Wounded Jesus: April 12

   John 20:19-31                                     Year A Easter 2   

             I grew up with three older brothers.  They were a rowdy group, often getting in trouble, frequently injured.  They taught me to judge potential friends by how many scars they had.  They said, if someone doesn’t have any scars, they clearly aren’t good friend material. (I guess it was just a measure of toughness for them.)  I didn’t use that tool for judgment very often, especially since I was 9 at the time, and not many 9 years old have a lot of scars.  That said, it’s something I have always noticed.  Scars can provide snap shots of you life on your skin. 

For a long time, my most impressive scar was from a knee surgery I had in 10^th grade. I gained a few more scars over the years, but they all pale in comparison to my MRSA scar.  A few years ago, I got a serious infection in my leg.  It was resisting all antibiotics and since they were worried I might lose my leg, they decided just to open it up and pour the antibiotics in.  They did this three times over a one month period.  The problem was, when you open up the same part of a leg that many times, it doesn’t heal well.  I had an open wound for almost 6 months. They tried everything: stitches, staples, several wound vacuums and finally they cauterized it….which is burning. 

The whole time that was going on, I prayed fervently for a scar.  I didn’t care what it looked like, I just wanted that wound closed.  I have to admit, it’s one ugly scar…I mean truly ugly.  Yet even though I kind of hate it….it’s so much better than an open wound.

            When I was praying for my scar, I thought a lot about Jesus’ wounds.  I was confined to a bed for 2 months, so I had a lot of time to think of such things.  I have always loved that Jesus came back with scars, that there was evidence of his pain and his vulnerability.  But as I contemplated my wound, I wondered why Jesus didn’t come back with wounds instead of scars, like open wounds, maybe bleeding a little.  Because the wound that he experienced being nailed to the cross and pierced by a sword, would never have scarred over in just a few days.  Then again, coming back from the dead wasn’t an expected  outcome, so I suppose a wound healing a little more quickly isn’t exactly the headline of this story.  Still, it’s something I think about a lot.

The Gospel of John was originally written in Greek.  If you look at our Gospel reading, you will see it doesn’t say scar.  It says mark. The Greek is unclear, probably purposefully so.  When Jesus came back and offered his body to Thomas, he didn’t refer to his wounds as scars or marks.  He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”  Notice, that the word scar isn’t used.  Maybe Jesus did  have open wounds. There is one famous painting that pops up a lot when reading commentaries about this text.  It’s by Caravaggio.  I can’t look at it without grimacing a little because Thomas is actually putting his finger into the open wound. I thought it was just Caravaggio being a little dramatic, but it’s certainly possible that Jesus still had an open wound and he was offering it to Thomas. 

Now some of you might be thinking, who cares if it’s a wound or a scar.  That’s not what this text is about.  It’s about Thomas doubting and needing physical evidence.  That is one perspective.   But I think Jesus’ wounds or scars matter.  He could have returned from the dead completely whole, without blemish or flaw.  He didn’t.  He returned to his disciples, the very same disciples who had denied him and abandoned him and were now hiding in a locked room.  He returned wounded. He didn’t return that way to shame them or make them feel guilty.  He returned with those wounds because they were part of the story, not just his story, but the story of what would become the Christian Church.  They were also evidence of not just his horrible death, but his humanity, his willingness to be vulnerable, even to the point of death.

Sometimes I make the mistake of reading the comments section in an article or social media. Ok, I do it a lot.  You will remember that not too long ago the panels which told the story of those enslaved by George Washington were removed from the president’s house just a few blocks from here.  This was as a result of an executive order from the president called, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History".  Many of the comments were against the removal.  They wanted the story of those enslaved people to be told.  But many comments were along the lines of, that’s in the past. Why are we still talking about slavery? What does that accomplish?

 I am sure those same people would wonder why we read the names of those children of God who were auctioned and sold in the one of the largest slave auctions in the history of our country.  What is that accomplishing? Are we trying to tarnish the history of our nation? No, that history was tarnished long ago.  What we are trying to do is honor the names that we know.  We don’t know their whole stories.  We just know their names, not even all their names.  We know this one portion of their story because they were sold like cattle to the highest bidder.    We know the very worst days of their life.  So that is the part of the story we tell.

