Nothing to forgive
My favorite saint, Julian of Norwich, lived during the Black Death - in times even more troubled than our own. Since Alan introduced me to her book last year, The Revelation of Divine Love has provided me with constant comfort. A long book of supernatural visions, it centers on the core belief that God made us and loves us; God suffers with us; and God will make all things new. For only $6 you can purchase an accessible, abridged version of her work - the first book ever written in English by a woman - at this Kindle link.
As we discussed removing Antisemitism from our Holy Week texts during Adult Forum last Sunday, I felt acutely aware that by questioning the gospel writers’ intentions, I was “mucking” with the most sacred reality of our faith - Jesus’s death on the cross. I can’t express enough how important the Cross is to me in my own vision of reality. It brings me comfort that questioning and exploring it - even in radical ways - has been part of Christian tradition all along. St. Julian said something astonishing way back in the 14th century - that since God is all love and there is no anger in love, God looks with pity on our pathetic sins and says “there is nothing to forgive.” She sees sin and pain as part of God’s plan all along:
God made all things complete and good—and therefore, the blessed Trinity constantly delights in the totality of the Divine work. All this God showed me with utter joy, as if to say: “See! I am God. See! I am in all things. See! I do all things. See! I never lift My hands from Creation, nor shall I ever, world without end. See! I complete all things, leading them to the goal I have ordained for them without any beginning, by the same strength, wisdom, and love through which I created them. How can anything be wrong with the world, when all this is the case?” In this way, my soul was tested and strengthened throughout this vision with courage, wisdom, and love. I saw that it would truly be to my advantage to go along with its message and reverently give myself over to enjoying God. -Julian of Norwich
This concept of the cross - Christ’s great honor to make us safe, whole and secure in God’s love - is a radically different picture than we get when we focus on the gospels’ narrative of blame. What if the love inherent in the cross could actually bring Christians and Jews back together? In Julian’s words, “The One who made human beings in love will use the same love to bring us back to even greater joy and unity.”
with love,
Pastor Chelsea
