"Forgiven, Not Forgotten: Taking One to Know
One"
Do we remember when, during our war in Vietnam, we spoke of
"destroying" villages to "save" them? Is that
happening with our war in Iraq? Just asking. And do we come out of the
crusading history of a Christianity to save others (that is,
"non-believers") by destroying them? And would it be worth
pleading with our president (Christian, United Methodist) to allow that
strong leaders, of church, of state, even of marketplace, need not be
afraid of acknowledging weakness? Failure? Error? Sin? Confession?
Repentance? Might it not even be good for our souls? Especially as men?
Just asking. Look at Jesus today. He rises in woundedness. He does not
hide the holes in his hands. When it comes to forgiving, -- not to
forgetting, but to forgiving, to letting the past be the past, letting
God be the judge of the past – it takes one to know one. Jesus offers
forgiveness as the power to pass it on. Until all are so empowered . . .
.
Easter, Resurrection, is a festival of Passover, of Deliverance, out
of bondage and death, into promise, the Promised Land, of liberation and
true life. The very deliverance through the waters of the sea is
remembered in each of our baptisms. Easter historically tempts the
Church to triumphalism, -- seeing God precisely in that messianic form
of great warrior-king which Jesus, drawing upon Isaiah, expressly
challenges and radically changes. Jesus takes on the image and vocation
of "Suffering Servant," nailed to a cross between other
traitors, his only crown of thorns, his only scepter a reed, his only
dominion a garbage dump, his only subjects deniers and deserters, his
only weapon words: – "Papa, forgive them, -- even when they do
know, or think they know, what they are doing!"
Forgiveness! The word of freedom. The word of life. A very
Jewish-Christian word, a word whose time has come, more now than ever
– On earth, as in heaven. And if! Easter is a moment of great big
"ifs" – for if God raises Jesus from the dead, then truly,
all things are possible! IF we want to see a just and enduring harmony,
a healing, a mending, a making whole, a "tikkun" in Hebrew, as
we hope for specially in days around "Yom Hashoah," --
remembering the absolute horror of holocaust, benchmark for all the
technologies of death, the vast social systems of deadly
destructiveness, including all the stockpiled nuclear systems of our
own, -- in fact, the first and foremost of all weapons of mass
destruction, -- for which the past deadly century still lives in infamy,
--
IF we are to see all the subtexts of Resurrection – Repentance!
Reconciliation! Reparation! Renewal! In short, Restoration of Right
Relations! Between Christians and Jews, between Muslims and Jews,
Muslims and Christians, Arabs and Israelis, Palestinians and Israelis,
between the United States and the whole Middle East, -- And, most
perniciously today, the rapidly-widening, worsening gap, here and
everywhere, between rich and poor, haves and have-nots, -- and if the
Resurrection means anything, it means all these restorations are
possible!
IF we are to see just and lasting peace, the "shalom" of
Jesus, -- not just the absence of fear or cessation of war, but the
presence and power and real possibility of full healing and wholeness,
of full identity and integrity of community with all others, -- it will
not be because any of us triumphs, invades, conquers, proves ourselves
stronger, richer, more powerful and better-armed, more violent and
therefore victorious than any other! If Deliverance, if Resurrection, if
Passover, if Easter, if Holocaust, if Yom Hashoah mean anything, they
mean, in words we must say over and over, our mantra for the succeeding
days: Might does not make right! Might does not make right. Might does
not make . . . .
IF we are to see peace in our time, even in our children’s and
grandchildren’s times, it will be because Forgiveness has come to
transform every fear. Forgiveness has come to transform every fear! We
will see peace because every victim – every victim of violence, of
violation of every description, -- every victim of slavery, of
persecution, of crucifixion (There were, and are, so many.), of
Holocaust, of war, of genocide (There is only one Holocaust, but many
genocides of our times – The Armenians, whose Martyrs’ Day is this
Saturday, nearly 2 million slaughtered between 1915 and 1923, with the
number of clergy reduced from 5000 to 400; the Cambodians, over a
million; the Rwandans, nearly a million; now the Sudanese, -- who knows
next?) – victims of exploitation, of exclusion, of systemic ignorance
and isolation of any kind.
