"Unforgiven" -- Rev. Tim Phillips
What is the best Western (not the hotel chain, but the movie genre)? Some of the men in our congregation had that conversation recently. How would you answer that question? The 1939 classic Stagecoach (starring a young John Wayne in what amounted to a comeback role) would have to be near the top of that list. One of our members is fond of Lonesome Dove. Another suggested The Searchers. A friend of mine loves Quigley Down Under, which is different than the traditional Western (for starters, it’s set in Australia!). And certainly Sergio Leone's “Spaghetti Western” trilogy of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, would have to be considered. Those movies starred Clint Eastwood as “The Man with No Name.” However, if I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be Eastwood’s 1992 film Unforgiven.
Part of Unforgiven’s appeal is that it is very much an anti-Western. The moral absolutes of traditional Westerns are pushed aside in favor of more morally ambiguous themes (although Leone had paved the way for this earlier). The film’s “hero,” William Munny, is retired outlaw who wants to collect a reward for a wrong committed, but he is only in it for the money (as his name implies), not for a noble cause. The sheriff in the film is anything but a man of the law, portraying the opposite of justice and law-keeping. Famous, violent killers are revealed to be cowards, and the glorious stories about the Wild West are shown to be little more than embellishments of a naïve writer’s imagination. William Munny is obviously haunted by his past, and he is more of a survivor than a noble hero.
It's the title of the film, though, that really sticks with me. How would you feel if you had a troubled conscience like William Munny, but you were “unforgiven.” What would you do if you had a lifetime of sin hanging over you, without any hope of being forgiven?
Jonathan Edwards' sermon "Pardon for the Greatest Sinners," is surely one of his greatest. The sermon is taken from Psalm 25:11 ("For thy name's sale, O Lord, pardon my iniquity; for it is great"). To those who have spent much of their life in sin, who think they are beyond God's forgiveness (not unlike the fictitious William Munny), Edwards says:
Some may be ready to object, I have spent my youth and all the best of my life in sin, and I am afraid God will not accept of me, when I offer him only mine old age.–To this I would answer, 1. Hath God said any where, that he will not accept of old sinners who come to him? God hath often made offers and promises in universal terms; and is there any such exception put in? Doth Christ say, All that thirst, let them come to me and drink, except old sinners? Come to me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, except old sinners, and I will give you rest? Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out, if he be not an old sinner? Did you ever read any such exception any where in the Bible? and why should you give way to exceptions which you make out of your own heads, or rather which the devil puts into your heads, and which have no foundation in the word of God?–Indeed it is more rare that old sinners are willing to come, than others; but if they do come, they are as readily accepted as any whatever.
Paul expresses this sense of hopelessness well in Ephesians 2:12: “you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Even though Paul is writing to Gentiles, this describes the overall hopeless situation of all of humanity. We have no hope apart from the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God found in Jesus Christ. “But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace” (Ephesians 2:13-14a). It is in the Lord Jesus Christ alone that we can be forgiven.
What are the implications of this? One is that if we have come to know the forgiveness of God, then we must be willing to forgive others. “If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4) “Then Peter came and said to Him, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven’” (Matthew 18:21-22). “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32).
Dear reader, has the Lord Jesus Christ forgiven you of your sins? Have you gone to Him with a humble, repentant heart, calling upon Him for mercy? The good news is that Christ Jesus came to save sinners -- even the greatest of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:14). He is faithful and just to forgiveness us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). In Jesus Christ alone, but in Jesus Christ for certain, you are truly forgiven.
Edwards concludes his sermon with this reminder for us:
If ever you truly come to Christ, you must come to him to make you better. You must come as a patient comes to his physician, with his diseases or wounds to be cured. Spread all your wickedness before him, and do not plead your goodness; but plead your badness, and your necessity on that account: and say, as the psalmist in the text, not Pardon mine iniquity, for it is not so great as it was, but, "Pardon mine iniquity, for it is Great."