Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from Bethel's May 15, 2005 Sunday worship service.

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There are some words that families don’t dare utter in the company of one another, much less in public. For me and my house, there is the S – word. No, the S doesn’t stand for Sherrod, but it does stand for that slithering, serpentine of a creature, otherwise known as a, well, the S – word. We have found that the bare saying aloud of that word, not to mention a random sighting of this S creature, causes not only shivers up and down the spine, but no less than the loss of at least one night’s sleep because of the profound paranoia and nightmares that ensue for at least one member of the household.

And so it was that the trauma began anew, a little over a week ago, when my oldest daughter got an early graduation present. She became, in the dark, an accidental “s” handler, a story that she can no doubt tell you complete with appropriately timed screams and shrieks. Thank goodness, it was only an extra long corn snake, but handling even one of those in the dark, especially if you initially thought it was a toy snake left behind as a prank, can be a quite, shall we say, moving experience!

I tell you this for two reasons: One, because I have heard that Bethel has had its own snake-handling service, and that Dick Hettrick’s nerves of steel are truly legendary. I am sure that the sleeves of a pulpit robe were never intended as a place of refuge for such creatures, but then again, almost (and I underline the word almost) no sacrifice is too great when it comes to serving the people of God. In truth, however, praise be to God, that it was you, Dick, and not me who was handed the snake that day in church!

The second reason has to do with the real reason we’re here: Pentecost. Every year, when Pentecost rolls around, I feebly try to think up some analogy that captures just how strange and unusual, dare I say, weird, was that first Pentecost: tongues of fire, sudden wind, cacophony of foreign languages. Imagine the utter bewilderment, the sense of awe, even fear, as those events unfolded. We can’t even come close with our red ties and dresses, orderly bulletins, and conventional church music. We do know, however, that Pentecost lies latent somewhere in the depths of human spiritual experience, that deep down each person longs for that adrenaline rush of faith that reframes everything ordinary and familiar.

A book by Dennis Covington entitled, Salvation on Sand Mountain, puts, at least for me, the original Pentecostal chaos into today’s terms. Covington was a reporter for a Birmingham, Alabama newspaper, when he covered the murder trial of a Holiness snake-handling preacher and then found himself inextricably drawn to the peculiar mix of holiness religious dogma and ecstasy. The last thing on Dennis Covington’s mind, a staid, lapsed Methodist at the time, was that he himself would take up a serpent. But he spent many months covering the story and getting-to-know the tiny groups of holiness preachers, their circuits, and their followers, and soon, he began to feel that he was one of them. “You become enmeshed in a snake-handling holiness service,” he wrote about one particular homecoming service at the Holiness Church in Macedonia, Alabama . “It is theatre at its most intricate-- improvisational, spiritual jazz.” And then, it came, a kind out-of-body experience that he neither planned nor resisted: “I just gave in. I stepped forward and took the snake with both hands . . . I turned to face the congregation and lifted the rattlesnake up toward the light. It was moving like it wanted to get up even higher, to climb out of that church and into the air. I felt no fear. [It] seemed to be an extension of myself. And suddenly there seemed to be nothing in the room but me and the snake. Everything else had disappeared. . . . the air was silent and still and filled with that strong, even light. And I realized that I too was fading into the white. I was losing myself by degrees . . . I knew then why the handlers take up serpents. There is power in the act of disappearing; there is victory in the loss of self. It must be close to our conception of paradise, what it’s like before you’re born or after you die.” (Searching for Your Soul, p. 383).

Trying to handle the Holy Spirit, like handling a serpent, fraught with potential miracle, not to mention, grave danger, was the way Dennis Covington, unawares, ended up dealing with forgiveness in his life: a suicidal father, several trips in the 1980s to Nicaragua reporting on the atrocities there, and his own search for spiritual wholeness and a new beginning from too much drinking and a marriage that didn’t work. Entering the world of devout serpent handlers gave him courage, ultimately, to face the demons within himself. [I am not sure if I have recalled these details from his book correctly – I couldn’t locate my copy but cited above from an excerpt]

Like the world of Pentecostal experience in the backwoods churches of our own part of the country, the portions of the Bible that record the post-Easter memory of the early church point to a strange, new world. You may recall that a late addition to the resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is actually where Pentecostal snake handlers derive their authority to speak in tongues and do other extraordinary things. The risen Jesus speaks at the end of Mark’s Gospel: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:17)

And so, it’s not just the Acts passage that recorded the first Pentecost in Jerusalem that has informed the church about the Holy Spirit. There are other scriptural accounts that record surprising appearances and astonishing commissions that came to the first apostles.

