GOOD FRIDAY – I’m sorry (please forgive me).
I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
The sermons over ‘the Three Days’ explore the sections of this prayer mantra. The characters in the passion story journey through scenes of repentance, forgiveness, gratitude, and love. Journeying though the passion narrative and the liturgies of the Three Days is a reminder of our broken relationships – with God, humans, and creation.
I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you – are phrases that carry the power to honour meaningful relationships and heal broken relationships. The Three Days take us into the very heart of relationship -the heart of God.
Through history there have been peoples who believed that a person’s errors cause illness. Not so many weeks ago we read the story of the man born blind, whom Jesus healed. There was no rejoicing that one who was blind could now see, no; there was an intense interrogation and debate about sin – the perceived cause of the blindness.
While I do not believe that the man or his parent’s sin caused his blindness, there are times when I believe we do contribute to making ourselves ill. Whether ulcers, headaches, anxiety, high blood pressure- all can be contributed to by the emotions and actions within our relationships – the brokenness of relationship. For each of the past 13 days I have sent out a Station of the Cross from a project we did a few years ago. Reflecting on the theme for each Station, including: sorrow, betrayal, condemnation, denial, judgement, bearing, helping, blessing, caring – we realize the intricacies of relationship and that as good as our relationships might be, there are parts in shadow, in brokenness, and with some – or with God- or with creation- we have no relation, or a strained relation, or a forgotten relation.
That is why there is beauty and promise to be found in the texts and liturgy for this morning. Jesus -God- addresses broken relationship, by entering the brokenness – in vulnerability, suffering, and pain – Jesus comes to us. Not to wave a magic wand and make everything right, but to sit with us where we are; to embrace our woundedness in order to make us whole.
There is a story of a miracle worker, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, he is attributed with healing all the patients in a criminally insane ward at a Hawaiian hospital. In his life he practice the mantra, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” He would recite these words as he read the files of the patients. The practice changed his perceptions and his heart; his heart requested living into right relationship with himself, with the patients. One could see on the ward an increase in conflict resolution and reconciliation. Legend says that it did not take long for other workers in the facility to change – in their relationship with him, and then in their relationship with others; everyone started to act and react in new ways with each other – people wanted to come to work to share in new found and focused heart relationship. Within a month patients were no longer sequestered in their rooms, those in restraints were set free, drugs were reduced, and eventually everyone went back into society – changed. ... all because Hew Len addressed broken relationship, by entering the brokenness. He began with himself, becoming vulnerable in saying – and living: I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
God addresses broken relationship – God heals blindness- by entering our brokenness; in vulnerability, suffering, pain, God sits with us embracing our woundedness – and whispers...I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. In turn these words become our words – and we are healed, made whole.
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