FOR THE SAKE OF THE NAME

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name's sake.

(1 John 2: 12 NIV)

John has spent considerable time talking about how crucial love is between fellow believers. He had spent considerable time making it clear that any belittling of our siblings in faith slides toward a failure of love for them, which leads to the darkness of hate. The consequences of letting even slivers of hatred into our lives can be serious.

So suddenly, John stops and puts forward this reassurance. He gives it in a very loving voice, addressing the readers as “little children.” It is the warm voice of a gentle, beloved grandparent reaching out to scampering youngsters, drawing the lively, wiggling little bodies in to a sheltering hug.

“I am writing to you, little children....”

This is personal. This is loving. This is not generic, directed to just anyone who might be hearing. This reassurance is intended for the loved ones he has been speaking to, the loved ones who are listening to his words. He is speaking to all of us who have chosen to follow the Lord, for we are all of one family.

Many of us forget what it is to be loved in that warm, unconditional, sheltering way. For some, there was the misfortune of never having had that kind of love in their lives, due to abandonment, or abuse, or loss of family for whatever reason. For some, they have been struggling with survival on their own for so long, such blessings in the past have become frozen, static memories, gilded postcards locked away in storage, no longer conveying any sense of present love. Many of us get caught up in just getting through our lives, getting tangled in relationships where every exchange becomes registered in a Quid Pro Quo balance book.

John brings us back to this starting point.

We have a Father who loves us, unconditionally. We have fellow believers who love us as well. We have the assurance of that place. We can climb into the lap of that loving grandfather, and feel comfortable and safe in that haven.

But John doesn’t stop there.

“I am writing to you because your sins have been forgiven for His name’s sake.”

After spending so much time reminding us of the discomforts of being trapped outside community, of being cast into the outer darkness by our own dreadful negative attitudes and behaviors, John brings us the assurance that our sins have been forgiven.

Even though we can fall into the darkness of hating our brother, we need not stay there. Those errors have been forgiven.

He doesn’t say they will be forgiven.

He doesn’t say they can be forgiven.

He doesn’t say that there are conditions for us to receive forgiveness.

No.

He says, our sins have been forgiven. That task is done, completed. It is sitting there, waiting for us. All we need do is claim it, accept it.

John even tells us why it is there for us, ready and waiting.

We are forgiven “for His name’s sake.”

God Almighty, the Creator of the Universe, the Most Holy One, whose purity is so intense that we cannot approach it on our own because our own impurities, which are so deeply woven into our being, would be destroyed by that refining fire. We simply cannot come near to God on our own. We cannot remove our sins on our own, not well enough to get us into the presence of God.

And yet, we are allowed to climb into that loving, sheltering lap of divinity, for the sake of the name of Jesus. Because Christ has taken all the burden of sin upon Himself and has purged it by His suffering, we who have become His followers, who have taken up His name, we are given forgiveness and access to the full love of God.

For the sake of His name.

I know there are times when people feel this is too easy, and that the gift is abused. There are people who lay claim to the name of Jesus, and yet still continue to indulge their sins and hatreds. But John has already spoken to the matter of those who do not in reality let go of their inner darknesses. God is not fooled by our simply “claiming the name of Jesus.”

But there are also those who are serious about turning away from the sins and errors of their past, who yet feel that they have not earned that forgiveness. They feel that there should be some tasks they must do, so pains to suffer, in order to be given that free access to God’s love.

But none of us can earn it. We haven’t the capacity to earn it by right. There is nothing we can do that can wipe out a lifetime of small, petty evils done to those around us, as well as the bigger, more spectacular sins we all recognize. And when we face that and understand it, we realize what a tremendous gift God’s forgiveness is.

It was already earned for our sake, it was already paid for by Christ’s suffering, it was already accomplished by the One whom God the Father loves before all else: Jesus.

Little children, draw near. Climb into the lap of the Almighty God, for you will not be destroyed by His holiness. You have taken on the name of Jesus, and His blood gives you the protection. For the sake of the name of the Beloved of God, you are already forgiven. Know this. Believe this.

