One of my early lessons in peace-making came on the playground in 3rd grade. That year, I was in a split-grade class—3rd and 4th grade—and the head bully was a 4th-grader, named Mark. He and his buddies delighted in making my life hell every day, and I was pretty scrawny, so they could pretty much get away with it. I remember one time he surprised me. He and his buddies came and sat next to me at lunch, and I thought, “Oh boy! This is not good.” He said, “I’ve been thinking. We’ve been giving you a hard time.” He looked at his friends who smiled at me and each other. Something was going on…maybe it’s good? Everyone’s smiling. At least he wasn’t trying to steal my lunch. He said, “I want to make peace. No hard feelings?” He held out his hand for me to shake and I shook it. Peace sounded like a great idea to me. We smiled at each other. I went to take another bite of my sandwich and someone smacked me in the back of the head. Laughing hilariously, Mark and his friends ran away, and I chased them, hoping I would catch up to them and pound someone. I learned some hard lessons about peace-making that day, and as I look around in our community today, I think a lot of folks have learned the same hard lessons. Don’t show weakness. If someone has been mean to you, probably they will do it again. If someone is mean to you, get angry and get even. People with power will use it against you. I see and hear people living out of these lessons online, in our politics, and sometimes even in our neighborhood. The thing is, I’m pretty sure it’s not making our lives better. In fact, doesn’t it feel like if we don’t change, things are going to get worse? How do we help things be different? Perhaps you won’t be surprised to hear that I think Jesus can show us a way out this mess that we’re in.
But Christians are part of the mess that we are in! Our hyper-partisan politics have people who are Christians on both sides. How can that be? Jim Wallis imagines a conversation in which a reporter asks a millennial, “What do you think of Christians following Jesus?” To which the millennial responds, “I think it would be a good idea.”[1] Wallis quips, “It’s always amazing to me how Jesus has apparently survived all of us Christians.”[2] I agree. Who is the real Jesus? What does Jesus really think and value? Can we find the bedrock of a true and deep relationship with Jesus? We can’t look to the Left to understand Jesus. Nor can we take what the Right says about Jesus as gospel. We will have to go deeper into God’s Word, to go deeper into who Jesus is, and how Jesus changes everything. We have to get Biblical. We have to be honest. We have to go deeper. Because what we really want is peace, and Jesus gets it, and Jesus can show us the way. You know, when the Sunday School kids were asked what they wanted to learn about, they said, “Peace.” So this Fall, we are going to look for the deep wells of peace Jesus offers…and it all begins with forgiveness.
Jesus’ first lesson in forgiveness is that it is freeing. When we were first married and living in Baltimore, Cynthia and I had a date planned. I was looking forward to having dinner together, then maybe going for a walk. And just before I left the office, somebody called and ruined my day. I was so mad at them! It was all I could think about as I headed for home, and when I got home, I stomped around the house, complaining and kavetching about it. Finally, I looked at Cynthia, and she asked if I still wanted to go out. I swallowed my anger, went upstairs to brush my teeth, and I looked at myself in the mirror. Was this person’s thoughtlessness going to ruin just part of my day, or my evening too? So I asked Jesus to help me through, to free me from my anger, and forgiveness ended up being part of it. In our passage for today, Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Why does Jesus pray that prayer? I wonder if it’s because Jesus knows He has the toughest day of His life ahead, and He needs the freedom to meet it head on, without hatred or anger or fear weighing Him down. The first thing Jesus does on the cross is to forgive people who put Him there. Forgiveness frees us to go God’s way.
Jesus’ second lesson on forgiveness is that it’s not fair. The thief on the cross next to Jesus asks Jesus to remember him. Jesus says, “Today, you’ll be with me in paradise.” That’s not fair. Fair would be Jesus cursing everyone who was laughing at Him—and then having fire come down and burn them up. Fair would be the thief finding a nice, uncomfortable place in one of the Circles of Hell. Fair would be Jesus getting down off the Cross and smacking that smug look off the face of the Roman soldiers who gave Him the crown of thorns and mocked Him as king. Don’t get mad—get even. Revenge is fair. Striking back is fair. Fair would be you and I getting what we deserve too. That our anger would lead to more brokenness. That our addictions would lead to more suffering. That our arrogance and selfishness would yield more bitter fruit. That would be fair. Forgiveness breaks the cycle of pain and retaliation, to find a new way that brings healing. Desmond and Mpho Tutu write, “…there is no end to the creative ways we humans can find to hurt each other, and no end to the reasons we feel justified in doing so. There is also no end to the human capacity for healing…Out of [our] brokenness, we hurt others. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again.”[3] Forgiveness is not fair, but that’s part of why it works.
Third grade was a tough year for me. I got punched a bunch and I punched the folks who hit me. I found striking back—physically or verbally—didn’t keep me from getting picked on, and didn’t make me feel any better. I also learned over the course of the year, that Mark’s dad was an alcoholic, and I started noticing that he came to school with bruises. It was harder to rage against Mark, when I actually felt sorry for him. That year I also learned that by striking back I was allowing the bullies to decide how my world worked—violence creating brokenness and pain expressing themselves in more violence and pain. Isn’t that one of the great problems we face? Will we let the trolls and bullies use the love of power to define the world and how we relate to each other? Or will we seek Jesus, who gave up power for love? Fear and anger come from how we are hurt, and so making decisions out of fear and anger only creates more hurt and brokenness. Kindness and sacrifice break the cycle. Forgiveness brings healing and hope. I see how Jesus’ weakness on the Cross, turns to strength on Easter, as God turned sacrifice into healing. Somehow, Jesus’ response to the cruelty and evil around Him transformed the world. Don’t we long for our lives and our world to be transformed too? I am convinced that the path Jesus walked, the way Jesus taught, and the forgiveness Jesus practiced can show us the way out of our mess. So let us learn the ways of peace together with Jesus. With God, all things are possible, even peace.
[1]Jim Wallis, Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus (NY: Harper Collins, 2019), p. 1.
[2]Ibid, p. 2.
[3]Desmond and Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World (NY: Harper Collins, 2014), p. 3.