Forgiveness

A month or so ago, my son Brendan came home from school outraged by another tragic event in history. “Have you heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre?” he asked.

And I had, but I couldn’t quite place it.

Tell me about it,” I said.  And he did.

There was outrage in his voice as he told how settlers coming from Harrison, Arkansas, and traveling through Utah, were attacked by Mormons dressed as Indians and killed – down to the last man, woman, and child above the age of eight.  The younger children were adopted by Mormon families until relatives back home petitioned to have them returned.  Yet another black mark in human history, another act of senseless violence that must have seemed, to a group of people at least, somewhat sensible at the time.

So on the Monday of Easter week, I was intrigued when I received an email from a member of the Fancher clan, the ones who made their way from Harrison to Utah so many generations ago.  She was asking if the church building could be used for a religious service at the annual gathering of the Mountain Meadows Association.  This is a group of descendants of the settlers from Harrison and the Mormons from Utah who clashed so horribly on that fateful day long past.  I have a basic stance which is this: when someone asks for help, I do all I can to try to help.  So I said, “Yes,” of course, and, “What can I do to help?”

There followed a series of emails, back and forth, as I learned more about the Mountain Meadows Association and their annual gatherings.  The service should be ecumenical, since all sorts of Christians were involved.  So I began to contact ministers in other denominations to see if they were willing to be involved.  Then I found myself contacting musicians – it begins to get out of hand sometimes, because it’s a lot of work to get people to come together for anything, much less a service they have no real connection with.  I have to go through many, many, many “no’s” before I hear a “yes.”  But that also deepens my commitment to say “yes” and try to be helpful.  I figure that is one of the things the church is here for; we are trying to gather back the diasporas of Christian division, and work to heal the wounds of violence.

One of the emails I got from Ms. Fancher told me the group had been working on forgiveness.  But this was beginning to wear thin, especially since the descendants of the massacred were certain that Mormon leader Brigham Young had ordered the massacre, while the Mormon descendants believed no such thing and did not think their church bore the responsibility for it.  This is an interesting dilemma – and a common one.  How do people forgive when there is no consensus of what happened, no admission of wrong-doing, and no process of reparation or making amends?

In my experience, it is that way more often than not.  I find that apologies and amends-making are incredibly rare in this world.  Very few people will ever admit to having done something wrong, and the more terribly wrong it is, the stronger their defenses against admitting it to themselves, much less someone else, and even much less, the person they have actually wronged.

So clearly, forgiveness is not something that is tied to receiving an apology, or even to any sort of admission of guilt .  It just isn’t.

In these Easter days we have ample evidence for the divine origin of forgiveness – it has nothing to do with getting one’s way in any respect, and absolutely nothing to do with proving oneself right.  Forgiveness comes from on high, and it cleanses and purifies a bitter heart.  It also brings the light of truth, so that, no matter how badly we believe we have been wronged, we can actually begin to see that we have done the same things to other people.

I remember a time when I was writhing in the agony of resentment.  It was nothing as big as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but I had the sense that some people had pretty much ruined my life.  I had a big case against a couple of people, who had really wronged me, and all I had to do was explain the situation and everyone could see it.  I was urged to take them to court, to ruin their lives in turn, etc., etc.  What I wanted was just an apology, an acknowledgment of the injustice.  But these folks would not see that they had done anything wrong – in their minds, it was all justified with fine sounding words, and a constantly spinning story that made them look very, very enlightened.  And it was killing me.  The resentment, the anger, the bitter taste of washing my mouth in going over and over and over it all, was killing my soul.  It was real torment.

I went to the healing service and I asked for prayers for healing. Bill Godfrey was there that day and I remember the sound of higher truth as the words spilled from his prayerful lips: “Lord, you have forgiven us everything...”  Yes, that’s it.  All my sins are forgiven, and yet, the weight of them is unbearable, the burden intolerable.  But all my sins are forgiven.  How dare I hold onto a grievance against another person when Christ has given his very life for my forgiveness and redemption?  The healing began right then and there.  The sound of the truth was like a bell that purified the air with its ringing tone.  All the babble of the resentful, self-righteous demons was silenced.

When we begin to really practice confession of sins, we learn that the quickest way in to the recognition of our own sins is by recognizing our resentments.  Our resentments are not the fault of the other person – we are responsible for the demon of resentment and the ways it feeds on our soul.  Make a list of your grievances, your resentments, your cases against other people, and you will begin to have a good picture of the sinful states that are killing the life of the soul within you.

Every now and then, I meet Christians who are very concerned to figure out who exactly killed Jesus, and why, and how can some retribution be taken for this terrible crime.  It seems such an odd thing to me.  At least when it comes to Easter, the truth does seem to ring out loud and clear.  We are living a new life now, born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, we are reaching for the higher truths.  In this world of division and violence, no one will admit to the corruption that is in us, none of us can look earnestly upon our own sins, so we spend all of our time judging the sins of others.  But the truth is, that just keeps us caught in this web of confusion and despair.  Forgiveness comes from a higher place and it brings the truth that can free us. Working on forgiveness is the best thing we can do, working on it, praying for it, and learning not to ever tie it to proving ourselves right.  Forgiveness is a surrender of all that. It comes from God, not from our own righteousness.  We come to embrace forgiveness when we can humbly see our own sin.

Christ feeds us with this bread each time we sit down and break bread with one another.  In each and every relationship, we can feed one another’s resentments or we can break bread anew and share the healing love of God.  We can turn towards God and learn about genuine mutual love, or we can go over and over and over the same old things forever and lose the rope that raises us to the Resurrection.

“What are you talking about?” asks the Risen One as he walks beside his disciples on the Emmaus Road.

“Are you the only one who doesn’t know?” they ask aghast.

Of course he knows, and he knows there is no use going over and over what is past, even when it’s the crucifixion.  He is Risen now, and he invites them to share the bread of forgiveness.  The soul knows the presence of the truth, even as the mouth keeps repeating its old stories.

“Didn’t our hearts burn within us,” they say afterwards, “as he walked with us.”  The truth is beyond all this chatter.  We recognize it in the burning of the heart, the longing for what is beyond all this violence and bitterness, the willingness to lead a new life, to let go of the old habits, to be born anew of the imperishable truth.

Amen.

The Rev. Edie Bird
Third Sunday of Easter
April 6, 2008

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