SELF DECEIT


If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
(1 John 1: 8 – NAS)


John doesn’t really pull any punches in his letter. He has just praised the nature of fellowship – with each other and with Jesus Christ. He has indicated that a lack of love can keep us from fellowship. He has told us that we need to choose to walk in the Light of Christ.

So we’re thinking, “Yay! I can do this, easy-peasey.”

And then he brings us to this stop by pointing out that if we say we have no sin in us, we’re not telling the truth.

This is not something we want to hear, not something we want to face. At any time.

When we are working diligently to follow the Lord, to genuinely keep to his teachings, we don’t want to think about our small lapses, hidden resentments, suppressed angers. We want to believe that we have “let go” of all those things. But John knows human nature very well, and he knows that we are so often not honest with ourselves.

As followers of Jesus, we try to shape our lives to what He wants us to be as Children of God. So we watch out for the Big Sins: murder, adultery, thieving. We keep an eye on ourselves for signs of sinful inclination: greed, lust, anger. We lecture ourselves on indulging in these things. And we restrain our actions.

But we do not do such a good job on excising them from our hearts.

Anger and resentment are easy things to keep around, treasured in our hearts. Oh, we vow never to act on them, because we do not want to sin. But we savor our angers as if they were fine wines. We cloak them in the fine garb of Righteous Indignation and refuse to acknowledge it as sin. We make a judgment on the actions and intentions of others and feel justified in our disdain and dislike. Because their actions and beliefs are wrong or even sinful, we shun them, despise them, ridicule them, pour vitriol on them – because they are unworthy.

We forget that they also are beloved of God. We treat them as if they have already faced Christ on the Judgment Seat and have been cast off. We ignore the possibility of redemption.

Is this not sin on our part? To deny that redemption is possible, even in those who are (in our eyes) so steeped in sin that we are greatly repelled by them?

Occasionally, as a test of just how willing I am to trust the redemptive power of Jesus, I speculate on What Ifs that can challenge one’s faith. Let us suppose that we know as a certainty that anyone standing within the Gates of Heaven has been redeemed and accepted by the Lord, that such a person has indeed repented of all his or her sins, and has submitted themselves entirely to the sovereignty of God. Now then, suppose we are ourselves approaching the Gates of Heaven and the person standing there to greet us and lead us into the presence of God is the absolute last person we expected to see in Heaven. What is our reaction? Will we trust that God knows what He is doing by letting this person into Heaven?

As an artist, I love to go for bold colors and high contrast. And so I often cast this What If with Hitler as the greeter. Yes, I think it is highly unlikely, since the very act of suicide is a slap at God’s gift of life. But What If...?

As a believer, I am called to trust the Lord entirely. Not my own “wisdom” or “understanding.” I cannot possibly know what goes on deep in the heart of another person. I cannot possibly know what repentance they reach. And because I cannot know these things, what justification do I have for holding on to angers and resentments caused by the actions of another?

Oh, many say, “Their works speak for them! See how they continue to support these ungodly causes! They persist in them! That puts them utterly outside the grace of God, and I need show no mercy to them.”

Oh, really?

BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL, FOR THEY SHALL OBTAIN MERCY.

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS, FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE SONS OF GOD.

If we do not believe in the ultimate redemptive power of Jesus Christ, what will happen to us if we come face to face with the Least Likely Person at the Gates of Heaven?

I have long since stopped holding to the pretty story idea that we are met at the Gates of Heaven by Saint Peter. Yes, he was given the Keys to Heaven, but Jesus never said he had to do Greeter duty. It is a challenge to myself to imagine the redemption of the least likely person I know in my own life.

That, at least, keeps me from deceiving myself about God’s love for others, even those I consider unlikely.

But that is just one sin. What about others?

As a storyteller, I have to create evil characters. It is an honest reflection of the world around us, that some people choose to do evil because they get a pleasure out of it. Not because they were misunderstood or abused or injured in some way along their life-path (though those things may have indeed happened). No, some people deliberately, knowingly, choose actions they know are destructive to others. And so I write such characters from time to time.

