​The Holy Spirit is the spirit of forgiveness.

“Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven.” 
​Mark 3:29
 
What a cathartic week in the United States of America! We have certainly been given our marching orders now. 
 
The death of John Lewis, Lewis’ words played in the Rotunda, the Edmund Pettis bridge crossing, his funeral with Pres. Obama’s eulogy—an emotional week, powerful both in replaying the important history which we not only witnessed but actually have had a part, and powerful in anticipating history still to be made, as we were instructed by John Lewis himself in his departing message to us.
 
He wrote, just before his death,
“Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.”
 
I said last Sunday that it’s time for Eliot to invoke the Holy Spirit. Because if we are to find our way to the next settled minister, it will take the Holy Spirit working in us. If we are to make our way through this pandemic, it will take the Holy Spirit inspiring us. And, if we are to fulfill John Lewis’ charge, it will take the Holy Spirit in us. 
 
Because the springboard to effective struggle for peace, of course, is through inner peace.   Gandhi, King and John Lewis were unanimous in rejecting hate and promoting love. They unanimously directed us in a spiritual practice. 
 
We are told, aren’t we, be the change, the peace, you wish for the world. I believe a version of that injunction can be found in Jesus: seek the kingdom, the peace, of God and all else will follow. Now that is our subject—the inner peace without which the long march toward justice is impossible. You could detect that peace in John Lewis’ own voice and personal demeanor—where can we get some of that?
 
There is one word for it, and it is in forgiveness, the sum and substance of the New Testament, the core of Christ’s gospel. The good news is that forgiveness will set you free, and forgiveness will free you to seek the freedom of others.
 
I say to you, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of forgiveness.
 
Claim the Holy Spirit of the apostles who found its power to heal in their time of desperate political upheaval.
 
Claim the Holy Spirit of Pentecost—those flames that appeared over the heads of the ecstatic crowds in Jerusalem 50 days after the Resurrection, they were on fire with some experience that made them one, speaking one language in that they mutually understood each other across nationality and race, unifying what was fractured—they were responding to the gospel truth of forgiveness which unites and restores people to right relation with each other.
 
Yes, and claim the Holy Spirit where the Words of Institution in Holy Communion invoke the Holy Spirit over the elements miraculously effecting the forgiveness Christ.
 
Claim into the Holy Spirit as when Christ on the cross asks the Father to forgive those responsible for his innocent death.
 
Claim the Holy Spirit just the way Jesus breathed upon Thomas and the disciples as they gathered after the crucifixion when he said, “The sins you forgive are forgiven, the sins you don’t forgive are retained.”
 
You see, the Holy Spirit is what reveals to you that your perceived opposite is yourself.
 
What’s forgiveness got to do with that?
 
You will only be asking that because you have not yet seen the kingdom of forgiveness in its totality, which include—pardon, grace, amnesty, reprieve, release forbearance, acquit, exonerate—all stream out from under the subsumptive symbol of that single, capacious word, forgiveness.
 
Such are the many different ways forgiveness plays itself out in the infinite variety of day to day conflicts of human life—because forgiveness has multiple dimensions, multiple facets, multiple applications, multiple phases and stages as we take our spiritual walk toward death.
 
Forgiveness is the tip of the proverbial iceberg of human relationships that need righting and reconciling.
 
Are you among the unforgiven? Will you remain so? Are you among the unforgiving? Will you remain so?
 
Perhaps so, but don’t be like people who reject forgiveness assuming forgiveness is like a light switch you flip to turn on the lights.
 
Perhaps your church has not impressed upon you enough the complete dynamics of forgiveness, which include pain, guilt, confession, remorse, repentance, renunciation, reform, acceptance, freedom, then celebration—multiplied by TWO because forgiveness is a two-way street, depending on whether you are unforgiven or unforgiving.
 
There’s no light switch called forgive and forget—there is only the long, gradual life process heated by the Holy Spirit called forgiveness. For lack of the Holy Spirit, you may not yet have accepted that God has accepted you—that you are pre-approved for this mortgage.
 
You heard in the scripture lesson this morning about the one unforgivable sin and probably wondered like everybody else in the last 2000 years why it was the only unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. Well, Jesus was being hyperbolic because his critics accused him of casting out demons as a demon himself—hence that long preamble. But his conclusion was simple—if you deny the Holy Spirit, which is the spirit of forgiveness, you have thereby disqualified yourself from forgiveness.
 
That’s obviously what makes it an unforgivable sin. Otherwise, there is no such thing as an outright unforgivable sin—so long as you don’t deny forgiveness.
 
Are you among the unforgiven? Will you remain so? Are you among the unforgiving? Will you remain so? Have you accepted your acceptance yet?
 
It is so important that you do so. It’s why we need to do it over and over, which is why we (try to) come to church every Sunday. It will free you to do the good you seem to want but cannot do, it will free you to act (as John Lewis felt free enough to act) for the sake of others, it will heal you of the paralysis (remember Jesus’ miracle) caused by guilt from the past and fear of the future.
 
Are you among the unforgiven? Will you remain so? Are you among the unforgiving? Will you remain so?
 
Jesus said to the disciples at the Last Supper, “Love each other as I have loved you.” The content of the word “love,” in the command “Love one another,” is forgiveness—it is the core, the root meaning of acceptance which we all need and seek. When you “take and eat,” in the communion service, you accept that God accepts you. 
 
In every communion service you hear pronounced, “Behold, the Lamb of God [meaning Jesus] who takes away the sins of the world.” Well, don’t think that happens from the sky by some magical sweep of a wand across the planet. The forgiveness of Christ is perpetual—but your acceptance is contingent until you accept your acceptance?
 
How do you do that?
 
Now, we can’t participate just now in Holy Communion the way we do on the first Sunday of the month. But at any meal today at home, before you begin, you can simply announce, “Jesus says to us, forgive one another as I have forgiven you.” Do you not in this way make holy the communion among your family members? By that means, you renew and continue your way on the path to restored relationships and, ultimately, a healed nation.
 
In a curious way, this democracy—based on Enlightenment principles of the 18th century—really seems to presuppose what Christianity of the 1st century makes possible and calls for—deeply felt, fully mutual interracial acceptance.
 
That blessing of the Holy Spirit is only the beginning, as you then go on to enlarge the circle of acceptance beyond family, beyond church, beyond your social circle, beyond your neighborhood to accept and promote the humanity of everyone, just as John Lewis urged upon us yesterday.
Amen.
 
Rev. Richard Chrisman, 8/2/2020