John 20:19-23 Common English Bible (CEB)
19 It was still the first day of the week. That evening, while the disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. When the disciples saw the Lord, they were filled with joy. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” 22 Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.”
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Today is Pentecost. Traditionally here at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Selma, California, the sanctuary is draped in red and flame colors. There is an amazing “Pentecost Band” - last year it was like a small orchestra! It’s a big deal! AND it is my very favorite church celebration, bar none. Wind and flames, and speaking foreign languages. Crowds of people listening and thousands being converted by Peter’s preaching! Plus I get to wear my beautiful red stole, which usually only comes out of my closet once a year.
Also traditionally, the reading for today comes from the second chapter of Acts. And you know, I am sorry, but I just could not do it. I mean, that reading begins “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” and later in the reading, after the Spirit had come, “at this sound the crowd gathered . .” Y’know? I just couldn’t. Because we can’t do those things.
We can’t all gather in one place.
We can’t be part of a large crowd of worshippers.
Not yet.
Today’s gospel reading takes place on Easter, in the evening. It starts with a story we all know - The disciples were hiding behind closed doors, Jesus came and stood among them, showed them his wounds, and they celebrated. Then, John tells us, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into them.
This is so very different from the way Luke reported that the disciples received the Holy Spirit. Luke tells the story of a great spectacle! A very visible, very memorable event with amazing preaching and special effects. A story that has us commemorating the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples in big way nearly 2,000 years later - with music and balloons and fiery colors and everybody wearing red and sometimes cake!
But John tells us it was a much more subdued occurrence. No crowds. No wind. No flames. No preaching. No baptism of thousands. Jesus simply breathed upon them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
And then he gave them the power to forgive sins, the same power he had, the power he used to heal people. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story of Jesus saying to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven,” and that man was immediately healed! Healing comes from forgiveness.
Many of my colleagues are preaching on the Acts passage today. The images they are using are not of 1st century Jerusalem, but of the fires in Minneapolis last night. And Atlanta. And Oakland. And Portland. And New York City. And LA. They are speaking about a nation on fire with anger and pain over the murder of George Floyd, a black man, by a police officer who was white. They may name a long list of African Americans who have been killed by police officers for the crime of being black such as Breonna Taylor of Louisville and Eric Garner of New York. They may quote a statement made by (someone whose name I cannot remember) who said in a radio interview, “When a city erupts in flame and destruction like Minneapolis has, the spark is always police brutality, but the tinder is hunger, and poverty, and hopelessness. The tinder is racism.” They will almost certainly quote Martin Luther King, Jr. who, 53 years ago said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
But I am preaching on today’s Gospel reading. I am preaching on forgiveness. Because Jesus to his disciples, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.”
And it seems to me that we have been forgiving the sin of racism for far too long, while we have chosen not to forgive persons of color for being persons of color. And while that might sound overly simplistic, it’s kind of meant to. I know, not all white people are overtly racist. Not all police are brutal. Not all Christians, not all men, not all women. We all know that. It goes without saying. The Not All arguments are pretty much beside the point whenever they are brought up. They are a distraction and unhelpful. Much like responding to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter.” Yes. But also no. Because if Black Lives don’t matter, or matter less than other lives, then no lives matter. If a Black child and a White child are both kidnapped, which one gets the news coverage? Which parents are on the TV news tearfully begging the kidnapper to please bring their child home? If I walk into a department store at the same time as a person of color, which one of us does the security guard watch?
We have a long history of seeing the other as somehow less human, less deserving, less worthy of good stuff, and then, of blaming the other for all the ills of society. And when they complain about how they are treated, we don’t believe them. When they point to examples of racism, we don’t see it. It is not our experience. And the very fact I can talk about us and them, and y’all know who I mean kind of makes my point.
Maybe you’re tired of hearing about it. Maybe you’re wondering why they can’t just get over what happened in the past - slavery and Jim Crow and reservations and small pox blankets and the internment camps. And I get it. I do. I spent 25 years in an interracial marriage, a marriage that was illegal not all that long ago. Every day of those 25 years I listened to a litany of White People’s sins. Every day I listened to that anger - that impotent rage - over his specific daily experiences with racism, and the historic rmistreatment of his people because of their race, and the systemic racism that pervades our society. And I really got tired of it. But I heard what he had to say. I learned to watch to see the things that had been invisible to me. I know that I will never completely understand, the daily, lived experience of a person of color. And I know that it is my responsibility, as a white person and a Christian, to stand against racism in every form. To point it out at every opportunity. To root it out of myself.
I watched a news conference the other day with the civic leaders in Minneapolis. I saw Mayor Jacob Fry in tears over the violence and rage in the city he loves. I heard Police Chief Arradondo’s assurances that investigation into the actions of the other three police officers involved were ongoing. I heard City Council member Andrea Jenkins open her remarks by singing the first lines of Amazing Grace. I heard her call racism a public health issue.
And it is. We are all of us living in a strange place, sheltering in place, trying to figure out how to safely start everything back up again, fearful, some of us, about whether we will survive the virus when we catch it. Some of us, though, have a better chance than others. I have running water in my house. I can wash my hands as often as I like. I can easily self isolate. I can have Amazon deliver masks to my house. And food. And whatever else I want. There’s a hospital a mile away. On the Navajo Nation, 30% of the homes do NOT have running water. Multiple generations living in one small house is the norm. Available health care is extremely limited. 43% of the people live below the poverty rate. And the rate of infection and death from Covid19 is the highest in the US. Not just the Navajo and other Native people are suffering higher rates of infection, though . African American, Asian, and Hispanic communities also have much higher rates of infection and death than the White population. NOT because Covid19 somehow prefers non-white persons, but because the rates of poverty in those populations is so much higher. Racism is a public heath issue.
If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.” Forgiveness is healing, after all. And Jesus came to heal the world. But one component of forgiveness is repentance. If there is no repentance, true forgiveness - healing - doesn’t happen. We need to stop forgiving, excusing, ignoring racism. We need to stop accepting it as just the way things are, or as something beyond our ability to do anything about. We need to recognize it, reject it, work against it. Point it out when we see it. Know that each of us can make a difference, if each of us work toward repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation. Understand that the anger you hear is not against you personally, probably, but rather against all who will stand by and allow evil to stand unchallenged. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - like those three police officers who watched George Floyd struggling to breathe and did nothing. Doing nothing makes us complicit - it makes us part of the problem instead of the solution. Let us be part of the solution. Let us change the world, as the disciples of Christ did after receiving the Holy Spirit.
On this Pentecost Day, may we receive the Holy Spirit, so that we may be changed as significantly as were the disciples when Jesus breathed on them.
On this Pentecost Day, may the Holy Spirit fill our hearts with love for all others, so that we may call the sinner to repentance, and forgive.
May our eyes be opened to see our own sin, our own need for healing,
and may we come to desire more than anything reconciliation with God and with all of our siblings, of every nation and race.
May we remember that Jesus blessed us, through the disciples, saying “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.”
May we go forth, and carry the Good News of forgiveness and healing to all the earth.
