"And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." - (Ephesians 4:32)
One of the biggest obstacles to developing a forgiving spirit is a hard heart. Some hearts are harder than others; some grow hard over the years.
Several years ago, when we were living in Virginia, I decided to become a deer-hunter. Since that seemed to be the passion of many of the men in my congregation, I naturally became interested in it. They seemed to be having so much fun that I thought I would give it a try. But I remember my wife's response to the idea of killing a deer. She exclaimed, "Oh no, you're not going to kill Bambi!" For her, the idea of killing a defenseless deer was reprehensible. So I gave it a try anyway.
I did shoot one that year. It was done with very little feeling on my part. Obviously, I was not as compassionate as my wife. I had learned to overcome that sort of feeling. But it was not always so. I remember an incident in my youth when I first got a Bee-Bee gun. I decided to go around the neighborhood and hunt birds in the trees. All that day I shot, and shot, and shot at birds. As my aim began to improve, I became more excited at the prospect of bagging my first bird. Finally, with the skill of a marksman, I nailed a Blue-Jay. Down he fell from his lofty perch. I was elated. But as I began to look, with my youthful eyes, at my first kill, my heart began to feel sad for that little bird. I buried it with a great deal of regret.
All of us have probably had such an experience. Perhaps you have had a pet that died, or was hit by a car. Perhaps you have had to put your favorite animal to sleep because they grew old or sick. You are the tender-hearted ones. Your heart is touched by those things. On the other hand, some of you may be thinking, "What's the big deal? Don't pay a vet a to put that dog to sleep. Bring him over to my house, and I'll knock him in the head. It won't cost you a thing." You are the tough ones - the Harry and Hazel Hardhearts. That sort of thing doesn't faze you anymore.
We live in a world where the latter attitude prevails. It's so easy to become calloused and indifferent. We are bombarded daily with news of tragedies, violent acts, and suffering people. Living sanely in such a world often necessitates developing a certain amount of thick skin. Unfortunately, a thick skin and a hard heart are often confused with one another. Instead of developing a thick skin, many develop a hard heart. As a result you can find hard people everywhere in our society. Unfortunately, their hardness has made them cynical and unforgiving.
To this very issue God says in Ephesians 4:32, "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Let me ask you the obvious question. Do you find it difficult to follow such a command? Sometimes it's tough. It's so easy to get a hard heart.
Picture yourself at a shopping center watching an elderly woman struggling with her packages. What you are most likely to see is a steady stream of people passing her by, all of whom could help her. They don't. Many are even irritated with her slowness. "Get a move on, Grandma," could be the response of some. Finally you might see a tender-hearted person stop and take the time to help her. Perhaps the most common place where hard hearts excel is the highway. It's seems that along with our driver's license we have given ourselves a license to be belligerent. We think we have a right to be angry at the other idiots on the road. In the Northeast, some pride themselves in being tough, hard. This is the age of Rambo and others of his breed. It's an easy trap to fall into. But we need a little more tenderness in our society today.
An ingenious teenager, tired of reading bedtime stories to his little sister, decided to record several of her favorite stories on tape. He told her, "Now you can hear your stories anytime you want. Isn't that great?" She looked at the machine for a moment and then replied, "No. It hasn't got a lap." The truth is, we all need a lap. We all need the closeness of a tender loving relationship. We all need to know we are loved, accepted and forgiven. Sadly, while we need love, acceptance and forgiveness, often we find it hard to forgive. We find it hard because our hearts have become hard.
The message of Ephesians 4:32 is really directed to those of us who want to be able to forgive but who have become a little harder hearted as Christians than we need to be. We've become the Harry and hazel Hard-hearts, perhaps a little overly tough in our approach. We've lost the balance. There are times you need to have a thick skin. But you can become hard instead and can do serious damage, both to others and to yourself as well.
If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that sometimes other people really get under our skin. We don't want them to, but we do not seem to be able to do anything about it. They aggravate us, offend us, and we become hard toward them. We know we should not feel this way, but we do. We know that we ought to forgive them, but we just want to nuke them instead. Our hearts have become hard.
At our rare times of introspection, we do desire to be more tender-hearted and forgiving, but we seem to have unlearned those emotions. How can we relearn them? What are some practical steps we can take to develop a little more tenderness? How can we develop a forgiving spirit? How can we be, as the Scripture exhorts us, more tender-hearted, kind, and forgiving?
In the New Testament there is a story of Jesus healing a blind man. He healed this blind man in two stages. Jesus touched the man's eyes twice. After the first touch he asked the man what he saw. The man said he saw men that looked like trees, walking. After a second touch the man saw people clearly. Our problem is similar to this blind man after Jesus' first touch. We don't see people very clearly. Are people simply a part of the landscape to you? Are they any more important than trees? We must learn to see people as God sees them.
Sometimes we are too busy for people to be very important. We are caught up with our goals, our projects. We see ourselves as busy people, always behind, working hard to get things done. In the hustle of busy lives it is easy to see people as either road blocks or stepping stones. It's too often easy to evaluate them in terms of whether they fit into our plans or not. It is exceedingly difficult to see people as individually important and valuable to God. It's easier to neatly categorize them by whatever stereotypes are convenient for us. Some are winners, others are losers. Some are ordinary, and some are extraordinary. But the truth is that God loves every one of them. Even those we think are losers are important to God. God loves the prisoner, the homosexual, the bag lady, and the bag boy just as much as He loves the medical students, and the theological students, the teachers, and the stock-brokers.
