God does not hold our sins against us. March 27, 2022. The Rev. David M. Stoddart

2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Years ago, I was doing pre-marital counseling with a couple up in Massachusetts, and it hit a bump in the road — literally. They’d been saving money together for quite a while, when the groom-to-be decided, without consulting the bride-to-be, to use some of that money to purchase a snowmobile, which he really wanted. And then, just a week after buying it without her consent, he was out riding, hit a bump, and wrecked it, leaving him with an expensive and useless vehicle.  Well, I’ve had a number of tense pre-marital sessions over the years, but the meeting after that happened probably takes the cake. She was livid; he was scared. We had to talk through it a lot over the next few months, though I’m not sure how successful those conversations were. I remember asking her shortly before their wedding, “Do you forgive him?’ And she replied, “Yes, but I’m never going to let him forget it.”

I hope that, over the years, she did not hold it against him, but we human beings are prone to doing that. Which makes the central point of our readings today still so wondrous after two thousand years. Paul states it clearly: In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. God does not hold our sins against us. All along God has promised this. At the very beginning of Isaiah, the Lord says: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow (Isaiah 1:18). And at the very end of Micah, the prophet says: He will have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). And then Jesus comes and seals the deal. When he is crucified, human beings do their worst to him — and he forgives them while they are doing it, and he keeps on forgiving them after he is raised from the dead, showing no desire to inflict vengeance or punishment. The Risen Christ offers only love, peace, and mercy. God does not hold our sins against us.

 And please note that there is nothing conditional about this. God doesn’t sort of forgive us, as long as we behave well. She doesn’t say words of forgiveness one day and then remind us of all our past failures the next day. In the parable of the loving father, which we heard today, the father doesn’t wait for the son to be sorry before forgiving him: he forgives him before any words of apology are uttered. And there is no indication that he will ever hold his son’s past behavior against him, even if the older brother, a typical human, plans on doing just that. It’s a parable that sums up the Gospel: Jesus lived and died for us while we were still sinners. The forgiveness offered is absolute. God does not and will not hold our sins against us. Period.

 So does this mean God doesn’t care how we behave? No: it just illustrates how God helps us. We often take the route of conditional love and punishment: “I will love you as long as you behave well, and if you don’t behave well, I will punish you or even withhold my love from you.” For many “realists,” this is the way you get the desired results. But apparently God is not very realistic, at least not in human terms. God’s method can be summed up simply: “I will love you into a good, joyful, and abundant life.” This explains the approach Jesus takes to those infamous “tax collectors and sinners.” Remember, the fact that he hangs out with them is what causes all the grumbling in our Gospel passage today and elicits the parable he tells. Jesus does not insist that those tax collectors and sinners change their ways before he eats dinner with them and spends time with them. No, he meets them where they are and loves them as they are. And we know that, at least with people like Matthew and Zacchaeus, his loving them really changes them. And this is his approach to us: he will love us and forgive us, and keep on loving us and forgiving us until we let that love change us and set us free. Until then, our bad behavior may hurt us as it hurts others, but the pain is self-inflicted. God has no desire to punish us: God’s sole desire is to save us.

 And if you think that God’s approach is going to take a really long time to succeed, my response would be, ‘Obviously. God is clearly not in a hurry.” And if you grumble about overly-indulgent parents and how children and adults need discipline, my response would be, “Obviously. We are works in progress: God is a perfect lover, we are not.” But Jesus shows us the direction we must move in to experience a better life. Our ultimate happiness and well-being will not come from tougher punishments but from greater love.

 And there is one obvious way we can move in the direction of greater love, and that is to follow Jesus and stop holding people’s past sins against them. Consider for a moment: Do you ever hold grudges or hold on to grievances? Do you ever in anger remind others of the bad things they have done? Have you ever muttered, “Oh, she’s never going to change.” Are there people in your life whom you have not forgiven? Have you ever said or thought, “I forgive him, but I’m never going to let him forget it”? Having been guilty of such behaviors myself, I know how unhelpful they are, how far they lead us away from love. But even here, God does not hold our failures against us. We may hold grudges and stew in resentment for years, but God will love us anyway and the moment we think, “I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s a waste of time and energy,” God will rejoice. And whenever we ask for help, the Spirit of Jesus Christ will flow through us and empower us to love better and live better. And the more we experience that Spirit, the more we feel God’s unconditional love in our own lives, the more we will be able to show that same kind of love to others. This is part of what Paul means when he talks today about being a new creation in Christ. And we can be a new creation every moment, no matter what we’ve done before — because God’s mercy is new every moment, and God does not hold our sins against us.