John 20:22-23
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
This is a complicated little verse or two. More so, I think, than we might first imagine. Jesus breathes on his disciples and blesses them with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Easy enough. But what does this accomplish?
Some would suggest that along with the Spirit comes the right and authority to forgive sins. Sounds good. And also retain sins. Hmmm. That’s a bit more complicated, if not problematic. As Christians, do we assume – or perhaps presume – that we have the right to judge the sins of others, and not only judge but retain them; that is, keep forgiveness from people?
My hunch is that I actually do that more frequently than I’d like to admit. That is, that I don’t always extend forgiveness, and sometimes withhold it – consciously or unconsciously – from those who have hurt me or perhaps simply not done what I want them to do. But even though that may be human, it doesn’t seem like a gift from the Spirit! And I’m uncomfortable with the notion that Christians as a class of people have the authority to retain the sins of others. There seems to be enough of that going on in the public religion of our day, and once again it doesn’t often seem like a gift of the Spirit.
For most of its history, the Church assumed these words – interpreted alongside of Matthew 16:18-19 -pertained only to the disciples and, through the disciples, to priests (and eventually ministers) via the “apostolic succession” of leadership from those first disciples to present day leaders. That protects us, I suppose, from some of the dangers of Christian triumphalism, whereby Christians assume they are indeed in a position to judge others. But it also sets up the abusive power dynamics that have infiltrated church policies running the gamut from excommunication to shunning. Again, little of this feels like it’s from the Spirit.
So what do we make of all this?
Quite often in John, “sin” is equated with “unbelief” – that is, not receiving Jesus as Messiah. And I think it’s important to keep in mind that John’s Gospel is written to Christians who have likely been expelled from the synagogue and are in a struggle for their Jewish-Christian identity – that is, as those Jews who now follow Jesus. But while this may be understandable, is it helpful? And how do we interpret these verses today?
Perhaps we might imagine that the Spirit comes always to encourage us in our belief, especially when circumstances make that belief difficult. And perhaps we can imagine – following a dominant theme of the rest of John’s Gospel – that whenever we are encountered by the Spirit of the Risen Christ we are thrown into a crisis of belief. That is, we are confronted with the truth of Gospel and invited to get involved, not just sit back and consider it. There is, as we saw with Nicodemus and Pilate and others, no fence-sitting allowed when it comes to the Christ. You either are with him or not. And perhaps the “retaining of sins” we are invited to imagine concern mainly our own, when we don’t act in Christ-like ways and offer people an attractive picture of what life in Christ looks like. Perhaps….
Prayer: Dear God, let us receive your word of truth with joy and share it with others gracefully. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Rev. Dr. Lose, I’m a lay person, but study a good bit and fill in for a chaplain at a Nursing Center in SC. I’ve interpreted this differently, and I may be wrong, I don’t know the Greek words. I have a very hard time believing that any person, from a lay person to a cleric, to the pope can forgive sins or withhold forgiveness of sins. That doesn’t seem to square to me with Jewish traditions or particularly the redeeming acts in Christ. I didn’t quite follow your last paragraph, it appears that you want us to interpret this forgiveness and retaining sins in terms of our own lives.
I can look at the context of this text and see that it comes after the resurrection, and Jesus is commissioning the disciples to go out in the world. He provides the promised Holy Spirit through breathing on them. He tells them to get out there and spread the good news.
I interpret this next verse as telling the disciples to get out there and tell people about God’s love and forgiveness. If you don’t do it, it won’t get done. I don’t have a back-up plan.
The NRSV says “if you retain the sins of any, they are retained”. Perhaps the Greek words don’t translate the way I interpret this message.