All people are special in God's eyes. The waitress who serves your dinner, the check-out girl in the supermarket, the parking lot attendant at the garage, and the service station attendant at the gas pump are all important to God. Think about that the next time you see them. Even the hothead who is shaking his or her fist at you on the road is important to God. So is the person who has offended you, or hurt you, or made you angry.
I was thinking about the importance of people as I was coming back from Philadelphia on the high speed line. Standing there waiting for the train in the subway station, I looked at all the people waiting with me. They were a conglomeration of races and ethnic cultures, a motley crew of well-dressed and poorly dressed, clean and grungy, old and young, loud and quiet. Some you would sit next to, others you wanted to stay away from. I thought, "Each one of these people has a life, goals, dreams, a family. Each one is a special person to God. Each one is as important as I am. God, let me see them through your eyes." Seeing as God sees can be a giant step toward a kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving attitude.
Seeing with God's eyes is an important step in the right direction. Another equally important step is to learn how to feel as others feel. If we are to be tender-hearted, forgiving people, we must learn how to empathize with others. We must climb into their situation and learn to feel as they feel. We must walk a mile in their shoes.
It is so easy to stand off from someone else and pass judgement concerning their situation ÄÄ so easy to tell someone else what they need to do, especially when you haven't lived through their situation yourself. There is something about going through the hard time for yourself, however, that gives you a different perspective. When you have felt the pain, when you have suffered the loss, when you have endured the crushing blow, it is altogether different. Now, all of us cannot experience everything life deals out. But we can make an honest attempt to consider what it would be like if we were in that situation.
How do you suppose it feels to be handicapped, unable to walk or stand, unable to drive or take care of yourself? How do you suppose it feels to be unemployed, with bills you cannot pay, and children you cannot feed? How do you suppose it feels to be a minority, living in a community where you are different? How does it feel to be an ethnic person, in a society in which you find it difficult to communicate in the native language? How would it feel to be divorced, struggling through the pain of having the one you love reject you? How would it feel to be widowed, or to lose a child, or a parent? How do you suppose it would feel to have cancer, or Alzheimer's disease, or AIDS?
Even on a more common scale, how do you think it would feel to be really depressed, and full of despair, and not even know why? How would it feel to feel all alone and unloved? How would it feel to be full of doubt and fear?
The point is that we need to climb into someone else's situation, at least mentally, and walk a mile or two in their shoes. Once we do, we might find it easier to show some tender-hearted love and genuine forgiveness. When we feel as they feel, we might understand why they act and react as they do. Understanding, that is all people really need.
Richard Selzer in his book Mortal Lessons writes these moving lines, "I stand by the bed where the young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and altogether they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wrymouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks. 'Will my mouth always be like this?' She asks. 'Yes,' I say, 'it will. It is because the nerve was cut.' She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. 'I like it,' he says. 'It is kind of cute.' All at once I know who he is. I understand, and lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close, I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works." Understanding and tender love ÄÄ there is no substitute.
What we are talking about is simply loving as Christ loves us ÄÄ seeing as God sees others, feeling as others feel, and then doing something about it. That is what Christ did for us. That is what we should do for others.
In the play, My Fair Lady, Eliza is being courted by Freddy, who writes to her daily of his love for her. Eliza's response to his notes is to cry out in frustration; "Words! Words! I'm so sick of words! Don't talk of stars burning above, if you're in love, show me! Don't talk of love lasting through time. Make me no undying vow, show me now!"
Our text exhorts us to "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." In other words, we are to treat others as Christ has treated us. How has Christ treated us? Well, He has always treated us with kindness, with tenderness, and with forgiveness. He has always had time for us. He has always listened to us. His forgiveness was made possible because of His love. If we would learn to forgive, it will be because we learn to love as Christ love. What we must do is take the time for one another. We must slow down, and express our genuine love and affection for each other.
Just think of what would happen if we were to do this. I believe that the results would be extraordinary. People would be wondering what happened to old Harry and Hazel Hard-heart. Our spouses and children would be overjoyed. The superficial relationships we have would be deepened. Our churches would be filled as people discover that church is a place where they can find love and forgiveness, genuine acceptance.
There is, of course, some risk in living this way. Some are afraid that they will be hurt if they truly love others. C.S. Lewis addressed this fear well when he said: "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be certainly wrung and possible be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love . . . is hell." Yes, there is a danger in loving, but there is a greater danger in not loving. The danger is that your heart grows hard and unforgiving. You become bitter and sour of spirit. If you want to be able to break the shell of hardness which grows around your heart, you must choose to love others. If you do not, you will never be able to forgive others.
The challenge is before us. We must learn to see others as God sees them, as valuable, important, and special. We must also learn to feel as others feel, to walk a mile in their shoes, to consider what it would be like to be in their situation. And finally, we must learn to love as Christ has loved us. We must learn to treat people as Jesus treats us. We must learn to show tender-hearted love. Only then will we be able to express kindness, and forgiveness. But as we do, the world will begin to change around us, into a place which is alive with God. And we will begin to change as well, into people who are filled with God.
Have you been forgiven? How does it make you feel? Share
that with others as you forgive them.
Questions to Consider:
1. In what ways has the daily grind of living in the world tended to harden your heart?
2. What are the effects of a hard heart on your life in dealing with people?
3. How can we soften our hearts and become more understanding and forgiving?
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