Day 121 - Peace Be With You (Why You Don't Want To Hold Onto Sin)

A sermon given April 7, 2013 at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy-Daisy, TN. Sermon texts (NRSV) are Judges 6:1,7-24; John 20:19-29

We have all heard the greeting, “Peace be with you.” You have probably heard it in worship as we share the peace and greet each other. You might have heard it as a call/response at the opening of worship: “Peace be with you” – “and also with you.” We think of it as a greeting. In fact the translation in the Pew Bible (Contemporary English Version) goes that way, “Jesus greeted them…” a wish for someone to do well, “peace to you, my friend.”

HOWEVER, the Greek text clearly says “Peace be to you.”  It is an obviously rooted in an ancient Hebrew expression of the relationship between the Israelites and God.

The passage in Judges shows us what I mean. A little background is in order. Judges describes the ancient history of Israel before there were kings, when the Israelites lived among the previous inhabitants of the land, sometimes subjugating them, sometimes being subjugated - usually after they fell to the lure of their religious traditions. 

Just before Gideon’s time Israel had enjoyed forty years of peace celebrating the victory of The Lord over the Canaanites. Earlier The Lord allowed the Canaanites to subjugate Israel because Israel had done the worst insulting sin, to worship the gods of the Canaanites; or done what was evil in the sight of God. Then in response to their cries, the judge Deborah played the role in liberating Israel. This victory celebration continued for forty years until the memory of the reason for celebration was forgotten. As the saying goes, those who forget the past are condemned to relive it. Now in Gideon’s time the Israelites had done evil in the eyes of God again, embracing the gods of Midian. As a result the Lord allowed the Midianites to ravage their land for seven years.

Then the Angel of the Lord called Gideon to be his tool to free the Israelites. “The Angel of the Lord” is an expression for YHWH, the name of the Lord so terrifying that the Israelites will not utter it.  Gideon is responding to a God so powerful and terrifying that to look on The Lord’s face means certain death. When Gideon realized who was before him he was struck with terror, “Help me, Lord GOD! For I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face.” 

The Angel of the Lord had confronted Gideon, the youngest man of his family from the smallest and weakest tribe of Israel to call him to defeat Midian. Gideon objects out of doubt and fear.  But the Lord said to Gideon, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.”  The Scripture says Gideon built an altar there and called the place “Shalom Adonai” or “The LORD is peace.” Shalom is a special kind of peace. It is a general, or universal condition of serenity that comes from knowing your welfare is completely assured by The Lord. More than the absence of war and discord, shalom is the complete serenity of The Lord’s grace.

So when Gideon hears, “The Lord is with you,” it is not a normal greeting of best wishes, but is a declaration or imperative of certainty by the voice of The Lord, “Peace be with you. Take heart Gideon and rest easy, The Lord is with you now and will protect you.”

Jesus’ appearance John 20:19-29

On the evening of the third day after Christ’s crucifixion when most of Jesus’ followers except Thomas, are huddled and trembling in fear behind locked doors in the house that they met with Jesus on the night of his arrest. Suddenly Jesus appears. What are his first words? “Peace be with you,” the assurance of salvation.

In a short while Jesus says it again more emphatically, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then he breathes the breath of the Holy Spirit upon them.   Are you thinking about Gideon here, the frightened little man in The Lord’s presence who receives a true blessing of shalom? It seems to me Jesus is preparing the disciples for what comes next, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the commission.  Jesus says now that you have the peace of The Lord and the Holy Spirit,  “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

What does that mean, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained?”  Is Jesus telling them they have his power to forgive or condemn? Neither the Greek nor English are clear about what this passage actually means. How do you hold or retain sin?  A lot of well-meaning Christians clearly believe that Jesus is giving special power of forgiving or condemning to their ministers. They can hold a person’s sins against them. This is the view of the Roman Catholic Church, for example.

In a way, many of us Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists think that way. It is so easy to see the sins of others and be blind about sin in ourselves. Maybe someone wrongs us and we think, “I don’t believe that person is sorry, they cry crocodile tears. I doubt the least bit repentance is there.” Is that the kind of power Jesus gives to these disciples, and by extension to us?

Let’s read on.

Jesus’ presence makes it undeniable that he has arisen. It is visual evidence. The disciples believe, leave and spend the next few days telling people what they have seen. John recounts the famous story of poor doubting Thomas who refuses to believe what he has been told because he hasn’t seen it. He refuses to believe what Jesus first told all of them before his death, and what his friends who had seen Jesus after his death tell him. Thomas can only say, “I do not believe this outrageous story.”