Slavery isn’t just a scar on our nation. It’s an open wound.  True, we stopped most forms of slavery.  We stopped the wound from gushing blood. But we, as a nation, we did very little to aid in the healing of that wound.  Some people think in talking about slavery, we are reopening the wounds, but I think we are finally pouring in some necessary antibiotic.  We are letting the light in, the possibility of healing.  We still have a lot more to do when it comes to the healing of our nation.  We will one day have to repair the wounds that are currently being inflicted.  It’s a never ending process.
            Jesus taught us all an important lesson when he returned to his disciples wounded and open.  He wasn’t there to assign blame. He was there to provide peace and forgiveness.  He could have shared the peace and forgiveness without the wounds. However, in showing the wounds, he showed us how we get to peace and forgiveness.  First we have to acknowledge the hurt, the shame and the sin.  We have to allow ourselves the same vulnerability that Jesus showed.  Because even when wounds heal, there is still a story to tell, a story to understand. That is the only way to get to true peace.   It’s the only way we heal.

Forgiveness is a Gift: April 27, 2025

Easter 2, Year C          John 20: 19-31

        When my husband and I got engaged, we were both in the ordination process. We often spoke of what it would be liked to be married to another priest. We decided that while there were several drawbacks, there were also some perks. For instance, we would both be able to understand the hazards of clergy apparel. We could discuss the text that we were preaching on the coming Sunday. We would both find our church humor hysterical. Yet what we were most excited about was the prospect of absolving one another. 

         Absolve is another word for forgive. However, it has liturgical connotations. After the confession, the priest stands in front of the congregation and absolves everyone on behalf of Jesus Christ. It is not the priest who is doing the forgiveness, the priest is sort of the conduit. God is the one who is doing the actual forgiving. We call it a corporate confession, because we all do it together. In the Episcopal Church, people are also allowed to seek private confession with a priest. We just do not have those cute booths they have in the Roman Catholic Church, and no one actually knows it’s available, even though it is in the prayer book. It has become one of those fun trivia facts I like to share with people. 

         Roman Catholic priests trace their beginnings to the 12 apostles. In the Episcopal Church, we do that to some extent---although we don’t put the same importance on it as they do. The Roman Catholic Church has always been more adamant about the idea of the priest being Christ’s representative on earth. (That is one of the reasons that a priest has to be a man.) This idea of the clergy’s authority to absolve comes partly from this reading from John. Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you…If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them…” Jesus was giving his apostles something that not only would they need but also something that all Christians would need. The best people to convey this gift of forgiveness were those who had spent the most time with him, essentially been trained by Jesus. 

         The idea of Christian leaders forgiving others eventually became doctrine in the church and was corrupted in some circles. One of the things that the Protestant Reformation sought to do was to remove the priest as a mediator between the people and God. At this time, in the 1500’s and before, a person had to seek forgiveness from a priest. They could not simply confess their sins to God. This paved the way for a corrupt practice called indulgences, where people would “donate” money to the church or the priest to have their sins forgiven, or even forgive the sins of loved ones who had already died. Given how corrosive this practice was, one can understand why the church reformers were eager to get rid of the middleman (and yes, it was always a man). 

         The Church of England (which is our mother church) was just being formed at this point (right around the time of the Protestant Reformation) and as usual they sought the middle way, the compromise between the Protestants and the Catholics. While this middle way has taken on many different forms, the idea has always been the while people can confess directly to God, there is also the provision for a priest to declare this forgiveness verbally. Sometimes it is good to hear it out loud. 

