Sermons

“Renew us for a year that is good and sweet.” Rosh Hashanah Liturgy

READING About forgiveness from the Jewish Tradition excerpted from the Portal On Jewish Prayer and in Keeping God at the Center.

Sin disrupts our lives on the human level; it distorts our relationships with other persons, with social institutions, and with our selves. Sin also disrupts our spiritual lives; it distorts our relationship with God and with our deepest inner spiritual being.

In rabbinic thought, only the offending party can set the wrong aright and only the offended party can forgo the debt of the sin. This means that, if I offend someone, it is my responsibility to do whatever it takes to set matters aright and, conversely, if someone has offended me, it is my responsibility to allow the offender to do teshuva, that is, to correct the wrong done to me. Teshuva is part of the structure of God's creation; hence, the sinner is obligated to do teshuva and the offended person is obligated to permit teshuva by the offender.

This is not a reconciliation of heart or an embracing of the offender; it is simply reaching the conclusion that the offender no longers owes me anything for whatever it was that he or she did.

The principle that [mechila] forgiveness ought to be granted only if deserved is the great Jewish "No" to easy forgiveness. It is core to the Jewish view of forgiveness, just as desisting from sin is core to the Jewish view of repentance. Without good grounds, the offended person should not forgo the indebtedness of the sinner; otherwise, the sinner may never truly repent and evil will be perpetuated. And, conversely, if there are good grounds to waive the debt or relinquish the claim, the offended person is morally bound to do so. This is the great Jewish "Yes" to the possibility of repentance for every sinner.

The second kind of forgiveness is "forgiveness" (selichá). It is an act of the heart. It is reaching a deeper understanding of the sinner. It is achieving an empathy for the troubledness of the other. Selicha, too, is not a reconciliation or an embracing of the offender; it is simply reaching the conclusion that the offender, too, is human, frail, and deserving of sympathy. It is closer to an act of mercy than to an act of grace. A woman abused by a man may never reach this level of forgiveness; she is not obliged, nor is it morally necessary for her, to do so.

The third kind of forgiveness is "atonement" (kappará) or "purification" (ahorá). This is a total wiping away of all sinfulness. It is an existential cleansing. Kappara is the ultimate form of forgiveness, but it is only granted by God. No human can "atone" the sin of another; no human can "purify" the spiritual pollution of another.

READING
About forgiveness from John O’Donohue, a mystical Christian, and Pema Chodron,a Buddhist Nun

Forgiveness is one of the really difficult things in life. The logic of receiving hurt seems to run in the direction of never forgetting either the hurt or the hurter. When you forgive, some deeper, divine generosity takes over. When you can forgive, then you are free. When you cannot forgive, you are a prisoner of the hurt done to you. If you are really disappointed in someone and you become embittered, you become incarcerated inside that feeling. Only the grace of forgiveness can break the straight logic of hurt and embitterment. It gives you a way out, because it places the conflict on a completely different level. In a strange way, it keeps the whole conflict human. You begin to see and understand the conditions, circumstances, or weakness that made the other person act as they did.
John O'Dononhue -- Excerpt from ETERNAL ECHOES

FORGIVE INTO FRESHNESS
"There is a simple practice we can do to cultivate forgiveness. First we acknowledge what we feel—shame, revenge, embarrassment, remorse. Then we forgive ourselves for being human. Then, in the spirit of not wallowing in the pain, we let go and make a fresh start. We don’t have to carry the burden with us anymore. We will discover forgiveness as a natural expression of the open heart, an expression of our basic goodness. This potential is inherent in every moment. Each moment is an opportunity to make a fresh start."
From Pema Chdron, The Places That Scare You

