Three Magic Words: Please, I’m Sorry and Thank You – I’m Sorry
November 13, 2016
Dr. Tom Pace
Matthew 5:12-26; James 5:16

We’re in our series of sermons now on the Magic Words – the things our parents taught us to say. We’re going to be talking today about the phrase “I’m Sorry” and the Scriptural image for that is confession. James says that we are to confess our sins to one another.
We’re going to hear two Scriptures today. One is from the Sermon on the Mount and is part of a series of admonitions that Jesus calls us a higher ethic. I want you to look for that higher ethic that’s in the Scripture. And then one single verse from the letter to James. Please listen now to hear our Scripture read.

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. James 5:16

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister,you will be liable to judgment; and if you insulta brother or sister,you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hellof fire.So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sisterhas something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister,and then come and offer your gift.Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. (Matthew 5:21-26 NRSV)


Here’s where we are – let me give you a little review. We were talking about how the words that we say all the time, those sort of habitual words, actually begin to shape who we are. The common wisdom is that what we say reveals who we are, and I believe that’s true. But sometimes we also forget that what we say shapes who we are. So when we tell our children to say please, I’m sorry, and thank you we’re beginning to develop in them the right habits of language that we hope will shape their character, and that they will begin to practice, to put themselves in the right attitude for God and the world around us.
So last week we talked about the word please, and we recognized that the word please says, “Look, this is what I believe is right, this is what I’m going to work for, this is what I’m going to pray for, this is what I’m going to beg for. I’m going to be all in trying for this to happen, but I recognize it’s not up to me. I can’t make everything happen. At some point I have to submit to the world as it is, to accept the world as it is as in the prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr that is often said in Twelve Step groups.” He said, “to accept this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be. As Jesus did.”
So that’s what we talked about last week. Let me just say two things about that. Do you remember not so many months ago when we did the bone marrow testing drive and we had hundreds of people who signed up to be tested for their bone marrow type? We did that because there was a member of our church – I didn’t give you his name at that time but his name is Phil Sorak, and we did that as a way to support him. And I let you know at that time that the vast majority who need bone marrow transplants never find a donor.
Well, Phil found a donor. How about that? So last week Phil had a bone marrow transplant done at Methodist Hospital and I want to encourage you to keep praying for him because bone marrow transplants are always challenging and I know you want to support him.
But I couldn’t help but think how our prayers and how we put our lives into those prayers… It wasn’t one of us who was his match, it was somebody in Europe. They flew the bone marrow over here. But how as we leaned into it somehow we feel like that makes a difference. And so we say, “Please, please, God we’re going to give ourselves to this happening.” And yet at the same time we have to accept, submit to the final results.
We’re re-focusing on these Prayer Leaves. There are some in your pew in a big envelope and we put them in the boxes by our Prayer Tree which is out here in the Fellowship Walk. And there are some at each of our Connections Centers. And each week I look at all of these Prayer Leaves and our prayer team prays for them. I pray for them. I do it partly because it really roots me in what goes on in the congregation’s heart and life. I’m going to read some of these to you and they may not have quite the same impact hearing them as I get from looking at them. I see the handwriting so you know the kind of personal nature of them. One says, “Please help me be the mom you want me to be.” Here’s a prayer for a wife, and a job. One says, “For my bosses to be filled with humility and less pride.” You wonder what’s going on at work. “God, please heal my daughter.” “Please work in the hearts of – and he uses a name – to forgive and acknowledge personal responsibility.” Sometimes the ones that children write get me the most. This one is maybe from a third grader: “Dear God, help grandma in heaven.”
You know, we submit our hearts to God with these requests and then we trust God with the results.
So today we’re going to talk about I’m sorry.
Let’s pray together. O God, open us up, open our eyes that we might see, and our ears that we might hear what you have for each one of us today. Open our hearts that we might feel and then O Lord open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
Often I get called to the hospital for a tragic event, someone has passed away. It used to be when I was a younger pastor that when I was driving to the hospital I was thinking of what I was going to say. I’d wonder, “What will I say? They’re looking to me to offer a word from God. Some sort of wisdom that will make this make sense. Something that will make them understand what really matters. That I will offer a word that’s so full of comfort…”
I don’t do that anymore. Because I realize that none of that matters. In fact it’s counter-productive. All I can do is say, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you’re hurting. I care about you.” When I say that, I’m saying, “I care about you. You matter to me. Our relationship matters. I want to feel your pain in some way. I want to empathize with you however I can. I want to carry your burden. I want to be there for you any way I possibly can. I don’t have any answers but I’m here. I’m so sorry.”
