“Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”

(Luke 6:37)

“I believe . . in the forgiveness of sins.”

 (The Apostles’ Creed)

There is something fascinating about an echo. Have you ever seen a child stand on a lake shore and shout whatever came into his head, and then listen gleefully at the resounding echo of his own words coming back from the curtain of hills or trees on the farther shore? A child can call into the mouth of a cave: “Hello, Hello,” and though there is no one inside, the echo will ring right back: “Hello, Hello.” Whatever ridiculous or impudent words the child will hurl out, back comes the echo in carbon copy of the sound. Perhaps you, yourself, have been such a child, and enjoyed your own experiments with life’s resounding echoes.

Helmut Thielicke, a Lutheran minister, says: “We are all always echoes. The only question is — Echoes of what? Surely this is true of the basic spiritual tone of our lives. We can echo either the world’s habitual ethic of paying back in kind the slights and dirty tricks others have heaped on us, or we can echo the divine law of forgiveness. “Either we are echoes of the injustice, the intrigue, the chicanery, the meanness that is around us, and then we ourselves become scheming, cheating and mean. Or, we are echoes of Jesus Christ, and therefore echoes of that forgiving, renewing, creative love that comes to us from our Heavenly Father. Then we ourselves become loving, renewing, forgiving, positive.”(P. 113 — Our Heavenly Father by Helmut Thielicke)

The natural echo of the natural man or woman is to give back to others what is sent our way, to answer kindness with kindness, and cut with cut. When friends invite you to their party, you invite them to your party. If a guy balls up his fist and wallops you one, then you give him one right back in the same place just as hard, if not a little harder. When some friend is cool and reserved with you instead of the warm, open path of friendship you had always walked with him, then you in return become distant and withdrawn.

The TV western, police and detective shows are all geared to the ancient law echoing blood vengeance — gun down the one who gunned down your brother, or friend, or father. So it goes, one boom-boom of destruction after another, echoing and richeting on and on.

This is the ancient moral and ethical law of retaliation: “echo back what the world gives you” — bitter for bitter, sweet for sweet. Is this the only possible echo?

Oh, no! There is another echo. For when Jesus came something new was added — something which the ethical experts and moral philosophers have called the only real innovation in human relations in 2000 years. Jesus brought the divine law of forgiveness.

“Turn the other cheek, when you get hit,” said Jesus. “Return good for evil. Instead of hating your enemies and loving your friends; love your enemies, do good to those who mistreat you, pray for those who persecute you.”

And why this reverse English? Why, when someone throws you a curve, return with a straight pitch? Because while the world of mixed evil and good is dealing out to all of us favors and cruelties, slights and pats on the back, the great, beating heart of God is sending out invariably goodness and love and forgiveness.

And how do we know that this is so? From the echo that came clear and strong from Jesus. He said over and over that his words and deeds were nothing he had thought up all by himself and was trying as a brave new experiment. He said, “What you see and hear from me is what God is thinking and saying and doing all the time.” Jesus set his life to catch and reflect, not the noisy bickering of the selfish crowd, or the cruel scheming of his enemies, but what was always beamed toward all people from our Heavenly Father. The human life of Jesus was the great sounding board that caught the eternal heart beat and echoed that love.

On the cross, suffering, bleeding, dying, jeered by his enemies, deserted by his friends, Jesus prayed: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” How did Jesus do it? He was echoing the divine forgiveness.

Now, in the Apostles’ Creed we say: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” Most people interpret this to mean: “I believe God will forgive me when I sin. If I do wrong, God is like Jesus showed him to be, loving and forgiving. When I send out sin, God sends back forgiveness. When I hurl out hate, he throws back love.”

Because of such an anemic, two-dimensional interpretation of the forgiveness of sins, some good, moral people can’t believe in this section of the Creed. A fine judge I knew in a former pastorate, who had all his life been a member of the church and a force for good in his community, once said to me: “There is no such thing as the forgiveness of sins. This is a moral universe. Every man must pay his honest debts. As you sow, so shall you reap. I don’t believe in the forgiveness of sins.”