A week later everybody including Thomas is back in the house again and Jesus reappears. What does he say to Thomas and the others for the third time? “Peace be with you.”  And then Thomas, after he sees and touches the wounds on Jesus’ arms and side, exclaims, “My Lord and My God!”

Jesus could have said, “Thomas you are not worthy of my grace. I told you I would die that you might live, and that I would return to you, but you didn’t believe me. I don’t think you are serious. I don’t think you mean what you say. I hold your unbelief against you regardless of what you say. You only say, ‘My Lord and my God,’ because you can’t deny I am standing in front of you. That is the only reason you say you believe.”

That might really be the human thing to do. But Jesus does not go that route, his only remark on Thomas’ need to see the truth for himself is, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Imagine how blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe!”

Did Jesus see sin in Thomas’ demand for visible proof rather than in Jesus’ own words and then hold on to it as a grudge?  Did Jesus resent Thomas and slowly let that resentment eat away at him in anger? No. Before Thomas had said the first word Jesus knew what he would say, and Jesus spoke first, “Peace be with you.”

Jesus is telling Thomas, “Take heart Thomas and rest assured the Lord is with you and will protect you. You are forgiven, and now go out into the world and do likewise, you have the power and choice that I have, to forgive the sins of any so that they are erased as if they never existed; or to hold onto the sins of any, to begrudge those sins against them, to doubt their sincerity so that their sins keep eating away at your soul because they have become your own sins.”

Thomas, like Gideon knew how weak he and his tribe of Hebrews were. When The Lord commissioned Gideon to take his band of soldiers and deliver Israel from the Midianites what did Gideon say? In so many words, “I doubt that Lord.  Not only is my tribe the weakest, I am the youngest in my family, I doubt I can do what you ask.”

Did the Lord strike him down in anger? No, The Lord said, “Peace be with you, rest easy because I will take care of you. Just do what I tell you to do.”

It is amazing that in these eleven verses, John has captured the full heart of humanity and Christian duty: Faith, belief, doubt and forgiveness and Gideon’s understanding of the peace that only comes from God.

Story: To have the power to forgive or hold onto sin is a dangerous burden.

There was once a pastor who was not able to really get a good handle on the consequences of holding onto another’s sin until it did him and his congregation quite a bit of harm. I think it is a good example for everyone.

This minister wanted to do something his way at the church.  He felt that he knew what needed to be done and everyone should follow him. When he ran into push-back from his session as he tried to implement the changes, he took it personally. He could have analyzed the situation and discovered the reason for the pushback. Maybe the session doubted the minister’s way would work? Maybe the minister harbored a lack of confidence in his own ability to convince that caused him to doubt the session trusted him, rather than honestly evaluating himself?

In his anger he began making negative comments in public to friends about his session and the troublemakers on it. As he talked he began to see more and more instances where his desires and his session diverged. He began to convince himself that they didn’t like his prayers. They didn't like his music selection. They didn’t like his way of doing pastoral care. Soon these negative comments made their way back around to the session as they always do. Some members of the session heard enough gossip from mutual friends that they began to believe it themselves. Some of them would no longer talk to the minister. Their reluctance just fueled the pastor’s anger and resentment. Soon the minister was coming and going through the side door to his office so he could avoid people. The acid bile of resentment just sat in everyone’s stomach and burned their souls from the inside outwards.

Before too long, the whole congregation, even those who knew nothing of the particulars, and the minister were caught up in the turmoil. Everybody began making blunt recriminations before worship. The minister nurtured his hurt, held on to that sin of resentment, anger and cutting comments by some members. It got to the point that when level-headed people finally began to seek avenues with the minister to find reconciliation the minister could not respond positively. He ended up leaving that congregation. Both the congregation and the poor minister were gravely wounded by the experience of holding onto the other’s sin.  It was so corrosive I’m not sure how the minister can recover and I worry about the congregation’s ability to do so also.

There may have been many specific instances of hurt from a perceived wrong that caused the confrontation.  What is so tragic is no one stopped to doubt. The minister never stopped to consider whether the push-back meant he had doubt in his own mind he could achieve what he wanted to do.  No one on the session stopped to doubt that perhaps their push-back might be fear for the stability and future of the congregation.  Did the minister or session consider their doubt could be like the doubt of Thomas that could be resolved by taking the time to explain and convince them what he wanted to do and what they feared? Do you see that if any of them had the courage and faith to doubt the words of the other were mean-spirited but maybe caused by fear, concern and misunderstanding, all this pain might have been avoided? Doubt has its place in faith and forgiveness.

