2 Samuel 11.26-12.10,13-15; Galatians 2.15-21; Luke 7.36-8.3

I came across a moving and powerful story the other day which arose from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.

A frail black woman rises to her feet. She is something over 70 years of age. Facing across the room are several white security police officers, one of whom, Mr van der Broek, has just been tried and found implicated in the murders of both the woman’s son and her husband some years before.

He had come to the woman’s home, taken her son, shot him at point blank range and then set the young man’s body on fire while he and his officers partied nearby.

Several years later van der Broek and his cohorts had returned to take away her husband as well. For many months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then almost two years after her husband’s disappearance, van der Broek came back to fetch the woman herself.

How vividly she remembers that evening, going to a place beside a river where she was shown her husband bound and beaten but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips as the officers poured gasoline over his body and set him on aflame were: “Father, forgive them . . .”

Now the woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions offered by van der Broek. A member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns to her and asks, “So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?”

“I want three things,” begins the old woman calmly but confidently. “I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial.”

She pauses and then continues. “My husband and son were my only family. I want secondly, therefore, for Mr van der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining in me.”

“And finally,” she says, “I want a third thing. This is also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr van der Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know he is truly forgiven.”

As the court assistants come to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he has just heard, faints. As he does, those in the courtroom, family, friends, neighbours - all victims of decades of oppression and injustice - begin to sing, softly but assuredly. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

Forgiveness and its power are not confined to the pages of our Bibles, but we find them there too. Our readings this morning show clearly how forgiveness is something that comes through God’s grace, not by anything that we have done.

If we fail to forgive, we end up hardened and embittered. We seek revenge and we judge others. If we fail to forgive, we become trapped by our hardness of heart and bound by the chains of resentment. Hatred grows and enemies develop.

When we forgive, we free ourselves and the one whom we have forgiven. Look at the contrast between the woman in our Gospel story and the Pharisee. The woman falls on her feet, weeping and acknowledging her wretchedness. The Pharisee is all for sending this gate-crasher away. This is a gathering in his home for his friends and Jesus the honoured guest, not for the likes of this sinful woman, who clearly doesn’t know her place and is not someone we should be mixing with.

He, however, sees himself as a good follower of God. But beneath the outward shell is a proud self-righteousness. The Pharisee clearly sees himself as a much better grade of person than this wailing woman.

How wonderfully Jesus turns around the story. How deftly he points out that those who receive forgiveness are those who become free to love more.

We can only receive forgiveness, if we recognise that we are in the wrong. It takes Jesus to point out to Simon that his hospitality had been seriously lacking, that he wasn’t the good person that he thought he was.

The Gospel becomes powerful when we recognise our need for forgiveness and open our hearts to receive from God. Our love from God will grow more deeply, the more we receive his forgiveness. That’s what Jesus is saying.

That’s why confession is an important part of Anglican services. Because confession leads to repentance and repentance leads to receiving the forgiveness of God. And when we receive God’s forgiveness, we are free to love more.

Forgiveness is costly. Think what our redemption has cost God.

There’s that phrase we repeat time after time - forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us - or in modern language - forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Graham Tomlin in his Spiritual Fitness writes this: “Forgiveness is far from cheap. There is always a cost involved. Forgiveness involves releasing a debt that has been incurred, and that always costs the one who forgives it. If someone owes me £1000, and I choose to forgive that debt, it costs me. It means I have £1000 less that I had a right to, and I will have to make do without it. In the same way, for a partner to forgive the drug dealer who led her child into addiction, or for a son to forgive his father’s killers, seems impossibly hard. There are only two ways in which the pain caused by such a crime can be dealt with. One is revenge, the other is forgiveness. In revenge I make the other person pay - I simply pass on my pain to someone else. In forgiveness, I choose to pay.”

Revenge binds and causes the pain to continue; forgiveness stops the cycle of hatred and enmity and frees us to love again.

In our Gospel reading, the key to all this is made very clear. “Her sins which are many have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

It’s not a question of going out from church this morning and deliberately doing dreadful things so that we can receive more forgiveness in order to love more. It’s about recognising that we are sinners, about not covering up the things we do wrong.

Many Christians look at their lives and can’t see a great deal wrong. Many Christians are respectable people, who would never dream of stealing or deliberately harming someone. Of course we wouldn’t. Nor did Simon the Pharisee.

But when it comes to forgiveness, it is not the standards of the world around by which we are to be judged. It is the standards of God. While we may be outwardly respectable, I wonder how our hearts would stand up against the love of God. Are we always compassionate? Are we always selfless? Do we trust God in everything? Do we really out God first in our lives?

I suspect there is no one here this morning who could truly and honest answer yes to all those questions. I know I can’t. Our selfishness catches up with us, however hard we try to be generous or more loving. We all have certain situations that bring out the worst in us.

One of the main things Christianity has to teach the world is the power of forgiveness. It’s something that is distinct about the Gospel. Forgiveness is so powerful - it is the gift of God. So often, when the sick were brought to Jesus, the first thing he said was “Your sins are forgiven.”

It caused people to hate him; it led to his death. But it brought freedom. It brought freedom for the sinful woman; it brings freedom for us. And through receiving forgiveness and offering forgiveness to others, our love for God and for other people can grow, and we can become more truly the people we have been created to be, not weighed down by the burden of sin or selfishness or revenge, but liberated by the love of God.