19 When it was evening on that day, the
first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met
were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said,
‘Peace be with you.’ 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them
again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ 22When he had said this,
he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins
of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are
retained.’
As I read this passage over and over again and poured
over commentaries this past week I was surprised by what many scholars
principally worried over and what they didn’t and how their partisan identity
shaped their reading. Many of them talked endlessly about the “locked door.”
Why was it locked? What was the point? Fear? Persecution? Or was it about Jesus’
resurrected body which could now do amazing things – like walk through locked
doors? They also worried about the receiving of the Spirit by Jesus breathing
on the disciples. What about Pentecost? Was this a partial giving of the
Spirit? Was this symbolic and metaphorical rather than functional? Did John
know about Luke’s story? Or who was this power of forgiveness given to? The 11
(sans Judas) or more? All Christians? Lots of spilled ink but a real failure to
see the gorilla. Yes, that’s what I said – the gorilla. I’m referring to recent research on paying attention and a short video
in which six people-three in white shirts and three in black shirts-pass
basketballs around. Participants are asked to keep a silent count of the number
of passes made by the people in white shirts. You can watch the video at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
At some point, as you've guessed or seen, a gorilla strolls
into the middle of the action, faces the camera and thumps its chest, and then
leaves, spending nine seconds total on screen. After it’s over the participants
in the study are asked how many times the ball was passed. And then they are
asked if they saw the gorilla – on average, only 50% or less respond, “yes.” Would
you see the gorilla? Where is the gorilla in this text? What’s that thing that
truly stands out? It’s not the locked door nor the breathing of the Spirit by
Jesus – it’s his claim that we have the power to forgive others. That’s the
gorilla in the room. And that’s what I would like to talk about today.
What’s this
forgiveness that Jesus talks about? What is this gorilla in the room?
1.
Jesus is
telling us that forgiveness begins with us and is the job responsibility of the
resurrection. To say that this passage is difficult and
puzzling is hardly an overstatement. Apparently, even the disciples and Jesus himself
shared this sentiment because he spoke “peace” to these disciples twice, no
less! The first time, to reassure them as he miraculously appears and the
second time, as a preemptive measure for a job they now have to perform. The
resurrection, in other words, wasn’t simply a reality to celebrate but also a wonderful
gift that demanded a great amount of personal responsibility. Isn’t that always
how life works – the most beautiful gifts always demand the most of us. The new
grandchildren for Sandi and Mike Prather as well as Don and Martha Johnson – what
gifts and oh, how much work. And the best gifts also demand a conversion.
Forgiveness begins when we look at his wounds, hear
Jesus speak “peace,” and unlock our doors. It’s our response to being shown and
being sent by Jesus (20-21). It’s the recognition that we must first be
released from our own prison of fear, unforgiveness, and alienation. We need to
be liberated from our own locked room before we can even begin to liberate
others. We cannot lead others where we haven’t been. We need to realize what Nelson Mandela
realized: “As
I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if
I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.” Have
you allowed Jesus to liberate you? Have you seen his wounds and accepted his words of "peace to you."?
We don’t unlock our doors because the ministry of
forgiveness is a safe ministry. We unlock our doors because the One who
conquered even death frees us and sends us. We are his agents. Jesus wants
agents and not simply believers – agents are people invested with a task. And
Sunday we can celebrate but on Monday we’ve got something to do – forgiveness.
Forgiveness is Monday theology, a theology in the trenches. I so often imagine
that I’m commissioned for a moral task but it turns out to be a mystical one of
releasing fearful people held captive in locked rooms, often by themselves.
2.
Jesus words
about forgiveness, however, reminds us that it can’t be just about you. The Christian
life is not a me and Jesus life or even a life yet to come but about a
community of forgiveness in real time. Consider Matt. 5:23-24: “if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that
your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave
your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then
come and offer your gift.” In the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus’ ethical teaching
on how to behave he points out that
forgiving others is more important than worship, even more important than
assuring yourself of your own forgiveness (that’s what happens at altars.). Why
is this so? Why is forgiving others so important to Jesus?
Imagine
that you are a parent with two small children at a playground.[1]
Your older child gets frustrated with the younger one and punches that kid. You
jump up and scold the older one, who, feeling bad, looks at you and says, “I’m
sorry.” What would you do in that situation?
I imagine you would say, “I
understand that and I love you – nothing changes that – but you need to go say,
‘sorry’ to your sister over there.” As parents, we can forgive our child but
that forgiveness will not automatically fix the other relationship. It can, however,
empower our older child who feels loved even when he has done something wrong
to do the same for his sibling.
