By Rev. Melissa Krabbe
John 20:19-23, Luke 6:37-38[1]
For the last five weeks, we’ve been on a kindness campaign, talking about being kind and compassionate to one another, treating each other with humility and respect and love, inspired by Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)
This week our focus is peace, and in our reading from Luke for today, Jesus tells us how to “do unto others” in ways that foster peace. He gives us five reciprocal instructions, five statements about treating others the way we want to be treated,
- Do not judge, and you will not be judged;
- do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.
- Forgive, and you will be forgiven;
- give, and it will be given to you.
- A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap,
- for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
It almost sounds like a magic formula, doesn’t it? Or a bit of computer code. If this, then that. If not, then this.
Some say that our natural tendency is to be judgmental and condemning because we instinctively use these ways to protect ourselves. Jesus challenges us to work on overcoming our judgmentalism and condemnation and to work on being forgiving and generous and gracious…with one another, with ourselves, with God. This is how we make room for peace.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter have written a book together called The Book of Forgiving in which they explain the importance of living out Jesus’ words. They lived in South Africa during the time of apartheid, when whites ruled and blacks were kept apart, enslaved, tortured, and killed. Despite the horror of those years, when apartheid ended, Tutu encouraged forgiveness instead of anger and revenge.
Tutu writes, “There are days when I wish I could erase from my mind all the horrors I have witnessed. It seems there is no end to the creative ways we humans can find to hurt each other, and no end to the reasons we feel justified in doing so. There is also no end to the human capacity for healing. In each of us, there is an innate ability to create joy out of suffering, to find hope in the most hopeless of situations, and to heal any relationship in need of healing.”
Tutu gives us two simple ideas he calls truths:
There is nothing that cannot be forgiven, and there is no one undeserving of forgiveness.
Let’s sit with those two statements for a moment.
You may remember that Archbishop Tutu was instrumental in ending apartheid in South Africa, the system of segregation and abuse by the white ruling class against the Blacks and he won the Nobel peace prize for his work.
He explains the importance of forgiveness in achieving peace:
“When you can see and understand that we are all bound to one another—whether by birth, by circumstance, or simply by our shared humanity—then you will know this to be true. I have often said that in South Africa there would have been no future without forgiveness. Our rage and our quest for revenge would have been our destruction. This is as true for us individually as it is for us globally.”[2]
Forgiveness is essential for us all. Not only forgiving one another, but also forgiving ourselves, and forgiving God. Over the summer during my sabbatical I discovered that part of my disconnect from God was that I was angry with God about the difficulties my husband Rob has been experiencing. I don’t mean to say that I think God deliberately inflicted those difficulties upon Rob. I don’t think God works that way. But in my grief over the loss of abilities and health, I was angry. God bore the brunt of my anger and has been quite gracious and patient with me, as God is with us all.
In our reading from John, Jesus gives us help for overcoming destructive emotions and behaviors like anger. Jesus breathes on the disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit. Some say that these verses are John’s version of Pentecost, even though the text says that this event in John is happening on the same day as the resurrection.
The timing is maybe not as important as the action. Jesus does something very similar to God’s actions in Genesis when God breathed life into Adam and Eve. God breathed the Holy Spirit into them, and Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into the disciples.
Through our faith in Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit, thankfully, and whenever we take a moment to breathe before we speak or act, we give the Holy Spirit room to work in us. We breathe peace.
It’s a way of being still and knowing that God is God.
Breathe peace.
When Jesus comes to the disciples, they are hiding behind closed doors because they were afraid that the Jewish leaders who had arrested and killed Jesus were going to come after them.
Sometimes when we’re afraid, we fuel our own fears by imagining all the possibilities. What if this happens. What if that happens. Worrying about the future.
Notice how Jesus helps them to be grounded in the present moment. He shows them his hands and his side. Then the disciples are able to let go of their fears and rejoice at seeing their friend and teacher again.
By focusing on concrete realities instead of our fears and imaginings, we make room to breathe peace.
Breathe peace.
