Repentance, Forgiveness & Reconciliation

Sermon by The Rev. Lynda Tyson

 

John 4:5-42

We’re about half-way through this season and it’s time for us to shake hands with the Lenten triplets – their names are Repentance, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation. Repentance calls us to turn back, to return or re-orient ourselves toward God. Forgiveness calls us to pardon past transgressions – whether intentional or just reckless injuries that punctured the fabric of our lives. And Reconciliation begs us to repair our relationships, with neighbor and with God, so we can move forward unburdened – living the days to come in happiness and hope. These calls to repent, forgive, and reconcile are tall orders that take a lot of courage. But people who walk this road will tell you… every life touched by these triplets is transformed.

Last Wednesday we concluded a Lenten book discussion series on Reconciliation. Our guide was author Katy Hutchison and her book, Walking After Midnight: One Woman's Journey Through Murder, Justice and Forgiveness. Hutchison’s husband was murdered in their Canadian neighborhood (now nine-plus years ago) by an intoxicated and angry young man named Ryan Aldridge. In this amazing real-life story, Hutchison reaches out to Aldridge when he turns himself in, telling him that if he confesses to the crime she will stand by him through the justice process. Her forgiveness leads the charge toward a criminal’s repentance, and multiple layers of reconciliation that are extraordinary and, at first, hard to believe. At several points Hutchison is even criticized for her unwillingness to demonize the murderer.

Hutchison tells of healing facilitated, in part, by a relatively new judicial process that was just then beginning to emerge in Canada. It’s called Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice is different from contemporary criminal justice as we know it. It views criminal acts more comprehensively, not simply as law-breaking. A Restorative Justice system recognizes that offenders harm not only their victims, but also communities and even themselves. It is a cooperative processes that engages all the stakeholders in dialog, and the goal is repairing the harm (particularly the emotional harm) caused by the criminal behavior. It’s a system that puts human faces on victims, offenders, and communities so they all can learn to understand and begin to change the circumstances that brought them together. The offenders don’t just do idle prison time. In addition to serving their sentences they learn to accept accountability for their crimes and responsibility for the consequences they have brought upon their victims and their communities.

One of the key components of Restorative Justice is Victim Offender Mediation, which Katy Hutchison used to forge a relationship with Ryan Aldridge – a relationship that enabled them both to heal and to relearn how to live their lives in a world forever altered by his deadly act of violence. When Hutchison reaches out to Aldridge good things happen, and not just for the two of them. She now has an ongoing vocation making vivid truth-telling presentations to youth and adults about socially responsible behavior and consequences of irresponsible behavior, in particular drug and alcohol abuse. And Aldridge has joined her in some of those presentations, standing with her before audiences, owning his crime.

Hutchison chooses not to reject her husband’s killer and not to remain a lifelong victim, which typically happens in our culture. Instead, she accepts Aldridge as a broken human being who did a terrible thing. Remarkably, she never judges Aldridge as a person, but rather condemns his despicable deed for what it was. “He is not his crime,” she writes. For Hutchison, the act of rejecting offenders is the equivalent of judging and condemning them, leaving little if any chance for a rehabilitated future. She sees rejecting, judging and condemning as counterproductive behaviors that won’t facilitate her own need for restoration.

Notice in our lesson from John this morning, Jesus does not judge the Samaritan woman. He lets her know that he knows her past, but her past is insignificant. It’s not her past but her future that concerns Jesus. The past is whatever it is, and whatever it is (her past), it doesn’t matter. Jesus welcomes her into the kingdom of living water – everlasting life. He shows us the model, right here for Restorative Justice. What’s done is done. But life isn’t over. So, what can we do with the present circumstances? Since we can’t turn back the clock, what can we do now, with things as they are, to restore our brokenness and make something of the rest of our lives? We can reach out to the other. We can accept the gift of the living water.

John’s Gospel tells us this exchange between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well is an unlikely conversation with his little parenthetical phrase, “(Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.).” The Jews are descendants of the southern tribe of Judah, offspring of the fourth oldest of Jacob’s 12 sons. The Samaritans are descendants of the northern tribe of Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son. The Samaritan woman challenges Jesus, “‘Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” For centuries the Samaritans have worshiped on Mt. Gerizim, a 2800 ft. mountain not far from Jacob’s ancient well. While the Jews say that the Temple in Jerusalem is the Holy place of worship.

Actually, the Samaritans and Jews do share some fundamental things in common: Their ancestry: both are worshippers of the one true God. They share the first five scrolls of Hebrew scripture. They are both Torah-abiding people. Compared with peoples from other parts of the known world they probably have more in common than not. But they have allowed their differences to divide them rather than enabling their commonalities to unite them.

You may remember when Alan Dennis did a Discovery Hour for us a couple of years ago. He told a powerful story of mediating what was almost a deadly massacre between lines of Apartheid-protesting seminary students with rocks in their hands and armed soldiers with tanks who were ready to strike. Alan, in desperation, asked the military commander if he had children, which he did. Alan told the commander that those students could someday be the commander’s own children. The military troops were ordered to retreat, and the students put down their rocks and walked away. No blood was shed because of the focus on one little bit of common ground. Finding common ground is a first step in mediating forgiveness and reconciliation.

Jesus embodies God’s forgiveness of humanity. He is our ultimate common ground. Theologian Miroslav Volf sees a relationship between God’s forgiveness and ours, and he calls us to see ourselves as “Forgiven Forgivers.” “When we forgive,” Volf says, “…we make God’s forgiveness our own…in a sense, we put our signature underneath God’s. When we forgive, it is Christ who forgives through us…our forgiveness is but an echo of God’s [forgiveness of us].” He says, “That’s why we are able to forgive, and that’s why forgiving makes sense.”

Jesus crosses and breaks boundaries that divide us. We who call ourselves Christian are likewise called to cross and break boundaries – to reach out to those our community rejects, judges, and marginalizes. The kingdom, the living water Jesus talks about, is alive in him, God’s incarnate Word. The kingdom isn’t some far-off unreachable place. It’s right there at the well. It’s right here. The kingdom is that place where the Creator reveals love for all of creation. The kingdom doesn’t come only to one tribe. Jesus offers himself to the ones his countrymen marginalize and despise.

There is no denying the despicable nature of Ryan Aldridge’s crime of murder. But Hutchison’s story of forgiveness carries a message of hope for humanity as a whole. Now hundreds of Victim Offender Mediation programs have emerged in North America and Europe. These programs are lowering fear among victims, increasing the likelihood that offenders will complete a restitution obligation, and reducing the number of repeat offenders far more than cases that go through the normal court process. Restorative Justice is one promise of hope that we can learn to live alongside one another in a new way. Instead of perpetuating the cycle of revenge and retribution, maybe, just maybe we are beginning to drink the Repentance, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation of the living water.