The minister especially has that obligation and freedom bestowed by the Holy Spirit to forgive the sin or hold onto sin. Once sin is forgiven it is gone. But to hold onto it keeps it alive, eating away at both parties.

Conclusion:

It is not clear in John when he talks of disciples, whether he means only the 11 Apostles or all his followers who abandoned him upon his crucifixion.  In our Reformed tradition we believe that when Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he calls all believers to a common vocation to proclaim the good News in word and deed and forgive sin by spreading the peace of his forgiveness - “Peace be with you,” that heals sin.

Like it or not, Jesus for his own purposes gave us flawed people always prone to error the vocation to walk in the world as he did. Jesus returned to the World and gave the peace of forgiveness to his disciples and many believed again. He recognized the very commendable honor to the fortunate who believe without seeing; but did not condemn or hold onto the doubt of the faithful believer as sin. He forgave even the ones who doubted the truth but went on to proclaim it.

Throughout Lent I kept saying Faith is a certainty of belief and the action it causes, why am I now saying faith allows, if not requires doubt?  The doubt I am talking about is not excluding or questioning belief of the other person because they sin. That kind of doubt is insidious. It will weigh down sinner and minister. Like Gideon, make doubt your own strength; it causes you to depend on The Lord for his peace. 

We are all ministers charged to seek out sin and give forgiveness. Jesus called us to do that when he returned to his disciples on that Sunday evening long ago. Hold onto what is good and do not return evil for evil. Do not hold onto someone’s sin, but seek to find the peace of Christ in your forgiving it. Remember, we are all Christ’s ministers.  AMEN.

Day 112 - Christian Faith - Terror and Amazement

A sermon delivered Easter Morning at First Presbyterian Church, Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013

Job 14, Mark 16:1-8

Easter is the heart of Christian Faith?

We often interchange faith and hope but Christian Faith isn’t hope. Hope always has a lingering doubt of the outcome. For example, I can leave the dermatologist thinking, “I hope she knows what she is doing if that biopsy of the spot on my shoulder is not benign.”  I may have faith in my doctor’s ability to do a biopsy or excise a mole, but the doubt of hope is always there, was a cancer and was it completely removed?

Then Christian Faith is scientific certainty? It is not. We find scientific certainty in tomorrow’s sunrise. We know with a certainty, not with hope or faith, that it will rise based on our experience and objective facts. It has happened every day of our life. We know the earth’s spin and rotation about the sun causes night and day. Sunrise and sunset are as certain as our own physical death.

  Christian faith is more than provable, scientific certainty. How can Christian Faith arise in the absence of any objective supporting fact?

Job’s Godly Faith and Hope.

Job’s miserable struggle hoping for freedom from his tormented existence is a clue. In Job 14, Job looks to God for a redo – resurrection after death to repair his life of misery…But Job suffers the pain of objective hope. All his experience says the body dies and is no more.  We are not like the stump of the tree that sprouts upon the scent of water. No one has seen a dead person rise from the grave or come back with a good report. No one has seen the budding smile of a person with that reprieve.

Job abandoned objective hope of resurrection with the famous comment, “ A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last… mortals… pass away… and [go] unnoticed.”  

There is a nagging question…”What about Job’s ongoing conversation with God who is so real that Job was willing to argue and protest the damage God allowed to be inflicted upon him?”  Job’s had certainty about the reality of God that created a difficult doubt, “Is this a good God who upon demand will explain and right this treatment, or a capricious God to whom all Job’s perfection in worship and honor as described in chapter 1 are for naught?  

We know Job has absolute faith in the presence of God, it is so certain and unshakeable that he demands an explanation.  But Job feared God. The very first verse (1:1) says, “Job was a blameless and upright person, one who feared God and turned away from evil,” because in 28:20-28 , God said to humankind, “Truly the fear of the Lord, [that] is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” (from Ps 111:10, Prov. 2:5, 9:10).   Job asked our two questions, “Do you bring me into judgment?  Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing?”

Job’s faith in God rests on his awareness of his human fallibility - being an unclean thing in God’s presence that evokes the fear. Job’s faith in God, however, anticipates Christ’s coming.

The Christian Faith, the Story of a Modern Day Job.

