Some folks mistakenly talk about baptism and eucharist as “the sacraments directly instituted by our Lord.”  I suppose they sleep through this passage when it’s read.  There’s no clearer account of the foundation of a sacrament than this:

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And 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; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”

And yet, we willfully ignore this sacrament.  Willfully, like stubborn children. When we offer the sacrament of confession here in this parish the response is less than 5% response! Sadly, that is typical for Anglicans.  Some scholar, trying to be funny, once said that after Vatican 2, the Roman Catholic Church seems to be determined to repeat every mistake every protestant group has made over the last 500 years—and to do them all in one tenth of the time! Our Roman brethren report that they now having the same level of non-response to the sacrament of confession that we have. Perhaps the problem is terminology. We give it names that seem to emphasise the less enjoyable aspect—we call it the sacrament of confession—or the sacrament of penance (that was a real good choice)—but only recently have we started calling it by its best name—the sacrament of reconciliation. Perhaps if we called it “baptism-refreshing” people wouldn’t stay away. After all, the sacrament of baptism is the sacrament wherein we are born again as newborn babes in Christ, and all our sins are washed away. Just as in the sacrament of reconciliation our sins are washed away—as if they had never been! What a wonderful gift!

And we Anglicans have taken this sacramental gift and say about it “all may, none must, some should.” Which is probably the most dangerous thing we could say about it! And certainly the most wicked.

There’s the old story told about this sacrament, that when it was being taught by a famous professor at Sewanee—the seminary of the University of the South—he quoted this saying and added on to it—he said “all may, none must, some should—but no Southern gentleman would want to!” 

Seriously, though, we treat this sacrament as if it were the poor orphan of the sacraments. We, to our shame—and I hope not to our everlasting shame—stay away from it. We stay away from forgiveness in droves! If we were to stay away from the sacrament of baptism—we wouldn’t be Christians at all. And we certainly wouldn’t be newborn babes—ever. If we were to stay away from the sacrament of eucharist—we would be undernourished, weak Christians—unable to grow spiritually. And when we stay away from the sacrament of forgiveness—we don’t risk losing that newborn state we received in baptism—because we lose that state of grace every time we sin—but we risk never regaining that state. Our Lord has given us the means to recover the innocence of newborn babes. How dare we in our arrogance and pride refuse him? 

May God have mercy on our souls.

_{from a homily preached on Divine Mercy Sunday, A+D 2009 (19 April 2009) in Colorado Springs, CO}