Providing Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
For almost a 120 years the World YMCA has been calling its members and leaders to a week of prayer, along side the World YWCA, and this year the theme is: Beauty from Brokenness
“Although we may be easily broken, the light of Christ within us can heal brokenness and burst through, reaching out to those around us.”
Join us for a week of prayer in your heart at noon each day this week!
Today we focus on the beauty of forgiveness. Yet, forgiveness is one of the most challenging things to do for many people. It is difficult for most people to seek forgiveness. In many cases, it is also hard for many to forgive.
“The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?”
He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
John 21:17
Forgiving does not mean completely forgetting the wrongdoings of the offender.
There must be justice for the crime committed against the offended, the sinned-against.
The contemporary criminal justice system metes out justice by establishing the guilt of the offender and punishing the offender according to the provisions of the law.
This is retributive justice. Yet, it is not a guarantee that forgiveness takes place.
In restorative justice, a dialogical approach takes place in an attempt to restore the dignity and the relationships between the offended, the offenders, and the community that the crime has afflicted. In the restorative justice system, there is a high probability of forgiveness and healing.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Why do we need to seek forgiveness and forgive those who have offended us?
What is your response to Jesus if he will ask you now, “Do you love me?” Would you want Jesus to ask you the same question three times?
What would it take you to forgive someone who betrays your trust and violates your personhood?
How can we use our freedom to love and forgive amid a world beset with sinfulness and brokenness?
How can we love the unlovable – rapist, murderers, oppressors, colonizers, land grabbers, and the oppressive social structures, etc.?
PRAYER OF BLESSING
God of Beauty and Holiness; You have created a wonderful universe. You have fashioned the amazing Earth and the delightful creatures in it. We bless you and praise you for creating us, human beings, in your image. And yet, somehow, in our arrogance We forget our creatureliness. We behave as if we are the creator of this Earth. We forget to reflect in our lives your divine image. We destroy the Earth because of greed. We destroy our lives and our fellow earthlings. We nurse our hurts and find it so difficult to forgive. We nurture our proclivity for vengeance. We delight in violence, conflicts, and wars. We refuse to build communities of peace. We are broken vessels; we wallow in our self-pity and brokenness. For all our weaknesses, failures, and ugliness we brought into this world, Help us forgive ourselves, and forgive us, O God. Help us become instruments of your blessing of forgiveness. Dear God, as we leave this place, Bless us with uneasiness with our complacency, Bless us with courage and steadfastness That we may strive to restore the beauty of our relationship with each other And with the Earth. Amen.
Please share any thoughts, insights or recorded actions that come as a result of today’s devotion on social media using the hashtag: #WWOP21 Team: Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro, Philippines/Hong Kong; Jacob Palm, USA; Joanna Tan, Singapore; Ololade Aregun, Nigeria; Salem Gin, Nigeria
If you are on Instagram, I highly recommend you follow @ymcairelandchaplaincy – they post inspiring content and are participating in the World Week of Prayer with daily posts and videos.
Join us for the 12 Day YMCA Devotion Series – LIVING STONES: LEAD, CARE AND SERVE LIKE JESUS
How can we be ‘like Living Stones’ used by God to strengthen the presence of Christ where we lead?
Recently, 24 YMCA leaders with the OnPrinciple program visited 12 places throughout the Holy Land where Jesus taught about how to live and lead in God’s kingdom.
From this experience comes 12 spiritual leadership principles – or Living Stones – (inspired by 1Peter 2:4-5) that Christ-followers can embody as we are being built up to lead, care and serve everyone, like Jesus.
by Melissa Logan, CEO & President with the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in North Carolina
Have you ever felt judged? Have you ever been hurt? Have you ever hurt someone’s feelings?
If you are like me, your answer is yes to all of the above: judgment, shame, embarrassment, anger and hurt.
The hurt replays in my head, and even worse, lays a heavy burden in my heart.
Unfortunately, I’m not without sin; my actions and words have wreaked the same havoc on someone else, too.
And yes, those replay and cause great regret.
