The gospel of forgiveness

 What is forgiveness? Is it simply saying "I'm sorry" and moving on? How do we go about not only seeking but  also giving forgiveness? Alcoholics Anonymous has a list of 12 steps towards forgiveness. People pay therapists  thousands of dollars to try to learn how to forgive. God created the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous and God created therapists. In other words,  God is not the only means available to us to receive or grant forgiveness. However, we cannot grant  true forgiveness  on our own. In order to forgive we must "let  go and let God." This is not always easy for us to do, because very often, we are raised  to believe that we are in control.  We are taught to be responsible for our own actions and that if we ask for help we are selling ourselves short. Letting go is the root of Christian fellowship and forgiveness.  To be able to grant true forgiveness all we can do is turn to God and build a relationship with God in order that we might forgive others. Forgiveness means letting go of all hope for a better past.  We cannot change the past the only thing we can do is except whatever happened in the past and then hand it over to God.
  What about receiving forgiveness?   The route of Satan, evil and sin is the voice  inside of you telling you that you are not God's beloved child and therefore you cannot be forgiven. However,  The parable of the prodigal son teaches us of God's unconditional love for us. How often do we forget to ask  for God's grace? How often are we like the older son in the parable, stubbornly refusing to forgive? Several of us during the Wednesday soup and  discussion  found ourselves rather uncomfortably relating to the older brother in the story.   We don't know if the brothers in the story learned anything. It ends with the father and the older son still outside discussing the prodigal son's   return.  Just as we don't know when ask forgiveness of others whether or not it will be granted to us.  Why is it then  that when we seek forgiveness of others we forget to ask for God's grace? Unconditional forgiveness is the scandal of Christianity.

I am who I am

In the Old Testament story of Moses and the Burning Bush, Moses asks "Who are you?" God answers "I am who I am." In other words don't define me. God doesn't change but our perception of God changes throughout history and even throughout our lives. We have the perception of God from the Book of Genesis. In the Garden of Eden God is the stern parent reproaching his children Adam and Eve for disobeying his laws. There is the perception of God from the Book of Exodus as the teacher outlining for Moses the Ten Commandments. The second of those commandments being “You shall have no other gods before Me." There's only one God and that God loves us. So even though our perceptions of God change God's self doesn't change. 
We have to realize that all decisions we make come from God, As humans however, luck plays an important role in our lives. We question "Was is bad luck for the money changers in the temple the day Jesus decided to overturn their tables and disrupt business?" "Why was it this criminal got Pilot's attention?" "Why does this person have cancer?" Whether we are lucky or unlucky, human beings have a debilitating tendency to push God away. When we do this we are sinning. Sin is pushing God away. 
During this time of Lent we try to unpack our laziness and self obsession. We try to get away from trying to define who we are. We spend so much time asking "Who am I?" and then defining ourselves by what we do "Spouse, parent, what we do for a living" and never get past the resume stage. God says "I am who I am." Our jobs during Lent are to sacrifice and be loyal. To do this we must submit to God (listen to what God is saying to us) and try to answer the presence of God. 
Our Wednesday discussion group tried to unpack our laziness and self obsession in two ways. The first was to list things for the week or the day that we ought to have done and then list things we ought not to have done and one thing we were glad we did today. Then we took a list of the ten commandments and next to them list which of them we haven't followed. As Father Malcom said we may not have literally killed someone this week but maybe we killed someone's spirit. The idea was to move from the intellectual to the spiritual then we took our lists and shredded them. It was interesting because I had just gotten done burning old receipts and bills from previous year's taxes with a little sage. The idea is the same whether you're shredding, burning or simply tearing up. You are taking all of that stuff and releasing it up to God. I find when I let go and release that it's easier to submit to God and to try to answer the presence of God because I have literally made more room for God to come into my life. 
So I encourage you to stop asking for a while "Who am I?" and simply state "I am who I am" and accept that whoever you are and whatever perception you have of God, God loves you.