Psalm 32; Luke 7:36-50
The box sat on Adrian’s shelf for 12 years. It
was a small box, square, and wrapped in shiny green paper with a big red bow on
top. It was a Christmas present his wife
Trudy had given him before she died. He
just couldn’t bring himself to open it.
It hurt too much. So it sat
there, for twelve years. He would bring
it out at Christmas time, and put it under his tree. He would look at it. He would touch it. But he wouldn’t actually open it. He wouldn’t receive the gift she’d given to
him.
Now, if you watched the TV show Monk
while it was on, you know just what box I’m talking about and you know who
Adrian Monk is. If you didn’t watch the
show, I’ll fill you in on the essentials.
Adrian Monk was a detective. But,
he had some problems. He had all kinds of phobias—milk, germs, ladders, lady
bugs—there was a list of about 300. He
also had obsessive compulsive disorder, and was always touching lights and
counting poles, checking to see if he’d left the oven on. He had always had quirks, but it was his
wife’s death that sent him over the edge into full blown psychological problems
to the point of disability. And still,
he was brilliant. He could walk into a
crime scene and see things no one else noticed.
He could put together bits of information no one else could
connect. By the end of the hour, he
could always solve the case.
Except for one. His wife Trudy’s murder. He couldn’t figure it out, and he couldn’t
let it go. And in the end, we find out
that the box, the Christmas gift that he wouldn’t open is actually intimately
related to this seemingly impossible to solve mystery. But more on that later. Because at this point, you’re probably
wondering what in the world Adrian Monk has to do with the Psalms and
Luke.
In both these scripture passages, we
are reminded that, like Adrian, we have been given a gift. Our gift, however, is from God. Now, I’m not
going to tell you what the gift from Trudy was.
But I will tell you what our gift from God is It’s forgiveness. And, like the gift from Trudy was so
difficult for Adrian to open, God’s gift of forgiveness can be incredibly hard
for us to accept too.
Accepting God’s forgiveness requires
us to admit that we need God’s gift in the first place. First and foremost, this requires us to
recognize our own sin. We have to see
where we have gone astray, and that can be difficult when our world doesn’t
reflect God’s realm very well. Sin
doesn’t always stand out. To figure out
what this means, let’s take Simon in the Luke reading as an example. He thought he was doing pretty well. As a Pharisee, he was a strict observer of
Torah, and a very religious man. He had
invited Jesus into his home, and is feeding him a meal. He’s showing hospitality
to a man many viewed as strange or radical.
And yet, Jesus points out, Simon
didn’t do everything he could have for Jesus.
And, more importantly, Simon didn’t even realize that he had done and
not done things that needed forgiveness.
Jesus points out small things, and these small things probably mirror
the kind of sin most of us commit. It’s
not likely that we’ve murdered someone, but it is likely that we don’t always
show God’s love to its fullest potential.
But, just because our sin is hard for us to see, it doesn’t mean that we
aren’t in need of forgiveness.
But, even when we do see our own
sin, we run into another complication.
There’s the whole part where we need to admit it, to ask God for
forgiveness. And we live in a culture
teaches us that we’re not supposed to need anything from anyone. It’s a culture that idolizes
independence. If we can do accomplish
projects by ourselves, if we can “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,” if we
can figure out a way to make it work without involving anyone else, then, by
cultural standards, we’ve made it. The
goal is to get enough money and enough resources that we can support ourselves,
and whatever we need to do to get there is ok, as long as we make it to
self-sufficiency. We’re not supposed to
move back in with our parents (I did), we’re not supposed to ever take
government assistance (I have), and when we get older, we’re not supposed to
need anyone to take care of us, because if we do, that’s a failure. Or, to
return to the opening story, Adrian was a brilliant detective. He wasn’t supposed to need a Christmas
present to help him solve a case.