We aren’t always going to make the best choices or do the right thing.
Thankfully, we have a great model to look to; we can look to the life of Jesus.
Recently I walked through the temple court area and sat on the steps leading up to space where Jesus met a woman accused of sin.
The scene replays in my mind of Jesus facing the scared woman there, writing on the ground with a non-judgmental attitude towards her.
Jesus makes it seem so simple; don’t judge others – give grace.
Let’s pause on the words of grace and forgiveness.
We might think these just happen in our minds when we say, “I forgive you.”
However, it’s deeper than that.
Grace and forgiveness are also heart issues.
Hurt, shame, sin – these happen in the heart, are costly, harmful and so heavy.
I find that while I’m able to give grace to others, I’m not as generous with myself. I’m working on it.
How about you? What forgiveness of sins do you need to give yourself?
Releasing the emotional heart-hurt is freeing; it’s uplifting in spirit, mind, and body.
Our hearts and mind (and lives) were meant for joy, gratitude, love, and peace.
We have a choice on how we show up every day to ourselves, our family and friends, to the world, and most importantly to Jesus.
Choosing to show up with the grace of Christ allows you to shine the light of God’s forgiveness in the world.
May you be the light, like living stones who you drop the judge-stones, and may you choose grace every day.
At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery.
They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
This YMCA devotion series brought to you by onPrinciple – click here to learn more about it – a new leadership development program to strengthen the presence of Christ in the YMCA
Click here for the entire devotion series as a downloadable PDF booklet.
Click here to access entire devotion series on YouVersion
The YMCA & Forgiveness For All :: June 6 is YMCA Founders Day, when we remember Sir George Williams and his 11 Christian friends who prayerfully and courageously started the Y in 1844. We celebrate all who have inspired the Y to be for all, empowered by the life and love of Christ Jesus. In these difficult times, we need the Y more than ever to support and train our members on how to do forgiveness for all. This will deepen our inclusive equity work in our communities. Read for more on this proposal.
The emphasis on inclusion in the YMCA is admirable and crucial.
For Christians in the Y we see inclusion as central to our original purpose, which is why we highlighted the prayer of Jesus “that we all may be one” in our early logo (John 17:21).
The adapting logos of the YMCA since 1881
The religious and social motivations for initiating the Young Men’s Association are an example of what radical inclusion looked like in 1844 industrial London.
On Founders Day, June 6, YMCA’s pause to remember Sir George Williams and his 11 Christian friends who prayerfully launched the Y in order to save young men in spirit, mind and body.
Sir George Williams, London
Here we are, almost 180 years later, benefiting from their religiously and socially inclusive work, still striving to keep living out our mission; remarkable really.
Inclusion in the YMCA and our world has gotten more difficult and complicated, for many reasons which include globalization, technological and proliferation of social media, and cross-cultural human migration.
More diverse people are more uprooted from their traditions and tribes, are more scattered across the globe, and thus more kinds of different people must interact with each other.
It doesn’t always go well.
Which is why the Y is so wise to emphasize inclusion the way it does.
However, one element I have rarely ever seen taught in the YMCA regarding inclusion is the practice of forgiveness.
What happens when people are bigoted and exclusionary? Is this just a misunderstanding? Is it just lack of understanding? Is it at least a character flaw? An area for improvement? Is prejudice wrong or just unpreferred?
Can we call bigotry “sin” in the Young Men’s Christian Association?
If we can, then we open up opportunities to really nurture a transformation in the spirit, mind and body of our fellow members that hold on to ugly stereotypes and bigoted habits.
To be honest, every single Y member has some kind of prejudice that they have to work on. If bigotry and prejudice foment hate and violence, we need a strong word and concept to describe it: sin.
Within the Christian tradition of the Y there are beautiful examples and practices for people to be transformed from sin-full exclusive bigots to grace-full inclusive neighbors.
One example is the life and teachings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His Christian faith was undeniably central and crucial to his accomplishments for civil rights and a just peace.
