Lest we think this story Jesus told was hopelessly out of date, we should remember that we still have debtors’ prisons in this country. The Southern Poverty Law Center got one in Alabama closed down a few years ago. Threatening punishment for those who cannot pay is an old strategy. Jesus even seems to employ it in the end of his parable: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
What will the heavenly father do to us? The king in the parable hands over the unmerciful servant to be punished until he can pay the whole debt. Forgive or else, is that Jesus’ message? Let’s hope this is another of his hyperbolic turns, where he drives home a point by exaggerating it.
Whether motivated by fear or love, the call to Christ followers to excel at forgiving others is clear. In fact, it is essential if that living water of God’s transforming power and love are going to flow through us unimpeded. Unforgiveness creates blockages, debris that can – like plaque in our blood vessels – create dams. This is why forgiveness and healing are so intertwined.
I was privileged to know Canon Jim Glennon, an Anglican clergyman from Australia who had an extraordinary gift and ministry of healing. His notion of God’s healing was simple: It is God’s desire that we be whole, so we plant the seed of faith in Christ; give thanks for God’s activity, even before we see it, and don’t be afraid to test it. Jim and I corresponded quite a bit before he died, and I invited him to lead a healing mission at my church in New York, which he did.
That Saturday, he did some teaching and then, to demonstrate this approach, he asked if someone with severe back pain would come up for prayer. One man did. He’d been injured at his workplace 15 years earlier, and his pain was incessant. Jim prayed for awhile, and then stopped and asked what the man was feeling, what was happening inside. The man said, “It’s weird – ever since you began praying, I’ve had my boss’s face in my mind.” It turned out that the boss had denied him worker’s comp benefits he should have received, and the man bitterly resented him. Who wouldn’t?
Jim just said, “Are you willing to forgive him?” He didn’t push, just invited. And the man said, “Yes, I am,” and then began to sob for dear life. After some more prayer, Jim asked him how his pain was now, and he said, “It’s gone! It’s been with me for 15 years, and it’s gone!”
If you have a sense of blessings blocked, either coming to you, or from you to others, you might ask God to show you if you’re holding onto anger or resentment toward someone. (If you’d like to pray a Litany of Forgiveness I developed, you can find it here.)
As well as you are able, release that debt, asking the Spirit to do for you what you’re unable to do for yourself. And then test out your freedom, the way Jim asked the man to test his absence of pain by twisting around and moving. Pray for the person who hurt you. Go out and give to someone else. See what has changed. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” Paul wrote. (Galatians 5:1). Let’s spread it around.
Whether motivated by fear or love, the call to Christ followers to excel at forgiving others is clear. In fact, it is essential if that living water of God’s transforming power and love are going to flow through us unimpeded. Unforgiveness creates blockages, debris that can – like plaque in our blood vessels – create dams. This is why forgiveness and healing are so intertwined.
I was privileged to know Canon Jim Glennon, an Anglican clergyman from Australia who had an extraordinary gift and ministry of healing. His notion of God’s healing was simple: It is God’s desire that we be whole, so we plant the seed of faith in Christ; give thanks for God’s activity, even before we see it, and don’t be afraid to test it. Jim and I corresponded quite a bit before he died, and I invited him to lead a healing mission at my church in New York, which he did.
That Saturday, he did some teaching and then, to demonstrate this approach, he asked if someone with severe back pain would come up for prayer. One man did. He’d been injured at his workplace 15 years earlier, and his pain was incessant. Jim prayed for awhile, and then stopped and asked what the man was feeling, what was happening inside. The man said, “It’s weird – ever since you began praying, I’ve had my boss’s face in my mind.” It turned out that the boss had denied him worker’s comp benefits he should have received, and the man bitterly resented him. Who wouldn’t?
Jim just said, “Are you willing to forgive him?” He didn’t push, just invited. And the man said, “Yes, I am,” and then began to sob for dear life. After some more prayer, Jim asked him how his pain was now, and he said, “It’s gone! It’s been with me for 15 years, and it’s gone!”
If you have a sense of blessings blocked, either coming to you, or from you to others, you might ask God to show you if you’re holding onto anger or resentment toward someone. (If you’d like to pray a Litany of Forgiveness I developed, you can find it here.)
As well as you are able, release that debt, asking the Spirit to do for you what you’re unable to do for yourself. And then test out your freedom, the way Jim asked the man to test his absence of pain by twisting around and moving. Pray for the person who hurt you. Go out and give to someone else. See what has changed. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” Paul wrote. (Galatians 5:1). Let’s spread it around.
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