        I have always been a little uncomfortable with this part of my job. I know that a priest doesn’t need to pronounce forgiveness for forgiveness to be granted. It makes me feel a little hypocritical knowing that I am so heavy with my own sin, and yet here I stand pronouncing forgiveness for all of you. Yet where I find comfort, is in the flaws of the apostles themselves. Jesus was very aware of the many imperfections of the men who were cowering in that room. Yet despite their failures, Jesus still asked his apostles to be his representative, to forgive others on his behalf, not because they themselves were not in need of forgiveness, but because they knew that they needed it more than anyone. 

         Even though Conor and I have been priests for almost our whole married lives, we pretty much never absolve each other. A couple of times he absolved me when I did not think I needed to be absolved and that was the end of that. Yet we both know, that it does not take a priest to forgive, just a person. Of course you can always expect it from a priest, because it’s part of the job description. 

         Sometimes I think that we see this call to forgive one another as a labor of love. We think it is something we have to do to be good Christians, that we have to forgive others so we can be forgiven, a kind of quid pro quo. However, if we look at it as something that Jesus gave to his most beloved disciples, then maybe it’s not such a hardship. Instead, what if we saw forgiveness as a gift, a gift that we are empowered to use and share? Because the thing about forgiveness is that it always helps both people. Letting go of anger, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, that is a gift to yourself, even more so than the person you may be forgiving. One of my favorite quotes about forgiveness is, “When you forgive you set a prisoner free. And then you discover the prisoner was you.” 

         I am not saying it is easy. I find it especially difficult when the person does not apologize or seem sorry at all. I rationalize my not forgiving them by saying that they do not deserve it, or that they do not even want to be forgiven, so what’s the point? Well that is assuming that forgiveness only benefits the person who is being forgiven. And we know there is more to it than that. 

         Jesus knew what it was to be hurt by the people who he loved the most. I am sure it was not easy to forgive them when he found them huddled in a locked room after deserting him when he was arrested. But he forgave them, and in doing so gave them the power to forgive others. Before they could forgive others, they had to forgive themselves. 

         That is one of the greatest challenges in forgiving others. We haven’t really figured out how to forgive ourselves. Yet we have to forgive ourselves, not because we deserve it, but because God has already forgiven us. By refusing to forgive ourselves or others, we are rejecting God’s grace. If God has already forgiven, we have no right to hold on to our sins or the sins and offenses of others. 

         And I know it’s not easy to let go. I think sometimes we assume forgiveness is some switch we can just turn on and then walk away. Forgiveness, like so many things, is a process. It’s not necessarily a once and done kind of thing. It’s a decision we make over and over again. But it’s a decision worth making. The power to forgive isn’t some special power Jesus gave to his disciples 2000 year ago. It’s a gift God has given to all of us and it’s a gift that we need to share.

Forgiveness is Self-Preservation: John 20:19-31

Year A, Easter 2     
 April 23, 2017

            On March 28^th of 2010, Conor McBride shot his girlfriend of three years.  Conor and Ann had been fighting for over 38 hours and he simply broke.  He immediately regretted it and turned himself in. When her parents were notified, their first question was whether Conor was with her in the ICU where she struggled for her life.  They were shocked to learn that the boy they considered a son, was the one who shot her.   When Ann’s father (Andy) sat with his dying daughter, he felt her say, “Forgive him.”  He said “No,” but he kept hearing the voice of his daughter telling him to forgive the man who shot her.  After four days on life support, her parents realized they would have to let her go.  Her father later said, “I realized it was not just Ann asking me to forgive Conor, it was Jesus Christ, and I hadn’t said no to him before, and I wasn’t going to start then. It was just a wave of joy, and I told Ann: ‘I will. I will.’ ”[1]

            As Andy described what happened, he mentioned that the wounds on his daughter reminded him of the wounds of Jesus Christ.  Apparently she put her hands in front of her face when her boyfriend raised the gun, giving her wounds on her hands and her head.   The author of the Gospel of John reminds us of the scars that Jesus bore when he appeared to his disciples after his resurrection.  He showed them his hands and his side. The scars on his hands were from the nails.  His side bore the mark of the sword that pierced him.  There is no reference to scars on his head, but we know that his head was undoubtedly wounded when the crown of thorns was forced onto his head.  Even if those scars were not present, the disciples would have seen them in their mind’s eye as they looked at the risen Christ for the first time.

