Sermon - Year C, Proper 6
Written and Delivered by The Rev. Philip Schaffner
Forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. You are forgiven. Simple, powerful words. Forgiveness is a gift, something we cannot demand or expect. It is out of our hands, which is why it holds such power and significance.
One of the most radical and challenging things Jesus did was to forgive sins. Forgiveness is challenging because it's often unclear who has the authority to forgive. Can I forgive the man who raped my friend? Can I forgive the person who stole my fiancee's car? Can I forgive my ancestors for robbing the Native Americans of their land? Can I forgive the 9/11 bombers? Can I forgive myself if I seriously wrong another? Perhaps I can forgive the boys who beat me up in high school, but so often more than one person is affected by sin. And so often sin causes other sin creating an intricate web of harmful relationships, as in the case of the abused child growing up to be an abusive parent.
So who is Jesus to forgive this woman's sins? We don't know what she did, but supposedly she was known to be a sinner. How many people had she hurt? What lasting reverberations of her actions caused others to sin? And here this great teacher has the audacity to just proclaim her forgiven without consulting those affected. I think the Pharisees had a good case to make against his actions.
Jesus was a teacher that constantly aggravated the law-abiding citizens. He was always doing things that good pious people wouldn't do: he would eat with sinners, he would touch the unclean, he would violate the commandment to rest on the Sabbath, and he insisted that people could not serve God and money. His mission was to set people free to lead lives driven by love and service. He taught people to live from a place of gratitude rather than a place of obligation. Jesus shared the good news that God forgives.
This is not to say that God condones any behavior, but rather our Gospel reading today suggests that God does more than just punish people for transgressions and mistakes. Indeed, if the ultimate standard was the law, who could pass the test? Rather God cares deeply about the pain, suffering and entrapment caused by sin and has offered a way out of the web sin catches us in.
Sometimes though, I'm not sure I always want a forgiving God. God's forgiveness can be frustrating. It is a wonderful, life-transforming, world-altering thing to receive God's forgiveness ourselves, but when it comes to drug dealers, corrupt politicians, sex offenders, terrorists, dictators, democrats, republicans, libertarians, socialists and any number of other category of people we don't like it just doesn't seem right. We want God to send a prophet like Elijah to tell the Ahab's of the world that God will enact judgment on them.
According to the book of 1 Kings, Ahab was as bad as they come. In 1 Kings chapter 16, it says that "Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him...Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him" (vs 30,33). That's quite a statement given who came before him. The story we heard today of the vineyard is just one of many things during Ahab's reign that incurred the wrath of God.
Given the Bible's judgment on Ahab you would think that he didn't last long as King. Yet he ruled for 22 years! 22 years of corruption, back-stabbing and misleading, but God didn't cut him down. Time and again, God sent prophets to warn Ahab. At one point, Ahab seems to ask for forgiveness and God backs off on the punishment. Eventually, Ahab does die as predicted by Elijah, but not until years of additional cruelty and additional prophetic warnings.
God cares deeply about injustice, but it seems that God rarely intervenes directly with bolts of lightning. Instead, God sends messengers--prophets. Have you ever met a prophet? Has someone been a prophet to you, questioning and challenging your behavior and actions? Have you ever felt called to speak out against injustice? God might be calling you to be a prophet.
It can be a dangerous vocation. Prophets often are killed or exiled. Indeed Ahab killed most of the prophets God sent. Elijah ran for his life on several occasions. He alone survived the massacre of prophets and fled into the wilderness. There he looked for God. He looked for God to speak with power. He looked for God to send an earthquake, to send thunder, to send storms, to send fire, but God did not speak and avenge the prophets with lightning. Instead Elijah heard God's voice in God's silence. And when he heard God in silence, God said go back and recruit others to your cause - you speak. (1 Kings 19)
When I consider the pain and destruction in our world, it can be easy to question God's existence. Whether it's the genocide in Darfur, the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq, slave labor in southeast Asia, the destruction of our environment, or the silent tsunami of malnutrition, hunger, malaria and tuberculoses that claims millions of children's lives every day it can feel like God doesn't care. God appears to be silent in the face of evil. And perhaps God is silently waiting for us to speak, but whenever you see injustice, look for the prophets. They might not be visible right away, but they're always there. God may not send thunderbolts, but God always sends prophets.