How many a person doesn’t believe in the forgiveness of sins because so few understand what forgiveness is in its fullness. What is forgiveness? It is certainly not the ready release of a convicted criminal to run amuck again on unsuspecting society. It is not free pardon for the impenitent.

Neither is forgiveness “miraculous, chemical cleansing” of someone made sinless by a merciful God without any voluntary cooperative activity on that person’s part.

Rather, forgiveness is the restoration of a relationship. “When a child lies to his mother; when a husband deceives his wife, something between them is broken. We say, ‘something has come between them.’ And when the mother forgives her child or the wife forgives her husband, this does not mean: ‘I forget it.’ (She can never forget it.  Even in old age she may feel an icy chill when she thinks of that lie which her husband or her child uttered long ago.) Forgiveness means: ‘This shall not separate us. The bond of love joining us is stronger than the separating power that would come between.’” (H. Thielicke — Ibid. p.111)

Forgiveness is not an easy transaction. It is never a cheap purchase in the shop of human relationships. Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke of “the costly grace of God’s forgiveness”. It cost God the Father the suffering of God the Son. It costs the forgiven disciple the discipline of his daily discipleship. Martin Luther knew God’s forgiveness cost him his own life lived every day, not as he, Martin Luther, wished it, but as Christ directed it. Only as he, Martin Luther, lived in true discipleship, confessing and repenting of his sins, was the restored relationship preserved.

And this finally brings us to acknowledge that we cannot ever say: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins” unless we really mean not only: “I believe God forgives me, an unworthy but penitent sinner, but I also believe that I must echo the divine forgiveness in my relationships with others. This is the cost of my discipleship. When my spirit does not echo God’s forgiving spirit, then the bonds of my restored relationship have been broken. Are we not taught to pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors?”

When John Wesley was aboard ship sailing to America with Oglethorpe and the company of debtors Oglethorpe was bringing to establish his colony in Georgia, Oglethorpe’s servant, Grimaldi, drank up most of the Governor’s finest wine. Oglethorpe was enraged. He determined that Grimaldi should be flogged. “I never forgive,” exclaimed Oglethorpe. John Wesley looked at the Governor very calmly and said: “Then I hope, Sir, that you never sin.”

Our gospel lesson this morning was the parable of the unmerciful servant. It’s about a man who owed his master a huge, well nigh unpayable debt. It was past due and the servant begged his master to give him more time and he would try to pay all that was owed. But the master, with an astonishing generosity, forgave his servant the whole sum. But that forgiven man went right out from the presence of his Lord and refused to forgive a fellow servant a much smaller debt that was owed him. And Jesus said his parable’s lesson is that God cannot keep intact the restored relationship which forgiveness is, no matter how limitless is God’s willingness to forgive our greatest sin, unless we do our part in maintaining that relationship by echoing God’s forgiveness in all directions toward our fellows who have wronged us.

A beautiful girl suffering from amnesia didn’t know who she was or where she came from. She appealed to the police to help her discover her identity. When at last the mystery was solved and she was told who she was and where she came from, the girl violently protested that she was not that person who had that name. “No!” she cried, “I do not like that girl. She has no courage and cannot be depended upon. I am not that person!” So violent was the girl’s dislike of the person she had become, that she wanted to forget who she was, and for a time she was successful in her unconscious self-deception.

We all get pretty sick of ourselves at times, don’t we? How we would like to forget who we are and run away from what we have become. But however much we disfigure the image of God in our lives, and however much we hate that marred character we have become, we remain ever His children, and His love for us never fails, and booming from His great heart is His wonderful forgiveness.

The more we echo the world’s hatred and demand for careful payment in kind, the more we forget who we really are, and the farther we drift from where we really belong. The more we echo the loving, forgiving heart of God, the more we realize and prove for all the world to see that we are the forgiven children of a merciful, loving Father in Heaven.