Authority to Forgive

What things do you have the authority to do? Depends on where you are, right? Say you’re at the bank? With a personal bank account, you might have the authority to transfer funds, deposit, withdraw… With a work account, you might have more limited authority – maybe just to view or to deposit. With different accounts, in different relationships, you may have been given different authority…and here’s the funny thing about true authority – you can’t take more than you’ve been given.

When Jesus is healing and performing miracles, the teachers of the law are watching. What authority does he claim? What power does he wield? In Matthew’s Gospel, as Jesus concludes his Sermon on the Mount, Matthew starts telling about Jesus performing miracles one after another after another. First, a series of three healings: a leper, the servant of a Roman centurion, and Peter’s mother-in-law. Then, a series of power over evil. As they crossed the Sea of Galilee, a violent storm arose, the waves threatened to swamp their boat. Jesus was sleeping through it until the disciples woke him up, “Save us, Lord! We are going to drown!” His response? You of little faith. And he got up and stilled the storm, demonstrating his authority over the chaos and evil in the natural world.

They came to the other side of the lake, the Gentile side, the outsider’s side, and were met by two demon-possessed men coming toward them. And Jesus drove out the demons, demonstrating his authority over the chaos and evil in the spirit world.

Then they got back into their boat and went back home to Capernaum. Some men carry a man on a mat to Jesus. He is paralyzed. And Jesus forgives him. Jesus is very clear that God does not punish our sins with sickness. So, how are this man’s paralysis and Jesus’s forgiveness related? Is it possible that this man has committed a sin that has led to his paralysis. Sure. We know that there are diseases that we are more likely to develop because of our choices. What we eat, drink, smoke, whether we exercise or abuse our bodies – our choices impact our health. It’s possible that this man’s choices have left him paralyzed by guilt, unable to bring himself to Jesus. Here he now is, his friends each holding a corner of the mat, lying in front of Jesus. That’s a picture all of us need hold in our mind’s eye as we live in community – sometimes we are so paralyzed by guilt that we can’t bring ourselves into God’s presence, and we need a friend to pick us up and carry us. Whatever sin and guilt this man on the mat is dealing with, Jesus sees. Jesus sees the chaos and evil inside him, and he demonstrates his authority over guilt, the ravages of the sin inside us.

“Your sins are forgiven.”

The teachers of the law, the gatekeepers for God, cannot believe it! “This Jesus is blaspheming, he is presuming to speak for God! Only God can forgive!”

And then, as confirmation of his true healing, Jesus tells him to get up, take his mat, and go home. The healing is an outward confirmation, a sign of that Jesus has the authority to forgive. The crowd is filled with awe and praises God, because they understand that forgiveness is God’s to give.

And Jesus goes on from there and passes Matthew, working. Collecting taxes on the toll road. When people walk everywhere they go, and you have control of the best way to get from here to there…it’s pretty easy to extort a little extra payment to get to pass your toll. Tax collectors were unscrupulous, under the authority of the Romans they were hired to tax their own people, but the Romans looked the other way when they abused their power and extorted their fellow Jews.

The gatekeepers had seen him forgive and heal that man on the mat…they also knew what that man had been involved in. Pretty shocking stuff. Too shocking to name, really, but if you had heard about it, you would have been disgusted by him too. Then, they saw him stop and chat with Matthew. They remembered Matthew’s parents, nice people. No one could believe it when he joined up with the Romans. The murmurs rippled through the town, “Did you hear that Jesus invited him to follow him and then went over to his house for dinner – invited the other tax collectors too. The guest list looked like a who’s who of most likely to have a good time and tell you it’s fine. Bunch of sinners. Do whatever they please. I mean, you would not believe the stories I’ve heard about some of them.”

The Pharisees, the gatekeepers, are left aghast, but trying to maintain some control. Surely, Jesus is going to turn these people around and send them to the Temple to make sacrifice. They know that God wants these people to repent. They know that Jesus is like a magnet for people…everyone is drawn to him. So why does Jesus not make their repentance a condition of being with him? Why doesn’t he follow the rules for getting right with God? Go, buy an unblemished animal from the Temple markets, place his hands on the animal’s head to symbolically transfer his sins, then take it to the priest to slaughter and make sacrifice? The Pharisees ask Jesus’s disciples “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

And Jesus hears the question. Maybe he overhears them ask. Maybe the disciples come to Jesus and report that they’ve been asked. But Jesus answers with some of the most important words for his disciples then and now, for them and for us.

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means, God declares: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ a quote from the prophet Hosea. For I have come, says Jesus, not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The church is a hospital for sinners, not a country club for saints. On this Table is set a feast for those starving for grace, not a snack for those satisfied with their place. Jesus came to welcome the outcast, not to socialize with the upper-middle class.

God desires mercy; God doesn’t require merit. That’s grace, and we all need it. We may not all be confined to a mat, but we are all at least limping if we’re honest. They had a lot of judgement for each other back then. They could see the difference between right and wrong and who needed to straighten up and fly right, and who had just gone off the rails, and things being accepted as ok that they felt sure were just NOT. OK.

Not like today where we see the dignity of every person and respect that each person has within them the imprint of the image of God. Not like today where we respect other people and erase divisions by sitting down together at table and getting to know each other. Not like today where we lay down our pride and listen, where we try to understand where the other person is coming from without judgment. Not like today where we all know we are all sinners and no sin is greater than another and we welcome each other equally to Christ’s Table, just grateful to be invited. Oh wait. Is it not like that today? The late New Testament professor at Pittsburg Theological, Douglas Hare wrote, “It is characteristic of human communities everywhere to shun members who disregard accepted standards of behavior.” He went one to write, “If mainline churches are at the moment diminishing, it may be in part because they have grown too comfortable with a fellowship of like-minded and like-mannered people.”

We may be more like the Pharisees, busy gatekeeping, than we would like to admit. We may think we are welcomed here because of something we’ve done, or not done, instead of knowing that it is all because of what God has done. But, the day is coming, and we are called to prepare for it by practicing, when we will come to this Table with all kinds of people, sinners and saints, and be welcomed.