A17 V Lent

Homily for

The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Sunday 2 April 2017

The Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania

A Parish of the Diocese of Bethlehem and The Episcopal Church

Readings:

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Lent/ALent5_RCL.html

∞∞------------------------------------------------------------∞∞

Preaching Series on the Creed

∞∞------------------------------------------------------------∞∞

I believe in … the forgiveness of sins …

At every Mass, we are reminded of this element of our faith.  Some would say that this focus on forgiveness at every Mass is overkill.  They would say that the effect is such that they are depressed by this constant reminder, that they are driven to guilt.  In that guilt and depression, these ones would prefer that the Church just simply keep quiet on the matter of the forgiveness of sins.

Only, my friends, note that the Creed does not ask us to profess sinfulness but rather forgiveness.  We are called to focus not on our condition in which we approach God but rather the gift of God that he gives as a free gift to us that is rooted not in guilt but in love.  Recall last week when we spoke of the Church that I quoted the current Bishop of Rome who has reminded the Church that the Church is an informatory for sinners in which we are sought out by a physician who holds in his hands the healing of our souls.  Now if I tell you that there is a sickness in your body and there is a doctor with a cure, how quickly will you seek out that doctor?  And what are the chances that you will feel depressed and not seek out the source of such healing?

Here is the place where we are encountered by the one who holds healing in his hands that flows from his loving heart.  The sickness is sin.  The healing is the forgiveness from God that comes through Jesus Christ.

So why then do we avoid this topic?  I think we do so because we have commonly misunderstood both sin and forgiveness.  We have turned sin into something far more complex than it truly is.  God created us all with a vision for what it should look like for us to be human.  The Holy Trinity, the God whose very nature is communal, has created us with the intent that we will live together and interaction with one another in such a way that in all that we say and do we fulfill the vision of God in what we know as the Summary of the Law.  And what is that summary?  We heard it at the beginning of the Mass:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.”

This sounds so easy, doesn’t it?  And yet let’s be honest with one another; we all miss the mark of that divine presence again and again, day after day.  Jesus speaks time and time again in the Gospel of our “missing the mark” of the vision of God’s Kingdom.  We might miss that, because the way that this is most often translated for us shows us an image of Jesus addressing sin.  There is a good reason for this.  When we fail to love God and our neighbor, when we miss the mark that God has in mind for how we should live as humans, we have sinned.  When Jesus shows us that we have missed the mark, he is showing us our sin, not that we might wallow in guilt, but rather that we might find comfort in God who forgives us and loves us perfectly and completely.  In that forgiveness, he takes us by the shoulders and turns us, sets us on a new path, and makes right what was wrong by completing what is lacking in us whenever we turn away from God.  The perfect picture of Jesus in this light is the encounter between Jesus and the woman caught in the act of adultery.  When all of her accusers left her alone with Jesus, the Lord asks her where they all are who made this accusation.  When she acknowledges that they have departed, and they no longer are accusing her, Jesus tells her:

“Neither do I accuse you; go and sin no more.”

Jesus does not send her away with these words as a threat.  It is only grace.  He is not blind to the fact that she has missed the mark.  Nor is he blind to the fact that she will miss the mark again.  And most certainly he is not barring her from any future gift of grace and forgiveness!  He provides the healing that she needs in that present moment; the healing that God alone can provide.

In this we find why it is that divine forgiveness should never drive us to guilt but rather should always be the comfortable words for which our souls long.  I say that because this forgiveness is not needed only for someone else.  And yet how often do we forget that fact?  How often do we, to use the image Jesus used in the Gospel:

“See the speck in our own eye, but miss the log in our own eye.”

And yet that log is there, for all of us.  The Scriptures remind us again and again that Jesus is the only one who walked this earth without missing the mark, who alone is without sin.  Thus whenever we ask the question,

“Who needs forgiveness?”

the answer always includes us, and never excludes anyone.  If this fact depresses us, it does so only because we are blind to grace and to God’s true nature.  Our God does not desire to keep us in that place where we are simply aware of our sinfulness.  God longs for us to find comfort and healing in the knowledge that we are forgiven again and again.  This God models for us what it looks like to forgive:

“Not seven times but seventy times seven.”

Jesus’ words to his disciples did not of course mean that when someone commits the 491^st offense that there can be no more forgiveness.  Jesus meant by this that we offer forgiveness as often as it is needed without any thought to the past but merely to the present.  And Jesus expects such mercy from us towards one another because God has first shown such abundant mercy to us, and continues to do so again and again, as often as we need to be relieved of the burden of sin and to be healed in such a way that our hearts our turned again to walk in the way of the Kingdom and according to the vision of God for us and all his children.

Let us therefore gladly profess our belief in the forgiveness of sins.  Let us lay aside any temptation to remain in a depressed spirit, but let us ever rejoice in the truth that we have been sought out by a God of mercy, who provides us the forgiveness that we need that we might love God and one another as we have first been loved.

Father

Timothy

Alleman