Sunday, April 8, 2018

Holding one another fast

John 20:19-31

Hidden amidst the story of so-called “Doubting” Thomas is a verse that is of profound importance to what we do as the church. You might have missed it, focused as we are in Thomas in this story, but when Jesus first appears to the disciples (minus Thomas) he says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This is what Martin Luther called “The Office of the Keys” and it is the special authority Jesus gives to his church—to forgive and, apparently, to refrain from forgiveness. And if forgiveness of sins is a significant part of our salvation then this is no small thing; in fact, it may be one of the most important things Jesus tells us to do.
            The first amazing thing here is that Jesus gives God’s people, the church, the power to forgive sins. For better or worse, Jesus allows forgiveness to come through sinners, such as us. This means that the capacity to forgive sins is not dependent on how holy you are or I am—and thank God for that!—because all of us need grace. So, already, Jesus, having died and been raised, has endeavored to pass on the faith to imperfect people such as us. This is both radical and, we might assume, potentially foolish.
If that isn’t enough, there comes a second part of the verse that is much trickier than the first. Jesus says, “If you retain the sins of any they are retained.” Now I don’t know about you, but to me this is cause for some concern. If sins can be retained—if forgiveness has to do with how proficient we are at offering it; then it feels like it will always be imperfect and limited. We need forgiveness that is perfect and can overcome all the dumb things we do. This second half of the verse scares the daylights out of me.
It also seems so unlike most of what we read in the Bible. Where else is forgiveness limited to what we do? Why then did Jesus die—to simply write the check but rely on us to cash it? This seems unlike Jesus. For that matter, what about those renegade pastors who refuse somebody forgiveness? What about those who are refused communion? Do any of us honestly believe that—at the end of our lives—God is going to say, “Well, you had faith in me, but nobody ever forgave you, so sorry!” And, if not, then why pretend like we have this power in the first place?
Usually, when things don’t add up there is a reason. In this case, we have to get back to what this verse is actually saying in the original Greek. I’m not going to bore you with too many specifics, except to say that there is no use of the word “sin” in the second part of the verse, opens the possibility that the second part is a secondary command not to retain sins but, literally, “to retain” or in essence to hold one another fast or embrace one another. If we read it that way, Jesus is saying, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; and whomever you embrace, they are held fast.”[1]
The whole sense of the verse hinges on the meaning of a single turn of phrase. One other factor in favor of the “hold fast” reading is that it relates directly to what is happening at the moment with Thomas. He is being held fast by the other disciples until he witnesses Jesus in the flesh. This is not a mark in Thomas’ favor. He could (and should) believe without seeing, and Jesus says as much. However, when he fails to reach that standard it is important to know that there is something to catch him. Jesus is coming to offer forgiveness; but in the meantime he is held fast by others even though he doesn’t believe.
This feels like what we are supposed to do as a church—hold one another fast until such a thing as it is no longer needed. Keep one another grounded until we are ready for forgiveness. For me it was a revolutionary thought when I heard Nadia Bolz-Weber talk about saying the Apostles Creed in church. This, like a thousand other things we do, is something most of us just do without thinking, because when you stop and think about it you start to wonder, “Can I really say: I believe in God the Father… I believe in Jesus Christ…” and everything that follows. Yes, some days you may believe every word in the Creed, but perhaps somedays you are wavering, and perhaps on some others you hardly believe it at all. Perhaps you are having trouble believing in the forgiveness of sins or the resurrection. Pastor Nadia opened my eyes when she suggested that the reason we say the creed together is to support one another in its lofty beliefs, because there is somebody in our midst who can say with conviction they believe for each individual statement in that Creed today. And if you are not that person, and you are having trouble believing, then that is why you are in church so that this community can believe for you, and hold you fast, in this moment in your life.
This is what it is to be the church. To believe and trust for another person when they cannot. Some churches focus a lot on retaining sins. There is a lot of gatekeeping—talking about who is in and who is out. Some Lutherans have taken the Office of the Keys as permission to assert that certain people or peoples are destined straight for hell, no questions asked. But I find that this kind of gatekeeping says more about the insecurities of those manning the gates than it does anything to do with what Jesus said or how things really are. At the very least, it fails to answer the question, “If we have the capacity to forgive, why not be like Jesus and forgive even those who kill us as he did on the cross, saying “Father, forgive us for they don’t know what they’re doing”?
Why do we get to be more miserly with forgiveness than Jesus?
Try as you might this scripture is not about judgment. Forgive sins, hold one another fast—this is what these verses are about. The cross is simply more powerful than whether we believe somebody should be forgiven or not. This is about faith; it’s about forgiveness; and it’s about loving and holding one another. All theological points beside these are weak and unimportant by comparison.
            So, strangely, the least important character in this story might be Thomas. It’s more to do with Jesus, for sure, but it’s also more to do with the disciples, who have the task of pastoring to Thomas between Jesus’ first visit and the second. All of us stand there; all of us are called as Christians to hold one another fast. We are the disciples. So let’s forgive us some sins. Let’s hold one another, embrace one another, and stop with the gatekeeping. Let’s even believe for one another when others cannot. Then, for a moment, we will be representatives of what the church will someday be.


[1] Commentary by Mary Hinkle Shore on Working Preacher. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3413

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