Who Can Forgive Sins?

Kathy and I married and had two children while we were in college. I believe it was during my third year that the state of California sent me a letter, probably because of my marital status and the number of dependents. The letter said, in essence, we believe in you. And we want you to graduate and have a successful, prosperous life. To help secure that success we will no longer charge you college tuition and here is some money for books.

The crazy thing is I didn't fill out a form or make a request. This letter was not the fruit of an appeal. It just came in the mail. No more tuition and money for books. Nice letter. Good day.

I distinctly remember what happened when I told this story to Rev. Bair. Ashley is a very kind person, gracious. But when I told her about the "no more tuition" letter I thought she might hurt me. There was a hard moment. And we talked about it. The idea that college would not come with massive debt, that the state would provide such financial freedom without filling out form after form, without hours upon hours on the phone with people trying to deny you relief, that it would just appear in the mail, this was just too much. Are you kidding me?

It is common today for young people to leave college with a mountain of debt. We know this. The cost of tuition is a massive shake down, fleecing. We also know that a college degree is often only the first step. After college you go to grad school, where you are no longer talking about a mountain of debt, you are in a mountain range, Himalayas even. 100 thousand, 200 thousand, three hundred. When young people get married today it is as if they have reverse dowries. They are wedding their debts.

If you want to be a doctor. . . forget about it. I have been a part of the effort to recruit doctors, physicians, to serve in rural areas and the way to recruit them successfully is to guarantee them a million dollars over the course of three years. Guaranteed salary of a million dollars over their first three years. After that, the market will determine their salary, but for those first three years, they are guaranteed a million all in. Doctors sign on with this offer. The million dollars though does not make them rich; it gets them out of debt.

Sometimes in my ministry I have felt a bit fragmented, pulled in opposing directions. I have been the pastor to people who were born in the Depression. Debt to them is a kind of disease, a dark spirit you don't invite into your house. A mortgage is a kind of prison from which you do everything you can to escape. Then you have people who are just a bit younger than I am who were raised in a world where everything is based upon credit, credit scores, credit cards. For younger generations today the idea of saving up to buy something is like a dragon or a unicorn, mythical creatures of olden days. I know I am with the older generation every time I am shocked that my phone pays for dinner.

I remember being quite intrigued and a bit disheartened when our youngest child argued with us about money. Mind you, he was 8 or 9, but when we told him we did have money to buy him something he wanted, he seemed quite put out and told us in no uncertain terms to go to the machine that gives money. Just go to the machine. In a similar fashion I remember long ago trying to explain to a tour guide in Israel, how one of our group needed an ATM machine. She looked at me as if it were some kind of prank or joke, and then she gasped and said, "oh, you mean the hole in the wall where the money comes out!"

I mention such holes in the wall and mountains of debt and the changing perceptions of indebtedness because without the currency of grace, grace as a forgiven debt, sin as a moral indebtedness to God, to society, without these it is hard to understand the claim of blasphemy brought by the Pharisees against Jesus when he said, your sins are forgiven. For in essence Jesus was either claiming a profound wealth which he didn't seem to have, or he was devaluing the currency of grace the Pharisees saw as their purview, and thus none of his business.

Before we get to that though just a brief word about the economy of grace. We use financial terms so often with matters of justice and mercy they may no longer leap out at us. For instance, if you are a felon, you have a debt to society. If you offend or injure, you owe an apology. We talk about debt forgiveness for college loans, which we must do as soon as possible, but we also talk about forgiveness as a means of avoiding bitterness.

We worry if someone does us a good turn because we do not want to be in their debt. We will refuse acts of kindness, even something simple like a drink of water, because we are suspicious of any obligation. Everything has a price.

When someone is released from prison we say, he or she has paid their debt to society as if justice had a price. Perhaps the most ominous is heard in terms of vengeance, "I want them to pay for what they did" as if punishment could be valued as a commodity, transferred as an asset.