            The Gospel of John says that the disciples were hiding for fear of the Jews.   I have a hunch that they were hiding from more than just the Jews.  Remember that when Jesus appears to them this first time, they have already found the empty tomb and Mary Magdalene already reported that she spoke to the resurrected Christ.  What do you think they were more afraid of, the fact that he was dead and gone, or the possibility that he was alive and they would have to face him?  The disciples had not performed very admirably in the last days of Jesus’ life.  Peter had denied him.  Most had abandoned him.   To make matters worse, instead of combing the streets looking for Jesus, they were now hiding in a locked room.  Yes, they were hiding from the Jews.  They were the Jews and they were hiding from their own shame.

Suddenly, Jesus appeared in the room. Before anyone had time to react, he proclaimed, “Peace be with you.”  With those four words, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then he breathed on them.  Normally, I am not too keen on people breathing on me, but this was not just any breath.  This was the breath of God, the Holy Spirit.  With it came joy, hope, and forgiveness.  “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.”  With this breath and these words, Jesus was not only forgiving them, he was giving them the authority, the responsibility to forgive others.  All of that makes sense to me.  What does not make sense is the part about retaining sins.  Did Jesus mean that the disciples could withhold God’s forgiveness?

            Ann’s parents did more than just forgive Conor, the man who murdered their daughter.  They visited him in prison every month.  They worked with Conor’s parents and the district attorney to minimize the sentence that was given to Conor using a model called “restorative justice.” This was not easy for anyone, but they felt that was what Ann would have wanted, and what God was asking of them.   When asked about it, Ann’s mother said, “Conor owed us a debt he could never repay. And releasing him from that debt would release us from expecting that anything in this world could satisfy us... I think that when people can’t forgive, they’re stuck... Forgiveness for me was self-preservation.” 

            The disciples weren’t just literally stuck in a locked room.  To some degree, their hearts were locked, buried in a place that was so deep, it was only the breath of God, the forgiveness of God that could bring air to their suffocating lungs.  With the forgiveness of Jesus, they could start coming up for air.  However, it could not end there.  Jesus was forgiving them, so that they could proclaim that forgiveness to others.   Being forgiven only got them half way there.  They might have come up for air, but if they wanted to truly open their hearts, they would have to forgive others.

            We often think that in forgiving others, we are making some sort of sacrifice, or giving them a gift.  Yet that’s the thing about gifts, they are only good if you release them.  Furthermore, we do not own this gift. It is God’s gift.  He just asked us to share that gift with others. A theologian wrote, “When you forgive you set a prisoner free. And then you discover the prisoner was you.”[2]

            I believe that is what Jesus meant when he said, “If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  If we choose not to forgive someone, we then take on their sin.  And unlike Jesus, we cannot absorb sin without having it affect us.  Another word for forgiveness is “to free” or to “let go.”  In giving us the power to forgive, Jesus gave us freedom, from not only our sins, but the sins of others.  If we don’t use that gift, we will find that while we might not be stuck in a locked room, we might as well be.  Because when we hold on to all of that sin, all of that shame, all of that anger, then our hearts are locked.  Do you think the disciples stayed in that room after they received the Holy Spirit…the breath of God? No, they opened that door and they claimed their freedom.  I think that most of us have little locks on our hearts.  We have them to protect us…but really they are just imprisoning us.  It’s time to open the doors. It’s time to claim our freedom.

 

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/magazine/can-forgiveness-play-a-role-in-criminal-justice.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[2] Lewis Smedes   (from article by Craig Barnes called “Crying Shame”)

April 12, 2015: Beginnings and Endings

Year B, Easter 2           John 20:19-31, Acts 4:32-35, 1 John 1:1-2:2                         

            In 2001, there was a grassroots movement to include Jedi as an option for religion in the census of all English speaking countries.  In England and Whales, 330,000 people (that is almost 1% of the total population) listed Jedi as their religion.  Obviously it was a joke- although no one is quite sure who the joke was directed to.   While the Jedi phenomenon never gained traction in the US, there have been growing a number of people who have listed “none” when asked what religion they are.  This strikes fear in the hearts of clergy and all people who are concerned about the future of the church.  Some people are proclaiming that we are in a post-Christian era and that the church is dying.  People will give you statistics to prove this.  If you have been to any diocesesan church council in the last 5 years, you will have heard these statistics and then theories about what we can do about them.  It’s pretty depressing.

