Isn’t it interesting that some of life’s truly great insight or advice often comes out of the blue?  As in, you’re not expecting it but, all of the sudden, here’s this amazing “life hack” or “pro tip” which, when followed, makes a positive difference in your life and those around you.  Take for example once while I was working my first job, a colleague noticing my tie was tied rather sloppily.  He offered to help me and, seeing as he was a sharp dresser, I accepted.  I’ve tied that same knot he showed me back in the early nineties ever since.

Or take the time I was just hanging out with my good friend Matt at his parent’s house back when I was in high school.  Matt had done something to his sister, I don’t really remember what but it was a minor irritation.  But it was wrong, whatever it was.  Matt’s Dad came into the living room where we were at and he ask Matt if he’d make whatever it was up to his younger sister.

Matt replied, “I said I was sorry.” 

Matt’s Dad gently shook his head and uttered words that struck home with me then and continue to reverberate in my life.  He looked at Matt and, with a slight edge in his voice, he said, “Don’t just say you’re sorry, BE “you’re sorry.”

What he meant by that was immediately clear.   Words, as they say, are cheap and simply saying I’m sorry” is oftentimes far less satisfying a response to the one we’ve harmed than we imagine.

But we’ve often been on the other side, haven’t we?  Having been truly harmed, how acceptable is it to you when all you’re issued is a half-hearted apology.  I remember someone once telling me the sure sign that you’d crossed from adolescent to adult is that “Sorry, I was drunk” no longer is a sufficient response to the harm you’ve caused.  And, again, I think this is totally right on the money.

I also can’t help but look out and, with many, bemoan the state of our present “cancel culture.”  For those of you happily unaware, “cancel culture” is a name affixed to the grace-less dynamic of shaming others anonymously over the internet for actions oftentimes long since forgotten and abandoned.  “Cancel culture” is the surest sign that we’ve become a grace-less society.  We simply can’t or won’t forgive others.

But forgiving others isn’t always the most difficult thing in the world.  Too often we grow comfortable harboring the resentments in our life until they become as familiar to us as our aging pets.  But just telling people to be forgiving is oftentimes as useless as suggesting to a group of overtired children that they settle-down.

But there is a way to become more forgiving but it might not begin in quite the place you think.  I’m going to read you two passages this morning from the New Testament.  The first comes from the Gospel of Luke, it’s the story of Zacchaeus.  The second passage is one from the Gospel of Matthew, specifically from the Sermon on the Mount, a section filled with Jesus’s moral and ethical teachings. 

I invite you to hear now the Word of our Lord from the Gospel of Luke, the 19th chapter, verses 1-10 – “He entered Jericho and was passing through.  And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich.  And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature.  So, he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.  And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”  So, he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.  And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”  And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have  defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”  And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Matthew 5:23-27 – “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.  Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”