The church on the cover of this morning’s bulletin is not the United Church of Jaffrey. It is not the Ashburnham Community Church or the First Congregational Church Rindge UCC.
It is the Emanuel African Methodist Epicopal Church in Charleston South Carolina.
On June 17th, 2015 – already 11 years ago – a 21-year-old man named Dylann Roof attended a Bible study in the basement of the Emanuel African Methodist Epicopal Church in Charleston South Carolina.
When the Bible Study was over, Roof pulled out a hand gun. In the ensuing six minutes he methodically killed nine people at point blank range.
His nine victims – all of whom were black – have become known as The Emanuel Nine.
**
We meet many different characters in the gospels, but there can be no doubt that the reason all four of the gospels were written in the first place was to tell the story of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Oddly, though, each gospel begins, not with Jesus, but with John the Baptist – the man who “prepared the way” for the appearance of the Messiah.
What was the big deal with John the Baptist?
How did this character “prepare the way” for Jesus?
The first chapter of the Gospel of Mark begins by telling us that:
John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1:4)
“Repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
Smack in the middle of his Galilean ministry, one of Jesus Christ’s disciples saw him praying, and when he finished praying, the disciple said:
‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’
To this Jesus responded:
‘When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’ (Luke 11:1-4)
At the end of the his life – as Jesus is breathing is last, traumatically painful breaths – as he is in the act of dying on the cross that we nailed him to… he speaks directly to God on our behalf, saying:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
A student of the gospels can justly make the claim that Jesus came to us with the promise of forgiveness, centered our relationship with God around forgiveness, and left us with a prayer of “forgiveness” on his lips.
The gospels form the story of a Messiah who came to change the world – and one of the great themes that literally surrounds his life story, defining his message and his actions, is the theme of forgiveness.
There can be no doubt that forgiveness is a virtue that is frequently developed throughout the Biblical tradition.
Since forgiveness is at the core of the prayer that we most often recite, this virtue is also central to our worship lives as Christians. And get this – the prayer itself makes a powerful theological assertion about the nature of forgiveness. The assertion is this: when we forgive someone, we are doing more than forgiving that person – we are also acknowledging that we also need forgiveness.
Forgiveness from God.
**
On the evening of June 17th 2015, Ethel Lance was 70 years old. She was among the nine people who Dylann Roof killed.
Two days after the shooting, the daughter of Ethel Lance’s daughter, Nadine Collier, was given an opportunity, by the court, to speak directly to Dylann Roof.
This is what she said:
“I just want everybody to know, to you, I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again but I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul. You hurt me, you hurt a lot of people, but God forgive you, and I forgive you.
**
Forgiveness is hard.
It may be the hardest thing our God asks of us.
Nadine Collier, who we just quoted, was the victim of Dylann Roof’s heinous act of violence. Roof shot and killed her mother.
In this scenario, surely, Roof is the one who needs to learn that his action was an ethical breach. He is the one who needs to be doing the hard introspective work. He is the one who’s soul is in dire need of transformation.
But forgiveness… this virtue that is at the core of our religious tradition – forgiveness does not lean on the wrong doer who has made the ethical mistake. Forgiveness requires that the hard ethical work is done by the victim.
It is the victim not the perpetrator, who is called upon to form a deeper understanding of human motivations.
It is the victim not the perpetrator, who must develop a self awareness in relation to the hard realities of the world.
It is the victim not the perpetrator, who must come to terms with their frightening vulnerability and, accepting it, place themselves in a position of humility…
All of this, even though the victim has done nothing wrong!
This is why forgiveness is so challenging. The person who is asked to do the hard ethical work is not the person who caused the ethical offense, but the person who suffered the results of that offense.
The hope is that the wrongdoer will also be transformed by the forgiveness that is offered. But this is, by no means, a guaranteed result.
**
Anthony Thompson lost his wife Myra Thompson to Dylann Roof’s handgun.
At the same court hearing in which Nadine Collier spoke, Mister Thompson said these words:
“I forgive you and my family forgives you but we would like you to take this opportunity to repent. Repent, confess, give your life to the one who matters the most, Christ, so he can change it, and change your ways no matter what happened to you and you’ll be okay through that. And better off than how you are right now.”
**
We find ourselves obsessively interested with the religious significance of forgiveness this morning because the story that Vicki read for us is, if anything, a story of forgiveness.
Joseph forgives his brothers.
But do you need to be reminded of why he even needs to forgive them?
It’s a pretty ugly story.
Joseph was the eleventh son of Jacob. Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons, because Joseph was “the son of his old age” and the boy was also the first son of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife. Jacob did not bother disguising the fact that he loved Joseph more than his other sons. He gave Joseph a beautiful coat.
Joseph’s older brothers did not take kindly to all of this.
So one day, when they were all out in the fields tending to their father’s flocks, the plotted to kill Joseph. At the last minute they stopped short of actually killing their brother, and instead they threw him into an empty well. They were going to leave him there to die, but a caravan of Ishmaelites happened to come by, so they sold Joseph into slavery.
The brothers took Joseph’s coat and covered it with blood. They told their father that the boy had been killed by a wild animal.
That, they thought, was that.
But Joseph survived. Through many twists and turns – and no lack of divine assistance – Joseph ends up becoming the advisor to the Egyptian Pharaoh – a man of great influence and power. It is in this capacity that Joseph predicts a famine, and orchestrates the Egyptian response, ensuring that the kingdom has enough stored resources to withstand the long famine. His brothers, who are still in Canaan, come to Egypt seeking help because they have run out of food.
Joseph recognizes his brother’s immediately, but they don’t recognize him at all. Interestingly, Joseph does not reveal his identity to them.
In this part of the story, Joseph is a bit like the resurrected Christ who is always in control of whether or not he is recognized. In those resurrection stories Jesus always chooses a symbolically rich moment to reveal his true identity – like when he calls Mary by name, or when he is breaking the bread at the table in Emmaus.
As long as he is unrecognized, Joseph can hide from the pain of his past. As long as his true identity is concealed he does not have to confront his brothers with their crime.
That is so interesting!
For Joseph, his true identity is the identity that must confront the reality of pain. To be true to himself, he must confront his brothers with their crime. He can no longer hide from the necessity of deciding.
Deciding what?
He must decide whether he will condemn them, as he has every right to do, or forgive them and show them mercy.
Vicki read us the decisive moment, when Joseph decides.
Joseph decides that his true identity is not defined by retribution. Joseph decides that his true identity is defined by forgiveness.
**
According to the Wikipedia article about Dylann Roof, this tragic and spiritually benighted man, holds the dubious honor of being the first person in U.S. history to have faced the death penalty on both state and federal charges at the same time.
Unsurprisingly, he was convicted. The Federal charges stuck, and Roof has spent the last 11 years on death row in a Maximum Security Federal Penitentiary in Terra Haute, Indiana.
Roof’s lawyers have appealed the death sentence, but even if they are successful, Roof will remain in prison, where he will serve the nine consecutive life sentences that he earned from the state of South Carolina.
Nine lifetimes.
That’s plenty of time to think things over.
Nine lifetimes.
Without the possibility of parole.
The true identity of our society seems to be defined by retribution.
I cannot say that I disagree with this outcome.
But when Nadine Collier and Anthony Thompson forgave Dylann Roof, they revealed their true identities as Christians.
Dylann Roof followed the commands of hatred.
Nadine Collier and Anthony Thompson did the hardest thing that God asks us to do.
They forgave.
Following the demands of love, they became the Body of Christ in the world.
Amen.