The Pharisees expected Jesus to be a prophet. They expected him to upbraid and judge this woman, but Jesus was doing something else. Jesus was a messenger of God in a different capacity. In today's Gospel, Jesus is interested in letting people go and freeing them from the bondage of sin. In other words, Jesus is concerned about how our previous mistakes bind, constrict and limit our future and present actions.
Forgiveness opens new possibilities and creates new opportunities. For the person being forgiven it can mean restoration of relationships and freedom to start new things. For the person doing the forgiving it can mean being freed from the poison of bitterness and hatred. Forgiving someone else can indeed set us free. I think that's why in the Lord's prayer, we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others.
The good news is that God offers all of us forgiveness. You are forgiven. God's forgiveness restores our relationship with God, which is too significant to accurately describe using words, but it doesn't mean that our relationships with each other are automatically resolved. Like prophets sent to name injustice, we are sent to forgive each other. However, like prophecy, forgiveness can be dangerous. We can only forgive the aspect of sin that affects us, but we can also share the good news of God's forgiveness. God has charged us with the ministry of reconciliation. That is the ministry of restoring relationships to a good and healthy state. A key piece of that ministry is forgiveness.
In Jesus, we have been given the amazing gift of God's forgiveness and love. The appropriate response is gratitude. The unnamed woman in today's Gospel showed gratitude for Jesus message and offered service. Mary, Joanna and Susanna all led lives of gratitude and were key supporters of Jesus ministry and teaching about the kingdom of God.
The spiritual journey, the Christian life, is not about following a long list of rules, but rather accepting the forgiveness offered by God and leading a life of gratitude, generosity, love, service and prophetic witness.
Forgiven. You are forgiven. God forgives you. What would it look like for you to lead a life of gratitude?
Jesus said that he came to let the oppressed go free (Luke 4:18). How can we offer our ministries, our lives, to help that mission? I pray that we all might find the strength to forgive and be forgiven.
Forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. You are forgiven. Simple, powerful words. Forgiveness is a gift, something we cannot demand or expect. It is out of our hands, which is why it holds such power and significance.
One of the most radical and challenging things Jesus did was to forgive sins. Forgiveness is challenging because it's often unclear who has the authority to forgive. Can I forgive the man who raped my friend? Can I forgive the person who stole my fiancee's car? Can I forgive my ancestors for robbing the Native Americans of their land? Can I forgive the 9/11 bombers? Can I forgive myself if I seriously wrong another? Perhaps I can forgive the boys who beat me up in high school, but so often more than one person is affected by sin. And so often sin causes other sin creating an intricate web of harmful relationships, as in the case of the abused child growing up to be an abusive parent.
So who is Jesus to forgive this woman's sins? We don't know what she did, but supposedly she was known to be a sinner. How many people had she hurt? What lasting reverberations of her actions caused others to sin? And here this great teacher has the audacity to just proclaim her forgiven without consulting those affected. I think the Pharisees had a good case to make against his actions.
Jesus was a teacher that constantly aggravated the law-abiding citizens. He was always doing things that good pious people wouldn't do: he would eat with sinners, he would touch the unclean, he would violate the commandment to rest on the Sabbath, and he insisted that people could not serve God and money. His mission was to set people free to lead lives driven by love and service. He taught people to live from a place of gratitude rather than a place of obligation. Jesus shared the good news that God forgives.
This is not to say that God condones any behavior, but rather our Gospel reading today suggests that God does more than just punish people for transgressions and mistakes. Indeed, if the ultimate standard was the law, who could pass the test? Rather God cares deeply about the pain, suffering and entrapment caused by sin and has offered a way out of the web sin catches us in.
Sometimes though, I'm not sure I always want a forgiving God. God's forgiveness can be frustrating. It is a wonderful, life-transforming, world-altering thing to receive God's forgiveness ourselves, but when it comes to drug dealers, corrupt politicians, sex offenders, terrorists, dictators, democrats, republicans, libertarians, socialists and any number of other category of people we don't like it just doesn't seem right. We want God to send a prophet like Elijah to tell the Ahab's of the world that God will enact judgment on them.
