What else could Stephen have asked for in Jesus’ name if not to forgive those who stoned him? To act in someone’s name is to behave according to their character - in the name of the King someone would issue decrees and collect taxes, proclaim war or declare peace, so that in the age before the internet people nearby and far off could know what was on the King’s mind and how this King ruled the kingdom. So when Stephen was dying, his last request was most true to the legacy of Jesus, basically verbatim the same request Jesus made of God when he himself was being crucified: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” If you’re going to ask for anything in Jesus’ name, according to the character of Jesus and in line with his way of living, it would be to ask for forgiveness.
But it’s so hard, isn’t it? To ask forgiveness for ourselves is hard, to admit a wrong we have done or left undone. It means admitting we were less than perfect, that we have somehow still not gotten everything right. Especially to own up to another person that we have done them wrong - you know the way kids hem and haw and avoid eye contact and make up stories when they know they’ve been caught and don’t want to admit they broke something or grabbed a cookie before dinner. You know the way public leaders backpedal when they’ve said something to make people angry, or voted one way but want to get re-elected by folks who vote another way. When it comes to asking forgiveness, we have a hard time. But then when another person sins against us it’s a whole different ballgame. We tend to want our money back. We take back our trust. We tend to want revenge. It’s not like getting back at someone would actually heal our hurt or restore what has been taken from us. We can’t get back the time or energy we spend on holding a grudge or blaming other people for our misfortune.
But we are connected to other people, and when we are hurt it can be hard to remember that. So we have before us two ways of living - retribution, defensiveness, and self-righteousness, on the one hand, and forgiveness, letting go, and resurrection, on the other.
Our ways of living, of course, depend entirely on what we believe to be true. What sort of world we think we live in. What sort of power we think we have to change or maintain this world. Who we believe ourselves to be. Now, we can look around and see all sorts of stories about ourselves - that we are too fat or too thin, too weak or not tan enough, too poor or too socially awkward. That we need to be working all of the time because we need to have all the latest gadgets so we can download all the best apps and have the most exciting social life when we’re not working. That we have to fit a certain demographic to be successful, and that people on the outside of that demographic are threatening our place in it by looking for work or getting an education or moving into the neighborhood. We have lots of stories selling us newspapers and magazines and clothes and music and stuff that we could probably live just well enough without. And somewhere deep down we have bought into that core story that somehow we’re not yet good enough, somehow we haven’t gotten it together as we should, somehow if we just had a new car, a new phone, a new romance, we’d fill that space of wanting and be successful at last. But if we take these stories to be true, we can’t get back the time or energy we spend trying to be someone else’s picture of perfect.
And with all of this time and energy spent holding grudges and making ourselves perfect, how is there any time and energy left to spend on living? Where is the freedom to live fully and joyfully as God intended if we’re always afraid of being hurt and working our tails off to be the latest version of successful?
Well, this is where the rubber hits the road, then, isn’t it? We are a resurrection people. A people who follow a crucified and risen Savior the best we can. It starts at the core of that truth. The way to freedom, the life we are given. Forgiveness, honesty, new life.
Those last words of Jesus from the cross, those words that Stephen pondered, prayed, learned from his Lord and lived by, those words of faith are the marks of new life and resurrection. To have the trust to put your life and your death into God’s hands as Jesus did - “Into your hands, I commend my spirit.” And with that comfort, with knowing that death is not the end, pain is not the end, forgiveness is possible. They are wrapped up in each other, faith and forgiveness. They are each a reflection of the old adage to ‘let go and let God.’ To take God at his word that you are forgiven is a big step, a big gift we receive without having to earn it. Remember, before Stephen spoke his famous last words, Jesus prayed for our forgiveness. It is out of that gift that Stephen was able to ask forgiveness, to have compassion for his own killers. We have been given that same gift of Jesus, that same forgiveness when we sin by what we have done and by what we have left undone. So we can live by that truth, live in that way. What kind of world would we have if we lived like that? Can you imagine a world where we forgive as we have been forgiven, where we really all understood the gift we have been given and can live in that freedom?
Of course, I could leave it at that, with the question, with the challenge to live like Stephen, to make the world better. And it certainly is a challenge. Real forgiveness is hard, and it’s not the same thing as letting others abuse you or walk all over you. It takes work and change, it means naming the wrong and deciding together that the relationship is too important to let it die.
But it’s also a promise. Jesus has told us he is the way and the truth and the life. And we have seen what happens when we respond with ‘my way or the highway,’ with our own versions of the truth, and with clinging to life so tightly we suffocate and die. We resurrection people have seen what happens in places of pain and death. What happens is that Jesus breaks through our mess, and our muck, and our world of competition and striving. What happens is Jesus shatters our false and fragile systems of oppression to bring new life, to bring resurrection, to pave a new way, and shine the light of truth into our darkness of fear, and make us alive again. When we are able to forgive and be forgiven, when we are part of making the world a reflection of the resurrection, it is because Jesus is present and alive here among us. It is because God is working for us, repairing, restoring, re-creating us. One might even say it is God who is building us, like living stones, into the church this world so desperately needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment