Sarah Collins Prince Ocean View Methodist Church November 24, 2013 Multiplying MERCY I am thankful to be preaching this

s weekend, one week after our Annual General Meeting here. I am not sure what I expected to happen at that meeting, but that certainly wasnt it I didnt expect Kyle to say that things had gone wrong this year, I didnt expect people to interrupt and share their concerns for the church, I didnt expect people to walk out of church. I TRULY didnt expect that upon reflecting on last Sunday I decided it was the best church service I had ever been to at Ocean View Methodist. A lot of words were said last week but as I thought and prayed about the day, I realized what I liked the most was what was beneath the words Last Sunday was a cry out. It was us as a church saying that what we have been is not good enough. We were saying we want more. We want to be more. God deserves more. We deserve more. We were saying we dont want to just be a maintenance church. We dont want to be what we have been, but we should also be honest that we dont know who we want to be either. Well this morning I dont want to share about vision and projects. The vision and direction of this church needs to come from Kyle. But I do feel like God has given me a word for us today. All week I was so DISTURBED in my soul. I was asking God for clarity. What is missing in our church? What was being said and what was not said? I want to speak this morning on one simple thing that I think our church is missing and I believe God wants to challenge us to seek it together Its one of those things that you dont recognize when its there but you REALLY see when its not there. As we were sharing and talking, and talking amongst ourselves, I looked around at all the people in this room DO THE SAME TAKE A MINUTE AND LOOK AROUND We are people with families. We have lives. We live in homes. We have jobs. We have experiences. Most of them I dont know about, but you do. In this small community you know everything about each other. You know one anothers families. You know your homes. You know all
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the stories, and unfortunately you know all the mistakes. In this room there are not just many things to celebrate but many things that have gone wrong. There are many missteps. There is much brokenness. We have hurt each other. We have wounded each other. We have done unspeakable things to one another. And we havent forgotten. I remember when I learned that the world could be hard on people. That people could really HURT people. I grew up in a good home. We werent perfect, but we really tried to love one another. We made mistakes but they were all small and it was really a happy place in my home. And then I turned into a teenager. And I got a boyfriend. My first relationship was really intense. We quickly fell in love and were together ALL the time. My parents were always weary of him but I thought they were being overprotective. Then it started to get messy. We started fighting and when we would fight he would get so angry he would punch walls. He actually had holes all over his walls in his room because he had punched so much. And he often looked like he would punch me. And then he would yell at me. The things he would say to me I wouldnt say to an enemy. But the worse part is that I believed him. Because I loved him and thought he loved me I thought he was telling me these things to help me, or because he needed to tell me. I couldnt conceive of someone who loved me wanting to hurt me. But the hurt kept coming. The manipulation kept growing. The pain became unbearable. I was scared to hurt him, scared to lose him. So nothing changed. Until finally I went away to university. All of a sudden I came to my senses. I felt like I was looking at my life from the outside in. Have you ever had that experienced that? A true prodigal son in the pigs mud moment. Have you ever had an out-of-body experience for your own life? I couldnt believe who I had become. I couldnt believe what I had allowed. I couldnt believe it had gotten so dark. I know what abuse feels like. I know what fear feel like. I know what darkness feels like. And I know that you feel you will never get out of it. But university gave me distance and after a year or so we never talked again. And slowly I learned to heal from it and move away.
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 But it was years after we even separated that I realized I was multiplying my own pain and hurt. I hadnt forgiven this ex-boyfriend, but that was because we had never spoken since I had million conversations in my head with him (just as Kyle talked about last week). There were so many versions of our conversations. I wanted to know WHY. I wanted to know HOW. I wanted to know what was hurt in him that made him treat me that way. I felt like if I could get an explanation, if he could just apologize, if I could get closure, then I would forgive him. There were these simple things that just had to happen before I could forgive. And I knew I COULD forgive but it had parameters. We create these worlds in our hurts. Our hurt becomes multiplied and it grows and grows in our own hearts. And we create these rules and guidelines to how it could ever be forgiven. I heard this STORY that illustrates this so well: An issue of the journal Spirituality and Health had on its front cover a picture of three U.S. ex-servicemen standing in front of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. One asks, "Have you forgiven those who held you prisoner of war?" "I will never forgive them," replies the other. His mate says: "Then it seems they still have you in prison, don't they?" I share my own story for a reason. Many of you can relate to my story. Many of you have experienced something like. All of us have experienced someone we love hurting us. Much of it is in THIS ROOM TODAY. I thought in my relationship experience that he must have been treating me that way because he didnt love me. But I was wrong. He DID love me. He was just really hurt and broken. Ive said it before that HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE. That is what has happened in our church. We are all hurt people who have HURT OTHER PEOPLE. We love each other but we have hurt each other very badly. We are normal. All people are going to hurt people. That is part of human experience. But when we look around this church and wonder what is missing it is love. Its really something BEYOND love, and that is MERCY.
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 Because love, as defined by us, is something that is earned or deserved. In this room, there are a lot of people who dont deserve to be loved, me included. But there is a lack of MERCY, which is something beyond love. Definition of MERCY: Compassionate treatment, especially of those under one's power I found this great quote this week that talks about mercy in the CHURCH and I think it defines us. "We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves" (George Eliot) This is a CHURCH and one of the things that defines church is that it is supposed to be about mercy. We believe in Gods mercy but we dont show it ourselves. Simply what is missing from this place is that we cant forgive one another. We know too much and so we dont trust. We dont walk alongside. We dont love If we ever want to go ahead anywhere into the great things that Kyle is dreaming for us then we have to learn how to forgive. We have to learn how to trust. We have to learn how to give MERCY even when it isnt deserved. Our stewards need us to trust them and walk alongside them. Our reverend needs us to love him even though he doesnt deserve it. We need to show each other mercy and start doing this together or we are not going to go anywhere. WE havent done this truly because we are stuck in a jail of our own experiences and hurt. I understand this because hurt can be very real and painful. But what I realized about my own hurt was that at some point I might not get what I was looking for. I wanted the person who had hurt me to list every single offense and get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness. I wanted answers and change and for us both to be completely different. At some point in my own journey I realized that was not going to happen. I still dont have answers. I dont know why that boy treated me the way he did. I dont know his pain. I dont know if he wakes up at night regretting each thing he said or wishing he had been meaner.