SERMON
Lloyd LeBlanc has told me that he would have been content with imprisonment for Patrick Sonnier. He went to the execution, he says not for revenge, but hoping for an apology. Patrick Sonnier had not disappointed him. Before sitting in the electric chair he had said, “Mr. LeBlanc, I want to ask your forgiveness for what me and Eddie done,” and Lloyd LeBlanc had nodded his head, signaling a forgiveness he had already given. He says that when he arrived with sheriff’s deputies there in the cane field to identify his son, he had knelt by his boy -- “laying down there with his two little eyes sticking out like bullets” – and prayed the Our Father. And when he came to the words: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” he had not halted or equivocated, and he said, “Whoever did this, I forgive them.” But he acknowledges that it’s a struggle to overcome the feelings of bitterness and revenge that well up, especially when he remembers David’s birthday year by year and loses him all over again: David at twenty, David at twenty-five, David getting married, David standing at the back door with his little ones clustered around his knees, grown up David, a man like himself, whom he will never know. Forgiveness is never going to be easy. Each day it must be prayer for and struggled for and won. -Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking ¹

Forgiveness. Why do we even bother? Forgiveness is a tricky thing. Asking for forgiveness is also a tricky thing. Sometimes it takes the rest of our lives to really understand the power of the practice of forgiveness.
And yet, forgiveness is so important to human well-being that nearly every religion and philosophical system teaches about it.

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat in their book, Spiritual Literacy, Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life, introduce forgiveness this way: In both your private and public lives, discover the sweet release that comes from forgiving others. Feel the healing balm of being forgiven and of forgiving yourself. ²

Rosh Hashanah begins tonight at sundown. This is the Jewish New Year, the birthday of the world, and the beginning of the Days of Awe or High Holy Days that are the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement. During this holy time, Jews reflect on the past year and prepare for the year ahead. It is a time of self-evaluation and restoration of right relations with self, with others, with the world, and with God. It is about repentance and forgiveness.

In the Jewish tradition, there are three kinds of forgiveness. The first two handle situations between human beings and the third forgiveness, atonement, can only be granted by God.

Between people, there is no easy or cheap forgiveness. Before forgiveness, there is a need for acknowledgement of wrong-doing and a making right; the admission of personal accountability, a repentance, and a restoration of balance and harmony.

It is difficult to admit that we have hurt or harmed another person. It is hard to ask what can be done to restore the harmed or injured person. We often put off conversations about accountability and restitution because they are hard. It is, however, vital that we find a way to engage in these conversations because forgiveness, real forgiveness, comes after accountability.

When I am in need of forgiveness, I should know that it will not come until I make things as right as possible. Asking the other person what will be required of me in order to restore wholeness is a challenge that sometimes eludes us for days or weeks or months or even years. It is usually not enough to say, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.” So often we hide from the real negative consequences of our behavior. To avoid responsibility, I may deny the impact of my actions. How many times has someone said to you, “Oh I didn’t mean it that way” or “Don’t be so sensitive” or “It didn’t really happen that way” or “you misunderstand.”
We call these sorts of responses “splaining” – we are ‘splaining’ away the hurt and our responsibility in causing the hurt. We invalidate the other person. Then, we are both trapped in the negativity of the situation because there can never be an honest reckoning of the harm done, even if unintentional.

Perhaps we are right now quick to notice this ‘splaining’ in the era of #MeToo as we witness offender after offender after offender deny or mansplain away the victim-survivor’s truth. But it happens in all kinds of relationships, especially when there is a power differential.

“What can I do to begin to make things right?” This is hard work. It takes practice, lots of practice, before most of us can honestly own up to our behavior and work to repent and restore what has been lost. Ten days every year – that’s the sort of communal and ritualized practice Jews engage in. During these High Holy Days, they are not idle as they wait for Yom Kippur. There is too much to do – making things right with people and making things right with the world always comes before making things right with God and entering a place of peace and wholeness – what we sometimes call Shalom.

John O’Donohue speaks from his Irish Catholic viewpoint. Forgiveness is really difficult, he says, because it can feel counter intuitive to voluntarily release the anger or resentment that we hold when we have been hurt. We don’t really want to forget the hurt. We want to hold the hurter in a place of bitterness. I suspect that each of us knows what it is to be hurt so deeply that we refuse to forget or forgive - - the risk of further injury is too great. But, when we hold so tightly to our pain, or our righteous indignation, we incarcerate ourselves in a prison of endless suffering.

