Think for a moment of a time when you experienced forgiveness. It could be a time when someone asked forgiveness of you and you gave it to them. Or, perhaps it was a time when you yourself received forgiveness. As you replay that scene how do you feel? Forgiveness given or received can elicit a number of different feelings: fear, sadness, humility, regret, vulnerability, gratitude, gladness, happiness. Above all forgiveness brings great joy because forgiveness is ultimately about reconciliation, about coming home.
This morning’s Psalm begins with the refrain: “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit,” (Psalm 32:1-2). There is great joy to be found in forgiveness!
Of course, we don’t always experience it this way: we might ask someone to forgive us and perhaps they do but things are never quite the same; perhaps someone came to us asking for forgiveness but we were so hurt and humiliated, so angry, that we were unable or unwilling to offer it. Nevertheless, I imagine that many of you have come very near to experiencing real forgiveness.
“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
Forgiveness is wonderful indeed but the road to forgiveness can be one marked by pain and sorrow. If forgiveness is about reconciliation, then the promise of forgiveness exposes in us a certain brokenness that stands in need of healing. “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” The joy of forgiveness is something that only transgressors and sinners can fully receive.
As we hear Jesus tell this great parable of God’s abundant grace notice who are the ones that are sitting nearest to him, hanging on his every word: the tax collectors and sinners (15:1). They are drawn to the beauty of Christ in a way that the Pharisees and the scribes weren’t. Perhaps the religious elite saw themselves as healthy and not needing a doctor. They were respectable people concerned with appearances—not like us Anglicans!
Some people shy away from the language of sin. It’s too gloomy and depressing, they say. We need a lighter cheerier message for the 21st century. A message that will inspire folks to be the best version of themselves. Bologna! Sin is too important a word to give up on. For one thing, you’re not going to hear this message anywhere else. Do you want to hear the message of sin and salvation? The message of the Cross? You gotta get up early on Sunday, get dressed, feed the kids, hop on a bus with a bunch of people you’ve never met before and come on down here if you want to hear about that. It’s news you just won’t find in the paper. For another thing, if you’re a sinner then it means that Jesus came to rescue you. It is the sick who need a doctor, and the doctor is in the house.
“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
Let us come now to the parable which Jesus told. We are the Prodigal Son. God established a relationship with us in love, called us His sons and daughters, and gave us a share in His inheritance. We could have used that gift as an opportunity to grow in love with our father and with one another we. But, like the Prodigal, we run off on our own to a distant country and there squander what we have been given. In the parable the son spends every last penny on himself and then, wouldn’t you know it, a famine strikes. I think they call that ‘rock bottom’. And yet, even here there is hope for the son never ceases to be a son does he? Even at his furthest away, even in the deepest depths, he can never not be the son of his father. But he sure can act like it. And so can we. Moreover, if you’ve ever known an addict you know that they can’t ever get healthy, not really, without first hitting rock bottom and acknowledging that fact. Now it’s not easy to acknowledge ones brokenness, to admit that we are sinners, but it sure beats the opposite.
“While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.”
Our inclination is not to admit that we are sinful but rather to conceal or hide our sin, to “keep silent.” And, creative creatures that we are, we have so many innovative ways of doing this. We justify: “Well I only went and did that because he made me so angry!” We compare: “I’m not really that sinful. Certainly not compared to her!” We deny: “I’m basically a good person.” All of this may give us a veneer of righteousness and respectability but it is a thin veneer indeed and in the end it only robs us of life: “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long…my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” Rather than keep silent we are called to acknowledge our sin.
“Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity.”
The younger son, at his lowest, examines himself and considers that he would be better off in his father’s house as a servant than stay here in this dump for one more minute and he says to himself: “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” He acknowledges his sin and in doing so has already begun to return to the father.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that unless he learned to consider himself to be the greatest of sinners he has not genuinely acknowledged his sin: “If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all,” (Life Together, 96). To be sure, this is humbling, painful even. Like a bright light that is turned on in a room that has been dark for some time we may squint our eyes, avert them even. But to stand there in the light would be to begin to see clearly and thus to begin to see truthfully.
Like the Prodigal, we come to see ourselves truthfully in the light of God. And, surprisingly perhaps, we discover that this is not an end to our relationship with God but an invitation to be led further up and further in to that glorious light.
“I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”
Having acknowledged our sin we are invited to name it. St. Ambrose wrote that today’s parable invites all Christians to plainly examine themselves. Indeed, self-examination is a spiritual exercise that we practice always but in a heightened way during Lent. Standing in the light of Christ, the Holy Spirit searches our hearts and minds and invites us to confession.
General confession is an important part of our own liturgy and it’s telling to notice that it comes as a response to the Proclamation of the Word and is then followed by the Eucharistic feast. We come to the table, to the feast, as God’s beloved sons and daughters, once lost, now brought home in Jesus Christ and clothed anew in him.
In addition to this there is another sort of confession that Christians are invited to especially in Lent, wherein one who is particularly weighed down or distraught by a certain sin would approach a priest in private to confess that sin and receive God’s forgiveness. When it comes to confession of this sort Anglicans have typically lived by the adage, “All may, none must, but some should.”
During Holy Week Canon Beth+ and myself will be setting aside a few periods of time to hear confession. You can book a window of time and together we will listen and pray. Fear not! You may feel all sorts of things, even shame, when you think of confessing your sin to a priest. But when you finish you will leave free, beautiful, forgiven, and happy! (Pope Francis) For when we confess our sins to God He takes that great weight that was upon us and lifts it up in Jesus Christ as he is lifted up on the cross.
And so, more than anything the Parable of the Prodigal Son is really about the overwhelming grace of the father who receives us back having His love and fatherly attitude towards us heightened and deepened. While the son was still far off “his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” And it is here that the son makes his confession: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Like the son, we confess our sin within the loving embrace of our Heaven Father.
Then the father throws a party, sparing no expense. In a few moments the Father will invite us to feast as well. And as we taste the bread and wine another story that has been playing in the background the whole time will come into focus. A story about the Son of the Father who became like us. Who left his place in heavenly glory with an inheritance given him by the Father, and travelled to a distant country where he spent all he had, not on himself but on us, that we might be made alive together with him and brought near by his blood as fellow sons and daughters of his heavenly Father. And then he returned to the Father with us in his bosom to a great heavenly banquet which we participate in each time we gather for the Eucharist.
“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
This Lent and always: may you take the time to examine yourself; may you know the love of God in Jesus Christ for you; may you acknowledge and confess your sin; and may you know the life-giving joy of forgiveness. Amen.