Peace comes only when victims are, by the grace of God, ready,
willing, able to forgive their victors! Victims forgive the victors,
"Losers" forgive the "winners." This Jesus, these
Jews, -- those who tramp endlessly with the invisible feet of the dead,
say our "Words for Meditation." "Whose spirit walks
through walls!" -- through armed borders, barred gates, locked
doors, -- into our very rooms, our spaces of fear, where we hide out,
not against "the Jews," though that translation yet haunts us,
but against "religious authorities," against all who use
authority of any kind to "lord" themselves over others – The
Resurrection question is not how was Jesus crucified then, and who was
to blame? The Resurrection question, of the living Christ, the Spirit of
Christ still carrying on the life and the work of Jesus in our world
today, is how is he being crucified now, and what are we to do?
This Jesus, these Jews come bearing "peace" by the open
wounds of their hands and their sides, -- this Jesus, these Jews, still
"suffering servants," their victimhood plainly visible, --
this Jesus, these Jews, who do not look first to forgive those
"outside the church," so to speak, outside the flock, the
"pagans," the "unbelievers." Rather, Jesus and all
the Jews come first to forgive their own "friends" and their
so-called "followers!" Jesus here breathes on them, Jesus here
breathes on us, the very breath of life, even as our Creator-God
breathes into all of creation in the very beginning of time. That is how
awesome, how all-recreating Easter is meant to be! Not only for us but
for all who need the chance to start over again, the chance to be freely
forgiven and fully made new.
Jesus breathes on us "holy spirit." This is rehearsal for
Pentecost, the 50th day of Easter, the Jubilee Day! And what
is the essence of "holy spirit?" "For any whose sins you
forgive," -- Say it with me please, again, -- "For any whose
sins you forgive, / their sins are forgiven. / For any whose sins you do
not release, / they are not released." "Whose sins YOU
forgive." Who, US? Yes, us! Sorry to be the one to tell us this,
church. Easter does not let us off the hook. Easter secures our very
place on the hook forever! There are no more excuses with us. The
messiah, we say, has come. Now we must act like it! More often, those
who are still waiting act more as if the messiah has come than those who
say the messiah has come, yet act as if nothing has happened.
Easter means exactly, as Yom Hashoah reminds us with such stark
clarity, -- For the Holocaust never was the problem of the Jews. It is
not even a Nazi problem now. Even as what is happening in the world
today will not always be an Osama bin Laden problem. But it will always
be our problem, the problem of Christianity, the problem of the Church.
For Easter means our utter identification,with all of the victimized
ones, even as they are raised to new life, even as we become conscious
of them. Jesus here calls us to identify -- internally, externally,
eternally -- with the victimized parts of ourselves, with victims all
around us, -- who are not to be blamed, as we like to do, but are to be
resurrected! Even by us! We are called to be "resurrectors,"
as well as to be resurrected.
It occurred to me this week, Jeanmarie and Cameron are "resurrectors"
of Jeanette Rankin! If not from death, at least to new life! They bring
her to life again. They give her voice again. She, in turn, calls us to
respond again. To identify with all those we, and our world, call
"losers," "no-counts," total "misfits" or
"rejects," of no "redeeming" (or redeemable!) value
whatsoever!
Jesus, the Jews, "survivors," we might say, in terms of the
Holocaust, -- endurers and witnesses, -- those who "live to tell
about it!" Those whose whole lives, very reasons for being, become
witness to every violence, witness to every violation. We acknowledge
the special challenge of our time: as direct survivors of the Holocaust
are dying out, WE must keep the story alive. Pass on the gifts of ritual
from age to age. Institutionalize "Passover,"
"Resurrection," Holocaust, Yom Hashoah, -- living memory,
living re-membering, re-constituting, re-configuring, -- piecing
together, restoring to wholeness. It’s all up to us now. And to those
who follow from us. Jesus is all up to us. Jesus is up! It’s Easter!
Amen.
Rev. John Auer
