4/11/21 “Revisiting Forgiveness…Again” by Nancy E. Petty
John 20:19-23
The words Jesus speaks the evening on that day, the first day of the week, after his resurrection are defining words. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” The act of forgiveness may very well be one of the most complicated emotional and spiritual dimensions we live out as humanity and as people of faith. When wronged, “forgive them” is a hard word to hear. And maybe even a harder word to hear when standing in need to forgive ourselves for the hurts and harms we have done to others. Who wants to be reminded of the virtue of forgiveness when your heart has been crushed or you have suffered injustice at the hands of another? And who among us really has the strength and courage to do the inner work that self-forgiveness requires when we have hurt another? And yet, philosophers, theologians, spiritual teachers, and people of all walks of life have reminded us that without forgiveness we have no freedom. Forgiveness, whether giving it, receiving it from another, or extending it to oneself is complicated. And I want to say upfront, I am not one who has great wisdom or answers on forgiveness. I only have questions, and continually I seek to understand the path of forgiveness. It is why in sermons and conversations and inner thoughts that I keep returning to and rethinking forgiveness. And each year, on this Sunday, when I read Jesus’ words to those disciples gathered in that locked room in fear after his death and resurrection, I try again to understand his words on forgiveness. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
As I revisit forgiveness this year, I turn to the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. He writes, “I am asked occasionally, do you forgive? Who am I to forgive? I am not God. I don’t believe in collective guilt. No I cannot forgive.” In response to this statement, Wiesel was asked, “So if you can’t forgive, what can you do? What is the endeavor, the holy endeavor?” Wiesel responds:
This is the aim—first of all, to tell the truth, and to sensitize other people not to do the same thing. We aren’t here to forgive. We are, in the Jewish faith, on the eve of Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day of the year, and we plead with God for forgiveness, and God forgives, I hope. But one thing He does not forgive: the evil I have done to other fellow human beings. Only they can forgive. If I do something bad to you, I cannot ask God to forgive me. You must forgive me.
When I read these words I felt that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I get when I know that a hard but truthful word has been spoken. It is also that feeling I get when I realize that the popular parts of the Christian faith that have been emphasized by the church and Christian theology have been used to overshadow the more demanding and essential requirements of the Christian faith. Let me explain.
Christian theology, and by extension the Christian church, has focused on forgiveness as an act for eternal salvation. We were and have been taught in the church that the greatest act of faith is confessing our sins to God, asking for forgiveness, and accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. The Baptist plan of salvation begins with praying the prayer: “Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and I ask for your forgiveness.” This forgiveness that we ask God for, sometimes at the tender ages of childhood, is taught as the magic wand that is waved over us for all eternity and saves us from the fiery furnace of hell and damnation. Once and for all. That blanket of forgiveness, whether uttered in fear in our closet all alone or in front of the stage at a Billy Graham crusade, assures us of our rightful place in heaven. That is the forgiveness we have been taught.
I get that most people listening to this sermon have moved on from that stage of faith. But like most things that we experience early in life, our bodies and minds hold on to these kinds of early teachings and beliefs. Even when we think we have shed them for good. I don’t know about you, but I still find it tempting when I am standing in the need of forgiveness for the harm or hurt I have caused another to go into my prayer closet and ask God for forgiveness, pretending that that takes care of what my faith requires of me. That is why Wiesel’s statement was like a gut punch, again: “If I do something bad to you, I cannot ask God to forgive me. You must forgive me.”
Going into our prayer closets and asking God to forgive is the popular part of the Christian faith. But we skip over the more demanding and essential words of Jesus found in the gospel of Matthew. “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” Can you hear Wiesel words in those of Jesus? I can and I do. When we harm one another it is not God’s forgiveness we need, it is one another’s forgiveness we must seek. It’s not the blood of Jesus that washes away our sins. It is our willingness and courage with humility to go to our fellow human beings and with our own blood, sweat and tears and ask for forgiveness.
