Absolved Sinners

Imagine a scene with me. A rather remote scene from the one in which we now find ourselves. Imagine a dark Scottish castle, set amid isolated and rugged moors, in the deepest depth of night. A woman appears in the stone hallways, almost ghostlike and very distraught. She is sleepwalking. Another shadowy figure who haunts the hallways says of her, "her eyes are open, but their sense is shut." The woman mutters to herself: "Yet here’s a spot… Out damned spot! Out, I say! One: two: why, then ‘tis time to do ‘t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A solder, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him… What, will these hands ne’er be clean? Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh."

Lady Macbeth. What a powerful portrait Shakespeare paints of a sinner. And more than that… a woman tormented by her sins. Lady Macbeth is someone who cannot escape the bondage of her sin. She cannot free herself from the hold her own sinfulness has over her. All the hand washing in the world… All the perfumes of Arabia… none will mask or remove the stain of what she has done.

Today’s Scripture readings are about sinners. It was another sinful woman in Luke’s Gospel that reminded me of Lady Macbeth... And Luke’s images of washing and fragrant ointment. Tales of sinners are not infrequence in Holy Scripture, of course. Today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures is another familiar story. And another story with echoes of Lady Macbeth.

We come into the story midway. Do you recognize it? This morning’s reading begins: "When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son." This is more than just the tale of a widow remarrying. The wife of Uriah is a woman named Bathsheba. The story begins when Uriah is still very much alive, yet David—King David—lusts after Bathsheba. So David, the King, has Uriah sent virtually alone to the front lines in the war with the Ammonites to the place where he will face the most fearsome enemy warriors. Uriah is killed. And then this morning’s passage picks up the story. David takes Bathsheba as his wife. As the writer of Second Samuel simply puts it, though, the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. David had Uriah’s blood on his hands.

As this morning’s reading continues, the prophet Nathan leads David to acknowledge and repent of his sin. Another powerful portrait of a sinner.

Yet this vivid story about David… the description in Luke of the woman who is identified only as a "sinner", as though that were the only human characteristic about her that mattered… these sinners are not really the main characters in these stories. Their sins or sinfulness are not the main theme of these stories. These stories are about God. And about God’s absolution of sins. Absolution.

It is sometimes said that our contemporary society or culture is too unaware of sin, oblivious or indifferent to sin’s presence and power in our world. Perhaps. But I wonder if what we’re missing even more profoundly is an awareness, an appreciation, of God’s power and willingness to absolve.

Absolution is what Lady Macbeth needed. She was well aware of her transgressions. Her own sense of sinfulness fueled her madness, and her experience certainly showed her that she, of her own power, could not remove the blood of sin from her hands. What she lacked was the assurance that God could and can and does absolve.

When King David finally comes to the true realization that he has sinned terribly against the Lord, Nathan (the prophet of the Lord) says, "Now the Lord has put away your sin." The Lord has put away your sin. The rest of David’s life was no bed of roses. But the Scripture seems to imply that without the Lord’s intervention, David would have been totally destroyed by his sin—no good would ever have come out of his life. Like all of us, King David was a sinner. His acknowledgment of his sin is a crucial part of this story, but it is not the climax of the story. David’s self-awareness as a sinner and his repentance are important, very important, but it is God’s absolution of David’s sins that propels David’s story into the future. It is because of God’s absolution that David’s story continues, beyond his sin, into the future. And David’s future had a pretty profound and beneficial impact on the entire people of God.

And finally, let’s look at the gospel story of the sinful woman who bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears, drying them with her hair and anointing him with fragrant ointment. Luke tells us her actions are those of profound love. She is one who loves. And Jesus says that she loves because she has been forgiven. She is not forgiven because she loves. She does not "earn" forgiveness by her love. Her love is a result, a consequence, of knowing herself to be forgiven. God absolves. God forgives. Then she is able to show love, to make good of her life. The crucial element, the sine qua non, of this story is God’s absolution of her sins.

God’s absolution. Absolution means to liberate, to free, to wipe away whatever binds us. Nathan uses the wonderful phrase, God has put away your sins. Absolution.

Do you live with the awareness of God’s power and desire to absolve… to absolve your sins? Do you feel, know yourself to be absolved?

I have spent quite a bit of energy and preaching breath over the years trying to encourage folk, myself certainly included, to acknowledge our sinfulness… to face and own up to the significance and power of sin in our lives… to make real in people’s experience or awareness the slavery of sin. But, you know, I think most of us are aware of our sinfulness. We know we are sinners. Maybe what’s really missing is the awareness that we are, or can be, absolved sinners. I’ll bet most of you know the confession by heart, and that you consider it a weighty and very significant portion of the service. But remember the Scripture stories. To think of the confession as the main theme of our liturgy is to tragically miss the point. What we do, even confession, is not nearly so important as what God does. And God absolves. The absolution, which comes right after the confession, is the main theme at least of that portion of our common liturgy. How many of you could recite from memory the words of the absolution?  We are sinners, yes. But we are absolved sinners.

The collect for today is all about the church. In it we prayed that God would keep the Church in faith and love. "Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion." That is what the church is supposed to do: proclaim God’s truth and minister God’s justice.

Initially, it seemed odd to me to have that collect paired with these readings about sin and sinners. Yet I think it makes sense. The collect reminds us of what the church is supposed to do. The readings tell us who we are supposed to be. And until we are who we are supposed to be, we cannot do what we are supposed to do.

What we are is absolved sinners. Both pieces of that are crucially important. We must acknowledge our sin; but we must claim and celebrate God’s absolution of our sins. We are absolved sinners. The woman in this morning’s gospel was free to love, to love Christ, to live in love because she knew herself to be an absolved sinner. As an absolved sinner, King David went on to lead the people of God into God’s future for them. I cannot help but wonder how Lady Macbeth’s future might have been different if she had been able to accept, not just her own sinfulness, but God’s forgiveness of her sins. How might her story have been different if she had been able to see herself as an absolved sinner.

Except during Easter season, we say the confession of sin at every celebration of the Eucharist. We acknowledge ourselves sinners. The confession of sin is always followed by the absolution. In our worship, we become absolved sinners.

The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer includes a service for private confession. It is underutilized, but that’s another story. Listen, though, to some of the language of that service. This is who we are.

"Holy God, heavenly Father, you formed me from the dust in your image and likeness, and redeemed me from sin and death by the cross of your Son Jesus Christ. Through the water of baptism you clothed me with the shining garment of his righteousness, and established me among your children in your kingdom. But I have squandered the inheritance of your saints, and have wandered far in a land that is waste."

Yes, we are sinners. We have all fallen away from God’s glorious hope for us. Yet listen to the words that follow the absolution. "Now there is rejoicing in heaven; for you were lost, and are found; you were dead, and are now alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Abide in peace. The Lord has put away all your sins."

"Thanks be to God."

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