First Presbyterian Church
“We Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins”
Sermon for April 10, 2005
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Our first reading is from Acts on page 119. It's from the first Pentecost after Jesus was crucified. Peter is addressing Jewish immigrants and long-time residents of Jerusalem, as well as visitors from the surrounding Judean countryside.

He's filling them in on the events of the last fifty days. I always thought it was interesting that Peter blamed everyone in the crowd for Jesus' crucifixion. Peter was the one who denied Jesus three times before he was crucified. Maybe he was looking to shift blame, but I don't think so. Peter perhaps knew the joy of Christ's forgiveness better than anyone. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” from the cross. After the resurrection, he greeted his less-than faithful disciples, including Peter, with “Peace be with you.” Listen for the word of God as it is found in Acts 2:14a, 36-41.

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, …

“Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, "Brothers, what should we do?"

Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Him.” And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”

So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.

This ends our reading from Acts.

That particular word for forgiveness can also be translated release, pardon, cancellation; it is as if the guilt of their sin is canceled. Forgiveness is something to celebrate. Our psalm on page 564 was chosen for its joyful response. Our reading goes from verse 4 right to verse 12, so be ready to skip verse 5-11. Listen for the word of God as we read it together from Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19.

1 I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications.

2 Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

3 The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.

4 Then I called on the name of the LORD : "O LORD , I pray, save my life!"

12 What shall I return to the LORD for all his bounty to me?

13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD ,

14 I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.

15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful ones.

16 O LORD, I am your servant; I am your servant, the child of your serving girl. You have loosed my bonds.

17 I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the LORD.

18 I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people,

19 in the courts of the house of the LORD , in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD!

Anthem

Our next reading is found on page 232. Many of us who have been Christians most of our lives are at a disadvantage sometimes when we read the Bible. We hear it with old ears, with the baggage of two millennia of Christian theology.

But for the people receiving this letter of Peter's, being Christian is new for them. Those raised in Jewish households are familiar with the Old Testament. But those reared in gentile families are not. One of the first questions the early churches had to answer was ‘what to teach the people preparing for baptism?' The church relied on letters like Peter's to teach this new body of Christ how to be holy as God is holy.

In the first century Roman empire, citizens guarded their social status jealously. In this society that tallied up who owed whom what dinner party and which political favor, Peter spoke of God as an impartial judge who cannot be bribed. Our life in God is not dependent on favors and gifts, but on God's grace. Listen for the word of God as it is found in First Peter 1:17-23.

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.

Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

This ends our reading from 1 Peter.

I was away from Baker City for a week for my continuing education. During that time, the pope died . His death mattered to the world, not just to Roman Catholics. It mattered to the man I sat next to on the plane from Salt Lake to Boise. His name was Eli, and he was Jewish. His wife was Catholic. Neither of them went to church, but the Pope's death mattered all the same. He was a symbol of faith and strength for many people.

While I was in New York, I visited a seminary friend, raised Catholic, but now a Presbyterian for years. The pope's death mattered to her. She wrote this:

“My own feelings about the passing of the pope are very mixed. Times like this my old Catholicism kicks inside my soul to show that it is alive. But it is quieted once I remember why I no longer nurture it. My father spoke to me very lovingly of the pope's life and I knew it was not the time to engage in some theological debate…. Yes, he spoke for peace and solidarity with the poor, but he also suppressed liberation theology. Yes, he asked forgiveness [from] the Jews for catholic anti-Semitism, but he also supported the continued oppression of homosexuals and women who wished to serve as fully as their brothers. He forgave his would-be assassin, but offered no strong reprimand to priests in the US when their sexual abuse of children became widely known.”

As with any religious or political leader, we want the Pope or whoever to be right, and we want him to agree with us. We are disappointed when that is not the case. I've heard some Protestants speak angrily about the pope, and doubt if Catholics are Christians. Certainly some of the roots of our reformed tradition are anti-Catholic. Some of you are old enough to remember the anti-Catholic feeling here in Oregon years ago, helped along by hate groups like the Klan. But most of us, myself included, are impressed with the deep faith of our Catholic friends and have no trouble praying for their grief over the Pope's death.

My seminary friend's spirituality is strongly shaped by her Catholic upbringing. She talked about being taught in Catholic schools. She remembers watching a friend of hers, who was about ten or so, shouting at one of her classmates “I'll never forgive you.” Her teacher overheard her and reminded her of the line, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” She told her she could not say the ‘Our Father' until she had forgiven her classmate. The girl's first reaction was “Big deal” until the daily assembly, when all the children recited the Lord's Prayer together. Her teacher wagged her finger at the girl when she began. She fell silent. She kept this up for days, but by two weeks, she started to cry when the others recited the Lord's Prayer. In the third week, she went up to her classmate and said “I forgive you.”

If we are going to say “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” or “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” we are obligated to practice forgiveness.

The line we say together in the Apostles' Creed “I believe in the forgiveness of sins” is a powerful one. It doesn't mean just saying “I forgive you.” It means trusting in God that reconciliation is possible. The Holy Spirit will work in the wrongdoer, to bring about repentance and in the victim, to bring about empowerment and forgiveness, so the two can be reconciled.

That line had serious implications for the early church. They had to face the question of whether or not to readmit Christians who denied the faith during persecution in the second and third centuries. Their answer was the line “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” Those who succumbed to torture were welcomed back into the church.

The Apostle's Creed begins “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth.” That seems fairly innocuous to us, doesn't it? Who would argue that? A guy named Marcion in the second century did. He thought that some of Paul's letters were too Jewish, as were Matthew, Mark, John, and a few chapters in Luke, and of course, all of the Old Testament. So, he thought we should just take those Jewish parts out. (1) The Roman church affirmed that the God of creation, the God in Genesis, was the father of Jesus Christ. And so to say “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth” is to affirm that the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is part of our Bible too.

Another line in the Apostles' Creed is “I believe in the holy catholic church.” That trips us Protestants up sometimes. But it doesn't mean Roman Catholic. The word catholic, with a small “c” means universal. So we mean “I believe in the holy universal church.” That line responds to the question “Did the church include a heroic few, or did it include all who confessed Jesus Christ?”

For centuries, Christians who were going to be baptized confessed their faith by saying the words of the Apostles' Creed. And so we say the creed as part of the sacrament of baptism today.

In our story from Acts, the people repented and were baptized. They repented of their participation in this corrupt generation; what was corrupt about it? Perhaps it was being part of a society where status is measured, honor is protected, bribes are given, the poor are oppressed, and those who disagree are killed. Repenting of that means to open ourselves up to God's possibility. And sometimes, our culture doesn't appear so different. We too are called away from the corruption of our society.

When you make a mistake, or sin, or trespass, you have several choices. You can pretend it didn't happen, or that it did happen but it doesn't really matter, or that it did happen but there's nothing you can do about it, or you can ask what you can do to make amends. The men in Jerusalem asked the disciples “Brothers, what should we do?”

The answer was “repent, and be baptized .”

Long ago, those who wanted to be baptized were instructed for a year, and then baptized at Easter. Some churches still do it that way. We Presbyterians view baptism not as an end in itself, but as a sign of God's grace and the beginning of a journey of faith.

Baptism is a sign and seal of Christ's washing us from our sin, and it is a celebration of God's grace in choosing us to be God's people, witnesses for the salvation of Jesus Christ, and vessels of the Holy Spirit. Our baptismal hymn celebrates the reconciliation Christ brings for all of us who follow him.

(1) Book of Confessions, Presbyterian Church(USA), p. 6.