Biography
Michael Marshall is one of the youngest men ever consecrated a Bishop in the Anglican Church. Since 1984, he has been the Director of the Anglican Institute based in St. Louis. Under his dynamic and visionary leadership, the Institute is inspiring change in lives across the country. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"The Power of Forgiveness" 
It's a great privilege and a great joy to have the opportunity to be on the Chicago Sunday Evening Club and to have the opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm a Bishop, I'm an apostle. Since the earliest times of the Church, the apostle has been a great traveling man, he's gone around talking about the Gospel and the good news of Jesus. I spend most of my time, in fact, at 35,000 feet; traveling and preaching and teaching this Gospel. I think, if Paul had been alive today, he would have been what you call a "Frequent Flier" because traveling is part of the sharing of the good news.

But traveling's a hazardous business. My mind goes back to about three or four months ago when I got locked into Dallas/Fort Worth airport; my flight had been canceled. In disgust I went to one of those clubs which the airlines run, determined I was going to speak to nobody about nothing; I was down. There in front of me, at the bar, was a man placing the order for his drink. I saw him shout across an order to the barman, who then proceeded to fix his drink. Then suddenly the gentleman scratched his head and said, "Sorry, I've changed my mind. On second thought I think I might like a lite beer."

Well, the bait was out, I simply could not resist it. I said, "Don't apologize for changing your mind. I'm in business for people who have second thoughts."

He couldn't resist the bait, either, and so he bought me a free drink - "grace" I think you call that - and we spent the next hour talking about what I think is the most dynamic and wonderful word in the whole of the human vocabulary. So engrossed were we in our conversation that we both of us nearly missed our next flight.

So you ask me, "Bishop, what is the most dynamic word in the human vocabulary?" I'm going to tell you. It's a glorious word: Repentance. It's a word that springs to us right out of the pages of the New Testament, and right out of the experience of our encounter with Jesus Christ. Repentance - don't "turn off" - it's a glorious word, it's not a dusty word, it's a dynamic word. It comes from a Greek word, "metanoia." It's a difficult word to translate, but it does mean exactly what that man said across the bar, "On second thought;" a new insight because of a new outlook. Or I think it might almost be better translated by the words of the wicked Fagan in the musical, "Oliver Twist," when he starts singing, "I'm reviewing the situation."

That's exactly where we find the Prodigal Son in that glorious passage in Luke 11:15-24. He is "reviewing the situation." "When he's come to himself," it says in one translation, or when he'd come to his senses, or when he'd come into his right mind. Everything up to that point had not been "metanoia," it had been paranoia. He felt that God, the Universe, his father, everything, everybody was against him. That's the attitude I had when I stepped into that Ambassador Club at Dallas/Fort Worth airport; as though "the world was agin' me."
Then he has this most glorious, dynamic experience; he repents, he reviews the situation. "How many hired servants of my father," he said, "have bread enough and to spare and here I am dying of hunger." And so he gasps and cries, "God, now I see!" In that moment there is a new change of mind, of outlook, because of a new insight, a second thought. "I will arise and go to my father. Sorry, I was wrong." That glorious little word: Sorry.

And so, we see him now, picking himself up and turning around. That's a very important word in the human vocabulary; the ability to turn around. You see, when you turn around you see something from a totally different perspective. That's why I sometimes wish the clergy would spend more time sitting in the congregation so that they could see what's going on from the point of the congregation. I think, if they did, we wouldn't get up to some of the strange things we do get up to when we're up in that pulpit. Mind you, if you stood where we stand and saw you lot, from our point of view, you perhaps wouldn't get up to some of the strange things you get up to either. It all depends how you see it, if you see what I mean.

How you see it depends which way you're facing. Whether you can "face up to it" or not. So he turns around to face up to it and moves from paranoia to "metanoia," and enters into that glorious chapter of opportunity, because repentance opens doors of new opportunities. He begins to rehearse his speech on his way back to his father.
It has three points to it. First, "I will arise and I will go to my father, and I will say to him, 'Father I've sinned, I was wrong.'" Perhaps the Christian's the only person left in our modern world who doesn't need to be afraid to be wrong. You don't have to win, you see, you can afford to lose. That's part of the good news of Christianity. Secondly, "I'm not worthy to be called your son." My son, my dear, whatever makes you think you're worthy of love? You can't earn love, love is a free gift. And then, the third point in his little speech - "make me as one of your hired servants."

