The Rev. Dr. Austin Leininger
Sermon of the 2nd Sunday of Easter
8 April 2018
Readings:
Acts 4:32-35
1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19-31
Psalm 133
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! … Please be seated.
Last week, Easter morning, we journeyed with Mary from the darkness of Chaos into the light of a new creation in the risen Christ. Calling her by name, Jesus dispelled the darkness of her own personal chaos, light returned, and hope was rekindled in her heart.
This week, that same darkness of chaos and despair takes on different forms, as does the resurrection of hope, light, life, and reconciliation.
At least once per week in our house, we hear the familiar words, “I DON’T FORGIVE YOU!,” either directed at us or at one of the other children by one of our three small humans who feels wronged and places the blame squarely on the shoulders of one or more of the rest of their family. Demanding some form of retributive justice equal to their anger and resentment, they have no hope of ever being satisfied in that moment, and no matter how heartfelt the apology that follows, the response is that familiar “I don’t forgive you.”
If we’re honest, like our second reading from 1st John encourages us to be with ourselves and one another, we’ve each experienced this feeling. Though for most experiences, we are able to eventually forgive, as are my children with one another, there are, for many of us, those select encounters in our past that have wounded us deeply enough that we remain scarred and unable to forgive.
Perhaps the greatest test of Jesus’ ability to love and forgive no matter what was when he hung dying on the cross, when Luke’s gospel records him saying “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” But Jesus’ disciples weren’t Jesus. Thrown into chaos by his crucifixion, each of them struggled with how to carry on, how to wake up and live the next day without him. And none of them is on record saying anything about forgiveness for those who did this to Jesus. At best, they were terrified of what might happen next. Were the religious authorities out to get them too?
This week, God’s breath, ruach, pneuma, again stirs over the face of the deep, over the waters of chaos as the disciples gather in the darkness of fear, hopelessness, and despair in the locked upper room. Much as Mary experienced her darkness dispelled only once Jesus spoke her name, so too Jesus appeared in the midst of his disciples, spoke to them, and released them from the darkness of their own despair.
Then breathing God’s own breath of life on them, he commissions them, as he did with Mary, to carry the good news of God’s love, healing, restoration, reconciliation, and resurrection. But this time, not as they were sent out two by two when Christ was alive, encouraged to shake off the dust from their feet in protest of those who didn’t receive them, but, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, they are sent out as God sent Christ—to love and forgive without condition, without hesitation, and without expectation. Explaining further, Jesus cautions them that if they forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven—they, the forgiver, are free of them, and they move on with their lives to heal and regain wholeness. But if they retain the sins of any, they are retained—the hurts remain as part of the retainers’ hearts, inviting back in the darkness of fear, despair, chaos, and alienation. For his disciples, this means carrying on free of the fear of those who took Jesus’ life, and that means doing what might have seemed impossible before their encounter with the risen Christ—forgiving them, opening themselves up to healing, and moving forward as a community united in the ministry of reconciliation that they have inherited from Christ.
We catch a glimpse of that community in the reading from Acts, but first there are others yet to call, others yet to share the news of Christ’s resurrection, others to bring out of the darkness.
Just as the disciples struggled to believe Mary’s testimony of encountering the risen Christ, so too, Thomas struggles. Having been left out of the encounter shared by the other disciples, he hears second hand and voices his doubt openly.
Yet, instead of chastising him for doubting, Thomas is rewarded with his own personal encounter, with the risen Christ meeting him where he was in his own doubt and darkness, and inviting him into reconciliation, faith, and relationship.
Beyond forgiving others, this second half of today’s gospel extends that same forgiveness to ourselves—to being willing to name our doubts, our fears, our short fallings, and our needs to ourselves and to one another. Just as retaining the sins of another is a poison to our hearts, so too is retaining our own sins—denying them, by denying our hurts, denying our doubts, denying our need for love, companionship, relationship. The path to reconciliation begins with ourselves and with admitting when something is troubling our hearts.
Thomas serves as a model—not of perfect faith, which none of us has, but of being willing to voice our doubts, our fears, our needs. He serves as a model of being human with integrity and, thereby, receiving what we each need in order for our faith and other relationships to grow and thrive.
Expanding that model, Acts gives us a glimpse of the early Christian community still working on this premise of health and wholeness stemming from the community voicing and recognizing its needs so that each may receive what they need for all to thrive. The second reading as well recognizes that if we claim we have no sin—nothing in our lives that draws us in on ourselves, out of community, away from God, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
With the disciples today, we are reminded that if we forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If we retain the sins of any, they are retained. We are sent as God sent Christ, to love, to forgive, to heal, and to live with integrity. Yet we need one another’s help. Jesus never once said to anyone, “your sins are retained” or “your sins are unforgiven.” We, on the other hand, struggle and hold onto our hurts, retaining the sins of others and allowing them eventually to poison our hearts and drive a wedge between us and others, between us and anyone outside our walls, between us and God.
Our resurrected Christ invites us back into the light of hope and to life beyond the darkness of chaos. With the disciples, we are reminded of the need to forgive, not just for reconciliation with others, but for the health of our own hearts. And with Thomas, we are invited to extend that same grace to ourselves.
Called by name, each of us is called out of our darkness, our own personal chaos, into the life of God’s abundance, of God’s love, of God’s newly resurrected and reconciled creation. And as resurrection people, we are called to the work of reconciliation that spread the good news from Mary to the disciples, to Thomas, to the multicultural following we hear of today in Acts, and to the whole world.
As much as my children may be quick to judge others by their own perspective, they are also remarkably resilient. After stewing in their own unforgiveness and anger, they come to realize they aren’t punishing anyone but themselves, they let go of their resentment, and they rejoin the small community of our family. It’s hard to know how much to let them process and how to balance our conversations about forgiveness and how it feels to hold onto something that makes us continue to hurt. That balance seems to be different for each of them, as it is with each of us as adults as well. The difference is that as we continue to practice denial, as we continue to practice unforgiveness, as we continue to practice resentment, we get better and better at them, and it becomes harder and harder to relearn the tools essential to reconciliation, to healing, and to wholeness.
In this Easter season of resurrection, renewal of hope, and dispelling the darkness of chaos and fear, we are called on again to enter into the mystery of God’s love. May we each find in the light and hope of this season, the space to examine our hearts and our lives, the grace to speak our doubts, our fears, our hurts, and our needs, and the compassionate accompaniment to find support, healing, and reconciliation amongst those we love and trust most.
Amen.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.