Maybe it is right and good to ask God for forgiveness for the harm and hurt we have afflicted on others. Confession has its place. But is it not the real work of faith to go to our Black and Brown sisters and brothers and ask for their forgiveness, for being complacent when it comes to racism in this country? Is it not the real work of our faith to go to our Jewish sisters and brothers and ask for forgiveness for the anti-Semitic hate that we as Christians have perpetuated on them, having been taught it from our own Christian scriptures? Is it not the real work of our faith to go to our poor and transgender and Muslim and Asian neighbors and ask for forgiveness for the othering we have done to them? It is not God who needs our forgiveness. It is those to whom we deny seeing in them the image of God and their human worth that need our forgiveness. And forgiveness is more than speaking words. Forgiveness is rooted in acts of compassion and love and justice that we extend to one another when harm has been committed. This difference between asking God for forgiveness and asking forgiveness of those we harm gets to the heart of a fundamental if often overlooked truth in the Christian faith – we are called not to be perfect, or even good, but to live in right relationship with one another. Love your neighbor as yourself.
But here’s the thing. To practice the kind of forgiveness that Jesus taught and the depth of forgiveness that our faith calls us to practice toward one another requires an inner repose that has to be formed and nurtured in our own the heart and soul. To understand this journey, I turn to the writings of Etty Hillesum. Etty Hillesum was a Dutch author of confessional letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. In 1943 she was deported and killed in Auschwitz concentration camp.
She writes, while sitting in the concentration camp:
“I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned.”
“Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.”
Hillesum reminds us that forgiveness is practiced both outwardly and inwardly. I remember the first time I experienced this truth. I have shared part of this story with you before. When Pullen was considering calling me as pastor, I visited one of our elders who was dying. On that visit this elder looked at me and said, “I don’t think you have what it takes to be the pastor of Pullen. You are not prophetic enough.” I held on to those words for a long time feeling great anger at the one who had spoken them. At some point I realized that it was not his words that hurt the most, it was my own belief that I had been carrying since childhood that I was not enough, that something was wrong with me, that maybe I was too flawed to be God’s beloved. It wasn’t the elder who I needed to forgive. I needed to forgive myself for the harm I was doing inside my own soul by not seeing myself as made in the image of God. Once that forgiveness and healing was offered, the words of another lost the power to wound me.
Hillesum writes, “Utimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.” Maybe forgiveness works the same way, the more forgiveness there is in us, the more forgiveness there will also be in our troubled world. I don’t know but it’s worth considering, especially in these times we are living.
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” When Jesus speaks these words he is speaking from his Jewish roots. In his Jewish tradition to forgive is to loose, unbind people from what stands in their way of God’s love and God’s revelation of love in the world. Having breathed the Spirit on the disciples, he is saying to them, with God’s spirit you have the ability to unbind, loose the chains that have people locked in harmful and destructive ways. And that same Spirit gives each of us the ability to unbind and loose (forgive) ourselves of the harmful thoughts and actions that have us living unforgiven lives. When we refuse to unbind, forgive ourselves and others we retain our hurtful ways.
When we refuse to go to our Black and Brown sisters and brothers and ask for forgiveness for the sin of racial injustice, we retain—stay bound and locked up—in our harmful actions toward Black and Brown people. When we refuse to go to our Jewish brothers and sisters and ask for forgiveness for our sin of antisemitism, we retain—stay bound and locked up—in our harmful attitudes toward Jewish people. When we refuse to go to Mother Earth and ask for forgiveness for the ways in which we abuse her gifts and resources, we retain our harmful actions toward her. When we refuse to look inside and forgive ourselves for those thoughts of not being enough or being better than, we retain—stay bound up—in our harmful actions and attitudes toward self. And when we do that, we can neither receive the Spirit nor breathe the Spirit out into the world.
“…he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” After greeting the disciples locked in that room, the first words Jesus spoke to them post resurrection were about receiving the Spirit that has the ability to forgive—to unbind and loose—the suffering we inflict on one another. These words are a sending forth for those disciples and to us. Go into the world with God’s Spirit that enables you to forgive—to unbind—to set people free, to set yourself free, to see God’s love and revelation in the world.
I close with The Ravensbruck Prayer, a prayer that was found at Ravensbruck death camp where 92,000 women and children died. It was scrawled on wrapping paper near a dead child.
Lord,
Remember not only the men and women of good will also those of ill will.
But do not only remember the suffering they have inflicted on us.
Remember the fruits we have brought, thanks to this suffering–our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this.
And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits we have borne be their forgiveness. Amen
“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” After greeting the disciples, these are the first words Jesus spoke to his disciples post resurrection. Surely, they are worth revisiting from time to time.