O’Donohue tells us that a sweet grace comes to us when we can truly step out of our prison of pain and engage in deep forgiveness. It is then that we can begin to see the other person as a fellow human being. If we can open our hearts to the one who has hurt us, we can perhaps understand – not condone or erase or make acceptable – but simply understand the underlying conditions, circumstances, or weakness that made the other person act as they did. If we can go there, where the broken and flawed humanity is, then we may be able to forgive and be free from the chains that were holding us. It is a holy grace that comes over us in that moment and we are free.

I want revisit Lloyd LeBlanc and Patrick Sonnier for a moment.
Patrick Sonnier was convicted of murdering David LeBlanc when David was seventeen years old. It was a senseless and brutal murder. David’s father, Lloyd, had to decide how much power over his own life he willing to hand over to the horror of David’s murder and the perpetrator? Nothing will ever remove the pain of losing his son. There will never be a time when he does not know that his son was murdered. It was a terrible act. It will remain a terrible act. None of it can or should be erased by any amount of spiritual practice.

So what, in this instance, is forgiveness for? Lloyd made a gesture of forgiveness toward the murderer before he knew who it was for the sake of his own peace. In the field where his son lay dead, Lloyd prayed his heart’s own prayer – the Our Father - and in that prayer are the words of forgiveness: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” – which he did not alter or omit. Lloyd LeBlanc laid in that field, crying and devastated, and whispered the words, “Whoever did this, I forgive them.”

Forgiveness did not wipe away the tears or the grief or the anger or the bitterness in that moment. Lloyd admitted that it was a struggle to retain his determination to forgive. He knew that in order to go on living, he had to let go – each day, every day. When Patrick Sonnier entered the execution room where he would surrender his life for his crime, Lloyd was ready to allow him some measure of peace, to see him as another human being and to relieve him of some of his suffering. Not to lessen the crime, not to forget, not to allow him to ever commit such an act again, simply to know him as a human being whose suffering could be lessened with the exchange of an apology and a nod of forgiveness.

I talk about this process as if we can simply will it to be so and then it will be so. It is not. Forgiveness does not come easily. Like so many things that are worthwhile, it takes a great deal of practice to become proficient. Some people are better than others at the practice of forgiveness. Some struggle their whole lives with the hurts that impaired them when they were just children.

To be really good at something requires ten thousand hours of practice. Forgiveness is a spiritual practice that requires ten thousand hours, or the rest of our life. Each day, Helen Prejean reminds us, forgiveness must be prayed for and struggled for and won. Each day. Every day.

Buddhist nun and teacher, Pema Chodron, is simple and blunt in her teaching. Many of you are familiar with her style. It is inviting in its simplicity of presentation and it is infuriating in its difficulty of practice. She says, "There is a simple practice we can do to cultivate forgiveness. First we acknowledge what we feel—shame, revenge, embarrassment, remorse. Then we forgive ourselves for being human. Then, in the spirit of not wallowing in the pain, we let go and make a fresh start. We don’t have to carry the burden with us anymore. We will discover forgiveness as a natural expression of the open heart, an expression of our basic goodness. This potential is inherent in every moment. Each moment is an opportunity to make a fresh start."

First acknowledge the hurt and all the feelings we have about it Then forgive ourselves for being imperfect and human.
Then we let go of the pain.
Then we make a fresh start.
Then we can begin to have an open heart.
Then we begin again.
Then we begin again.

During these Days of Awe, may we remember the importance of our practice of forgiveness. May we take time, critical time, to give and receive forgiveness and to restore ourselves, each other, and the world.
May you feel the sweet release that comes from forgiving others.

May you feel the balm of being forgiven and of forgiving yourself.
Each and every day, may we say as part of our spiritual practice, “We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.”

Blessed Be. I Love You. Amen.

1 Spiritual Literacy, Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. A Touchstone Book published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996. Page 501
2 Ibid, page 19.