"I believe in the forgiveness of sins."

1Tim 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10

I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

I like to think of myself as a modern man. And us modern men have learned that listening is important – and so to curtail our problem-solving-instinct and our helpful… suggestions. So when Rhiannon texted me from an online meeting in the top of the house: “Desperate for a massive glass of squash.” I immediately knew how a modern man responds. I texted back: “Do you want me to listen, or to fix it.” [I had a two-word response: “Fix it”.]

Such slight naughtiness is, I hope, easily forgiven. But it’s striking that in our creed, a list of faith-facts to which we assent each week, perhaps unnoticed goes: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” So central is this to Christianity that it appears in the Lord’s Prayer though qualified: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that sin against us”, Echoed in several parables where debtors are released only to be thrown back in jail when they fail to let-off those in debt to them.

Our New Testament writer today finds that he is the foremost sinner, but now has received the foremost amount of grace to attain such forgiveness. It’s the original humble brag: I was the worst, but now, because of that, I’m actually the best. While our Gospel describes the heavenly rejoicing over the penitent sinner, and the lengths to which Jesus will go to retrieve and celebrate the return of the one black sheep. So I want to talk about forgiveness today, because we think too little of it. [And we can’t have little Mia entering into the forgiveness of sins today under false pretences.]

C.S. Lewis absolutely hits the nail on the head when he writes that being forgiven and being excused are two things that sound the same, but are in fact opposites. We (for our sins) are too often looking, not for forgiveness, but to be excused. It is possible that this is just the fault of British table manners. I’ve noticed a great jittering from our boys as they wait to be excused from the table. Perhaps I should also make them wait for the forgiveness of their many sins. In forgiveness we acknowledge that something has been done against us, but accept the apology and agree not to hold it against the offender or let the issue come between us.

To excuse someone is to give permission, to say that you can see why someone has done something, that they couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; that you don’t hold it against them. What happened was reasonable. And if there is no fault, there is no need for forgiveness. So you see, they are quite different.

To, perhaps, put it in stark relief: there is absolutely no problem, morally, with Peter Mandelson forgiving his friend Jeffrey Epstein. (We should all wish for such grace.) But there is everything wrong, as some of the news seems to suggest, with Mr Mandelson excusing Mr Epstein.

So a first question to consider when asking forgiveness: Are we asking for forgiveness, or for God to excuse us? There is always a little of each on either side. Our New Testament writer today claims he ‘acted ignorantly in unbelief’. There are usually reasons for mistakes and wrongdoing; Even in a very public assassination, it’s striking how many liberal progressives found it reasonable to comment approvingly: ‘He had it coming’ (as they sing in Chicago); Again, excusing the inexcusable. [I will avoid today the thorny issue of whether you can forgive someone and then murder them by firing squad.]

But we can only seek forgiveness, for what we haven’t been excused. Forgiveness depends on accountability, taking responsibility. If you have excused yourself – You were tired, or hangry, or it’s the pressure you’re under, he’s a truly vile neighbour, or you’re a Pisces, or have watched a bad video on Youtube; There are many reasons for our behaviour, many excuses for our actions – some quite reasonable – If you have excused yourself, you don’t need forgiveness. We seek forgiveness only where the excuses have run out.

And of course we must beware our own judgement. As CS Lewis observes: “In our own case we accept excuses too easily, in other people’s we do not accept them easily enough.” So are we asking forgiveness for our sins, or asking to be excused?

A second issue with sin, concerns whether we believe they are really significant. Eddie Izzard once made much of how when visiting someone it’s almost seen as a sign of status or maturity that you confess to breaking something. At a party, admitting loudly with your hand on your host’s arm that it was you who knocked over the bottle of red. “I’m so sorry”. We are sophisticated enough and can presume that our host won’t want to embarrass us, or to suggest that they cannot bear the cost of the loss. Or that we are too great a friend for such a matter to be of consequence.

Theologically, we are sipping our communion wine, and saying: “God, I’m so sorry, I did break a few things, but I know how gracious you are, how abundant creation; “We’re both mature, civilised forms of consciousnesses, right? We’ll clear it up in the morning, or rather you will and hopefully the stains will come out.” The danger here is one of presumption. That we should feel entitled to judge what sin is held by God as significant; To presume upon our relationship. Just as we are in fact taking liberty with our hosts when we break their favourite old mug, or rather ugly Lalique vase.

But perhaps the hardest challenge we have with sin, is the one I raised at the beginning. It’s central to Christ’s teaching and action, from the Lord’s Prayer to the parables to the Cross and first martyrs: the injuction to forgive as we are forgiven, the warning that our trespasses are forgiven, as we forgive those who trespass against us. As earlier, we’re not being asked to excuse others. It’s not tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner. We’re not asked to understand, to justify, to makes sense of. We’re asked to forgive. Which, as I said earlier, is to say that I will not hold this against you. I will not let these things come between us and interrupt our relationship. It’s a big ask. Quite often. But our salvation depends on it.

This shouldn’t surprise us. There are, we are told, in essence, two commandments. The first is to love God. And the second is “like, namely this, to love our neighbour as ourselves.”

The great Thomist philosopher Elenor Stump has very happily knuckled down a huge amount of philosophy and theology and the endless and boring accounts of love that often make up parochial sermons to define Christian love as the combination of two desires: To want the best for someone, And to seek union with someone. The type of union is happily appropriate to the social context – But resentment, which we might call the opposite of forgiveness, makes it hard to want the best, and impossible to seek union. Resentment demands separation, which prevents love.

Theologically we can see in the strands of our readings today the direction through which forgiveness most properly comes. Our letter writer quite rightly celebrates his sin and subsequent forgiveness. Because with the greater sense of his own forgiveness, comes a greater sense of humility. And a greater sense of humility gives him his celebrated overflowing of grace. And this overflowing of grace, we may presume, overflows into the forgiveness of others. As we accept our forgiveness, we receive grace, As we receive grace, we forgive others.

We’ve been reading the parables in a group on Wednesday, and what interests me most is when a parable strikes you from a surprising angle. Reading the parable of the lost sheep and coin yesterday I was suddenly struck by the rarity of the find. It is the one sheep – the one percent – who has gone astray. It’s that slippery silver coin that’s slipped off unnoticed. The 99 sheep are self-righteous. They have neither gone off, nor needed Christ to find them. The lamps are lit, the house swept, the search is on for the one slippery coin in the back of the sofa. Perhaps the safe sheep and coins are those who have found excuses. Perhaps they are those who presume, chewing the cud, their sins are not significant. Who presume their host will step up for them. And because they do not perceive any need for forgiveness they do not seek it. They remain with the 99, who think that, already, they are good enough, and resent those in whom they perceive fault, the one off the path, between the cracks.

Might we turn again and see how far we are from the shepherd? Dare we lay aside our excuses and seek forgiveness? Can we let go of resentment and forgive? Prepare yourself then to declare the creed: I believe in the forgiveness of sins. Amen.