As a creator, I have to love “my creatures” in order to give them life. Even though I know their choices, and their fates, and the dire things that will come from them, I love them as creations. But I take no pleasure in their actions.

But there are some types of storytelling, very popular these days, where the storytellers invite the audience to identify with evil characters. The audience is drawn into enjoying the cleverness of a character’s cruelty, of reveling in the satisfaction of unfettered violence, without concern for the life or feelings of the victim. And I have heard people justify this type of storytelling as “Showing us the mess of this person’s life.”

What, I have to ask, is the audience member really enjoying in this type of story?

The truth is, the enjoyment is the pleasure of sinning. The audience member can excuse him or herself by saying, “*I* would not choose to do these things!” But by returning to it, time after time, the audience member acquiesces to the cruelty and evil.

We allow little indulgences into our lives, and pretend that because they are entertainments they do not affect us. But it does make us more tolerant of sin, not just in others but in ourselves.

We resented the service we get in a restaurant, so we feel justified in being curt with the waiter. “This is what you gave me, so this is what you’re getting back!” How is THIS what Jesus taught us? Didn’t Jesus say, “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you”? He didn’t say, “Give as you get.”

We were slighted by a friend, and though we do not know why, we harbor the hurt and nurse it along with vinegar in the wound. We extend less love and care to that friend because we feel we had been injured in some way. Where does mercy lie in this?

These are little things we do every single day, even while we are endeavoring to follow Christ.

John is quite right when he says that if we say we have no sin in us we are lying and deceiving ourselves.

It requires daily examination of our souls. It is a constant weeding process to keep the garden of our spirit free of the weeds of sin. And just because we seem to have gotten all the weeds yesterday, we still have to check the planting beds and look for the wayward shoots of new, young weeds sprouting up.

But the reward for all this work is fellowship with Christ. Surely that is worth the pain of some self-honesty and weeding?

THE BARRIER OF UNFORGIVENESS

 
For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. 
(Matthew 6: 14-15 – NAS)


So, Jesus has finished His “example prayer,” but wants to make sure His followers understand a very key point in the prayer. He wants to be certain that we grasp at one thing that can stand between us and our Father in heaven.

Unforgiveness.

The love of God is unconditional. We should never doubt that. He does truly love us with all of His being. But even though that love is indeed unconditional and perpetually available to us, that does not mean that it cannot be obstructed. 

Access to God’s love and forgiveness requires an open channel between our hearts and His. And the one thing that can block that up, that can choke off the flow, is a failure to forgive others. 

Why should this be so? 

In simplest terms, unforgiveness is a failure to love others. When we do not forgive others, we have shut them out of our hearts. We close the door on any connection to that person.  

But God is Love, and needs “open doors.” God cannot enter in, if we have closed off our door to anyone. He can stand outside knocking (“I stand at the door and knock.” Rev. 3: 20), but He has to wait for us to open the door to Him. 

It’s easy to fall into regarding these two verses as a sort of quid pro quo, we do this for God and He’ll do that for us. We can fall into treating the act of forgiving others as if it were just another duty. We don’t always think about it as being necessary to our relationship with God. 

Yet, every small unforgiveness is one thing standing between us and the full love of God. 

And there’s another thing that gets in the way of our being able to fully commit to forgiving others: we actually find it easier to forgive strangers and those outside our intimate circle than it is to forgive those who are “inside our defenses.” 

How easily we hold on to the small resentments and hurts that our loved ones inadvertently – or intentionally – inflict upon us. And because they are small things, we “don’t bother” addressing the need for forgiveness. “Sue was in such a rush yesterday, she stepped on my foot. And my toe is all black and blue because of it. It hurts.” “I know Bob was joking yesterday, when he made that quip, but because of this other set-back I had, it really cut me to the quick.” “Terry was certainly trying to give me wise advice and counsel. But that one recommendation might as well have been a knife to my heart!” All these things we carry around, never mention to the people involved, and brood over. “How could they not know how badly they wounded me? They don’t really care, that must be it!” 

