples.
Turning the other cheek; forgiving and consciously willing to forget; loving even our enemies -- these are not easy commandments. Yet this is what our Lord has commanded us to do. In those moments when we find ourselves faced with a choice between receiving undeserved punishment and fighting back, may we find the strong presence of the Lord beside us. For he will lead us in the way we should go.
Prayer For The Day
God of all mercy,
there are many commandments we seek to follow,
but none is so difficult as this teaching of your Son:
"Love your enemies."
We would so much rather love those who are like us,
or those whom we clearly see to be so weak
that they pose no threat to us.
In those moments when rage threatens to break forth,
when fists clench
and blood pressure is on the rise,
help us to journey to that calm center deep within --
that place where we encounter you.
Then, help us do what Jesus would do. Amen.
To Illustrate
Many know the name of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian girl who -- with her family -- was sentenced to a concentration camp for sheltering Jews. In the camp, she and her family endured endless indignities, and when the war was over, Corrie still carried the psychological scars. She emerged from the camps as a sickly, emaciated, young woman who had lost most of her family.
Years later, she happened to encounter one of her former guards, a man who had treated Corrie and her sister with unspeakable cruelty. When their eyes met for the first time and they recognized each other, the man stretched out his hand and asked Corrie to forgive him.
Corrie ten Boom was a woman of remarkable faith, but even so, she tells of how perplexed she felt at that moment. She knew Christ would want her to forgive, but she simply could not bring herself to do it. So she prayed a quick and urgent prayer to Jesus, for strength -- and she reminded herself, in her words, that "the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart."
Here's how she tells it, in her own words: "Woodenly, mechanically I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me and I experienced an incredible thing. The current started in my shoulder, raced down into my arms and sprang into our clutched hands. Then the warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. 'I forgive you, brother,' I cried, with my whole heart. For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard, the former prisoner. I have never known the love of God so intensely as I did at that moment. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover the prisoner was you."
***
"Evil propagates by contagion. It can be contained and defeated only when hatred, insult, and injury are absorbed and neutralized by love."
-- G. B. Caird
***
There's an unforgettable scene from David Attenborough's movie, Gandhi. The British occupation soldiers are about to break up a demonstration for Indian independence. They form a line against the demonstrators, but the protesters keep on coming. The soldiers tear into the crowd with their billy clubs, and the front row of protesters falls, their heads bloodied. Another rank slowly advances, silently receiving the same abuse. Row upon row of men and women stride forward, not raising their arms in either attack or self-defense, but taking the punishment, falling down bloody and bruised.
The British soldiers, veterans of many a hard-fought campaign, cannot take this. They have, quite simply, never seen anything like it. Tears come to the eyes of some, and others are overcome with nausea. Their resolve falters; their superiors have no choice but to order retreat.
Mohandas Gandhi was not a confessing Christian, but he is known to have studied carefully the teachings of Jesus. There is the utmost irony in this image of a Hindu leading his people to turn the other cheek, in a way the Christian foot-soldiers of the British empire had never seen.
***
A young boy realized something important about forgiveness while riding in the car with his mother. He had behaved very badly that day, and his mother was angry with him. "Mom," he said, after a long and dismal silence, "is it true that when Jesus forgives us, he throws our sins into the deepest sea?"
"Yes," his mother answered curtly, "That's true."
"Well," the boy went on, "I've asked Jesus to forgive me, but when we get home I'll bet you're going fishing for those sins of mine, aren't you?"
When Jesus forgives us, he does throw our sins into the deepest ocean, but more than that, he posts a sign that says, "No Fishing."
***
There is a story that comes from Reconstruction days in the American south. The great Robert E. Lee -- by then, no longer the commanding general of the Confederate army, but an ordinary citizen in retirement -- had gone to visit a woman whose plantation had been devastated by invading Union troops. The most agonizing reminder, to her, was the great oak tree that still stood outside the pillared portico of her mansion. A Union artillery shell had split it right down the middle.
The woman went on and on about the indignities she had suffered at the hands of the Yankees, but always she returned to the subject of the oak tree. Finally, Lee had had quite enough. He abruptly ended his visit -- and, as he turned to leave the house, his last words were, "Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it." He knew she had been keeping the splintered tree as a monument to her own pain.