When MLK taught about inclusion, it required teaching about and modeling forgiveness.
The Y is at a place in our inclusion work where we need to recover the teaching and practice of forgiveness. Without it we will have slogans with no spirit, policies to embody but no way to recover from hurt hearts and broken promises.
Social responsibility and being for all includes the practice of forgiveness – this is what enables there to be any kind of diverse social cohesion and survive the chronic misunderstandings and human foibles.
If the Y is as serious as we say we are about our inclusive mission, we must utilize our Christian heritage, in particular its tradition on forgiveness.
The brokenness and violence in our communities is more than just poverty of jobs and resources, it’s the sinful spirit of us all without recourse for letting go of grudges and making amends.
If nothing else, for the majority of Y members that identify with a Christian tradition, the Y ought to resurrect specifically Christian teachings on forgiveness so that Christian Y members who are racist or bigoted or holding on to grudges have proximity in the Y to the Jesus of John 17:21.
When it comes to forgiveness for all, where to start for resources and models?
For the many Christians in the Y, we start with Jesus Christ and what he taught and modeled on forgiveness. The Y ought to explicitly endorse and encourage Christian Y members to be more like Christ Jesus. It’s needed, no?
It’d be worth remembering and reflecting on the Christian sermons of Rev. Martin Luther King, especially the collected in the edition Strength To Love in particular his writings on forgiveness for all.
For a fresh and startling Christian perspective on forgiveness for all, I strongly recommend these provocative reflections by Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish Christian who wrote extensively around the time that George Williams was forming the YMCA. Kierkegaard was also a deeply formative influence on MLK. And me, for what it matters.
Take these Christian comments on forgiveness for all by Kierkegaard and reflect on them with a humble, inclusive spirit and mind.
I think they could be a powerful catalyst for Christians in the YMCA to reawaken as a powerful force for radical inclusion and reconciliation, healing and just mercy, inspired by the truth and grace of Christ Jesus.
That Jesus Christ died for my sins certainly shows how great his grace is, but it also shows how great my sins are.
Christ abandoned ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ and turned the relationship around. He introduced a different like-for-like: as you relate yourself to others, so God relates himself to you. Forgiveness is to forgive.
To forgive sins is divine not only in the sense that no one is able to do it except God, but also because no one can do it without God.
It is God’s joy to forgive sins. Just as God is almighty in creating out of nothing, so he is almighty in uncreating something; for to forget is to uncreate something.
When I hate someone or deny that God is their Father, it is not they who lose, it is I. It is I who then have no Father. With unforgiveness there is always the reversed echo.
The anguished conscience alone understands Christ.
Is this the test: to love Christ more dearly than mother and father, than gold and goods, than honor and reputation? No, the test is this: to love the Savior more than your sin.
God created out of nothing – marvelous you say. Yes of course but he does something more marvelous- he creates saints out of sinners.
You will get a deep insight into the state of Christianity in each age by seeing how it treats Judas.
Father in heaven! Hold not our sins up against us but hold us up against our sins, so that the thought of you when it wakens in our soul, and each times it wakens, should not remind us of what we have committed but of what you forgave, not of how we went astray, but of how you saved us!
The need for forgiveness is a sign that one loves God. But both parts correspond to one another – when a person does not comprehend what a great sinner he is, he cannot love God; and when he does not love God, he cannot comprehend how great a sinner he is. The consciousness of sin is the very passion of love. Truly the law makes one a sinner, but love makes one a far greater sinner! It is true that the person who fears God and trembles feels himself to be a sinner, but the person who in truth loves feels himself to be an even greater sinner.
You may think that the sin remains just as great whether it is forgiven or not, since forgiveness neither adds nor subtracts. But this is not so. Rather, when you refuse to forgive you increase the sin. Does not your hardness of heart become yet one more sin? Ought not this be brought into the reckoning as well?
All Kierkegaard quotes in this article taken from Provocations, pgs 283-287
For more YMCA resources on forgiveness for all, try out this devotion series called Living Stones developed by Y leaders.