I came to understand Christian Faith early in my days of volunteering after Katrina from a story of a man named Buddy who barely survived Katrina.  Buddy lived in Pearlington, Mississippi, a small hamlet about a mile or so from the Gulf and a few hundred yards from the Pearl River. Like almost every one his house was inundated and almost washed away. One day he told me his story about why he didn’t leave before the storm.

As Katrina approached, Buddy stayed behind, not because he wanted to but because he had to. He realized the danger of Katrina very early before the storm came ashore. But in the early hours of dawn before landfall his mother, sister, a cousin and her four kids had not left. Trees felled by the high wind already blocked the roads. By that time it was too late to leave. Then his friend Howard calls him. Howard lives a few short blocks away but can barely walk even with a walker. Howard was frantic because the fire department promised to evacuate him but in the end abandoned him.

 “So, Mr. Henry, then I surely couldn’t leave. I got over to Howard’s in my truck as fast as I could and drove him back over to my house. Even with a chain saw it took me over two hours to get there and back. We all got into my house intending to wait Katrina out.

"The wind, rain and snapping trees were terrifying. When the eye came over us and the sun came out, we all went outside. The road north to I-10 was fully blocked by fallen trees. There was no way I could drive out, no electricity for my well, and no cell phone service to call for help. We were stuck.

“While I was standing there in the road looking south towards the Gulf, all the sudden about a hundred yards away this wall of water rises and slowly rolls towards me pushing broken trees and all sorts of debris before it. I turned and ran towards my house, yelling ‘get everybody in the house, get in the house!’

“The water was up already to mid-calf when I was half-way to the house and I was starting to think maybe the house wouldn’t make it. I kept my fishing boat in the front yard, so I started yelling to the family, ‘Get in the boat! Get in the boat!’ But mother yelled no way, how is Howard to get in?  They did all get in.

“By the time I got to the boat all I could do was hang on in water about head deep. I managed to swim the boat over to the submerged porch in spite of the current. We were all going to get on the porch but the water from the storm surge was still rising. It was raining like crazy again and I decided we had to risk getting into the house because the boat was too dangerous with that many people in it in the rain. In a few minutes the water was high enough into the first floor I could tie the boat tight up against the porch roof so everybody but Howard could climb onto the porch roof. We would have to break into the attic but we had no tool.

“I knew my submerged truck was parked in the yard over by the oak. I started swimming towards the oak where the truck ought to be.  Lord! My family was screaming because they thought I was caught in the current and washing away. My feet bumped the open door or roof of my truck. I took a deep breath and went down. I managed to grab the doorframe and pull myself into the bed of the truck fighting the current. I felt my tool chest, fumbled the latch open and felt and grabbed my crow bar and surfaced. Then I shoved the bar under my belt and pushed off against the trunk of the tree and swam to the boat.

“I climbed on the porch roof and tore a hole in the wall with my crow bar. My cousin and I lifted Howard out of the boat and everybody else scrambled up into the attic about the time the wind started really picking up again. We waited out Katrina in the attic. The roof was so low we couldn’t even stand up. It was the most frightening experience I’ve ever had, the howling wind, trees cracking, shingles tearing off the roof and the water was still slowly rising.  All sorts of things were floating and blowing by on the water and you could hear the furniture bumping the walls downstairs.  We all were paralyzed by fear. My mother cried constantly the whole eight hours we were in the attic, ‘We are all going to die.’ ”

Buddy took a deep breath and continued his story.

"When the water subsided we got down out of the attic into the house. Everything inside was fouled by nasty-smelling sludge. Outside everything was thrown about and scattered. The damage was just unbelievable. It took almost two hours but I walked over and checked out Howard’s house, or I should say Howard’s lot. His house was off the foundation and crushed.

 “Mr. Henry, Howard would have died if not for me. That is when I knew I was supposed to stay. Because I stayed, I saved Howard’s life.

Here we were three years later and tears still welled in the reddened edges of Buddy’s eyes as he finished the story.

“But there is a little more, Mr. Henry. A few days later I was still cleaning out all the filth in the living room when my neighbor Joe came over to talk.  I guess he wanted to compare the damage in my house to his.

“Joe was looking at my living room wall where I had a crucifix up near the ceiling that amazingly managed to stay put through all the water. The high water mark on the wall just touched Christ’s outstretched arms on the cross.  It was something else.

Joe asked me, “Buddy, are you going to put that crucifix back on the wall after you are done cleaning up this place?”

“Yep, I sure am.”

“Well, Buddy, how about putting Jesus a little closer to the floor this time.”

