This passage comes up in the lectionary on the Sunday after Easter, but I saved it for today...
I was remembering this week the
very first time I preached at a church I served as a director of Christian
Education and youth ministry. L., the pastor, was so kind to give me the
opportunity. I was so eager to “get it right,” and I worked so hard on that
sermon. I researched, I wrote, I researched some more; I probably spent about
forty hours on it. And then I preached it. And then, a few days later, L.
and I sat down to talk about it.
She was so kind. I was so eager.
And that is a great combination, because I was able to hear the heart of her
critique and remember it:
Too much. Too many. Think, “everything
but the kitchen sink.”
Too much “stuff” was in my
sermon. Too many points were in my sermon. L. said, kindly, “There were
maybe six or seven sermons in there. You only need to preach one at a time.”
It’s a classic new preacher move: you’re not sure when you’re going to get to
preach again, so you put everything imaginable in there. All Jesus’ words! All
your ideas! All the commentators’ commentary! But all that results in is a kind
of overwhelming seven-course sermon that leaves everyone in need of some
Gaviscon and a nap.
And so, ever since that
conversation 15 or so years ago, I have been very diligent about trying to
write just one sermon at a time, with just one main point.
Sometimes, it is really hard to
do that. Today, for instance. Our passage from the gospel of John, one that is
normally presented on the Sunday after Easter, contains so many important
themes and ideas. Here, in rapid succession, I will share with you some rabbit
holes I’ve chosen not to go down in the pursuit of this sermon:
What, exactly, were the disciples
afraid of?
What is the nature of Jesus’
resurrection body, that he both has the wounds of his crucifixion and can walk
through closed and locked doors?
If Jesus is giving the Holy
Spirit, does that mean that Pentecost and Easter are happening simultaneously
here?
Whose twin is Thomas, anyway?
All, fascinating and potentially
important points. All worthy of exploration! But I am going to be disciplined.
I am going to be the “not-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” preacher today. I am
going to talk about one thing. Well, two. But they’re related.
I am going to talk about wounds,
and forgiveness.
Jesus comes to be among his
friends, his frightened and hiding friends, after a week we can only begin to
imagine. The word “whiplash” comes to mind—the arc of this week beginning with
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, in which he is welcomed as a hero, on the verge of
a great victory. He is hailed and feted and festooned with palms. And five days
later, after a meal with his friends in which he lets them know pretty clearly
that the end is near, he is hauled off as a criminal, tried before civil and
religious authorities, including a governor, and, finally, taken to be
executed, to be crucified. And then, wham, the roller coaster takes another
whiplash-inducing turn and Jesus is not dead in the tomb but alive in the
garden and talking to Mary Magdalene. And then, hours later, that same night,
he is here.
Here, in this room with his
terrified and perhaps now utterly confused friends. He is showing them his
wounds. And he is telling them about forgiveness.
So, let me state the obvious.
There are lots of people in this room who have been hurt, and there are lots of
people in this room who have done the hurting. Jesus, of all gathered here,
would be the one with the most compelling case against forgiveness, and it’s
not surprising that, 2000 years later, someone has written a series of books in
which Jesus does things like make people explode by just looking at them.[i]
I understand the impulse. Jesus has been betrayed by one of his closest
friends. He has been abandoned or denied by the rest of them. He has been
tried, convicted and punished for crimes he never committed, and his punishment
has been the most severe and painful imaginable. If anyone in this room has the
“right” not to forgive, if we want to put it in terms of “rights,” the winner
would be Jesus.
And yet. Here he comes,
mysteriously appearing right in the midst of the fear and the hiding out.
First, Jesus shows them his
wounds.
Next, Jesus says “Peace be with
you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
Then, Jesus breathes into them,
in the exact same way God breathes into the man in the Garden of Eden, and
says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
And then, Jesus talks to them
about forgiveness.
Let’s take these things one at a
time. First, the wounds. I have always assumed that Jesus shows his wounds to
his friends as a kind of proof of his identity, sort of an ancient Near Eastern
equivalent of dental records. But I think the wounds serve another function as
well. If you don’t have wounds, you don’t have a need to forgive anyone.
Forgiveness, by definition, has to be given by those who have been harmed.
Perhaps Jesus is indeed doing a “See, it’s really me!” kind of thing here. But
he is also, I believe, presenting his credentials for his teaching on
forgiveness.
“Peace be with you,” Jesus says.
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” In other words, I am about to give
you the very same task given to me by God. And to help you with that task,
here: I give you the Holy Spirit. I breathe into you, life.
Here is what Jesus says next:
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain
the sins of any, they are retained. (John 20:23, New Revised Standard Version)
Here, in this darkened and
fear-filled room, on the evening of the day of resurrection, Jesus tells his
friends that the task before them, THE task for Christians ever after, is
forgiveness. If you forgive those who harm you, they will be forgiven. If you
don’t, well, as Eugene Peterson puts it, “what are you going to do with them?”
What ARE you going to do with
them?
Have you ever fantasized about
what you would do to those people you don’t want to forgive? Oh, I have. And,
I’d just like to say, my particular pathology in this area, as has been pointed
out to me on more than one occasion, is my need to demonstrate that though I am
the one who has been wronged, but I will rise above it. Nobly.
And that, dear ones, is
absolutely no one’s definition of “forgiveness.” That is all about ego. That is
all about pride. That is all about wanting to win.
Forgiveness is a letting go—of
the need to rewrite the past, of the need to be right, of the need to be the
injured party.
Forgiveness is a letting go— of
pride, of ego, of self.
At the same time, forgiveness is
an embracing—of a new future, a new freedom, a new life. It is often said, but
I think underappreciated, that the greatest benefit truly goes to the one doing
the forgiving. Gary Renard, in “The Disappearance of the Universe,” writes,
“There will always be only two choices: your true home with God, and
separation, or individuality.” Guess which of these choices is the one arrived
at through forgiveness? Forgiveness is the choice to be in our true home, with
God, and not just in the world to come, not just as a ticket to paradise, but
right here, right now. Our true home is with God, every minute of every day.
And that is why Jesus has unleashed the Spirit: to give us the power and the ability
to do the forgiving. Receive the Spirit, says Jesus, and forgive one another.
Christians are not the only ones
who know this, by the way. I Googled the
phrase, “breathing forgiveness,” and when the results appeared, there were
links from Christians, but also from the Hindu tradition, the Jewish tradition,
the Native American tradition, the Buddhist tradition, the Islamic
tradition—and more still. We Christians don’t have a corner on the forgiveness
market. Every great system of attempting to understand God and be in communion
with God recognizes the essential nature of forgiveness for all of us, for all
our healing.
It is morning, on the first day
of the week, and we are still breathing in the fragrance of the resurrection
and the Holy Spirit. There are lots of people in this room who have been hurt,
and there are lots of people in this room who have done the hurting. Jesus, of
all gathered here, would be the one with the most compelling case against
forgiveness, if he cared to make it. But Jesus abides in the heart of God, at
all times, and Jesus invites us to be there, too. But first he shows us his
wounds, and he lets us dig all around in them, like Thomas. And when we do
that, when we look at those wounds, and see them, and even probe them and touch
them, we know ourselves. We, the wounded. We, the wounders. We, the hurt ones.
We, who do the hurting. We, who need to forgive. We, who need to be forgiven.
Life. Forgiveness is all about
life. New life. Better life. Real life. As hard as it is. As painful as it is.
As liberating as it is. As exhilarating as it is. Forgiveness is new, and real,
and better life, in the heart of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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