....When You ARE that Snake!
Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA; 5 Lent, 22 March
2015
Year
B RCL: Jeremiah
31:31-34;
Psalm
51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; John
12:20-33
Lying
awake last night
asking, “Where have I gone wrong?”
I heard a voice say to me
“This
is going to take more than one night.”1
I
enjoy the perspectives of Charles Schultz, whose quip about lying
awake I just paraphrased. Schultz points
us to our work this final week of our Lenten Forgiveness Forum when
we explore how to forgive our self. He also points us to today's
scriptures about forgiveness.
In
Jeremiah God says God will make a new covenant that we won't have to
be taught, one that will be in our hearts so that we have “the
God-given ability to obey.”2
God
also says: “I
will forgive their iniquity & remember their sin no more.”
God
forgives us & remembers our sin no more. So who are we to keep
dragging up our past sins & not forgive our self?
Remember
the resource we have that Jeremiah tells us:
God writes God's law on
our hearts.
God's Love lives in our hearts.
God's
Love in us makes us able to forgive our self &
cease suffering
over our sin.
As
we read in Hebrews, Jesus
learned obedience through what he suffered. Unless we learn from our
suffering over our sins, we are doomed
to repeat them. When we miss the mark, we are wise to forgive our
self & remember what we learn from the experience so that we can
behave differently in the future.
In
our Psalm today, the Hebrew words for sin include words that mean:
like an arrow missing its mark, rebelliousness, twisted out of
shape.3
Forgiveness also takes many forms in our Psalm: Its Hebrew words for
God's forgiveness include words that mean: compassion [from
a Hebrew word for womb],
graciousness for
non-relatives & outsiders,
loving bonds within
the family or social group,
& throughly wash clean....4
Forgiving
ourselves can be hard work. In our Gospel we hear how Jesus
faithfully proceeds through the hard work he has ahead. He says: “Now
my soul is troubled.” He is facing the hardest work of his life –
giving his life for us on the cross. As we face our hard work of
self-forgiveness, remember, we have Jesus working with us through our
forgiveness process.
A
friend recently shared this insight: “When
life is so dark that you can't look forward, the past is too painful
to look back, look beside you: Jesus is there with you.”
Soon
after that insight, the Monastery Icons catalog arrived showing a new
icon, Christ
the True Friend,
based
on a 7th
century Coptic icon that is in the Louvre in Paris. It
shows Jesus
holding the Gospel in one arm with his other arm around a Coptic
saint.
Below the figures are the words: “I
call you my friends.”
With
our friend Jesus beside us, we can live
in love through God’s capacity to love that is greater than our
capacity to mess up.
We
can forgive our self, & incorporate that learning as a resource
to apply to future failings.
Know
this: there is a difference
between guilt & shame. Guilt
self-assesses our behavior in light of our
values.
Shame
self-assesses our being.
Shame says: “I hate myself for what I did. I am a bad person...”
Shame
alienates us not
just from the person we harmed, but from
our very self.
I alienate me from me!
Counteract
shame by changing its demand quality into a preference: “I
prefer that I would have/wouldn’t have, etc.”…Identify what
personal value you violated & whether you want to keep that
value...To keep the value, think of that past incident & decide
what you will do differently if you encounter a similar situation in
the future so that you honor your values...
“Forgiving
does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted
memory....(F)orgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to
remember. We
change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.”5
We
don't rationalize, minimize or deny sin.
We acknowledge
the mess, learn from it & get on with life, transformed by God's
abounding Love.
We die
to a past perception
of self so
that we can flourish now & in the future.
Jesus
tells us that a grain of wheat has to transform in order to flourish
& bear fruit. Like the grain of wheat, we won't flourish
staying isolated in our past errors. We have to do the work God gives
us to do in the present to spread God's Love that will produce more
good in the future. We have work to do like Philip & Andrew in
our Gospel to help people encounter Jesus so they know God's
forgiving Love.
Take
a moment & be aware of God’s Love despite whatever sin you
recall that you did...Let yourself be held by God's love & be at
peace with yourself & with God...
As
you rest in God's vast Love, ponder this shocking perspective: “Our
deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that
we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented & fabulous?' Actually, who
are you not to be [so]?
You are a child of God. Your ‘playing small’ does not suit the
world.
There
is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people don’t
feel insecure around you. We (are) born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
don’t feel insecure around you.
We (are) born to make manifest the
glory of God that is within us.
It
is not just in some of us. It is in (each of us). As
you let your light shine, you unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same...”6
So
shine your light!
Bibliography
Harper’s
Bible Commentary.
General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1988.
Holy
Bible with the Apocrypha.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
The
New American Bible for Catholics.
South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
Voyles,
Robert J. Restoring
Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.
Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. “Teaching Forgiveness”
www.appreciativeway.com.
2014.
1
Charles M. Schultz. Quoted P. 74 by Robert J. Voyles.
“Teaching Forgiveness” www.appreciativeway.com.
2014.
3
Ibid. Harper's. P. 457.
4
Ibid.
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