Community Church Sermons
March 23, 2008
Easter
Sunday
Acts 10:34-43
Listen to this Sermon!
Christ is risen! So we are forgiven.
Christ is risen! So they are forgiven.
Christ is risen! So I am forgiven.
The great proclamation of Christ’s resurrection is much more than just a happy ending to what would otherwise be a very sad story. And the raising of Jesus from the dead has ramifications for us far beyond the singular notion that now we will go to heaven when we die. In fact, that idea – that our faith is only about attaining the afterlife – in some ways trivializes the true claims of Easter.
In an article in yesterday’s Knoxville News Sentinel a Barnard College professor by the name of Alan Segal is quoted as saying that most Americans expect the afterlife will be just a continuation of life on earth – “like a really good assisted-living facility,” he said. As silly as that thought is, most of us have our own peculiar ideas about the afterlife and heaven – ranging from a city whose streets are paved with gold and everybody therefore wants a job with the Public Works Department - to an ethereal place where people bounce on clouds and simultaneously play harps which must be even more difficult than walking and chewing gum at the same time. Some people think heaven is like a dry county in Tennessee where there is no beer, or – even worse –like a worship service that never gets over. Not my idea of heaven!
But more importantly, not God’s idea of resurrection!
Christ is risen! So we are forgiven. They are forgiven. I am forgiven.
And that forgiveness is more important than you may realize!
St. Paul, in First Corinthians 15:14 directly ties the resurrection of Jesus to the forgiveness of sins. If Christ has not been raised from the dead, Paul states, then our faith is meaningless because we are still in our sins. In other words…
We are not forgiven. They are not forgiven. I am not forgiven.
This issue is so important that I want you to come with me this morning back to where the miracle of forgiveness really starts – not on Easter Sunday morning, not on Holy Saturday, but on Good Friday. It was then that they took Jesus out to Calvary and nailed him to the cross. And when the cross was raised and the full weight of Jesus’ suffering descended upon him, Jesus spoke these remarkable words:
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
The death and resurrection of Jesus is played out against the backdrop of this prayer.
Amy Jill Levine who is an Orthodox Jew and a Professor of New Testament over at Vanderbilt Divinity School points out a discrepancy in these words of Jesus. During the course of Jesus’ three-year long ministry, he has made a practice of forgiving people their sins. Tax collectors, prostitutes, people of all kinds. Do you remember that wonderful story of the paralyzed man who was brought to Jesus one day? Jesus says, “Son, your sins are forgiven!”
Now, the religious authorities just about go ballistic over that, and for good reason. After all, who can forgive sins but God alone? In their eyes, this is blasphemy! Jesus is putting himself in the place of God! And, you know, eventually, that would be one of the charges they brought against Jesus blasphemy. For forgiving people.
But Jesus says to the religious crowd that day, “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven!’ or “Rise, take up your pallet and walk!’?” And then he says, “But so you will know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” he turns to the paralyzed man and says, “…rise, take up your bed and go home!”
And the man stands up, and walks!
That is the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness empowers people to rise up from those things that paralyze us, and to walk – to take a new path – to live a better life.
Jesus’ spent his life forgiving people their sins.
So why then does he not do it here – on Good Friday – from the cross?
Did you see it in the Good Friday story? Did you notice the discrepancy? Jesus does not look at us and say, “I forgive you because you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Have there ever been times in your life when the pain was so great, the injury was so deep, the offense was so profound that you did not have the ability to forgive?
I once met a young woman who – after years of terrible abuse at the hands of her partner – finally made a break for it. She gathered up her two small children and a few belongings and escaped to a shelter where they were finally safe. When I met her, I was introduced as a pastor and one of the first things she said to me was, “You’re not going to tell me I have to forgive him are you?” It wasn’t really a question she was asking. It was a statement she was making.
Are there some human experiences that render people unable to forgive?
One of our church members - who has since moved away - once told me about his daughter who had been abducted and murdered. He sobbed as he told me the heartbreaking story, and then he said, “I know I’m supposed to forgive, but I just can’t!”
Have there ever been times in your life when the pain was so great, the injury was so deep, the offense was so profound that you did not have the ability to forgive?
Well, you’re in good company. Jesus experienced such a time, too.
And there on that Friday afternoon when the betrayals were so bitter, the denials so degrading, the rejection so ruinous, and the suffering so severe, we see death at work in Jesus. They have stripped him of everything – his clothes, his dignity, his power, his blood…
…and even his remarkable ability to forgive.
So what will Jesus do?
“Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do.”
It is a prayer for resurrection – a prayer that asks God the Father to do what Jesus the Son is no longer able to do. It is a prayer that God will raise up life out of death, and forgiveness out of sin, and give humankind the opportunity to rise, take up its bed of human paralysis, and walk!
What an incredible act of faith. We need that kind of faith in our lives and in our world!
We especially need it today in America.