And so we harbor resentment. We let our sense of injury find a haven in our hearts, and with each little pile of misery, we close the door a crack. We keep the clutter of resentments around, because individually they don’t seem all that big a deal, not realizing that the whole collection is becoming so big that it is shutting the door. 

And God is standing outside that door waiting to come in. 

And then one day, the door is closed, and we look around and wonder where all that light and joy went. How did the door get closed? Where did God go? Why isn’t He here? 

And we start thinking that He is the one who left us. 

The reality is that we let our massive collection of unforgiveness push Him right out the door. We have become hoarders of the emotional garbage of our own lives. 

It isn’t that God won't forgive us if we do not forgive others. It is that He cannot. Forgiveness requires the very touch of His hand on our hearts. It requires His presence inside our hearts. And if we’ve pushed Him outside, leaving Him on our doorstep, what can He do? 

The danger for us is that we can delude ourselves about how connected we are to the Lord. After all, every day, He stands on our doorstep waiting for us. Others go by and say “Oh, look how wonderful! The Lord is at Sam’s house!” We step outside our heart-house and go about our daily business, and the Lord walks with us, and others think it’s wonderful. We’re doing so many of the actions Jesus has told us to do, and obviously He’s at our elbows. But others may not realize that when we go home to live with what is inside our hearts, we haven't made any room for the Lord to actually come in. 

Why do we hold on to this emotional clutter? It tastes bitter and unpleasant. It does not nourish us in any way. It eats away at our energy and joy. So why do we hold onto all the little resentments, angers, and injuries? 

Perhaps because we’re afraid that if we let go of them we will have nothing inside. At least with the resentments we know we are feeling something. If we let go of those, what have we left? 

If we let go of them, if we sweep them out of our hearts, what we have left is a wide, open space in our hearts, in our lives. for God to fill up with Himself. The Glory of God stands at the door of our hearts waiting to come in, if we would just get rid of the junk, if we would just forgive everyone who has trespassed against us.  

What do we get if we forgive others? Oh, nothing more than all of heaven taking up residence inside us. 

All we need to is cast open that door and sweep out the clutter of unforgiveness.

DEBTS AND TRESPASSES


And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
(Matthew 6: 12 – NAS)


When I was young, the church I went to used “trespasses” in the Lord’s Prayer. I did, of course, know of the other translation. It would be one of the things when traveling, when we would visit a church somewhere. Were we to be debtors or trespassers?

I would think about how we see those as two different things, very different it seemed to me. So how was it that whatever the Greek word was at this point would translate acceptably as such different things?

To my young mind, I understood the need for forgiveness of trespasses. That word (and the negative aspect of it) was fairly easy to grasp. “No trespassing” signs were a common plot device in many older cartoons, so even the very young could follow that it meant the you weren’t supposed to intrude on someone else’s territory. From there it was easy enough to extend it outward and see that any act when infringed or damaged someone else’s “territory” whether physical or psychological or spiritual was a trespass of sorts. An injury of sorts.

So it was easy enough to understand the need for forgiveness of trespasses. Especially if you committed the trespass unintentionally.

But debt was a different matter.

A debt, to my youthful mind, was something you owed someone else, usually because they had given you something. So what did it mean to ask that our debts be forgiven?

When you’re young, you think in the most basic terms. In this case, money. Suppose I owed my brother a dollar, if that debt is forgiven, I don’t have to give a dollar back to him.

On the one hand, that seemed like a very desirable thing. Especially if I no longer had a dollar to return to him. I wouldn’t have to worry about his constantly asking for a dollar I no longer had to give him. But on the other hand, it seemed kind of unfair. After all, I had gotten the benefit of the dollar. Didn’t he deserve to be repaid?

Of course, there is a condition on this. “As we forgive those who ....”

Ah, ha! So this isn’t just a blind waving away of all the things we got wrong, intentionally or otherwise.