When you leave today, I hope the thing today that will cement more than anything else in your mind is that the words “I’m sorry” indicate not so much guilt, which although sometimes they do, but they indicate that a relationship matters. The words I’m sorry say, “You matter to me.”
So we’re going to look today at this Scripture and unpack it because I think it speaks to this whole idea of what we’re trying to accomplish with words of contrition, of confession.
This is part of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, and it’s in a string of a long line of admonitions. I’m going to begin at the very beginning and we’ll pick it apart in sort of three pieces. First he says, “You have heard that it was said to those in ancient times, You shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be liable to the judgment. But I say to you, if you are angry with a brother or sister you will be liable to judgment. And if you insult brother or sister you will be liable to the council. And if you say, ‘you fool!’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.” Ooo – he gets after it!
We are doing a study in our Men’s Life on Wednesday mornings. We’re just about done; we’ll finish it this coming Wednesday. It’s of a book called Restoring Peace and it’s built on the curriculum for Bridges to Life. Now, what Bridges to Life does is it goes into prisons, to our Texas prison system. It works with groups of offenders to help those offenders acknowledge, take responsibility for the crimes they’ve committed, and the impact that those crimes have had on other people.
Part of what they do is that they begin to look at their own story and see why they had drug issues, or why they drank, or why they went in the direction they went. Then what they do at some point is, they will bring victims of crime into meet with those people. And those victims say, “Here’s the impact that it’s made,” and they begin to also share their story. So in the midst of it what you have is these offenders share their stories and the victims share their stories in a very safe environment where they can listen to one another. And here’s what’s so amazing. We had the Bridges to Life luncheon just this last week and I went, and I’m always so amazed at the testimonies. What happens is that each person there begins to see the other person as a human being. They see their humanity, and see how they got where they are. They see what led to the decisions they made. It doesn’t excuse anything. There’s no excusing it, but all of a sudden you begin to see someone else as a human being and you begin to feel a little bit of their pain and their life. And the offenders feel the pain that the victims have experienced, and the victims feel the pain that the offenders have experienced as they live their lives, too.
So this passage is so interesting because it’s really designed to do two things. It’s designed first to call us to a higher ethic, an ethic of the heart. To say, it’s not just “you shall not commit adultery” it’s, “Don’t even lust.” It’s not just, “You don’t murder,” but you don’t even get angry with your brother. That’s where your problem is. It’s not good enough just not to kill but you have to be right inside; you have to be right in your heart.
What Jesus is doing is saying, “I’ve not come to do away with the law, I’ve come to raise the bar on the law, to make it a higher ethic.” So that’s part of what it does.
But then the other part of what it does is even more significant. Note the escalating hyperbole here. Have you noticed that? So if you’re angry with your brother, you’re liable for the judgment. If you insult your brother or sister you’re liable to the Sanhedrin – the council. And if you call your brother a fool you’re liable to the hell of fire. Gehenna was the name, and it was a pit beside Jerusalem, kind of a big giant ditch where they burned the trash and the excrement of the city. So they would say that that is where you’re going to be thrown, and that was the image they had for hell. We’re going to throw you into that place. Wow!
So here’s the deal. I haven’t murdered anybody. If you have, would you raise your hand here? We’d like to visit with you. I don’t see any murderers in here. But I suspect I could point at any one of you and say, “Have you been angry with your brother?” You’d probably say, “Yeah.” I’d say, “Have you insulted your sister or brother?” You’d say, “Oh, yeah. It’s been a long time but I have.” I’d ask, “Have you said fool – have you called them fools?” You’d say, “Yeah, I have.”
See, here’s what Jesus is saying, “You’re all in the same category as far as I’m concerned. None of you can think to yourself, ‘I got it all made. I’ve got it all figured out.’” Put aside your self-righteousness, put aside your pride and recognize that every single one of us has failed. We all have fallen short. So if you have a problem with a brother or a sister, don’t look them in the eye and think to yourself,” well, they’ve failed worse than me.” No, you think to yourself, “We’re in the same category.”
Paul is really clear. He says that the purpose of the law was not to save us but the purpose of the law – the Torah, the Old Testament Torah – the purpose of the Torah was to convict us. To make us know that we need the grace of God, that there’s no way we’re ever going to succeed without God’s grace. So put aside your pride and come down off your high horse and make amends with your brother.