 I only know that at some point I realized I had to let it go. I had to let it go because God says so and I had to let it go for me. I needed to move on and I needed to live out the scripture that I was reading and telling others about. 1 John makes it pretty clear in how we need to live and how we need to love and sometimes today I think we need to hear the clear and blunt truth. READ 1 John 4:7-20 7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real lovenot that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. 13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. 18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 19 We love each other because he loved us first. 20 If someone says, I love God, but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we dont love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? 21 And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters. 1 John tells us that there is FRUIT of our relationship with God. If we love God and are loved BY God then it should show. This type of fruit is not showing up in OUR CHURCH. The fruit is not having your children baptized, the fruit is not being a religious person. The FRUIT of a saved life is loving others. Period.

 Here is something that really stood out to me upon reading this scripture this week. God has laid on my heart this week over and over: We love because he first loved us. I think we all know that scripture and we all know that it is true. But a lot of this passage talks about the FEAR we have in love. This really has made me stop and think. Even though we KNOW we are to love, FEAR often holds us back This is so true. LOVING and giving mercy are so risky. And if anyone has lived this it is this country of South Africa. The world watched as this country rolled out the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and saw you all say your greatest wounds and then choose to forgive them. It was radical. And it was RISKY. Many human rights groups all over the world thought it was TOO RISKY. They thought it was offensive. To forgive without true forgiveness was to not honor the victim. Desmond Tutu talks about this in his book No Future Without Forgiveness and he has heard all these critiques. Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing. Desmond Tutu As I have been praying for our church this week and wondering WHY we dont have mercy, I realized that is because of fear. There is so much we fear in forgiving others. Why do we FEAR forgiveness: 1. We dont want to let the offender off the hook 2. We dont want to be a victim or we like to STAY a victim o We create these worlds as the victim where we are the right ones and they 3. We still have power when we havent forgiven and we dont want to lose that o We have trapped ourselves into believing that our unhappiness originates outside ourselves--in what another did to us, rather than

within, in our reactions to what was done to us, in our own pain, and rage, and hopelessness. And yet Jesus tells us EVEN STILL to forgive. To let go of the fear and to love as He loved us. WHY? I think this past week in church showed us why. If we dont forgive each other. If we dont LIVE OUT THE LOVE OF GOD here in the church, then it really doesnt mean anything. If we dont forgive each other then we are only stuck in our own prisons. When I finally forgave my abusive ex-boyfriend fully it wasnt for HIM, it was for ME. I needed to be free. This church wants more, and hat was the cry of so many last week. We can have fundraising campaigns, and events, and big church halls, and lots of programs going on, but if LOVE isnt here. If we arent getting this thing right with EACH OTHER than what does it matter? It doesnt. If we cant LIVE out this love with each other than it doesnt matter. There has to be fruit. There has to be evidence to this God. If he is real, then we have to make it real beyond our words and songs. And so that is why I am challenging us to MULTIPLY MERCY. What we need here isnt more programs or people or money. We need mercy and we need LOTS of it. We need to MULTIPLY MERCY in this place As I said before, MERCY is compassion or love, when it isnt deserved This is the perfect context, because NONE OF US deserve to be loved! The only context where I really get this illustration is with Keller James. That kid is such a stinker! He was the sweetest most angelic baby until 6 months and then he just turned sinful! He has been naughty and stubborn ever since! He daily, hourly, minute-by-minute tests my bounds of love by the bad things he does. BUT, even still I love him! And why? Because I do! Because of his face? Because I can see in his heart! Because HE IS MINE! That is exactly (multiplied by a million) how God sees us! We are his! We are his beloved! We are his chosen! We are numbered and named and loved. Why? Not because we deserve it but just because we are HIS! And all God asks of us is to take this in and then just spread it around. There is nothing we can do to earn this mercy and nothing we can do to take it away. But sharing it with others could make all the difference in the world to someone else.
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 And here is the kicker. It is BECAUSE we are the rottenest group of sinners ever that God wants us to show each other mercy. WHY? Because if people see that WE can love each other then Gods love MUST be real. The love that is in this room should be beyond comprehension. It should be insane. Jesus even says, anyone can love someone who loves them, but we must love our enemies. Not to torture us, but to show the world, and EVEN OURSELVES that love comes from God and not us. We love not from our own guts but from Gods. The hope of GLORY is alive in us and powerful enough even to love in this place. It is ridiculous and scandalous and risky but true. And even though we fear loving each other, we must. Some of you need to learn to forgive and so I want to give you a few steps that might help you: 1. GRIEVE what has hurt you FIRST dont forgive before you are ready 2. Know its a process 3. Do it again and again 4. Its not based on others actions but on our attitude 5. Receive the POWER given to those who forgive o Only the strong and un-threatened can forgive. The only way we can truly live this out is by knowing that we are loved. Knowing that we have been given Gods full grace and mercy. SING AMAZING GRACE. Take in Gods love. Lets be known as a place that MULTIPLIES MERCY. Lets be radical and risky. Lets start to love. PRAY IN PRAYER THINK OF ONE PERSON