to forgive and forget

To forgive and forget.  Jeremiah 31:31-34 tells us that this is God’s new way of dealing with sinful humanity.  A people who deal unjustly with each other.  The wealthy make deals that benefit themselves while the poor suffer.  The poor remain victimized and, therefore, trapped in a cycle of poverty that affects generation after generation---a slave to a system in which they are not the beneficiaries.  (Sound familiar?) In Jeremiah's 7th century BC Jerusalem, the wealthy accumulated power through political means and all of the people disregarded the way of the LORD. Human will disregarded the commandments of God.  The result was a hostile takeover by the army of Babylon, destruction and deportation.  Their arrogance and disregard for the promises and commands of God left them vulnerable, though they felt secure in their prosperity.  Next thing they know, it all came down around them.  Their walls of power and security, their prosperity.  In exile they grieve and die.  By the second generation and the third their trust in the LORD was not about secure walls and prosperity.  They had come to find peace in Babylon.  They remembered the story that formed them as God's people, the Exodus.  It was then that God made a new promise.  "I will forgive your iniquity and remember your sins no more. "

The result is freedom.  Freedom that is found only in the truth.  The truth about ourselves:  We are sinners.  We have made the mess we are in.  Nobody else.  If we want to see why the economy is the way it is; look no further than your own bank account.  Americans cherish freedom, but not the truth.  And the bible tells us that we cannot have the one without the other.  The price of freedom is the truth.  And the truth is that we are quick to blame others, to not share the problems and challenges people face.  We are eager to avoid our own Sin by naming someone else’s sin.  I think our fascination with crime drama is that it makes us secure in our goodness.  I could never do that. Every other show on tv is a crime drama, because we need to feel innocent.  The truth is we are not.  We have turned our backs on neighbors, family members, friends.  We have made choices that benefited ourselves and hurt others.  Everyday.  In the ways we shop and eat.  Our daily habits cost the environment, cost distant neighbors who work to make our cheap goods.  We pass on the real cost of our lives to the environment, to our grandchildren, to the poorest of the poor in this world.   Occupy Wall Street movements have cropped up to protest the disparity between the wealthy and the poor.  There is injustice worth protesting, for sure.  The U.S . ranks second to Singapore in the distance between the rich and the poor.  The richest are 8 times richer than the poorest, here.   The richest 1% control more wealth than the bottom 50%. But the protester points the finger without acknowledging the truth.  The system we have made, the system we enjoy and benefit from, the system without GOD in the way, without principles or ethics to manage behavior, that system is broken.  It will not get better by taxing the rich and giving to the poor.   What we need is God’s help.  But so few of us know how to find it, know who God is, what God is like, can talk with and about God in ways that are not already corrupted by selfish agenda and self-interests.  We need to hear the truth about God, ourselves, the world again. 

 Luther’s protest of the Roman Church was about theology, but it was about how His understanding of God reshaped his thinking about people, the church, the world.  He protested the massive wealth of the papacy and the exploitation of poor German peasants to amass this wealth.  The system of indulgences made God’s forgiveness a product to market and sell, something that could be purchased.  God’s love was for sale in Germany and the result wasn’t so much that people loved God more---in fact Luther himself said he hated that God who punished sinners to hell.  The result of putting God’s love for sale was the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, still today one of the most opulent churches in the world.   Luther’s 95 theses were meant to be conversation starters and they sparked a protest that became a German peoples’ movement that became the Protestant reformation.  There are still 60 million Lutherans in the world, who are called to embody Luther’s spirit of protest and proclamation.  So what is our proclamation?  What do we have to say to a world that is desperate for some good news?   

How about this: There is a God who is powerful enough to free us from the cycles of injustice, corruption, sin, violence, hatred, and despair we are in.  This God raised Jesus from the dead.  This God was at work in His life and now is at work in the community of believers who worship and serve in His name.  God’s love is free.  God’s forgiveness is free.  God forgives and forgets.  You have a clean slate today and tomorrow.  So what are you gonna do with it?  If you could write your story starting today, what would you want to say to the world?  There is a better economy, where life is a free gift and we are recipients of that gift.  There is a way in which we might have what we need and give to our neighbors.  We can live intentionally.  We can demonstrate peace.  We can live by grace.  Grace alone.  That is the gospel that people need to hear.  You are forgiven.  You do not have to keep living this way.  You do not have to avoid the truth that hurts you.  You do not have to avoid your losses, your deaths.  They are part of God’s economy.  You are free from the powers of sin and death.  So live a new kind of life because the world needs a church who will point the way, protest the wrong, proclaim the truth.  Amen.

* Read Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace by Miroslav Volf.