First reading: Isaiah 43:18-19,21-22,24-25
Psalm: Ps 41:2-5,13
Epistle: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Gospel: Mark 2:1-12

“Child, your sins are forgiven.”

On the river:

Bill lives about thirty minutes from a river that’s a major salmon run in the summer. He loves fishing, casting long lines into quick currents, and when a beautiful, ready to eat fish hooks on, the fight can be fun and furious.

Bill has learned a lot in fishing, particularly about his relationship with the fish. Bill knows that going to the river to just watch fish go by is low risk, and there is little tension. The fish do their thing, he does his, and life is good.

Now, if Bill tosses a line out the whole game changes. Suddenly he’s a hunter, a seeker. He wants a relationship with a passing fish, or two, or three. Creating this relationship requires effort on his part. He has to rig rod and reel, cast a hundred times, and endure the elements of sun or rain. It also means pain for the fish, as hook enters its mouth, digs deep, and sends trauma through its body. And tension too! The line strains to constrain the fish from swimming downstream with the river’s strong current.

Who’s in charge:

Consider what happens when Bill hooks into a fish. Who is in control, Bill or the fish? At first it may seem Bill is. With his rod and reel in good working order, and the fish tugging at the end of the line, all he has to do is pull steadily, and account for any run, and in three minutes, the salmon is flopping at his feet, beached.

But for every fish landed, more get away. Some fish dash down river, snapping line like thread, but trailing that hook and line from their gums. Others jump and twist and thrash and tear flesh, but if lucky, dislodge the hook. Wounded, yet free, they win.

Still other fish figure out a simpler, braver path. Rather than pull, dash, or thrash, they swim toward shore, and approach the fisherman. When fish do so, you’re bound to see a frantic person reeling like crazy shouting “No, no, no—not towards me!” But if the fish persists, the line goes slack, and the hook comes out with a flick of its head. In cases where fish swim toward their enemy, they often gain freedom from pain and leave dragging nothing behind them.

Lent is nearly here:

As we complete our Pre-Lenten journey, God asks us to consider His forgiveness and the way we forgive each other. God asks us to consider the way He forgives, and that we forgive in the same way. We need to choose the kind of fish we are going to be.

Our choices:

Like the fish and fisherman, we are in relationships with each other. At times those relationships can be marked by struggle, tension, and pain.

Like the fish, we make choices abut our reactions to hurt. Those reactions may be to dash and thrash against those hooks, the hurts that stab at us.

We may complain or criticize; choose to focus on and elaborate on just how wrong the other person is. We might take the route of defensiveness. We may shut down or withdraw, employ the silent treatment. We may go so far as to treat the person who hurt us with contempt and disgust.

When we respond these ways, we’re like hooked fish fighting frantically to solve our dilemma. We may succeed in breaking off our relationships, getting away from them, but it will always be with wounds, with something dragging behind us. We will never be truly free. We remain wounded and burdened.

Isn’t it hard:

As we dwell on the hurts, the barbs that stick into us, we may consider other options.

Maybe they will come to me and apologize? Then I will forgive. That may happen, but in the waiting we are stuck where we are, we can’t free ourselves and move forward.

We might think that to forgive means we have to trust again. Those two things are quite different. Forgiving means that we let go of the hurt, the hooks that cause us pain. Entering back into a trusting relationship requires more. That’s a fuller reconciliation and a rebuilding process. Sometimes relationships aren’t ready for that.

Finally, we just might enjoy our pain and the bitterness the barbs cause us. If that’s the choice, then no, we will not forgive. But we will remain hooked and hurt, we will suffer the results — anger, anxiety, fear, migraines, and worse. We will be “hooked” into our pain, and drag it with us for years to come — maybe for eternity.

Be smart:

God asks us to be the smart fish, to swim towards those who have hurt us and forgive. As we do, we free ourselves from the barbs that hurt us.

Pain doesn’t go away easily, and true reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships is a much longer process, but it has to start with our going toward those who hurt us. There we offer our forgiveness.

In forgiving we stop the dashing and thrashing that tears at our souls.

God’s way:

This is God’s way. When we hurt God through sin, we will always find Him swimming toward us, with complete forgiveness.

God doesn’t sometimes swim toward us — He always does, and His forgiveness is complete. There is no book of sins at the pearly gates. There is no record of our wrongs. God reassures us:

It is I, I, who wipe out,
for my own sake, your offenses;
your sins I remember no more.

He forgives us completely. One day Jesus’ disciple, Peter, asked him “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21-22)

We are not to take Jesus’ instruction literally, forgiving 490 times. We are rather to have His attitude of generous forgiveness. We should be ever-willing to forgive others, just as He forgave the paralytic, just as He forgives us.

As we enter Lent, let us resolve to do the same with each other. To forgive generously, and to swim toward those who hurt us. Doing so, we will be truly free. Amen.