You remember the TV show “All in the Family?” Some of you do. I’m looking out at you and most of you are old enough to know the show. Don’t pretend you don’t know it! Like saying, “That was before my time!” You know that show.
In one episode Archie Bunker and Edith have a little skirmish and they fight and in the midst of it, Archie, who says things that maybe he shouldn’t, says, “Edith, I don’t think you’re even human!” And you know Edith. She puts up with a lot. But this just puts her over the edge. She says, “I’m not talking to you anymore.”
So for three weeks she doesn’t speak to him. She doesn’t cook his dinner. She doesn’t do anything. And you can see him getting madder and madder and the isolation she gives to him. Then one day finally he’s had enough. He’s already tried yelling at her and screaming at her and jumping up and down. Finally he comes to her and he mumbles and says, “Ummm….” And she says, “Pardon me?” He says, “Mmmm…” And she says, “I can’t understand you, Archie. What are you saying? Are you saying you’re sorry?” He continues to mumble then says, “Yeah, I guess so.” And she says, “Archie!” And throws her arms around him and everything is happily ever after. So he finally had to, after a while, put aside his pride.
Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to put aside your pride and your self-righteousness because relationships matter more than your pride does?
“So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sisterhas something against you,leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister,and then come and offer your gift.”
So not only are our relationships more important than our pride they’re more important than our piety. They’re more important than our conviction where we might think, “I’m going to do what’s right. I’m going to come before God and I’m going to do what’s right.”
I don’t know if you’ve ever had the feeling when you come to church. You’re thinking, “I’m in a bad mood. I’m having problems with people at home or at work. I’m just going to come here and bask in the love of Jesus. I’m going to sing the hymns and I’m going to be a part of church. I’m not going to talk to anyone around me. And when I’m done I’m going to feel better.”
You know what? It doesn’t work because there’s that voice in your ear, that’s Jesus, saying to you – and me because I do this, too. The difference is that they pay me to be here and they don’t pay you do be here. But you think to yourself and hear this voice in your ear that says, “Go fix it. Go fix it. Go fix that relationship. This stuff doesn’t matter until you fix that relationship.”
Maybe you’ve had the situation where you have a spat with a friend or a spouse or a child or a parent. And you go to work and the whole time you’re at work, you’re thinking, “I’ve got to get my work done. I’ve got to get my work done.” But down in the pit of your stomach there’s that sick feeling the whole time where you’re thinking, “Aw, man! But I got to get my work done. I got to get my work done!” Then finally you think, “I’ve just got to go say, ‘I’m sorry.’ Because I can’t do what I’m called to do until I fix that.” That’s what this is about.
Now listen, friends, you know that I don’t speak often about political issues and I do that for a reason. A couple of reasons. One is I think most of you have pundits that you listen to 24/7 and I do not want to fall into that category as one of those. If you begin to put me mentally into that category then it’s all lost.
The second thing is that I think those things distract us sometimes. We begin to let the world set our agenda for us instead of us being focused on what we feel like God’s calling us to do. But I have to say that this week it kind of struck me. When I planned this sermon series months ago I didn’t even think about the election. I didn’t even look at it. It didn’t even occur to me that it might fall in that category. So when I looked at my topic for today and it’s on reconciliation, I’m thinking, “Uh, oh. Can I ignore that? I don’t think I can.”
Here’s what I want to say to us today. I’ve watched friends over this campaign where their friendships ended. I’ve watched families who no longer want to speak to each other. It’s been tough. I keep thinking to myself, “Surely not. How can the case be that somehow people’s politics are more important than their relationships? Boy, I hope not.”
So at some point we come to say, “I’m going to do what I think is right. I’m going to be all about this… this is what matters to me.” And then you think, “This matters so much that I’m going to break off these relationships and begin to distance myself from those who disagree with me.”
Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that those convictions don’t matter. I think they matter a lot. And I think there are some who are more conservative and think to themselves, “I’m going to do what’s right. I stand against abortion. I stand against gay marriage. I want to make sure that workers are not exploited and that we’re not taking advantage of people for $1 an hour in some foreign country and exploiting them. I think that’s what’s right and I want to stand up for that.”
And people on a more progressive side say, “I want to stand up for the environment and I’m going to stand up for immigration and I want to stand up for gay marriage and I want to stand up for…” You can make a list of those things on this side. And those people have incredible convictions as well.
