“…repentance and
forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations…” (Luke 24:47)
After twenty-two years of teaching confirmation classes, I sadly confess that I have not yet unearthed the pedagogical Rosetta Stone which will enable me to translate Luther’s Second Use of the Law into a language comprehensible to middle-schoolers. They have no trouble understanding the First Use—that God gave us the Law to keep us from cutting each other’s throats—but the idea that the knowledge of sin can lead us back to the grace of God is something thirteen-year-olds don’t seem to want to grasp. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to grasp the knowledge of sin. I can’t say that I blame them. I’ll admit in theory that I’m as guilty of sin as everybody else, but actually enumerating my faults and taking hard look at my character is not at all pleasurable.
Recently I noticed that someone had clicked on an old post I wrote back in 2018 for my “Old Religious Guy” blog. It was a eulogy I’d written when I learned that an old and, alas, forgotten friend had died. I hadn’t seen my friend Patrick since 1994 when I moved to Philadelphia, and, as things happen, I just lost touch with him. One day I took it into my head to “Google” him, and I learned he’d died about a dozen years earlier. As I thought about our friendship, I realized what a lousy friend I actually was to him. I started to recognize my condescension, my judgmental attitude, and how often I’d joked at his expense. I didn’t like realizing that. The really rotten thing is he’s not around for me to ask his forgiveness.
As I think about it—and as I dwell on the lessons in the RCL assigned for Ester 3 this year—I’m reminded of the first of Luther’s 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” I’m sure it’s good for my soul to recognize the micro-aggressions I committed against my late friend. I suspect the people of Jerusalem acted much the same way towards the lame man at the Beautiful Gate mentioned in our First Lesson (Acts 3:12-19). “Poor slob,” they must’ve thought. “Obviously God despise him or he wouldn’t have been born lame.” “Sucks to be him,” they might say to themselves as they tossed him a few pitiful shekels and strode on their way into the temple.
Then along comes Peter and John, and the man is miraculously healed in the name of Jesus Christ. Suddenly everybody is paying attention to this formerly forgotten man, and Peter has the opportunity to take them to task—not for neglecting or despising the poor and the lame, but for rejecting the Author of Life, Jesus Christ. But Peter, so it seems, is a soft-hearted guy. He’s willing to bet that this bunch acted out of ignorance (v.17), and he encourages them to repent and know the forgiveness of God’s love.
The problem, of course, is that we need to repent honestly and truly before we can know the peace that comes from forgiveness. Sometimes our ignorance is bliss. We can blithely go our way thinking we’ve caused no hurt, minded our own business, and haven’t contributed to anyone’s pain. We’re happy to be ignorant of our own arrogance or neglect.
I think at times that our sinner’s tendency towrds subtle, smug, self-justification in our individual relationships is just a microcosm of everything that’s playing out in the streets of America this year. Wounded and neglected communities are responding with violence and anger to what they’ve perceived as a callous disregard for their humanity. Unless there is some kind of recognition, confession, and contrition there will never be any peace in this land.
In our Gospel Lesson (Luke 24:36b-48) as
well as in the First Lesson, we are reminded of the most important principles
of our faith. Jesus died and rose so that repentance and forgiveness may be
proclaimed. It is the knowledge of sin which brings us back to our need for
grace. The knowledge may be painful, but the grace is healing.
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