What a curious, hard to hear parable! One of the key points is the infinite nature of forgiveness: there will always be reasons to seek forgiveness and reasons to offer it. A large portion of pastoral counseling involves helping people move from interpersonal injury to forgiveness. The inability or the unwillingness to forgive someone or to ask for forgiveness is one of the most toxic elements in human life. When it does happen, however, the one who forgives and the one forgiven are each released from the numbing, self-diminishing poisons of the guilty conscience. To forgive or to be forgiven is to flush from the wounded soul the corrosives of bitterness, anger, and resentment.

This morning I want us to think about the questions, "How do you find it in your hearts to either ask forgiveness or to forgive another and what steps do you follow?" So this is going to be one of those "left brain" sermons with steps, lists, to-dos, and an 11:15 class to polish the fine points. In the best of worlds we take responsibility if we cause a relational injury and in so doing initiate reconciliation by first naming the offense and apologizing for it, and then asking forgiveness. Please carefully note the progression:

1. recognize that you have caused hurt and separation,
2. take responsibility for your actions,
3. go to the person and both name the injury and apologize for it, and
4. ask forgiveness.

To simply say, "I am sorry," does not reveal how or at what depth we take responsibility for our actions. "Sorry" isn't enough because it fails to show that we have insight about our actions and empathy for its impact on the other person. Insight and empathy reveal that I know my actions have hurt, wounded pride, and created a chasm. An apology acknowledges what I did to make you feel that way. To ask forgiveness allows the other to respond to the depth of your process. You can see, "Sorry" just doesn't do it.

In the best of worlds, when we are asked to forgive, we find it in our hearts to rise above wounds or scar tissue. Forgiveness releases resentment and affirms that the relationship can be more important than the act that should have ended it all. In asking forgiveness and in giving it, pride gives way to freedom and peace within one's self, to emotional health and physical well-being. Wounds can be released, the voices of resentment quieted.

I worry about people who withhold forgiveness and people who refuse to seek forgiveness for an injury they have caused. I recently talked about this with Bob and Chris Miller who are active in the Landmark Forum. One of the practices in that program is to name and examine the elements of resentment that are held. I want to suggest a spiritual practice that goes with their process, and that applies equally to the one seeking and the one offering forgiveness. In the interest of time I'll address the steps and outcomes from the perspective of the one offering forgiveness.

The first step is to touch the pain, to know the contours of the wound, to really feel the experience.

Second, write a specific and exhaustive list of the things that have hurt you and indentify the resentments you carry.

The third step is to do an inquiry around the benefits derived from holding onto resentments or withholding forgiveness — what's the pay-off? You could say, for example, withholding forgiveness is sweet revenge, or I cannot forgive because it increases my vulnerability to more injury, or resentment enables me to keep distance from that person, or it just feels good to be mad or hate that person.

The fourth step is the most challenging and the most biblical: we release what we are holding onto by initiating a conversation with the person to tell them where we are hurt, we share the list of resentments we carry, describe the impact all of this is having on our relationship with them, and, finally, we tell them that we are ready to forgive them in the hope that this act will bring a new dimension to the relationship.

There are several possible outcomes:

1. The person is not ready to welcome the conversation. For your own sake, you may need to internally forgive the person so that you do not carry within you the toxic seeds of resentment, anger, or unforgiveness; or
2. The person is able to hear you, apologizes, asks forgiveness, and there is reconciliation; or
3. The person denies responsibility for what happened and does not apologize or ask forgiveness. In that case, you've been honest and you can release the burden of the injury and move on in your life without that relationship; or, most likely,
4. The person acknowledges the injury but also shares their injury, pain, or vulnerability, and you realize that you somehow played into the problem. With mutual recognition there can be a mutual apology that leads to reconciliation and renewal.

People ask me, "How can I forgive my parents, spouse, sibling or friend?" They say, "My beliefs tell me to forgive, but my mind says the opposite. How do I get my beliefs and mind working together?" Again, it's my experience that we have to first feel our wounds, really know the hurt before we can begin moving toward forgiveness. On the other side, we have to really know the wound we have inflicted on another before we can get to forgiveness.

Whether or not a person apologizes and asks forgiveness, it is within the power of the injured to release both the burden of the offense and the poisons that build up in their hearts and minds. If only for yourself -- for the freedom of your heart and mind -- forgive, let go, and get on with your life.

If you know you caused hurt, don't carry the poisons of denial and pride, don't try to avoid the vulnerability of admitting your were wrong. Own what you did, name it, apologize, and ask forgiveness.

Christ taught in the parable that the essential nature of God is mercy and forgiveness, and that as recipients of God's mercy, grace, and forgiveness, we are to be grace-full and forgiving in our lives.