Laura Blumenfeld is an American Jew whose father was shot by a Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem in 1986.  Ten years later, still full of revenge, Laura traveled to the Middle East looking for her father’s shooter.  Instead, she found herself on a journey that became what she describes as an “exercise in empathy,” as she began trying to understand the driving forces behind the violence in the Middle East and the world at large, the underlying issues in both individual and international violence.  She interviewed, among others, everyone from Israeli politicians to the chief of the Iranian judiciary, priests and prostitutes and even the man who assassinated former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.  What she finally discovered, she writes, is that, behind all the complex social and political problems that fuel violence in this world, “so much of life’s turmoil comes from individuals or groups” just “trying to settle a score,” people who have been humiliated or shamed just trying to get even (Laura Blumenfeld, Revenge, a story of hope, Simon and Schuster, 2002, pp. 24, 26).

It’s a dilemma as old as Cain and Abel and as relevant as Nick Berg and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who allegedly beheaded Berg for all the world to see just one week ago as payback, he said, for the shameful abuse of Iraqi prisoners in American military jails.  Zarqawi now has a $10 million price on his head.  If he’s found, he’ll certainly either be killed or sent to some obscure prison and never heard from again.  Then what?  Who’s next?  Where does it end? 

If Blumenfeld is right, it won’t end until something breaks the cycle of shame.  As long as one person or country or group responds to being shamed by shaming those who shamed them in return, the cycle will go on and on and young boys and girls the world over will be born for no other reason than to grow up and die in wars where someone is just trying to settle a score.  New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggests that the only thing that will ever break the cycle of shame will be when someone learns to export hope instead of bombs (Thomas L. Friedman, “Dancing Alone,” New York Times, May 13, 2004).  

Those are Friedman’s words but it’s not his original idea.  Listen to what someone else said 2,000 years ago not far at all from where Laura’s dad was shot.  “‘You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'  But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.  Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.  You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’” (Matthew 5:38-45).

If I understand Jesus correctly, he is saying that those of us who call ourselves his disciples, his followers, are the ones responsible, both personally and corporately, for breaking the cycle of shame in our lives and in this world, for responding to being shamed by exporting hope instead of revenge.  And, if I understand him correctly, Jesus is saying that breaking the cycle of shame begins when, one on one, we extend to others we call our enemies the same hope that God in Christ has extended to us.

This morning, I am beginning a short sermon series entitled, “Breaking the Cycle of Shame.”  These three messages are meant to be a very practical guide to applying the principles of Christlike forgiveness to our daily lives, a description of how to actually go about doing the work of forgiveness, of breaking the cycles of shame in which we find ourselves caught up.  Maybe at work or school or home.  Maybe between parents and children or husbands and wives or brothers and sisters, maybe even from pew to pew in this church.  Perhaps someone has shamed you just this week, embarrassed, hurt, or offended you.  In yet other relationships, perhaps someone has shamed you all of our life, someone close, someone you counted on to love you but never has.  Either way, the cycle is unending.  Shame is traded for shame and cycles from one person and one generation to the next.  How is it that we are to actually go about being obedient to Jesus’ command to break the cycle of shame?

Jesus did say that “‘Those who love me will keep my word . . .’” and that “‘the Holy Spirit . . . will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you’” (John 14:23, 26).  By the reading of scripture, we should consider ourselves reminded this morning by the Spirit of Jesus’ word.  Now, how do we go about keeping it?  This brief series is meant to offer some answers to that question.  It will not be an exhaustive list by any means.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will use them to help you form your own personal structures for responding to others when you feel shamed and wounded, so that, as Jesus’ follower, you are able to break the cycle of shame in your own relationships.  This is meant to be a guide to exporting hope instead of revenge into the lives of others by extending the same forgiveness, mercy and grace into the lives of others when, specifically when, they have shamed, hurt or wounded you in any way.  And, as always, the best place to start is at the beginning. 

Breaking the cycle of shame begins with finding a new starting point for forgiveness.  When I was in high school, the mother of one of my friends had a flat tire one day and I offered to change it.  I got all the tools out of the trunk and went to work trying to take the nuts off of the bolts that held the tire to the wheel.  But, they wouldn’t budge for anything.  Counterclockwise, right?  Except that, what I didn’t know and apparently she didn’t either, was that because her car was foreign made, the nuts twisted off clockwise, opposite from what I’d always been taught.  But, I kept trying, twisting and turning with all my might until I twisted so hard that the bolt broke completely off of the wheel.  It’s really important, if you want to end up in the right place, to start from the right direction.

