Peace Be with You! April 8, 2018; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson
I regularly read a blog by Pastor Dawn Hutchins of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. I like her stories and her fresh approach to the lectionary readings each week. This week she told a story about two Irish guys named Fergus and Connell. They were the best of friends. One day, walking along the seashore, they started to argue. The argument heated up so much that Fergus slapped Connell across the face. Connell didn’t retaliate. Instead he took a stick and wrote in the sand, “Today, Fergus slapped me.” They went off to the pub and over a few pints and as she said, a wee touch of the nectar, they made up.
A few months later they went for a swim in the sea. Connell’s foot got entangled in some seaweed and he couldn’t free himself. The sea was rough, and Connell began to panic. “Help!” he called, “I’m drowning!” Fergus was a strong swimmer. He heard his friend’s cries for help and he swam over to him. Fergus disentangled Connell’s foot and then pulled his half-drowned friend safely back to the shore. When he had recovered, the grateful Connell found a hammer and a chisel and carved into a rock, “Today, Fergus saved my life.”
Fergus was bewildered, and so he said to Connell, “After I struck you, you wrote about it on the sand. But today you chiseled words on a rock. Why?” Connell said to Fergus, “That’s simple, when someone hurts us we should record it on sand where the winds of forgiveness can erase it. But when someone does something good for us it should be recorded on rock from which it can never be removed.”
That’s more than just a bit of blarney – it’s a bit of wisdom.
When Jesus appeared to the disciples on Easter evening he said to them, “peace be with you, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained, peace be with you.” A week later when he appeared again, when Thomas was there, Jesus repeated those words, “Peace be with you.” Peace. Forgive. Let the winds of forgiveness erase the sins of the past. Believe that Jesus is the messiah, so that through believing you may have life in his name.
We’re all pretty good at holding on to our hurts and our doubts and fears though. We know we ought to forgive, believe, receive the peace of the Holy Spirit, trust and have life in his name. After all, Jesus reached out to Thomas and the others with words of peace. We know we ought to be able to follow Jesus and do our best to forgive those who hurt us. It’s true though, that there are times when the pain of betrayal or the depth of injuries stand in our way. An apology doesn’t always seem like enough. Reconciliation can sometimes be beyond our human reach. It’s not always as simple or clear cut as the sand and rock of Fergus and Connell’s story. Healing is a complex process that takes all sorts of shapes and forms. The work of forgiveness is ongoing. But it is the work to which we are called if we are to be free.
Just a page or two ahead of today’s gospel is another story of two friends, not Fergus and Connell, but Peter and Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. On the night Jesus died, Peter denied him three times. In the days and weeks after Jesus’ death, I’m sure Peter was longing for forgiveness and wishing he could put things right. He went out fishing, his old profession. Was he seeking comfort in the familiar? From his boat he could see a fire burning on the beach, with Jesus cooking fish. And it says, Jesus took bread, gave it to them.
After the meal Jesus addressed Peter, the one he had called the Rock, the one who, with James and John, had been in his closest circle. Jesus said, “Simon, son of John, Do you love me more than these?” And Peter responded “Yes, Lord, you know that I do.” And Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” And they repeated the question and the answer again, “Tend my sheep.” And a third time he asked, and Peter answered, and Jesus said “Feed my sheep. Follow Me!”
Jesus of Nazareth showed a new way of being in the world. Faced with the pain of life under an oppressive regime, faced with the denial and betrayal of his closest companions, Jesus could have chosen to live as others who had gone before him lived. Jesus could have taken up arms or demanded retribution. But he chose a different path; a way of being that embodied LOVE. It’s a way that begins by caring for those Jesus cared for. We begin by loving. Healing begins in the love we share for one another, and it spreads from there.
Forgiveness begins in our losses and struggles and pain, when we seek to embody love–imperfect, struggling, love. Love will take all sorts of shapes and forms. Jesus embodied the LOVE that lies at the very heart of reality. The stories which have been handed down to us about Jesus illustrate that LOVE. To be involved with this LOVE is a daunting task. We may not want always to go there. Sometimes we would rather hold on to our sense of injustice, or self -righteous-ness, or our identity as victims.
We may struggle to believe that we are forgiven. We may worry about retaining the sins of any lest they be retained, or struggle to forgive sins so that we might be forgiven as well. But I do not think these words are meant as a kind of if..then proposition, a threat. No I think these words are simply a description of what happens. It’s like the difference between saying to a child, “Don’t sit on the radiator or you be in trouble” and saying, “If you sit on the hot radiator and burn your behind, you’ll have to sit on your own blisters.” These words push us deeper than a scolding or a threat about forgiveness.
Jesus comes along and to asks Peter, and us, over and over again: “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Yes. Yes. Yes. Feed my lambs. Care for those I care for. Love those I love. Do you love me? Then love them! For in loving them you love me.” Forgiveness is never in question here… it’s the starting point, the underpinning, the basis on which love begins.
LOVE is the point, the love that we see embodied in Jesus of Nazareth who, when sinned against in the worst possible way, asked only that those who had sinned against him find a way to love. Forgiveness is not the end we seek. Forgiveness is the context and a byproduct of the work of LOVE. LOVE is where Jesus is leading us. LOVE that was embodied in Jesus and continues to live in, with, through and beyond us. LOVE that lies at the heart of reality. LOVE that permeates life.
Jesus embodied a new way of being; a new way of living. A way of being that embodies LOVE, which in the loving of others we too embody. This LOVE lies at the heart of what it means to be a human being. It is not easy. There will be pain. There will be wounds that will mark us. Perhaps when Thomas insisted on seeing the scars in Jesus’ hands, he was looking for just that—the marks of love, the result of Jesus’ new way of being, the scars of his commitment to a new way. In the loving, the real life loving, there is also healing, forgiveness, mercy, and justice. In this new way, there is so much love that you will have more than you need to tend the lambs and feed the sheep that you will encounter along the way.
As for Connell and Fergus, well, it may indeed be better if we write our hurts in the sand and the carve our joys in the rock. But what will remain in the end is not writing on a rock but the love which Connell and Fergus shared, a love filled with hurts and joys. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Tend, feed, love those who I love.
“Follow me!” said Jesus to Peter. In the stories we have about Peter after the resurrection, Peter continued to be Peter, with all his traits, good and bad. He went on loving Jesus, tending, feeding, and loving those whom Jesus loved. And when all the stories are told it is Peter’s love and Jesus’ love that lives on. And when your story and my story is told, it will be the love that we embody that lives on. May the Love that lies at the heart of all that IS, live in, with, through, and beyond you. Now and always! Christ is risen!