25 March 2005

With Good Friday at hand we continue with "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann.

(Jesus') readiness to forgive sin (Mark 2:1-11), which evokes amazement, also appeared to be blasphemy, that is to say, a threat to the present religious sanctions. At one level the danger is that Jesus stood in the role of God and therefore claimed too much, but we should not miss the radical criticism of society contained in the act. Hannah Arendt had discerned that this was Jesus' most endangering actions because if society does not have an apparatus for forgiveness then its members are fated to live forever with the consequences of any violation. Thus the refusal to forgive sin amounts to enormous social control.

It is as though we cannot go forward into what is potentially fresh and new unless we are able to forgive. As Jesus encountered, the willingness to grasp forgiveness and extend it to others begins to take power away from those who claim to be the only conduit for forgiveness. The next thing you will know...everyone will be just forgiving everyone else. Have you ever heard of forgiveness being chaos. I haven't. And yet, the powers fear such a notion of forgiveness because it may lead us into utter chaos because it will not be controlled. I don't think anything has been able to control the power of the wind that blew out of the tomb on Easter. Yes, there may be chaos at times...but isn't there always. Forgiveness is a power that takes us beyond chaos into new life.

Connection: The journey into forgiveness never ends...nor does the journey into new life. It is also important to remember that both of these are the same...forgiveness is the journey and the journey is forgiveness. The real question today has to do with how we will embody this forgiveness in our lives and then personally enter the journey into new life.

Forgiving Lord, teach us your ways and remind us of the glorious life that is ours as we follow you into those adventures of forgiveness that make us turn around and come at life within a new perspective. Amen.