But then Jesus says something that I’ve always found to be perplexing:
“If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.”
Does that mean that we’re all like priests with the power of forgiveness and salvation? That’s too much power for humans to have. That power is too easily exploited and abused. And as we might expect, it has been. This was one of the big arguments of the reformation. Does the Catholic church have the exclusive power to forgive sins, and if so, do they have the right to collect money in exchange for forgiveness?
So what if that’s not what Jesus meant?
When we put Jesus’ words in John up next to Jesus’ words in Luke, we get some additional insight.
“Forgive and you will be forgiven.” Instead of saying that the disciples had the exclusive power of forgiveness, maybe Jesus was highlighting the importance of being forgiving? The reciprocal nature of forgiveness.
When we say the Lord’s prayer, we say, “Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you, just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.” (Matthew 6:12)
It goes both ways. Do we truly realize how important forgiveness is? Two verses later, Jesus highlights the importance of forgiveness even more:
“If you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15 CEB)
I don’t think God is keeping score. In fact, the Bible tells us that God is NOT keeping score. So I don’t really know how this works, but we do know that a lack of forgiveness can become anger and hatred, and leaves no room for peace.
Tutu explains: “Forgiveness is the way we return what has been taken from us and restore the love and kindness and trust that has been lost. With each act of forgiveness, whether small or great, we move toward wholeness. Forgiveness is nothing less than how we bring peace to ourselves and our world.”[3]
In our reading in John, Jesus breathes the Spirit INTO the disciples, filling them up, making them new. The power of the Spirit becomes part of their very bodies. And they become the Spirit loose in the world.[4]
As disciples of Jesus, we become carriers of peace.
Rev. Howard Thurman writes about seeking room for peace:
“I SEEK the enlargement of my heart that there may be room for Peace. Already there is room enough for chaos. There is in every day’s experience much that makes for confusion and bewilderment. Often I do not understand quite how my relations with others become frayed and chaotic. Sometimes this chaos is a positive thing; it means that something new, creative and whole is beginning to pull together the tattered fragments of my relationship with a person and to fashion it into that which delights the spirit and makes glad the heart. Sometimes the chaos is negative, a sign of degeneration in a relationship once meaningful and good. There is room enough for chaos. But the need of my heart is for room for Peace: Peace of mind that inspires singleness of purpose; Peace of heart that quiets all fears and uproots all panic; Peace of spirit that filters through all confusions and robs them of their power. These I see NOW. I know that here in this quietness my life can be infused with Peace. Therefore, before God, I seek the enlargement of my heart at this moment, that there may be room for Peace.”[5]
An enlarged heart is not a good thing medically, but it is a good thing figuratively. Remember what happens to the Grinch? His heart gets bigger. The way the story is told in the live action version, it seems that the Grinch’s heart grows because he forgives all the bullying he endured as a child.
Forgiveness helps us make room in our hearts and in our world for peace. The two words in Greek in today’s scriptures are apoluo and aphiemi. They both have a sense of letting go, releasing, sending away.
Today, let’s take some time to send away and let go of whatever is in our hearts and minds that needs to be forgiven. The slips of paper you have are dissolvable. Write on them whatever you would like to forgive and send away. Whenever you’re ready, bring your paper to one of the bowls of water and watch whatever you’ve written go away. Write what you need to forgive, or what you need God to forgive you for.
Those of you online could use toilet paper to do this.
The Apostle Paul offers us a blessing: Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. Colossians 3:15
We are called to peace. Jesus gives us the power to forgive and be forgiven through our faith in Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and sends us out to bring that peace to the world. Jesus says:
“Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.” Go breathe peace.
[1] Rev. Melissa Krabbe, preached on November 10, 2024 at United Presbyterian Church of Sterling, KS.
[2] Tutu, Desmond; Tutu, Mpho. The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World (p. 3). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
[3] Tutu, Desmond; Tutu, Mpho. The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World (p. 6). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
[4] https://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2014/05/year-pentecost-june-8-2014.html
[5] Thurman, Howard. Meditations of the Heart (pp. 186-187). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.
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