Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

2/19/06 - 7 Epiphany

The Rev. Scott A. Benhase

"The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" - Mark 2

The scene in today's Gospel lesson appears strange to modern folk. What's the big deal, we think. So Jesus forgives the paralytic man's sin. Why were the scribes so upset about such a thing? They seemed to be more upset about that than if Jesus would heal the man. So, just to rub it in, Jesus went ahead and healed the guy as well. They were deeply offended by Jesus forgiving this man. It violated their core convictions. They had good reason to be so upset. Faith healing they could accept because that did not require any claim to authority. But forgiving sins was blasphemy for they believed only God had the authority to forgive sins.

I wish we had a few scribes around today that had such passion and conviction about forgiveness. But we don't. That's why this Gospel passage sounds strange to our ears. We modern folk believe anyone can forgive our sins: Dear Abby, Oprah, or even a bartender. That's because many people either don't believe that sin is all that big of deal, or they don't even believe there is such a thing as sin. But when folks treat forgiveness of their sins so casually, they often don't really mean they want forgiveness. What they really want is our understanding and our acceptance of them no matter how they act. People are desperate to be understood and accepted by others, especially those close to them. "My partner doesn't understand me" is an often-heard expression. But when someone says such a thing, they are really not seeking forgiveness from that partner or friend, are they? What they really want is for their actions to be blessed by others even when those actions are hurtful or destructive. Understanding and acceptance, in these instances, are euphemisms for "absolution." They represent a "cheap forgiveness" in modern life because there is no real acknowledgment that sin is present.

These days we rarely hear a claim of blasphemy like we hear in today's Gospel lesson. Few people seriously say, "Well, that is just sinful," unless we're watching reruns of Saturday Night Live with Dana Carvey doing his Church Lady character. We have replaced such claims with the language of "sickness." People are sick; they are not sinful in today's world. With this view, we don't need forgiveness, we need to be cured. Therapy has replaced salvation for many people. So forgiveness from God has become irrelevant for then. All that is needed is the right therapy, and then they can become fully understood and accepted and, finally, have good self-esteem.  That's not a knock on therapy. It's an important resource to people who need to work through difficult problems and issues in their lives. Therapy can be an important tool for equipping people with the internal resources they need work through their struggles. But it is no substitute for God's forgiveness of our sin.

Edward Stein in his book, Guilt, Theory, and Therapy, points out that, entire nations can reflect an individual sickness. Stein argues that Nazi Germany, for example, showed as a nation, the characteristics of schizophrenia. America, Stein warns, is not in danger of becoming schizophrenic or paranoid, but of becoming a nation of sociopaths because we are losing the capacity to feel true guilt. Our culture now appears to resolve the universal problem of being human by avoiding any sense of guilt. Guilt seems to be such a terrible thing to so many people.

When was the last time we heard a public figure say, "Hey, I'm guilty.  I should not have had sex with an intern half my age. It was just plain wrong!" Or, "I never should have allowed Enron to write environmental legislation because it was so obviously a conflict of interest."  Or, "We never should have invaded Iraq on such faulty intelligence." No, what usually happens is just the opposite: they either insist they have no fault at all, or they speak of wrongs committed in the passive voice, such as "mistakes were made," That way the actors of the wrongs can separate themselves from the actual wrong deeds.

An irresolvable dilemma is produced when no one assumes responsibility for anything. A society without responsibility is a society that is spiritually stunted; without guilt there is no forgiveness. That's why Stein says America is dangerously close to becoming a nation of sociopaths. We are losing the capacity to be ashamed of ourselves. This is not a conservative phenomenon. It is not a liberal phenomenon. It is an American cultural phenomenon. It seems nothing is ever our fault anymore. The anger that was expressed by those responsible for responding to Hurricane Katrina bears this out. They weren't angry with themselves for failing to respond adequately to the disaster. They were angry that their failings were exposed for everyone to see.  God's forgiveness is inaccessible to us as long as self-esteem is substituted for salvation and sickness is substituted for sin. God's forgiveness makes no sense to those who believe they have no need to be forgiven. It's all a way to avoid our acknowledging our guilt before God.

Frederick Buechner in his book, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, points out that the "Good News" of the Gospel must first be understood as "Bad News."  The Gospel first confronts our selfishness, our self-indulgence, and self-centeredness so we can be "washed" clean by the waters of baptism. Unless we confront the root of sin, our desire to be self-centered before God, our various attempts at dealing with our sins will only be addressing the symptoms. Without going deeper into the necessity of facing our particular self-centeredness and confessing it, our hearts will remain even more inaccessible to forgiveness.

Our liturgy provides us with a way to acknowledge our guilt before God. Not only do we have a common confession where we confess our sin before God and others, we also say in the Nicene Creed that we believe in the forgiveness of sins. To believe in forgiveness, we have to believe in sin. But the converse is not true. To believe in sin, we do not have to believe in forgiveness of those sins. There are plenty of people who believe that there is no forgiveness; no turning of the cheek; no grace even for the worse offender (except for themselves, of course). But we are people who believe not only in the reality of sin, ours and others, but also the truth of God's forgiveness. 

I'm glad those scribes got angry with Jesus. They at least cared enough about God's forgiveness to be upset. What they got wrong was the truth standing before them. Jesus was announcing the very nature of God. Jesus proclaimed God was in the forgiveness business. In Jesus, God was disclosing his authority to forgive the sin of the world. All you had to do was acknowledge that you needed such authority to be exercised in your life. You had to have faith in Jesus' authority to forgive sins. If you think about it, that's all that really separates us from others who do not have faith in Jesus. There are plenty of people who are smarter than we are. There are plenty of people who do just as many good works as we do. Some might even do more. One does not need to be a Christian to do good works. The only real difference is we believe Jesus when he says he has the authority to forgive our sins. We believe him in today's Gospel lesson as we believe him when he hangs on the cross and says: "Father, forgive them." We take seriously our sin and our separation from God and one another. But with equal seriousness, we know that God has not left us to our own devices. God has acted authoritatively in Jesus on the cross.

I do not know about you, but it really doesn't matter much if God understands me, although I believe God does.  It doesn't really matter much if God knows how I feel, although I believe God does. What really matters is that God has forgiven me my many sins; just as God has forgiven you your sins; just as God has forgiven the sins of the whole world. And that word of forgiveness is given to us by God as a means to change the world. Imagine the pain, and the hurt, and the war that would end, if we just spread God's forgiveness everywhere.

Let's start with ourselves and we'll work from there. Amen.

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