According to the book of 1 Kings, Ahab was as bad as they come. In 1 Kings chapter 16, it says that "Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him...Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him" (vs 30,33). That's quite a statement given who came before him. The story we heard today of the vineyard is just one of many things during Ahab's reign that incurred the wrath of God.
Given the Bible's judgment on Ahab you would think that he didn't last long as King. Yet he ruled for 22 years! 22 years of corruption, back-stabbing and misleading, but God didn't cut him down. Time and again, God sent prophets to warn Ahab. At one point, Ahab seems to ask for forgiveness and God backs off on the punishment. Eventually, Ahab does die as predicted by Elijah, but not until years of additional cruelty and additional prophetic warnings.
God cares deeply about injustice, but it seems that God rarely intervenes directly with bolts of lightning. Instead, God sends messengers--prophets. Have you ever met a prophet? Has someone been a prophet to you, questioning and challenging your behavior and actions? Have you ever felt called to speak out against injustice? God might be calling you to be a prophet.
It can be a dangerous vocation. Prophets often are killed or exiled. Indeed Ahab killed most of the prophets God sent. Elijah ran for his life on several occasions. He alone survived the massacre of prophets and fled into the wilderness. There he looked for God. He looked for God to speak with power. He looked for God to send an earthquake, to send thunder, to send storms, to send fire, but God did not speak and avenge the prophets with lightning. Instead Elijah heard God's voice in God's silence. And when he heard God in silence, God said go back and recruit others to your cause - you speak. (1 Kings 19)
When I consider the pain and destruction in our world, it can be easy to question God's existence. Whether it's the genocide in Darfur, the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq, slave labor in southeast Asia, the destruction of our environment, or the silent tsunami of malnutrition, hunger, malaria and tuberculoses that claims millions of children's lives every day it can feel like God doesn't care. God appears to be silent in the face of evil. And perhaps God is silently waiting for us to speak, but whenever you see injustice, look for the prophets. They might not be visible right away, but they're always there. God may not send thunderbolts, but God always sends prophets.
The Pharisees expected Jesus to be a prophet. They expected him to upbraid and judge this woman, but Jesus was doing something else. Jesus was a messenger of God in a different capacity. In today's Gospel, Jesus is interested in letting people go and freeing them from the bondage of sin. In other words, Jesus is concerned about how our previous mistakes bind, constrict and limit our future and present actions.
Forgiveness opens new possibilities and creates new opportunities. For the person being forgiven it can mean restoration of relationships and freedom to start new things. For the person doing the forgiving it can mean being freed from the poison of bitterness and hatred. Forgiving someone else can indeed set us free. I think that's why in the Lord's prayer, we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others.
The good news is that God offers all of us forgiveness. You are forgiven. God's forgiveness restores our relationship with God, which is too significant to accurately describe using words, but it doesn't mean that our relationships with each other are automatically resolved. Like prophets sent to name injustice, we are sent to forgive each other. However, like prophecy, forgiveness can be dangerous. We can only forgive the aspect of sin that affects us, but we can also share the good news of God's forgiveness. God has charged us with the ministry of reconciliation. That is the ministry of restoring relationships to a good and healthy state. A key piece of that ministry is forgiveness.
In Jesus, we have been given the amazing gift of God's forgiveness and love. The appropriate response is gratitude. The unnamed woman in today's Gospel showed gratitude for Jesus message and offered service. Mary, Joanna and Susanna all led lives of gratitude and were key supporters of Jesus ministry and teaching about the kingdom of God.
The spiritual journey, the Christian life, is not about following a long list of rules, but rather accepting the forgiveness offered by God and leading a life of gratitude, generosity, love, service and prophetic witness.
Forgiven. You are forgiven. God forgives you. What would it look like for you to lead a life of gratitude?
Jesus said that he came to let the oppressed go free (Luke 4:18). How can we offer our ministries, our lives, to help that mission? I pray that we all might find the strength to forgive and be forgiven.