Christ the Friend of Sinners
1990 (Year A), 4 February /
Epiphany 5
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
What’s the worst thing that anybody has ever done to you in your life; go on think about it now. And as I talk, just cast your mind back. Was it in childhood that it happened? Your first love? Something at work? Or a great friend letting you down? What was it? Perhaps you’ve had enough time. I’m not going to get you to write the thing down or get you to tell anybody, just remember it. Now that you’ve done that think about the worst thing you’ve ever done to anybody else. This is always more difficult because other people always do the nastier things to us than we to them, but just try. The more guilt ridden amongst us find this much easier than the first one.
Guilt and sin are dreadful things. They cripple some, making life almost intolerable. We often find it impossible to forgive the hurt done to us, others just can’t bear to be forgiven. Even to think back on some of the things we’ve done in the past not only makes our toes curl, but brings real pain.
Forgiveness and being forgiven are fundamental things in our lives for they demonstrate whether we are accepted or not – to hold a grudge – to refuse to forgive shows that we refuse to accept the other person. To experience someone who will not forgive us is to know the anguish of rejection. The church has long recognised the importance of all this for us, no doubt because of Jesus’ own words, and we have made provision for times of reflection. There are even services where we can experience the release which forgiveness brings.
At the very start of this service we were invited to call to mind the things which we had done wrong and those which were troubling us. We’re quite used to that and it’s a relatively painless experience. But there are other ways. We could make a formal confession. Then we will be given time not only to reflect ourselves on our actions, we will have the benefit of someone else’s insights. Formal confession is little used, maybe it means that the church is used by more Godly people nowadays than in previous times, what it probably means is that we reflect less on our lives, and that’s sad.
Lent, starting on Wednesday, provides us with this period of reflection, and this year more than most – for in the Lent Groups we will be invited to remember different stages in our lives – not just as a source of regret or a lament for the earlier days, but in a constructive way. So we will be asked to recall our youth, our middle years and growing older. In the process we will discover not only are we learning more about ourselves but more importantly we will be discovering the things of God.
For the way to God is literally within us. It is waiting to be discovered or re-interpreted. Christ is waiting, not to condemn us for our misdeeds, but patiently for us to turn again and re-dedicate ourselves to the Divine. It is an important process not just to help us sort out events long but to enable us to develop our future life.
A most eloquent example of how past forgiveness can reach out and transform the future is a prayer of Bishop Dehqani – Tafti, an Anglican Bishop in Iran, whose son, Bahram, was shot and killed. This is part of the Bishop’s prayer.
O God,
We remember not only Bahram but also his murderers.
O God,
Bahram’s blood has multiplied the fruit of the Spring in the soil of our souls;
So when his murderers stand before thee on the day of judgement
Remember the fruit of the Spirit by which they have enriched our lives,
And forgive.
It is vital we get this right, not only for ourselves and our own well-being, but as a community. In the last analysis it’s all well and good forgiving and being forgiven by individuals but it is also as a community that we must also learn to forgive and be forgiven. We are after all a community who knows and proclaims the forgiveness of God. We are a community who knows what the relationship with God and other human beings can and should be like. What we must do is to understand that forgiveness occurs not by any of our words or the words of others but in transforming actions which in turn allow God to transform the world. AMEN