And at some point we get so self-righteous about them that we can’t hear one another speak. And what the Scripture says is, “Look, set those aside, work on your relationships.” I want you to note that it does not say, “And that’s it… don’t worry about those convictions.” No, it says, “Leave your gift at the altar, go and make amends with your brother or sister then come back and offer your gift.”
All the time we remember that relationship that we have with others – that they will know we are Christians by our love. That we don’t allow the world to pull us apart. We stand up for what we believe in but at the same time we recognize that our relationships with one another are more important than our pride, or our piety, or whatever else.
There’s a passage that lots of preachers like to preach on and I also do it. It’s Micah 6:8. It says,
“… what does theLordrequire of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
I used to love it as kind of a readymade three-point sermon. It was perfect – just add a syrupy story and you’re done. But then I realized it’s not a three-point, it’s a one point sermon. And the one point is this: if you want to do justice you’re going to have to “love kindness and walk humbly with your God.” The way you make things right is by “loving kindness and walking humbly with your God.”
The last part of it is this. It’s more of Jesus’ hyperbole. He says, ^“Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”
What he’s saying is that you have to fix the issue. You have to fix the issue and at some point you actually have to confess. We confess to God but the letter of James says, “Confess your sins to one another.”
These are Emmaus crosses. Some of you have been on a Walk to Emmaus and you see these crosses on people who’ve been on a Walk to Emmaus. I’ve had more people say to me, “Aw, man, I’ve forgotten my Emmaus cross.” There’s a table out in the Commons with someone who will talk to you about it. It’s a three day spiritual retreat designed to rekindle your fire for your faith. To sort of open that up and take away those barriers and to open our eyes again to the presence of Christ.
Some people who’ve been on an Emmaus walk join something called an Emmaus Reunion group where you meet once a week and talk about how you’ve been working on your discipleship. And one of the things that you ask is called Discipleship Denied. Everyone confesses their sins to one another. You get to decide, no one’s going to pull it out of you. But part of it is – “this week this is where I’ve fallen short”. You confess your sins.
David says this in Psalm 32:3-5: “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to theLord,’and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”
We confess and God forgives. We share with one another our sin and God heals.
By the way, this is kind of a technical thing but it’s really nice to live in Texas right now when you’re reading this Scripture from James. That’s because it ought to be translated, the second person in here is plural, so it should say, “Confess y’all’s sins to one another. And pray for one another and all y’all will be healed.” Got to have “all y’all” in there, sort of the double deal. In other words, it’s saying that it’s not about so much about personal healing though that’s important. It’s about healing of our relationships. We acknowledge how we’ve fallen short with one another and out of that there’s healing.
This confession, this saying “I’m sorry” can be hard. I’ve kind of fallen off on my exercising for the last decade or so. I used to run with my dogs and the dogs were great. They’d pull me along. Then they got old and they started walking. Then I started pulling them and now we take a morning saunter. The most exercise I get is when I bend over with the bag to pick up… that’s the exercise I get on the walk.
So the doctor said, “You know, Pace, you might want to… Do you exercise?” That’s like when the dentist asks, “Do you floss?” Yeah, I do… Why are you making me lie to you?
I decided I’d start running again. So Friday morning I ran my three miles, and had to do some walking in the middle of it. Saturday morning I ran my three miles and had to do some walking in the middle of it. Then today I can barely walk. I’m going to come backward down the stairs like this because it’ll kill me.
So here’s the reason I’m using that for an illustration. David Horton gave me the idea. If you’ve read his article in the Spire. He says, “I’m sorries” hurt. If they don’t hurt, they’re not real.” I’m sorries hurt. But they make you stronger. They’re like exercising. They make you stronger. They build you up.
We as the Body of Christ need to be made stronger in order to do that. We have to do some confessing. We have to come down off our high horses; we’ve got to empathize with other people, to listen to them. And when we do that, when we model that for the world, who knows what God will do? Who knows what God will do? We can come back together and solve all the challenges that we have placed before us.
So I want to close with a prayer and I want you to think about someone in your mind with whom you have a strained relationship.
Let’s pray. Lord God, we confess that sometimes our pride or our self-righteousness, our convictions, get in the way of the love which we’re supposed to have for one another. We think we have the answers and that others who disagree are fools. Forgive us, God. We pray for those people with whom we have strained relationships and ask that you would be a God of healing. That you would show us how to share ourselves with one another so we would see our common humanity. And that then we might come together and continue to move forward toward the Kingdom of God. In the name of Christ, Amen.