Like, for instance, in the story from John’s Gospel we heard today. As if a supposed dead man’s passage through a locked door weren’t enough to make you believe either in ghosts or at least in the possibility of resurrection, the postmortem Jesus shares his breath with those disciples who had to be, right then, over in the corner cowering in awe and fear. With his breath, which is a word that also means spirit, he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22-23). Wow!

In a quite profound way, Jesus calls those who are afraid to a ministry of forgiveness. It’s not as if his work on the cross was incomplete and they, including us, have to do his work for him. Rather, we are called to forgive the sins of others so that we can experience freedom within ourselves. In the words of the ethicist Lewis Smedes, “When you forgive, you set a prisoner free. And then you discover that the prisoner was you” (cited by Craig Barnes in “The Power to Forgive”).

The apostles are commissioned by the risen Lord to absolve sins. Like the calling to take up serpents, the power to forgive or retain the sins of others, not to mention those sins within our very own self, may very well be the most dangerously liberating holy spirit power given the disciples. Think about it. The disciples are given a mission to forgive sins. Even though the pain we or others experience because of emotional or physical harm remains very hard to understand, we have the freedom to release others – and ourselves – from the straightjacket of grudges, deep animosity or the acid of hatred and resentment.

Forgiving is hard. It goes against the grain of human desire. It runs counter to our sense of justice when we’ve been wronged. Society teaches us not to get rid of anger but to manage it. Often, we think the best way to manage anger is to hoard its hurt deep in the dark recesses of our hearts, far away from the light of reconciliation.

And after showing them the scars from the cross that remained on his hands and side, the marks of grace held out to the world, Jesus then gave the disciples the Holy Spirit. Under the power of that same Spirit, the ministry of forgiveness remains that essential calling of those sent out by the living Lord.

There will always be barriers and walls that inhibit the practice of forgiveness. “Anger,” as one person has written, “shows itself as an impulse to knock down walls. As forgiveness, it walks through walls – as the resurrected Christ is also said to have done” (G. Keizer, The Enigma of Anger, 249).

The Presbyterian minister Craig Barnes says that “the human heart can handle as much love, joy, and gratitude as you want to put into it. It is an amazing organ. The walls of the heart will just keep stretching for love. But that same heart will constrict quickly once anger and resentment enter it, until there is no room left for life.”

It is interesting to me that this postmortem Jesus offers no list of sins or offenses that qualify for forgiveness, nor a list of those that don’t deserve absolution. But, the message, I believe is in the drama of his breath, that, while not the same as the rush of a mighty wind nor an upheld serpent, no less does his breath breathed upon fearful disciples provide the power to disciples to go out and do the best they can. The ministry of the Holy Spirit will enable them not only to announce the message of forgiveness, but to participate in that message as well.

If it is true, as I believe it is, that forgiving can heal individuals, marriages, families, communities, and even entire nations, the gospel invites us to become a body of those who forgive and who are forgiven whatever it is that ails, troubles, angers, enrages, or shames us. To forgive is to set yourself free.

Forgiveness is not about glossing over wrongs, but it means taking utterly seriously whatever awful thing it is that has happened to you. The disciples are not to go out and pretend that wrongs have not happened – either to them or to others.

It is not amnesia. It is about healing the memory of the harm. The offense will still be part of your history, but it does not have to dominate your life.

Forgiveness is not the same thing as condoning or excusing behavior that should never have happened in the first place.

And forgiveness does not have to include trusting the offender. The injured party can forgive an offender even though the offender may never be a part of his or life in the future.

The power given the disciples to forgive may or may not change the other person, that is ultimately beyond our control, but it always holds us the power to change ourselves.

Probably whatever breath we may use to speak words of forgiveness will seem pretty much like ordinary breath. It won’t come out as a tongue of fire nor will it inspire us to take up serpents as testimony to the power of the holy ghost.

But as the Gospel of John records it: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And he breathed on them and said, “receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Who would have thought such spiritual power could be given to ordinary people like you and me?

And now, as a prayer, let us sing # 316 “Breathe on Me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what thou dost love, and do what thou wouldst do.