I think this is what Jesus is trying to say to us. We
are forgiven by what he has done – because of his death and resurrection we are
assured of God’s love and faithfulness and that our sins are forgiven by God. He
shows us his wounds for us! However, now we are released, sent, to live out
that forgiveness with each other and that forgiveness is not incidental but the
very glue of our life together and if you don’t get that right in this life –
you will have to get it right in the next. Why? Because salvation is not
primarily an individual thing but always an “us” thing. Jesus doesn’t aim for a
lone-sinner-saved-by-grace sort of group but seeks to create a community of
forgiveness (c.f. Isaiah 61:1-4; 1 Peter 2:9-10). What unlocked this this text
for me was linking Jesus’ statement to the book of 1 John, which tradition
tells us, was also John the Apostle. And 1 John, I believe, is the very working
out of Jesus’ statement on forgiveness in the confines of the church. 1 John
4:20-21 states, “20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or
sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they
have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And
he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother
and sister.” Salvation, eternal life, is a corporate life, a
relational life that begins in Jesus but which also must be worked through us.
Otherwise, our belief about Jesus, even our own personal forgiveness, is a lie.
We don’t believe it ourselves.
So imagine that I sin against Jack.
If Jesus’ words have any force then I better get right with Jack. My
reconciliation with Jack is not optional but deeply intertwined with my own
feelings about God and God’s whole project of forgiveness of bringing people
together, the near and the far, the Jew and the Gentile, male and female, slave
and free. And my ability to grasp that – to believe in Jesus’ sacrifice –
connects with my ability to forgive others, to be reconciled. I can’t say that
I love God and don’t love Jack. I can’t say that I believe in Jesus’ sacrifice
for my sins and not practice forgiveness myself.
The Gospel message is not one in
which I can say, “Jesus has forgiven me, so I can forget it.” This is far too
vertical a vision of forgiveness, lacking any sense of the geometry of the
cross involving both our vertical relationship with God and horizontal
relationship with others. Amazing grace is not a way to avoid honest human
relations, but to redo them – gracefully – for the liberation of both sides. My
personal guilt, in other words, is not all that matters. That would be
self-serving and hardly in keeping with being an agent of Jesus. A loving
question and much more in line with the Spirit of Jesus and his ministry is to ask,
“How can I free others from theirs?” This will also cause us to ask the
question, to whom must I seek forgiveness from? This may take a while – an
entire lifetime.
Jesus’ teaching here is a wonderful
incarnation of his ministry, which keeps Christianity grounded, honest, relevant,
and focused on God’s global project of saving others instead of just ourselves
(1 John 2:9). Go back read 1 John and remember that God’s project of
forgiveness is always a “we” project. It begins, however, in this room. Don’t
worry the door is not locked but if you leave without offering or receiving
forgiveness from someone here it might as well be.
3. Finally, Jesus words and actions turn victims into powerful priests. A quick
aside – this text and sermon are meant to serve as a theological platform for
forgiveness and reconciliation and not necessarily a “how to” do this. That
would require more than one sermon or even what one person could advise upon. Sins are not all the same and some of you have endured awful things, which require a sensitivity and discernment that should not be rushed in your journey toward forgiveness. Yet, it’s
interesting that we often define ourselves in the church as “forgiven.” Jesus,
however, defines us as those with the priestly ministry of forgiveness. And
that this power to forgive functions as the ground for our being for our life
in Christ, which is why this act mirrors the first creation where God breathed
into humanity the breath of life (Genesis 2). And priests primarily aren’t the
forgiven, thought that’s certainly true, they are forgivers. As such, Jesus’
words and actions offer power to victims in two ways. First, they aren’t simply
commanded to forgive but given the responsibility and power to do so. The word
“retain,” krateo, is a powerful word,
which means to “take hold of, lay hands on, seize, bring under one’s power.” It
means that we can decide when or where and how this forgiveness will happen.
But make no mistake, it can’t be “if.” We are his agents – we do His will and
not simply our own. His wounds are also for them. In some way, I like to imagine that we are not seizing the sin per se but the person, attempting to help them see what their actions or words have done. Second, by breathing out the
spirit onto disciples, Jesus reminds us that we don’t have to do it alone on our own strength
or power. And when we do – the earth itself will shake, the doors will unlock. What
might this forgiveness sound like? Listen to this http://www.npr.org/2015/07/17/423549790/at-the-end-of-a-murder-sentence-a-redemption-forged-from-forgiveness
What kind of power am I talking about? The power to
turn murderers into sons. What if we took this to jail? What if we took this to
the streets?
So where are you in this drama of forgiveness?
[1]
I borrowed the idea for this analogy from the blog “Experiemental Theology,”
though I tweaked it – making the children belong to the same parent.
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