If we are going to start the work of forgiveness at the point of either how deserving others are or how we feel about them for what they’ve done to us, we will never get to forgiveness because we’ll be coming at it from the wrong direction.  The only place to start the work of forgiveness is where God did, with forgiveness at the beginning.  In fact, if there is a way to new feelings toward another and a renewed relationship with them, the only way is to start with forgiveness at the beginning and work our way out from there. 

This is one place where scripture gives us more than a hint as to what God’s will might be; it gives clear guidance.  Our heavenly “‘Father,’” Jesus said, “‘makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.’”  The point being that God extends his goodness to all, first, not just those most apparently deserving of it.  That is also the way he forgives.  When you become a follower of Christ, forgiveness becomes the new starting point for your new way of living. 

This is such a fundamental principle of Christian living.  It cannot be overemphasized.  Most of the long term problems we have in life grow out of our inability to forgive.  Think about the most difficult challenges you face right now.  Whatever they are, almost certainly, the struggle with forgiving someone is part of the problem.  With rarest exception, some form of anger or resentment or desire for revenge is in the mix somewhere.  And, we never get to forgiveness most of the time because we don’t understand that forgiving is not so much where we are headed as it is the place we are to begin. 

This is a fundamental principle of Christian living because it is the very character of God to forgive first and ask questions later, if you will.  God’s forgiveness of us is “not the result of human repentance and confession that might allow us to be right with God and with one another.  It is the beginning . . . While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, Paul says.  Not, once we prove ourselves sorry enough for our sins and provide enough restitution to our victims, then God will forgive us” (George Mason, “Capital Punishment,” Christian Life Commission Seminar, Trinity Baptist Church, San Antonio, Texas, May 4, 2004).  Waiting until someone is deserving of our forgiveness, until they’ve acknowledged their failure, apologized, made up for it, whatever, is coming at forgiveness from the wrong direction.  Something will break long before you get there. 

As with most of the characteristics of what it means to be one of God’s kingdom people, extending forgiveness first is counter to most everything we’ve ever been taught or certainly what comes naturally.  It feels like twisting the nut off the bolt the wrong way.  But, it is the way of God’s children because it is the way of God.  There are very few things that are Christlike that fit comfortably with our culture or into life lived naturally.  One of the signs of the authenticity of our faith, that we are children of God, is that we are truly willing to be counter-cultural, especially at the point of how we treat others who have wounded or shamed us.  If we want to break the cycle of shame, we will have to start at the beginning, with forgiveness first, not last.

I’ve had several experiences of late that have proven to me in unmistakable ways that life is changing.  The other day as we were leaving the house, I saw our tax refund check sitting on the table.  We’d been meaning to take it to the bank and deposit it so I turned to Nancy and asked her to be sure and not forget the “Social Security check.”  It just came out of nowhere!  Then, we were driving along having a conversation about some situation we were dealing with that I’ve honestly since forgotten.  What I do remember about it is that, for some reason, I was uncharacteristically positive about the situation and Nancy was very uncharacteristically negative.  She spotted it first and when it got quiet for a moment she said, “Something’s changing for sure if you’re the positive one and I’m the negative one.”  Then, the other day at therapy, while the physical terrorist was in the other room having to shout instructions to an older gentleman who was hard of hearing on how he could inflict more pain on himself, Nancy said something indistinguishable to me.  I couldn’t understand even one word.  When I asked her to repeat herself, she said it louder, “I can’t wait until you’re deaf and I have to repeat myself all the time!”  Life is changing and, in many ways, I have no say in it and don’t even get a good hearing on the matter.

This much is also true.  Breaking the cycles of shame never just happens because forgiveness never, and I mean never, just happens.  It didn’t just happen with God toward us.  He sent his to die for us so that we might experience his forgiveness.  And, forgiveness doesn’t just happen because time passes and we start calling forgetting the same thing as forgiving.  Forgiveness, true forgiveness, doesn’t happen because those who have wounded us deeply all of a sudden have a change of heart and make it right.  With rarest exception, what is taken from us can never be returned and there is no insurance to recover for us what someone has stolen from our hearts. 

All around us the cycles of shame keep on spinning.  Marriages keep dying and brothers and sisters squabbling and children keep on leaving vowing never to return and Iraqis and Americans alike keep dying in one battle after another.  There is no model in the world around us for what Christ has called us to do.  But, call us to it he has.  To break the cycles of shame.  And, he even showed us how by forgiving us first.  While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

Jesus has done his part.  He can’t forgive us any more because he has already completely forgiven us.  This morning, the Holy Spirit has reminded us that, in Christ, forgiveness has now cycled around our way.  Now, it’s our turn. 

What will we do with all this forgiveness God has given us?