{"id":4834,"date":"2013-10-29T07:12:58","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T12:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/?p=4834"},"modified":"2013-10-24T08:53:04","modified_gmt":"2013-10-24T13:53:04","slug":"november-3-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/november-3-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"November 3, 2013–Forgiveness is a Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contributed by David Delaney, Salem, VA<\/p>\n

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Warm-up Question<\/h3>\n

What famous person or celebrity would you most like to meet?\u00a0\u00a0 Would it be a current music star or movie star or model?\u00a0\u00a0 A public leader like the president or the pope?\u00a0\u00a0 A sports hero from one of the teams in the World Series or the upcoming football season?\u00a0 A TV personality?\u00a0 A character from a reality show?\u00a0 Or the star of the latest viral video on Youtube?<\/p>\n

Whoever that would be, imagine that this person came to your town and decided to have an open air parade where she would just ride down the street and wave to people with no one holding the crowds back;\u00a0 people could just come up to her and say hello or climb up on the car or anything.\u00a0 Keep in mind that this is someone who is probably very, very popular, so the crowd is going to be huge. What do you think your chances would be of getting close enough even to say hello, let alone have a conversation?\u00a0 That is how a lot of people felt when Jesus came riding through Jericho that day on his way up to Jerusalem.\u00a0 Because of his miracles and teaching, common people were fascinated with him and religious and political authorities distrusted him, so he was someone a lot of people wanted to see.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s make the situation harder:\u00a0 The morning of the parade where you are going to see your celebrity, you just sprained your ankle and you\u2019re on crutches, so you can\u2019t even walk up to the parade.\u00a0 You have to watch from a distance.\u00a0 Don\u2019t forget:\u00a0 this is someone you *really* admire and would give anything to meet.\u00a0 Right when the parade is passing and hundreds or even thousands of people are crowded around, your celebrity looks right at you and points and says, \u201cI have to meet *that* person!\u201d\u00a0 You \u2013 along with everyone else \u2013 would be stunned.\u00a0 How did she even know you?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s make the situation even more complicated yet:\u00a0 Let\u2019s say you\u2019ve done something \u2013 at school or in your community \u2013 to make everyone despise you, like you won the lottery by cheating or something like that.\u00a0 No one can prove it, but everyone knows that it\u2019s true, so they basically hate you.\u00a0 Now, when the celebrity looks at you and calls your name, the crowd is not only stunned, they\u2019re angry and resentful.\u00a0 This is very much what the scene would have looked and felt like to Zacchaeus when he saw Jesus pass through Jericho.<\/p>\n

Forgiveness is a Journey<\/h3>\n

Many people have not heard of a small but committed movement called \u201cThe\"shutterstock_157483391edit\"<\/a> Forgiveness Project.\u201d\u00a0 The aim of this movement is to collect and share stories where people have found peace and renewed relationships by forgiving someone who has harmed or deceived them.\u00a0 In some cases, the harm that had been done was quite significant \u2013 murder of a loved one, permanent injury, spousal unfaithfulness, squandering all of a family\u2019s resources, and other things like that.<\/p>\n

In August of this year a prominent friend of The Forgiveness Project named Anne Gallagher died suddenly, and her death inspired a lot of renewed sharing about her unique ability to bring about reconciliation through forgiveness.\u00a0 Anne was from Northern Ireland, where she had started her own organization, \u201cSeeds of Hope,\u201d as a way of helping people who have either been victims of the long and violent conflict in Northern Ireland (what the Irish call \u201cThe Troubles\u201d) or have been perpetrators of that violence, especially if they have been imprisoned.\u00a0 Its primary vehicle for forgiveness and healing is shared story-telling.<\/p>\n

Anne Gallagher\u2019s gift was somehow to inspire people to see the humanity in every single person, regardless of what terrible things they might have done.\u00a0 Yet her death has also allowed her friends and followers to recall the importance she attached to forgiveness when reconciliation was the goal.\u00a0 People could not just start to get along again or pretend that the past did not matter\u2013 they had to acknowledge the harm they had done or the harm that had been done to them, and only then, when faced with another person who did not really deserve to be forgiven, could true forgiveness occur and reconciliation follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cForgiveness \u2026 is needed to bring closure to the pain and suffering experienced in Northern Ireland,\u201d Anne said. \u201cYou can\u2019t contemplate hope unless you address despair. To heal the wounds of Northern Ireland I believe you have to see humanity in the face of the enemy. But forgiveness is a journey. Today you can forgive and tomorrow you can feel pain all over again \u2026 for me forgiveness is about grace. To be able to forgive someone who has hurt you is a moment of grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Discussion Questions<\/h3>\n