So he rehearses his speech all the way back. Though the son was yet a great way off, it says his father - who probably sat out on the porch every morning over a cup of coffee, smoking perhaps, and thinking of his son - suddenly sees his son. The father drops his cigarette, or his coffee cup, or whatever it may be, and rushes to embrace his son. The son looks up into the eyes of his father now, and he blurts out his speech. The speech has got three points to it, but now we only hear two.

Let's look at it again. "Father, I've sinned against Heaven and before you." Yes, that's right, and that's got to be said. Whatever Happened to Sin? was the title of a book written thirty years ago. I think it could still be the title of a book today. Oh, we blame our stars, we blame our glands, we blame our parents, we blame our environment; whatever happened to sin? I was just wrong, that's all. I missed the point of it - that's what the word "sin" means. "Father, I've sinned. I'm not worthy to be called your son." No you're not, but then, as we've said, you cannot earn love.

But notice that he does not repeat the third clause of his little speech, because he cannot become a servant, he's a son. He's a bad son, oh yes, but he's a son. Perhaps what he would have liked to have been would have been quite a good servant. He'd have liked to have been that little boy who decided to be humble for a month and at the end of the month gave himself 10 out of 10 for humility. You can't pull yourself up with your own boot straps that way. The thing he's got to face here is that he's a son, so the father reaches for the ring to put on his finger and for the robe of sonship to clothe him. He must face the fact that he's a son, even if he is a bad son.

I love a phrase of C. S. Lewis. He says, "You can always tell people who don't believe in sins because they never stop talking about other people's." I love that. I think we live in an age obsessed with other people's sins. It's an age of moralism, it's an age of judgementalism. It's sad, you see, that so often in our age, we want to end up winning. I was brought up, as a little boy, to believe that you had to learn to be a good loser. There's nothing worse than playing chess with a little boy who halfway through either kicks the board onto the floor because he can't bear to lose, or worse still, changes the rules so that he ends up winning - I think that's called Situational Ethics in theological circles. No, we can afford to lose, we can afford to be a bad son. Those people who say, "I'm as good as those people who go to church," would rather be quite nice, non-churchgoing people than just bad Christians. That's it.

I think the greatest discovery is to discover that God loves me in spite of my sin. Did you hear that? It may be the thing that you want to take away from this program. God loves you. That's an awesome discovery. The saints are not people who rush around loving others, the saints are people who have discovered this great secret -they are loved. It's an awesome thing to discover that; to know that I am loved. "Oh love that will not let me go."

Hell is not that state or place where God stops loving you. Would to God, in some ways, that it were. Hell is that state or place where God loves me, but I say no to it, I simply can't face up to it. That's where the Prodigal Son had been - he'd been down to Hell and back again. Yes, Hell is that state or place where God loves you, but you say no. Purgatory is not that state or place where God doesn't love you. It's that state or place where God loves you, but you can't make up your mind. You sit on the fence, "Maybe, perhaps, sometimes, on the one hand, on the other." Thirdly, Heaven is not that state or place where God has decided to love you more than He always has done. Heaven is that state or place where God loves you as He always has and He always will, and by His Grace, along with Mary the Mother of the Lord, you are able to say, "Yes, okay, Amen, right on."

That's why, in New York, the first thing Mother Teresa does, as she ministers to the victims of AIDS, is to put her arms around them - as surely as that father did to that boy - and tells them, in no uncertain terms, the greatest secret of all, "You do know Jesus loves you?" I love the phrase Kojack uses when he arrests you. He says, "Who loves you, baby?" It's the fundamental question. In a sense, we are never free to fail until we know we are loved. It takes a long time to convince a person that they really are loved and therefore can be forgiven. I love that phrase in the New Testament when Peter - just out of Seminary, if you know what I mean - says rather cautiously, "How many times shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?" And he says, "Seven times?"

Jesus says, "Come on Peter, don't be absurd, seventy times seven." It's a happy point of Greek syntax in the New Testament that, when Luke recalls the first words from the cross, it says, "And they crucified Him and He said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'" As a matter of fact, there are, I'm told, two parallel imperfect tenses, and a more accurate translation would, happily, be something like this, "As fast as they were crucifying Him, He kept on saying, 'Father forgive, Father forgive, Father forgive...'" It takes a long time to nail a man to a piece of wood. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. It takes a long time to convince me that I'm loved, I mean really loved - that awesome discovery. "Oh love that will not let me go." Jesus Christ, my saviour, at times I wish to God He weren't. Oh yes, "oh love that will not let me go."