How well do we forgive others, when they trespass against us, when they are in our debt for any reason?

It’s human nature to remember injuries done to us and debts that are owed us. When we are intruded upon, we feel the damage. When we give out of our means we know we have shortened our own supply in order to benefit someone else. We remember these things because they are significant.

But to forgive them? To set them aside? That’s not so easy.

Most all of us keep a mental ledger of injuries and debts, whether we admit it or not. Quid pro quo, this for that, is a very common factor in life.

At this point, we start to realize what a difficult process forgiveness is. Yes, certainly, we desire to have our own infractions forgiven. To know that we are relieved of the burden of knowing we have injured someone, that is a joyful feeling. But our sense of justice balks at being relieved of our debts to others. We know full well that we have benefited from something given by someone else, something they gave out of their own means. But to be forgiven our debt to that person means it’s likely they will never receive a recompense for what they gave out. That just doesn’t seem right.

The weight of indebtedness can be crippling. So much of our life has been supported by the assistance of others, in so very many ways. From the small debt to the person who made way for us in the grocery line because we were in a rush and they only had one item to the person who helps us out financially in a major emergency. The small debts we accept easily enough. The big ones we often respond to with “You don’t know what this means to me. I can never repay this!” Often when we say that last one, we are talking not about the debt of the actual money, but rather the significance of the help at that moment.

To have debts like that forgiven is to lighten our hearts, to let us accept the gift and bless the giver and move forward without being entangled in trying to balance things out on our own.

But Jesus in instructing us to pray this way is making us equally responsible for how well we extend this grace to others. “As we forgive those who have trespassed against us, as we forgive our debtors.” We are asking to receive just the type of forgiveness we give to others.

Which is where I come to a screeching halt.

So, it is not just about asking to be forgiven for my own mistakes and injuries I have done. It was easy enough to ask for that, for the Lord knows that I’ve made those mistakes and committed those injuries – many inadvertently, but some intentionally. It is about how well I can let go of requiring retribution or restitution for what has been done to me or what I have given others.

That’s not so easy.

“You hurt me.” We want our injuries to be understood and acknowledged. We want the other person to apologize, to ask for forgiveness.

But that’s not what Jesus seems to be supporting here. He doesn’t say “Forgive those who have injured you only when they ask for it.” He’s saying that basically we are to be living in such an attitude that we can forgive even as things happen to us. Pretty much the way God goes about it. In some ways, forgiving injuries can become easy. We can humbly endure the blows of the world, and forgive the striker even as the blows fall.

Forgiving debts as we go along is not as easy. If we loan someone money, on the understanding that it IS a loan, we expect a return on it. That’s reasonable, that’s fair, and when we’re the debtor, we understand that. It’s why we fall into great distress when we cannot repay such a debt. It is fair and right that our benefactor be repaid. When we are the one who has given something out, we expected a return at some point. It takes a lot of strength to let go of that expectation.

When we get beyond mere money matters and into other types of debts, we don’t often pay attention to the fact that we do regard them as debts. “I helped you with that thing, I expect you to return the favor.” That type of thinking lingers in the backs of our minds. Quid pro quo. We want to feel that we got something out of our actions.

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Forget about asking for return favors from those you have helped. If they give back, it is grace. But not because of quid pro quo.

That is what Jesus wants us to strive for.

Forgive us as we forgive others.

I know I am in desperate need of forgiveness – we all are. However careful I am, I know it’s possible to do injury to others. There are debts of caring and support and encouragement that I can never repay fully: the givers cannot possibly know how deeply important some small gift was at the moment they gave it. I need forgiveness.

How well do I forgive others? That’s where I trip up. Am I holding on to some unvoiced expectation of recompense for something? Am I harboring the sting of a wound I received? Am I holding on to the memory of something given that went seemingly unacknowledged and never repaid?

Maybe we need to add something here: “Help me to forgive, Lord, because I’m not very good at it.”

Happily, the forgiveness of God is more far-reaching, deeper, all-encompassing than we can possibly imagine. But we still need to learn how to do it ourselves.