            We have not given up but we are unsure about how to move forward.  Much of the dialogue regarding the future of the church focuses on the past.  I am not talking about the 1960’s when the Sunday school was overflowing and businesses were still closed on Sundays.  What we as a church are talking about is the very beginning of the church which is reflected in parts of the New Testament.  We see it especially in Acts.   Today’s reading from the Book of Acts depicts a beatific view of the early church.  “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul…”   Everyone shared and helped one another.  There were no needy people among them.  The apostles provided their testimony with great power.  It sounds positively magical.  If only we could go back to that happy time when no one bothered gathering census data and no one talked about a dying church.  However if you continue to read just a couple of verses later in Acts, you will see that life in this new Christian community was not perfect bliss. There was dissension because not everyone agreed.

            It is not only Acts that reports such dissension.  All five chapters of First John are about division in the community.  People had left because they had different ideas about who Jesus was.  In this letter, John was trying to reaffirm the correct beliefs while also maintaining the importance of forgiveness in the community of believers.  Just because people had come to believe in Jesus Christ does not mean that they had stopped sinning.  It meant that they now had someone in their lives who had the power to forgive.  They were no longer a prisoner to their sins.  Jesus had freed them from that prison.  John was reminding them of that.

            If dissension in the church started as soon as the church was formed, what hope do we have?  How can we possibly keep the church from fracturing and inevitably dying off?  We need to go back to the words and actions of Jesus.  Even Jesus’ little community (his disciples) had a bit of infighting and dissension.  Judas completely abandoned the group and betrayed Jesus.  That was their first major split.  Another more subtle rebellion was Thomas.  After Judas left there were 11 disciples remaining, not including the small group of women.  These 11 disciples were their own community.  Yet it was a community living in fear.  This was the first dying community…until Jesus appeared to them.  Jesus brought them out of that little room they were trapped in.  They were witnesses to the resurrection.  Not only that, but Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit, which means that they shared in the resurrection.  They too had new life.

However, at least one disciple was missing when Jesus appeared to them.  It was Thomas.  He refused to believe that they had seen the risen Lord.  In many ways, this was the first dissension in the newly resurrected community of believers.  But they did not kick him out.  They continued to include him in their community and he stayed, even though he wasn’t quite on board with what they believed.  Not only did the community refuse to push Thomas out.  Jesus refused to cut Thomas out.  He returned so that Thomas could see what the other disciples had already seen.  He went so far as to let Thomas touch his scars.  That was an amazing gift that Jesus gave to the first church dissenter.  Thomas received the gift because he was there to receive the gift, because he stayed.

            Yes, our church began in dissension.  It began in dissension because we are sinners.  We are flawed. We get into arguments and our feelings get hurt.  I am not saying that is fair or right, but it is the reality that people face in communities made up of real people.  Christian communities are no different than other communities in the sense that we have infighting.  And sometimes we act in ways that we should not.  What makes Christian communities unique (what makes us Christian) is that we find the humility to call it what it is, sin.  Then once we have found the courage to name our sin, we will discover the joy in forgiving one another and ourselves.  During all of that process, we stick together. We remain a community. 

            I don’t think we are in a post Christian era.  I believe that we are in a post label era.  People don’t want to be labelled.  They don’t want to be put in a box.  In the church, we love labels.  High Church, Low Church, Anglo Catholic, Conservative, Orthodox, Liberal, Progressive, Open, Inclusive, Traditional, Contemporary.  Those are just the labels we use in the Episcopal Church.  They are not doing us any good. They are dividing the community; not bringing us together.  We can rise above the labels.  We can rise above dissension.  We don’t need to be boxed in.  Jesus opened the door for the disciples and he opens the doors for us as well.