So, to need forgiveness then,
in our culture is to be seen as weak or a failure. And that make forgiveness a
hard gift to accept. To be fair though, this mindset of self-sufficiency isn’t
unique to this particular culture. Even the psalmist, thousands of years ago
and thousands of miles away, writes about how difficult it was for them to
acknowledge sin. They write that they
“kept silence” before they could even bring themselves to acknowledge sin to
God. We often do this too, don’t
we? Not just with God, but perhaps with
a partner or a friend. We realize we’ve
done something wrong, but it hurts or shames us too much to admit it. Even though, in most cases, we know they will
forgive us, we still hold back.
And, with God, we can be sure that
we will be forgiven, and yet, we hold back.
I want to repeat that, because sometime it’s hard to accept that part
too. God will forgive you, even
if the sin or sins you see don’t seem small.
God will surely forgive all of us for whatever we’ve done or left
undone. Even so, we’re still not quite
sure if that gift of forgiveness is worth the effort and pain it takes to open
the box.
Why should we even bother then? If our sins are hard to see, if it’s hard to
accept forgiveness, what’s the point in even finding our sin, admitting it, and
asking for forgiveness? The psalmist helps
us out with this too. As they point out,
sin has consequences. Even physical
consequences. I’m not suggesting that
God physically punishes us when we sin and don’t admit it. I am suggesting that there are natural
consequences to carrying around the burden of sin. The psalmist talks about this. They write that while they carried around the
burden of unacknowledged sin, their body wasted away, they groaned all day
long, and their strength was dried up.
Adrian almost died before he was willing to open the box. He was sick, weak, and miserable. Perhaps you know the feeling. I’m willing to bet that we’ve all carried
around guilt or shame, and it’s hard. It
hurts. It breaks us down, physically and
mentally.
And still, sometimes, we hold on to
our sin. We may think it’s trivial and
we can hide it. We may think that it’s
not that bad and really doesn’t need forgiveness. But it weighs on us and wears on us and it
robs us from the full experience of forgiveness and yet we can’t let it
go. We can’t open that green box. Maybe it’s because we wonder if it’s really
worth it. Because, yes, sin wears on us,
but we can survive. We’re not to the
point of death yet. And if we survive
without opening that box, we can avoid some pain and maybe some shame. Is forgiveness really that good of a gift,
anyway?
Yes.
Yes, forgiveness is that good of a gift.
And, only when we accept it can we experience how good forgiveness
is. When Monk opened the box from Trudy,
it was incredibly painful for him. But,
it was also incredibly liberating.
Without spoiling it for those of you who haven’t seen the show, in that
little green box was what he needed to finally solve her murder. Because he opened the box, his pain, guilt,
and mental anguish subsided. He found joy
again. He was able to love again.
Here’s the really good news. When we accept the forgiveness that God
offers us, it’s even better than Monk’s box.
God’s forgiveness takes away our burdens from sin, guilt, and
shame. God’s forgiveness opens us to
experiencing joy. We can see this as we
go back to the psalmist—they describe their time before confessing sin and
subsequently receiving forgiveness as a time of anguish. And how do they describe forgiveness? Happiness, glad cries of deliverance, gladness,
and shouting for joy. And, the psalmist
tries to persuade us to do as they’ve done—to open that box of forgiveness no
matter how hard it might be.
Forgiveness gives us a new, better
quality of life. Through acknowledging sin and accepting God’s gift of
forgiveness we are freed to live in gratitude and love. Just look at the woman from the Luke
passage—she is living in forgiven gratitude and love. She is weeping with gratitude, kissing the
feet of the one she knows has forgiven her sins. And Jesus praises her as the example of
faithfulness. Jesus doesn’t actually
forgive this woman’s sins in the story we read.
She enters Simon’s house in a state of forgiven gratefulness, and this
is the example we get of how to live faithfully. A sinner, forgiven and grateful for the gift.
So if we want to follow the example
this woman sets, we, too, need to accept that difficult gift of
forgiveness. I won’t pretend to know how
this looks for each of you, because it will be different for everyone. However this looks for you, whether it’s
crying your gratitude all over Jesus’ feet or the glad cries of deliverance the
psalmist speaks about coming out of your mouth, or simply basking in the newly
received joy of forgivennness—accept this part of God’s gift too. Live in loving gratitude, in faith, in hope,
and in joy. You are forgiven. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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