Definition of a saint: I think it's an American definition, forgive me, but it goes something like this: a saint is someone who lived a long time ago, who's never been adequately researched. The implication: that if you researched adequately and long enough, you'd see through them and see the flaws and see the feet of clay. My friends, that is not the definition of a saint. A saint is someone you can see right through. That's why we put them in stained glass windows. As a matter of fact, the definition of a saint in the western church is someone who's been so hollowed out by the fire of love that God can work at least three miracles right through them. I like that.

"Love bade me welcome," says George Herbert, "but my soul drew back." That's what that Prodigal Son was doing, you see. He wanted to retreat again. Man cannot bear very much reality. So this is the judgement: Light is coming into the world and men and women prefer darkness. There's the problem and thank God I do not have to be right, but I do need to be forgiven. Jesus says, in fact, that there's an equation, that "those who have been forgiven much will love much, those who are forgiven little will love little." There's the secret. I'm not married, but I'm told that half the fun of marriage is making up when you've had a row.

Yes, and I'm now going to let you into the greatest secret of all. Hang on to your seats, because this is so hot to handle I don't think we dare tell the world outside. It's the story of our redemption. Innocently, we were in the Garden. Then came the Fall of Man, when we sinned. And the Redemption of Man is forgiveness, yes. But do you know this - that in the New Testament it says that Redeemed Mankind is now above the angels? Never insult anybody by calling them an angel, that's an insult - angels are two-a-penny.

You and I are in the saint-making business, which is the forgiveness business. You see, Forgiven Man is now even closer to God than Innocent Man. And so theology talks about "Felix Culpa," "Oh, happy sin." That is dangerous stuff, isn't it? "Shall we sin more that grace may abound? Are you saying that, Bishop?" No, I'm not. I'm saying this, and get it absolutely clear because it's the good news: in prospect, always try to shun sin, because it crucified the Son of God. But in retrospect, when you have sinned, to be forgiven is more wonderful than if you hadn't sinned.

           Ne'er had the apple taken been,
           The apple taken been,
           Our lady ne'er'd been Heavenly Queen,

Says the medieval carol and goes on:

           Then blessed be the time
           That apple taken was.

This really is dangerous stuff. Oh, shall we sin more that grace may abound? No. But those who are forgiven much will love much.

I had never met a person with AIDS until three years ago. I was conducting a mission on the West Coast and the first night, the church was packed and I was standing at the back trying to look around at the sort of person who was coming to this mission. I saw a young man come in. He was looking for somewhere to sit. There was nowhere to sit, so I took him to the front and sat him on the floor at the foot of the pulpit. He sat there every night of the mission.

On the last night, I asked for an altar call, for people to come forward and once again to receive a fresh anointing of the Love of God and the Forgiveness of Jesus. He came forward, and as I asked him what I should say, he simply said that he had AIDS and that he was dying. I prayed with him and I asked him afterwards to come and be with me in the side chapel to pray more. I said to him, "Shane, you are on a long journey now, a very special journey, and you don't need to take any more luggage or baggage with you than you absolutely need. I want you to kneel at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. I want you to leave all that baggage there tonight."

In short, he made his confession of sin. He confessed his sins and afterwards received that wonderful gift of reassurance of sins forgiven which is the gift of the Church to give on behalf of Jesus. I told him I'd pray for him every day. I said, "Most of the time I'll be at 35,000 feet. I'll write you a postcard every day." Ten days later, I heard the news that he had died. I was sad. I was praying for a particular healing. When I got back to my home, I gathered all my mail - all that junk, garbage mail you have in this country - and began to sort it through. I got back to my apartment and there, on the day of his funeral, among all that mail, there was a letter. He'd written the day before he died. He thanked me for my prayers and my cards. He told me that he was in great pain, but that each day the priest was bringing him Holy Communion and that many people from the local church had come and befriended him. Then the last paragraph began with these words - these are not my words, they are his. He said:

I never thought that I would thank God that I had AIDS, but since my repentance and forgiveness and new life in Christ, I have found a quality of love and forgiveness that I never knew existed. Like you, I am praying that this body be healed. If it isn't, I'm asking that God will give me another body, free from the scars and pains of this one.Yours ever in Christ.

On the back of the envelope, he just wrote "Psalm 119:71." I reached for my prayer book and read the words, "It is good for me that I have been troubled, that I might know Thy statutes."

Shane had found the power of forgiveness, the assurance of sins forgiven. Shane is a saint. There's nothing else to make saints of than the stuff and chemistry of forgiven sinners.