            What kept the disciples together, even when they were scared and fractured, was their belief in the love of Jesus Christ.  There was some confusion and doubt, but it was not around the love of Christ.  There is one label that is important that we maintain, that is Christian.  That is the title that we are given in the Bible. One of the things we have to work hard at is making sure that people don’t associate Christians with division, but with love, humility, forgiveness and community.

            In the 2011 census, the amount of people who called themselves Jedi decreased by half.  The number of Christians decreased as well, although thankfully not by half.  We could look at these declining numbers and say we are dying.  Or we could stop trying so hard to maintain the box that we have built.  We could die to labels, division and pride.  We could hang those things on the cross and then rise again to a new way of being church…or perhaps a very old way…back to 30AD.  Jesus could have looked at those 11 disciples who denied him, abandoned him and doubted him.  He could have said, “This is the group I am supposed to start a church with?”  But he didn’t. He didn’t see sin and failure.  He saw an opportunity for new life. 

            What is it that we see when we look at the state of the church?  Do we see boxes or do we see opportunity…do we see Jesus opening our doors?  We have been given something greater than any worldly powers, even greater than the force. We have the Holy Spirit.  That means that even if we die, we always have the power to rise again.  And if any church knows that, it’s St. John’s, a church that has literally risen from the ashes.   

Sermons now on youtube

I am experimenting with youtube right now.  Greg Brauer recorded my most recent sermon and you can find it here: http://youtu.be/RNylLMoL_z0

April 27, 2014: John 20:19-31

Year A, Easter 2                                                        

 

During my first year of seminary, I had to read a book called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families.  It was about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.  There are two main tribes in Rwanda: the Hutus and the Tutsis.  They lived in relative peace, often as neighbors. The Hutus made up 85% of the population.  In 1994 Hutu extremists began a plot to wipe out the entire Tutsi population.  It is estimated that 800,000 Rwandans were killed in a matter of months, the majority were Tutsis.  Seventy percent of the Tutsi population was killed. That book was one of the most painful things I have ever read.  It primarily covered what led up to the genocide, the killing itself, and then a very brief aftermath. While I think about that book every time I see an article about Rwanda, I have not read much about it until this week.

Just this week I saw a piece in the New York Times magazine called, “Portraits of Reconciliation.”  This piece ran on the 20 year anniversary of the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda.  It was here that I read more about what came in the years after the genocide.  When the killing and looting finally ended, the Tutsis (the tribe that was almost obliterated) returned to their homes to find that they were living next door to people who had brutally murdered their families and driven them out.  As you can imagine, this was a difficult way to live.  There were court trials and some of the people who had committed the atrocities were sent to jail, but they eventually got out if they were convicted at all.  The justice system was not equipped for this kind of mass slaughter, and it certainly could not help people emotionally.

A Roman Catholic group aptly called “Pax Christi,” [1] stepped in and introduced a totally different model, reconciliation.  They[2] worked with small groups of Hutus and Tutsis and counseled them over many months.  At the end of the program, the perpetrator would formally request forgiveness from the victim.  If forgiveness was offered, the perpetrator would present the victim with an offering (usually food and banana beer).  

I often wonder what it was like for the disciples to see Jesus after they had abandoned him and denied him.  It probably had not occurred to them that they would see him again, certainly not so soon.  Jesus was aware of their angst and guilt and started with a fairly standard greeting, “Peace be with you.”  But then he followed it up with something a little new.  “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.”

It might seem strange that he did not tell them that they were forgiven.  They had committed some pretty egregious sins. One would think they needed that forgiveness.  If you were here on Maundy Thursday, you might remember that Jesus had already forgiven his disciples when he washed their feet.  He forgave them before they even knew that they needed to be forgiven.  So he did not have to tell them again. Now he was commissioning them to proclaim God’s forgiveness to other people.  We forgive one another in one sense, but when there is a sin that is committed, it is only God who can forgive.  What we do is tap into that that forgiveness.  We proclaim that forgiveness…which you would think would be easier to do than the actual forgiving…but it’s still pretty hard.