Yet, the place where the economy of grace has its deepest reach and defines our reading today is the belief that moral failure creates debt. If you lie, you owe an apology to the one you lied to, but you also owe penance, contrition, confession to God. It’s as if sin comes with a double cost.

The Pharisees believed this. Hence, when Jesus says your sins are forgiven and they contend such a claim is blasphemy, what they are claiming is absolutely consistent with the economy of grace and how justice was built upon the codes of temple sacrifice. For your wrongs, your moral failures, you owe restitution to those you injured, but you also need to bring a cow or a lamb, some grain or wine, to the temple as a sacrifice to atone for your misdeeds, to pay for your sin. There is a double debt, like losing a double dare. We owe twice as much for sin.

As an aside, the brilliance of Paul, his great insight, his good news, is this: there is a whole new economy of grace to be found in Jesus Christ. He will satisfy our debts, pay what we owe by his sacrifice. It is as if he says to God the father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And in this prayer and in the power of the resurrection, the debt owed to God is satisfied, erased. It is as if Jesus says, "hey, this one is on me; I got this. I'll pay."

And this is a great image of love. Jesus lifts us out of a crushing weight of moral failure and forgives our debts, asking only that we so forgive others. Forgive as you have been forgiven.

There was a man in Watertown, New York who won a big lottery, millions. He was a miserly hermit living in a broken-down house. After his win he continued to live as such because he gave all the money away. He gave a million to the local catholic church prompting the priest to spend two million. He gave some dough to the library as he was a former librarian. But the bulk of the money went to the local foundation to help kids go to college, kids who lived on his block. He gave enough money that from that point forward kids on his street went to college for without tuition.

The director of the foundation called me one day and told me all about Mr. McGinty’s generosity. Then he said, "I need help walking the neighborhood to figure out who qualifies for the college tuition." A week later I was walking down this dilapidated block, going house to house, a bit like Ed McMahon. I got to say, "kid, you're going to college with no cost. It's all paid for." That was quite a day. Saying it once was more than enough of a thrill, but I got to say it four times. "You're going to college for free."

Great day. And it's a lot like the gospel of Paul. All your sins are washed away. All the debt you owe to God, it's been paid. You are no longer in the deep dept of what we owe for our moral failure, our debt to God. It's a great message. Yet, it's just not what Jesus preached nor what he claimed.

Our lesson today is one of the most difficult and yet powerful images of the good news Jesus offered. To hear the message though we must put aside the economy of grace of the Pharisees (double debt satisfied with sacrifices) and the economy of grace offered by Paul (the one atoning sacrifice of Jesus for all). The key to putting this aside is to see how Jesus recasts sin. What was moral failure as a debt owed to God, in the teachings and acts of Jesus, sin becomes something else. Moral failure, misdeed, being wrong in the claims of Jesus is a brokenness. It is as if he digs deeper, beyond the offence, and finds the root, finds the darkness in us. This darkness is not that we did wrong, it's not what we owe, it is a need of healing. It's not a debt to be repaid, it's a wound to bind, a disease to cure, a brokenness.

Don't half understand me. If you say something stupid, you owe people an apology. If you lie and steal and cheat, the consequence of your actions may very well be a debt to society. Jesus said, I didn't come to abolish the law; I came to fulfill it. Jesus doesn't do away with the currency of grace, but he did suggest a different path to freedom.

With the apostle Paul the gospel is like a lottery win. You didn't even buy a ticket and Jesus is making a place for you in heaven. Like Mr. McGinty, you didn't even know such grace was coming and here it is; you're going to college for free. I felt that grace too. No tuition for you and here's some money for books. A great day. It's just not what Jesus preached, not what he did.

What he did was this: he proved himself true, he showed he had the power to forgive sins and he forgave in a way that says, you have this power too. He saw their faith. You can forgive, you can be forgiven. And this forgiveness is not a lottery win; it is faith, trust, that we can be free here and now. You forgiving me; me forgiving you. If we learn to trust mercy, begin to see it as how we heal each other, not fix each other, but heal each other, then we will live unto freedom.