LAKE JAMES

NORTH CAROLINA

LENT V + 3/9/08 + ST. PAUL’S CHURCH, LAKE JAMES

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

  The reading from the book of  the Prophet Ezekiel is always fun for those of us who remember and love the old spiritual about “Dem bones, dem bones, them dry bones” and even more so if you remember the wonderfully whacky Spike Jones version!  I confess that, when that Scripture was read, I kept hearing that lively song in my mind, and maybe you did, too.  But the most important part of that reading is probably found in the last two sentences which say: “I will put my spirit into you and you shall live…you shall know that I the lord have spoken…and will do it, says the Lord.”  That’s quite a promise, isn’t it? 

   In today’s Epistle, St. Paul takes it a step further, saying that in Christ, those who once were slaves of sin have been freed and are now bound to the service of God.  I would guess that most all of us, if we consider those words seriously, find them to be appealing.  Don’t Paul’s words, and those from Ezekiel, sound like good news – at least at first? 

   We are aware of our shortcomings, and, particularly in this season of Lent when we tend to be especially introspective, receiving God’s Spirit and being freed from sin are gifts we both need and want.  In the Penitential Order with which we began this liturgy, we heard the wise words of St. John “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” reflecting the same reality as St. Paul’s comments in another part of his letter to the Church in Rome where he writes “all have sinned and fallen short…” Those truths apply to everyone of us – to me, and to you. 

   Again, let me ask, don’t the promises of the gift of God’s Spirit and being freed from sin sound like good news – at least at first?  If we are people who have messed up in our relationships with God and with others, (“sinned” to use our usual vocabulary), what’s the hitch?   What’s the problem? 

   The difficulty seems to lie in our ability to accept that forgiveness.  As odd as it may seem, there is something in our human psyche, our makeup, which often makes that acceptance hard for us.  A clue which can help us understand that fact is found in the prayer our Lord Himself taught.  The words, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” reflect the truth that we are unable truly to receive forgiveness if, or while we refuse to forgive others.  To illustrate that, let me share an incident from my childhood.    

   One mid-winter day, a group of us who lived in the same neighborhood decided to put on a play. We knew each other pretty well and thought preparing and staging a show might relieve the boredom we were all feeling from having been cooped up by what seemed to us to be a very long and dreary New York winter.  We divided up the tasks involved, chose a play from a book, and assigned various parts.  I don’t remember why, but I was chosen to be the director, a role I took quite seriously (and perhaps not without some pomposity).  Day after day, we would gather after school to build the scenery and rehearse our lines.  As time went on, it became clear that not only had one member of the cast not memorized his part, he didn’t even seem to care!  The very day before we were to present the play, he was still muffing his lines!  From the height of my exalted role as director, I stopped the rehearsal and told him that he was ruining things for all the rest of us, fired him from the play, and in my frustration and anger, shouted at him to leave – just get out!”  He left without saying a word.  I remember trying to cool off by checking the scenery we had painted and the props we had made, and then went home, adrenaline still flowing with my righteous indignation!  The next day, when we gathered for our final pre-performance rehearsal, we found the scenery slashed and the props destroyed.  It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to know who had done it.  The show was ruined, we cancelled it, and I went home boiling mad! To make matters worse, nobody was home when I got there, nobody to whom I could explain how victimized we had been or how furious I was!  As I went over and over the experience in my mind, my anger grew instead of abating, and, in the midst of that turmoil, the doorbell rang and there stood the culprit!  I glared balefully at him as, haltingly, he tried to apologize.  Before he had even finished, I shouted out my still-boiling rage and slammed the door in his face!  Soon after, my mother came home and I poured out the whole tale to her, expecting her to share my outrage and support my virtuous anger.  Instead, she asked if I had tied to find out why the boy had had such trouble trying to learn his lines, and then, to make matters worse, she asked how I might have felt if I had been humiliated in front of the other children and ousted from the show.  I hadn’t thought about it that way because I just knew that he was wrong, I was right and that was that!  My mother’s questions opened a completely new dimension for me and, with her help, I realized not only how wrong I had been, but how cruel.  Feeling this big, I went to his house and, with my heart thumping in my chest, rang the doorbell (hoping he wouldn’t be home).  But he was!  I said my piece, he heard me out, and, to my amazement, he  forgave me!  Right then and there, he forgave me! 

  Looking back on it, it was even harder to accept his forgiveness than it had been to admit I was wrong.  Something in me seemed to need to do more than just apologize.  If he had said that he’d forgive me if I did this or that, that would have been fine – I would have felt that I had earned his forgiveness, but to have it so freely and quickly given was something else, indeed. 

   Even though God’s forgiveness is always available to us, we often have two obstacles to accepting it.  First, our difficulty in forgiving others, and second, our difficulty in accepting something we aren’t really sure we deserve – receiving something we haven’t somehow earned.

   At this point, it might be helpful to consider the reason God forgives.  That reason is quite simple.  God forgives because God loves!  The Divine Love speaks not of our goodness, but of the very nature of God.  Holy Scripture teaches that we are created in the image of God, and while we are very imperfect beings, at our best, we can see a reflection of that fact.  Think of someone you love, perhaps a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling or, you name it.  However fine that person is, your love is not bestowed as a reward for that person being “good” – nor do you stop loving if, or should I say when, he or she turns out to be less than completely perfect in every way. Even when we are angry with a loved one, the love continues to be present, although perhaps submerged for a moment by other feelings.  The fact that we are imperfect beings means that we love imperfectly, and we forgive imperfectly, as contrasted to God who does both so fully and completely.  Still, when Jesus taught the Disciples what we have come to know as “The Lord’s Prayer,” he wasn’t just giving them something to do to keep them occupied and out of his hair.  He was helping them (and us) to know important truths needed in the living of a Christian life.  We hallow God’s Name because that is the first and most important function of prayer.  We pray for the world, that God’s kingdom may come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because that is a big part of our ministry as Christians, regardless of whether we are lay people or members of the clergy.  We pray for our daily bread because without food, we would die.   Of no less importance is our prayer for forgiveness coupled with our acknowledgement that our absolution is limited by whether we forgive others. 

   Some 200 years ago, the poet Thomas Kelly wrote these words “Inscribed upon the Cross we see in shining letters, ‘GOD IS LOVE.’  He bears our sins upon the tree, he brings us mercy from above.”  My brothers and sisters, what a repudiation of Christ’s sacrifice it would be if we were to reject God’s mercy by being unwilling, or unable, to accept it!  As we enter these final days of Lent, may we pay special attention to forgiveness, may we open ourselves to accept the forgiveness of others, and may we be forgiving as well. 

   So, the message from Ezekiel, and echoed in many other places in the Bible, does turn out to be good news after all.  Dem dry bones can be restored, God does forgive our lapses, but you and I also have a significant role to play in that process.  Whether we choose to receive God’s forgiveness depends on us.  We are not merely passive recipients of spiritual goodies passed out by God or anyone else.  We are created to be active participants in our relationship with God and all the rest of God’s creation.  The question is, what kind of participants do we choose to be?

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr.

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