My friend Jeremiah Wright has been in the news lately. Rev. Wright is Senator Barack Obama’s pastor who has become known for his sometimes – how shall I say? - incendiary speech. I call him my friend not because I know him well, but because I know him a little, and the little I know makes me think of him as a friend. When I briefly met Jeremiah many years ago as a fellow pastor in the United Church of Christ, I experienced him as a deeply committed Christian, a man of great passion for bringing God’s justice to those who suffer injustice, and as a loving man who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Jeremiah served our nation for six years in the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy, and since then has consistently worked wherever he lived to improve life in his community. When he became pastor of Chicago’s Trinity UCC in 1972, the church was pretty much a lost cause with only 80-members and situated in an environment of deep poverty, high crime, and extreme hopelessness. It was in this setting that Dr. Wright and Trinity Church took up the slogan, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.” Along with that slogan was developed something the church calls the “Black Value System”.
Some commentators criticize Rev. Wright and Trinity UCC for differentiating themselves this way. The Black Value System. Friends of mine ask me why the church needs to label itself? Well, I don’t know why people do that. We just do. All of us.
The other day, I was talking with Linda Collins about the hymns for today and she pointed out that Natalie Sleeth’s “Hymn of Promise” is not in our hymnal. She said, “I think I can find it in the Disciples of Christ hymnal.” I said, “Well, Linda, if its not there, I know you can get it in the United Methodist Hymnal.” And if not there, it might be in the Presbyterian Hymnal or the Lutheran Hymnal or maybe even the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer!
Why do we human beings label ourselves? Well, I suppose it is to help shape our identity as a community of people with a unique heritage and sometimes unique needs. And forging an identity can rally people together to accomplish important things.
In the case of Trinity UCC, the so-called “Black Value System” asks church members to commit themselves to some extremely important values – like, if you’re going to father a child you have to raise that child, and with the child’s mother provide for the child a safe and stable family setting – values like, you need to commit yourself to getting a good education – or like, don’t get caught up in the pursuit of materialism – or like, commit yourself to a work ethic of high productivity and the pursuit of excellence in all you do. It seems to me these are values we all endorse – working hard, raising good kids, and making the world a better place.
So, why all the fuss about Jeremiah Wright?
Well, because Jeremiah has said some pretty awful things, especially about this country. I disagree with him in that I believe America IS a God-blessed nation. But I agree with him that America has not always lived up to the ideal of that blessing – especially with respect to people of color. The sins of slavery, Jim Crow laws of segregation, the KKK, lynchings, and the persistence of racism to this very day have pierced the souls of many. White people never have and never will understand the injury. And like the woman I met at the shelter, and our church member whose daughter was abducted and killed, and like Jesus on the cross - sometimes the pain is so great, the injury is so deep, the offense is so profound that you never do get over it.
Jeremiah’s words cannot be excused. But they must be understood. And Jeremiah must be forgiven.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” Jesus prayed from the cross.
And along with Jeremiah, the rest of us need to be forgiven, too - for all the shameful things we have ever said – especially about people of color. We need to be forgiven for every time we have used the racial slur, for every time we have passed on a racist email, for tolerating racist jokes, and for standing by while discrimination of any kind has been practiced in our neighborhoods, in the work place, and in public policy.
I can honestly tell you that I personally probably have much more to be forgiven for in this regard than Rev. Wright. His few outrageous sound bites being played over and over in the media are nothing compared to my outrageous lifelong history of racially insensitive attitudes, expressions, and behaviors – and those of the family in which I grew up.
Forgive US.
Forgive the disciples who deserted and denied Jesus. Forgive the religious authorities who brought the charges, and the people who cried out “Crucify him!” Forgive the Roman governor who damned him to death. Forgive the soldiers who whipped and tortured Jesus. Forgive the people who derided him as he carried the cross to Golgotha. Forgive those who were too busy even to notice. Forgive the thieves crucified on either side of him. Forgive the men who drove the nails and hoisted the cross. Forgive those who made fun of him, and hurled insults at him as his life ebbed away. Forgive the ones who gambled away his clothing and were glad when he breathed his last. Forgive the rest of us who were not present physically, but were nonetheless in the crowd that day contributing to the death of Jesus. Forgive Marty Singley. Forgive Jeremiah Wright. Forgive Bob Puckett and Tim Meadows and Rhonda Blevins and our families and friends. Father, forgive…
…us ALL!
For if the Easter promise is true – that Christ was raised from the dead and Jesus’ prayer was heard, then you and I – rising up in God’s power - can stop this mutually destructive nonsense that is going on in the world all around us.
Even unable to forgive each other for the sins we have perpetrated against each other, we can find a faith that dares join Jesus in his prayer:
“Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do.
And because we believe God answered that prayer – and that Christ is risen indeed, setting us free from our sins…
…YOU are forgiven…
…THEY are forgiven…
…I am forgiven.
And like the paralyzed man, now we must rise up from our paralysis and walk into a new way of living. Being forgiven, we can reach out the hand of resurrection to other forgiven sinners – Marty Singley and Jeremiah Wright among them - and TOGETHER we can start working toward breaking down the walls that divide, and start building the beautiful kingdom of God!
Yes, sometimes the pain is too great, the injury too deep, the offense too profound to be able to forgive those who sin against us.
All we can do is join the Easter prayer…
“Father, forgive…”