Reformation Sunday: I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more

Although we cling to memories of sin, failure and injustice, God no longer remembers our sin.  God chooses not to allow the memories of our sin and brokenness define our future.  God frees us from sin in Jesus Christ and is creating a new future for us - beginning in our baptisms.  This freedom in Christ is what Martin Luther sought to proclaim almost 500 years ago.

Reformation Sunday (Year A) – Sunday, October 30, 2011

Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lancaster, PA

Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Romans 3:19-28, John 8:31-36

NEVER FORGET. Have you seen these words somewhere recently? I imagine you have, likely in reference wars or other national tragedies. Never forget, we're told. Certainly, we must never forget the people who are lost in such tragedies – who they were, what they meant to their families and to others. But we are often to encouraged to remember in a different way. We urged to remember that we were wronged. That someone else did this to us, and that it is now up to us to do something back to them. We're told to cling to the memory of the injustice done to us, so that we may even the score with them.

We like to remember things. I'm not talking about remembering what you need to buy at the grocery store, or remembering your wedding anniversary. Those are important things to remember! I'm not talking about being able to recall information in our minds. No, I'm talking about the kind of memory that won't let go of what others have done or said that has injured us. We want to hold them accountable. We want justice. I'm also talking about the memories of things that we have done, or not done, to which we hold ourselves accountable.

Think of the memories of your own shortcomings or mistakes that play over and over in your mind. Think of your choices that led to failure or loss or tragedy, or your choices that have hurt others.

How do they impact how you view yourself?

How do these mistakes or failures in your past impact your choices today?

I believe these memories hold us captive. They control us, ironically because we like to think we're in control. We want to dish out justice ourselves by holding others accountable to memories of wrongs committed. At the same time, we believe we can fix our own shortcomings and mistakes that we hold against ourselves. We think we can always control our own behavior, our own future, and we want the credit for doing so. “Never forget” is a motto for us when our fingers are clenched around painful memories of human sin, never letting go.

Sin. It's a hard and ugly word, but it's the truth about us. In our readings today we are confronted face-to-face with our own sin. Jeremiah speaks of the covenant that God's people broke, the covenant which we can never keep. In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul does not mince words. “For there is NO distinction, since ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” ALL have sinned. ALL, try as they might, fall short of the glory of God. ALL - even the ones who go to church every Sunday. Even Mother Teresa. Even little babies. In our gospel reading from John, Jesus tells a group of his fellow Jews, “very truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” A SLAVE. As in, someone who has NO freedom and NO control over their lives.

Jesus hits the nail on the head. We can't help but sin. It's who we are as fallen and broken human beings. We're all in that same boat together, which means we cannot judge each other for it. We cannot hold anything against each other, or against ourselves. Memories of our own sin or that of others trap us in a prison of our own making. Memories of brokenness in relationships continue to define those relationships in the future. We're not in control of memories, they're in control of us. We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. This was the first truth Martin Luther wanted to make clear – no good deed, no prayer, no papal indulgence could get us out of the sinful muck we're in.

One of my favorite movies is called The Shawshank Redemption, and it's about a man named Andy who is sent to state prison for murdering his wife, a crime that he did not actually commit. Towards the end of that movie, Andy has just emerged from months in solitary confinement in a room the size of this pulpit, in pitch blackness. He is leaning against the cold stone of the prison wall, the shadows from the high walls blocking the sun. Twenty years have been taken from his life. He is bound, chained up inside a fortress of shadows and darkness, as far from freedom as he could imagine. He is like a slave. He looks at his best friend, Red, and asks where he would go if he could ever get out of there. Red doesn't really answer, so Andy replies, “I tell you where I'd go. Zihuatanejo. It's in Mexico. Little place on the Pacific Ocean. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.”

Although Andy didn't commit the crime that sent him to prison, it was a memory that controlled his life. The memory of the murder is what drove society to convict him and send him to prison, even though they got it wrong. The memory of this injustice, his memories of the horrors of prison, of the years taken from him, these memories chained him to loss and sorrow, to anger and despair. Andy wanted to be in a place where none of this would be remembered. He wanted to be in a place where people would see him as just himself, with no idea that he had spent decades behind bars. That's true freedom. Waking up every day without any stories, patterns or judgments chained to you. With each new dawn, waking up beginning relationships anew, without the burden of an ugly past.

My friends, this is the freedom we have in Christ. Now, we know that it's not like God forgets things. God always remembers what he needs at the grocery store. But on the cross, in the person of Jesus Christ, God the Son, crucified and risen, God chose to actively no longer remember our sin. Jeremiah prophesied, “I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” Never forget? Well, God forgets. God chooses to no longer allow memories of our selfishness and bad decisions, that is, our sin, to define his relationship with us. God chooses to act as if we are not sinners, and instead to treat us as if we were Christ. “We are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” This is the second, and more wonderful, truth that Luther preached everywhere he could.

When Andy makes it to the waters of the Pacific Ocean, he begins a new life free from the bars and chains of memories. In the waters of baptism, God puts to death our old self that tries to control, that strives to reach God's glory, and brings to life a new creation with no memories of sin attached. Every day, as we sin again, we come back to the waters, we return to that baptismal grace in which God remembers our sin no more.

This is the freedom we have, and the freedom we can share.

Because of Christ, because of his death and resurrection into which you are baptized, you can wake up each morning free.

You are free to love God and love your neighbor.

You are free to accept that you are a sinner, and that there is nothing you can do that will make God love you more than he already does.

You are free to see not your neighbor's shortcomings, but the beloved child of God that she or he is.

You are free to create a new future with your enemies.

You are free to see yourself as a one-of-a-kind masterpiece of God's creative, redemptive and sustaining love.

You are free to follow Christ to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, heal the sick and shelter the homeless.

You are free to live without fear of failure nor death, for Christ has redeemed you, Christ has made you righteous, and Christ has joined himself to you and you will live with him eternally.

The Son made you free, and you are free indeed. Amen.