Who Can Forgive Sin?

Gospel: Mark 2: 1-12

The Pharisees are continually outraged at Jesus repeatedly forgiving others of their sins.  In their mind only God can forgive sin, and one version of Christianity follows that idea and uses it to argue for Jesus' divinity, which is fine.  But that is not the point of Jesus' ministry.  It is to invite all of us to what St. Paul calls the ministry of reconciliation, that all of us are engaged in the work of forgiving others of sin.  

Jesus gave us an example to follow.  Rather than continue the endless cycle of vengeance that only leads to conflict and murders, we instead teaches us to forgive our enemies and persecutors. He who was unjustly condemned and executed silently suffered the injustice and forgave his persecutors.  Others may incite violence against us, but we will not and ought not respond in kind, but only in the way Jesus himself did.  

Most Christians neither preach nor believe this.  There is never a war they cannot justify, no prisoner they would not execute, no gun law they would not defend.  Jesus who was unjustly executed by civil and religious authorities of his day finds himself the victim of such injustice again and again in the person of other people who suffer at the hands of unjust systems created and sustained by active participation from religious institutions.  Father, forgive us, though we know well what we do.