Each portrait in the Times’ piece depicted two people: the person who had perpetrated the crime and the person who had suffered from that crime.  One of the pictures depicts a man who killed a family and the mother of the family sits right next to him.  One story was about a woman who was chased from her village.  She became homeless and insane.  She returned to find her home destroyed.  Her husband was gone and she had to care for her children.  One of the men who looted her home asked her forgiveness.  She granted it (although not easily) and he brought 50 people, many who had committed atrocities during the genocide, and rebuilt her home.  In the interview the woman said, “Ever since then, I have started to feel better. I was like a dry stick; now I feel peaceful in my heart, and I share this peace with my neighbors.”[3]

When she compared herself to a dry stick, I was reminded of a line from Psalm 22 that we heard on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  “My strength is dried up like a potsherd.”  A potsherd is like an old piece of pottery you might find in the ground.  Sometimes we all feel that dryness.  It’s that feeling of being brittle and weak, like we might fall apart at any moment.  Or maybe we are just thirsty, in need of something to sustain us.  The thing that quenched her dry body and heart was the freedom to forgive.  Once she forgave, she was able to find peace and share that peace.

It is no wonder that Jesus brought both peace and a challenge to forgive when he came to the disciples.  He knew that they would need to share this message of forgiveness with others because it is not something that comes to us naturally.  It can be a very hard thing to do.  I have always found the line “If you retain the sins of any, they are retained” to be a little strange.  Does that mean that we can withhold God’s forgiveness?  Of course not.  We cannot control who God forgives.  But we can withhold forgiveness in the sense that when we refuse to forgive, we hold on to that sin…we retain it.  We become like a dry stick, brittle and weak. 

            When you look at the portraits, and I encourage you to do so, you will not see warm and fuzzy images.  Most of the people look pretty awkward. Some have become close, but most have not.  Part of the reason they forgave was because they had to live with these people.  It was the only way they could survive.  We think that when we forgive, when we share God’s forgiveness that it will be easy and natural.  Usually it’s not.  That dry and brittle feeling might stick around for awhile.  When Jesus returned, he made sure to show his disciples his wounds.  Even though he was back from the dead, he still carried his wounds.  Forgiving others…forgiving ourselves does not erase the wounds, it transforms them into something else.  Sometimes that transformation will take longer than 3 days….maybe longer than 3 or 30 years.

            The man who looted the home of the woman I quoted also spoke of the process of reconciliation.  He said, “I had lost my humanity because of the crime I committed, but now I am like any human being.”  It is amazing to me that we can lose our humanity.  People can take it from us; sin can take it from us.  At least it feels that way.  But God never takes away our humanity.  That is God’s gift to us.  We are created in God’s image and no one can change that.  We tarnish ourselves and we tarnish others, but God’s image is always there, waiting to shine through.

            It made me smile when I read that part of the reconciliation process is for the perpetrator to bring an offering of food and banana beer. I thought, that seems like a pretty pathetic offering in comparison to what they did.  Then I thought of what we offer to God on Sundays.  We bring wine and bread.  We might bring some food for the local food pantry, and then whatever money we can spare.  This is the offering we give to Jesus for his sacrifice on the cross.  At least the food they offer in Rwanda is fresh!  Those wafers are the most stale bread you can imagine. 

But that’s not really what the offering is about is it? Psalm 51 says, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.”  The banana beer and wine is nice, but what God really wants is a contrite heart and heart ready to forgive.  A broken and contrite heart might feel brittle and weak to us.  To God, it is the most beautiful and powerful thing we can offer. 

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[1] http://www.paxchristi.net/member-organizations/rwanda/193

[2] Association Modest et Innocent (AMI) was the specific group that worked in Rwanda.

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/magazine/06-pieter-hugo-rwanda-portraits.html?_r=0