It may be that there is someone that you need to forgive. It may be that in the silence of prayer, you need to name that person before God. It may be there's someone you need to receive from. Forgiveness unlocks the door of Heaven, which is why Jesus prayed for it, and so did Stephen as he was dying.
Yes, the power of sins forgiven. John Wesley said that he felt that strange burning of the heart because he knew that his sins, even his sins, had been forgiven.

My friends, that is your baptized birthright as a Christian, to know that God loves you and that Jesus died for your sins and therefore that the only contract in the Kingdom is to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

My friend, say this prayer with me. Jesus, what didst Thou find in me that Thou hast dealt so lovingly? All that I have or am is Thine and Thou, sweet Saviour, Thou art mine. Jesus, my Lord, I Thee adore. Oh, give me grace to love You more. Amen.

Interview with Michael Marshall

Orley Herron: Michael, tell us about The Anglican Institute.

Michael Marshall: The Anglican Institute was founded about three-and-a-half years ago, Orley, and it's a missionary movement within our church and to the church. It's for the education and empowerment of the people of God, to renew and refresh us according to our own credentials. Anglicans are what we call Episcopalians world-wide and there are something like 70 million Episcopalians world-wide. For us, the church is based on scripture, which is absolutely fundamental to the Anglican Church, interpreted through reason and tradition. By reason, I don't just mean the mind, I mean the whole inner experience of the Spirit working within us to endorse and to resonate with that message.

Herron: Michael, as you travel around the world, what do you see happening today?

Marshall: Oh! Exciting things! God is renewing His church. If I had to say it in one sentence - He's renewing all the churches, whether you like it or you don't. I see two sorts of Christians. I don't see any longer the denominational labels, they mean less and less to me. I see two sorts of Christians - living Christians and dead Christians. You know, the big divide in all the churches today is between two sorts of faith really; what I might call a faith based on revelation, or speculation - either a God-given faith or a man-made religion. I believe you will find living Christians among those who see it, basically, as a God-given faith, you see.

There's some wonderful things happening in the church, there really are, particularly in those parts of the world where Christians have to be often persecuted for their faith - it costs a great deal, discipleship is costly.

Herron: Michael, we've been impressed with your leadership as a Bishop. As we look at the United States, we've been unimpressed with some of the Christian leaders of recent months. What can you tell us about the moral failure of certain leaders that we've witnessed?

Marshall: Well, the first thing I want to say is that the church is full of sinners, like you and me, you see, and, as I was saying, we are forgiven sinners. We shouldn't be shocked by sin, Jesus was never shocked by sin - he was shocked by fear, but not by sin. The church, whenever it's been successful in history, has often fallen to the snares of sexual immorality or financial immorality. But what I want to say is this: if they're doing it wrong, Orley, why aren't we trying to do it better? You see, evangelism is never going to become a dirty word for me. I believe it's the most precious and important part of the Gospel. With St. Paul I say, "Woe to me if I preach not the Gospel." All I want to say is I pray for my brothers who are in this ministry and I hope the Lord will open a door for me that I also may be able to use this media - the television - to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But I'm doing it as a sinner who also needs to be forgiven.

Herron: You are a very exciting person to be around. Tell me what excites you spiritually.

Marshall: What excites me is to see the power of the Gospel at work. You see, I know that Jesus is alive, not only because I have met Him in my own discipleship, but I also know because I have seen Him at work in other people's lives. The lovely thing is to see preaching that is faithfully done. I was recently with Billy Graham and spent some time with him. He's been a faithful evangelist, you see, for many years. When the word is faithfully preached, not necessarily eloquently or powerfully, but faithfully preached, lives are touched. I've had the great privilege of going around in this ministry seeing faces changed, seeing lives touched, seeing people come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Risen Lord who is alive and reigns in their lives. That Jesus is Lord! There's the great cry of the New Testament. And it's a true today as it was 2,000 years ago.

Herron: Do you think the church can reform culture?

Marshall: Yes I do. I think one of the aims of the Institute is to have some impact on society. You know in 410, when Rome fell and the Dark Ages began, St. Augustine picked up his pen and he wrote about the City of God. I believe, as we are seeing all the false gods of Hedonism and Materialism falling today, this is a wonderful opportunity to raise up the one true, living God. And how do we do it? Not only by words, but by actions. Christians have got to begin to live out the implications of the Gospel in community so that the world may see a sign of Jesus Christ in their midst.