Buddy and Joe found a completely unreasonable faith in Christ through that flood. The hours of misery and terror of death left them with an outrageous faith that the crucified Jesus delivered them.  How did Buddy and Joe, and for that matter all of us Christians, come to know faith in our deliverance through the resurrection of Christ?

Mark’s Gospel of Faith: There is a way home.

You say, “we know it because we read about it in Mark’s Gospel story.” Do we?  Most biblical scholars conclude Mark’s Gospel ended where I stopped reading. Mark is plain and to the point, there is no choir of angels announcing the birth of Emmanuel, or pregnant Mary as proof Jesus was born a man. Mark begins with a frightening mad man eating locusts and wild honey dressed in camel hair, living, preaching and baptizing in the wilderness near the Jordan River proclaiming the coming of One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus appears suddenly, is baptized to a heavenly proclamation that “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased,” and immediately is driven out into the same wilderness. Forty days later he returns and immediately begins his ministry in the synagogue at Capernaum where he preached and cast an unclean spirit from a person. The spirit exclaimed, “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God,” but Jesus rebuked him to be silent about his identity. (All this in the 1^st  25 verses!)

Until his entry to Jerusalem Jesus denied his identity and told those he healed to be silent about the healing, but not about their faith. True to his humanity, he was horribly murdered by human hands and abandoned by his disciples who lost faith hiding in fear and dark misery mourning their lost hope. In Mark only the evil spirits proclaim, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

This is a radical Easter story with no concrete evidence of the resurrection.  There is no road to Emmaus, no great commission, only a perplexing empty tomb that tests the essence of Christian Faith.

Only the faithful women remain. In the good times they anointed his feet at great cost, cooked, offered him water, begged for unmerited mercy, and in the end, stood sentry to his death on the cross. Now early after the sun had risen on the third day they go to the tomb with spices intending to take appropriate religious care for his body.

To their surprise and fear, the tomb was open and a man dressed in white inside said to them,  “Do not be alarmed. (!) You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has been raised. He is not here. Go and tell the disciples and Peter that he has gone ahead and will meet them in Galilee as he told you. The women fled in terror and amazement, telling no one for they were afraid.” That is the end of the Gospel story. It leaves us the question of Christian Faith: some terrified, amazed and speechless women running away from a missing body with a command from a young man to tell the others something irrational about Jesus meeting them in Galilee. Terror and amazement.

If we translate two Greek words as “terror and amazement” or “confused and shaking,” we cannot understand Christian Faith. Terror and amazement understate the full power of the events at this empty tomb. For the word translated as fear think “tremble.” More appropriately the Greek means feeling a paralyzing or deadly, heart-stopping fear of not being able to fulfill a religious duty. For the word translated “amazed” think ecstasy. It more appropriately means a God-inspired awareness of spiritual truth. It is the sense of ecstasy of understanding an absolute spiritual truth. Mark is telling us the two women were petrified to the point of death, not by this man in an empty tomb, but by the certainty they were in God’s presence receiving the revelatory knowledge of Good News, fearing or doubting their own adequacy to respond to the call of faith. Would the men believe the women? Could they convince them? The young man’s words and the absence of the body offer no proof of resurrection. Any one could have stolen the body. Their Christian Faith in the resurrection was not rational, objective discovery but a sublime and subjective knowledge that they were in God’s presence hearing the gift of resurrection, “Christ is risen, He will see you in Galilee” and the daunting command, “Go tell the others.”  Finally we get to the essence of Christian Faith: Amazement in the Holy Spirit’s presence that Christ is risen, tempered with the fear of our ability to respond to His call to action.

Christian Faith, Quo Vadis? 

What a message, “Christ is risen, He will see you in Galilee.” I can’t stop thinking about the words. They go all the way back to Egypt and the Red Sea, Moses on Mt. Nebo, and Joshua at the Jordan.  “He will meet you in Galilee on the other side of the Jordan River in the Promised Land.”  

John Carroll, my NT professor wrote, “(Mark) invites and evokes faith and openness to seeing God’s work in the world when our eyes can’t show it to us.” This, friends, is our Christian faith: We know and act by the Holy Spirit in the truth of Christ’s resurrection. It is our unjustified and certain salvation. Opening ourselves to God’s presence brings the knowledge of faith that there is a home.  Let me say it again, Christian faith knows there is a way home.

With such faith, what more can we give to His honor than our all, and go tell the others there is a way home. Amen.