The Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Katongole, Professor of Theology and of Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, speaks at the William Belden Noble Lecture Series, April 21. Photo by Jeffrey Blackwell/Memorial Church Communications
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By the Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Katongole,
Professor of Theology and of Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, April 23, 2023)
Please join me in prayer. Oh, God, bless the meditations of my heart and the words of my lips. Speak through me and in spite of me, so that always your good news may be heard and received. Amen.
"Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem?", they asked him, and like a stranger, he asked them, "What things have been going on?" and they proceeded to tell him of their frustrations, of their fear, of their disappointment. The reason Lord shares a journey with this frustrated, disappointed disciples, shares their pain, their concerns, and shares a meal with them. And then they recognized him and even though it was still dark, even though it was still night, they returned to Jerusalem, to that dreadful place of death, to that dreadful memory of betrayal, of fear, even though it was still dark.
When they arrived in joy, they shared the good news with everyone. "We have seen the Lord, He is risen and therefore we too are risen. We have seen the Lord." But there was that question that they asked him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem?" For the last few days here we've been talking about forgiveness, a beautiful conference that has been here, bringing together so many incredible scholars and practitioners sharing many stories and insights about forgiveness.
Forgiveness is resurrection and like resurrection, it is a gift, a strange gift, an odd gift that invites us to live as if we are from a different planet. "Are you the only stranger?", they asked him. It is a similar question that was asked of this woman, Mama Angelina from Northern Uganda. "Are you from another planet?", a woman asked Mama Angelina as she talked about and shared her experience of forgiveness. This was in 1996 at the height of the insurgent say in Northern Uganda during the years of war of the Lord's resistance army. October, 1996, the rebels went to a boarding school of St. Mary's and abducted 139 girls and they marched off with them into the bush.
The head mistress of the school went after the rebels and pleaded for the girls to be released. The rebels were able to release a hundred girls, leaving 39 girls with them in the bush, including the 14 year older daughter of Mama Angelina, a midwife. Every weekend the parents of the abducted girls would get together and go to this church, the cathedral, to pray for the release of their daughters, to cry, to lament, to advocate for their girls to be released.
At the end of their prayers, of their lament and cries and consolation to one another, they would attempt to pray the Our Father. But there was so much filled with an anxiety and anger and bitterness that every time they prayed and it came to the words, "Forgive us our sins", they stopped. They could not bring themselves to pray the entire prayer, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us," because as Mama Angelina says, their hearts were so filled with the anger and bitterness, they could not bring themselves to finish the Our Father. They were honest enough and they would go back home without finishing the Our father, still filled with pain and anguish and resentment, understandably so, and this happened over many weekends.
On the fifth weekend, as Mama Angeline tells the story, they began to feel that something had happened. A strange power had come upon them and they felt strangely they were not as angry as they used to be and they were able to pray the Our Father, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us." Angelina says, "We felt like we had been released. We felt that we had received the gift of forgiveness and they were able to finish the Our Father.
"But with that", Angelina says, "We felt also a new power and a new grace that we wanted to share with the community, the experience of joy and least that we had received," and so they started going into the community talking about the power of forgiveness that they themselves had received and how out of that power they had come to release even the rebels that were holding their daughters. Mama Angelina herself was even able to go and spend the night at the house of the mother of the rebel who held her daughter in captivity in the bush until the two women spend the evening praying, embracing and crying for their children.
One day, Mama Angelina is in the community talking about the power of forgiveness and the woman in the congregation looks at her and asks her, "Angelina, are you from another planet? Are you the only stranger in this community who does not know what the rebels did?" This old woman went on to explain how the rebels had come to her house where she was living with her 12-year-old grandson. This old woman was blind. The grandson was the one leading her, bringing some food to her, helping her. The rebels had come and grasped the boy and the boy ran to the grandmother and clung to her. Then the rebels were able to take him away from her by bringing fire and burning the old woman.
She stood up and showed Angelina the scars on her body and asked, "How can you talk to us about forgiveness? Are you from another planet? Are you the only stranger?" Indeed, Angelina and her fellow parents continue to live as if they were from another planet. They increased their advocacy in the community, talking about forgiveness, but also calling for an end to the war, calling on the government to do everything possible, to have all the girls released, but also stop the business of war. She went to speak on different radios about the evil of war and fighting and violence and called for the release of the girls.
One time as she was speaking on the radio, the rebels heard and they were being disturbed by the message because it was calling bad publicity on them. They offered Angelina a choice, a deal. They would release her daughter if she could stop the media campaign. They arranged to meet with her and she went and met with them and they told her, "If you stop your advocacy and media campaign, we shall be able to release your daughter." Angelina said, "What about the other 38 girls? Will you also release them?" The rebels said, "No, only your daughter." Then Angelina said, "Unless you release all the girls in abduction, in captivity, I will not stop. Because," she said, "Every child is my child."
She went back home without her daughter. Even her family could not understand. She was indeed acting as if she was from a different planet. For seven years she continued her media campaign, her advocacy and sharing the gift of forgiveness in the community and many in the community began even to look at her as a crazy and mad woman. In the seventh year of captivity of her daughter, she remembers in the middle of the night and gets up from her sleep, from her bed, sits down on the floor, prostrates herself before God and prays, "Oh God, this is the seventh year and we know that the seventh year is a year of release. Is Jubilee, is your forgiveness. Have you forgotten, oh God? When are you going to show your power?"
As she tells the story, she says she fell asleep as she was praying in that seventh year. In the morning, she receives a call from the police station. "Now, there is a girl here with two children who has escaped from the bush. Can you come and see if this is your daughter?" She rushes to the police station and indeed it is her daughter with the two children that she conceived in the bush. She immediately names the youngest child Miracle. The miracle of her daughter's release, the miracle of forgiveness. I asked Angelina one time, "What kept you going all this time?" and she says, "It is wrestling with God, asking God these difficult questions," and all those seven years, as she describes her journey, she describes it as a journey that is painfully sweet, filled with pain, but also the sweetness and the miracle of forgiveness of release, the gift of forgiveness.
My dear friends, every time we experience something of forgiveness, every time we give something of forgiveness, we experience a strange and old gift. It is the gift of forgiveness. It is the gift of resurrection. Even though it may still be dark with that gift, we are able to get up in the darkness and get the courage to return to even the most difficult and painful places of our lives, even the places of painful memory, and there we can with exhalation tell others, "We have seen the Lord. He is reason and therefore we too are risen."
My dear friends, where and when have you felt this strange gift? Where and when have you felted this painful, sweet gift of forgiveness that allows you to face the painful past, that allows you even in the midst of that darkness to return to your Jerusalem, to your place of pain, of darkness, of hatred, of fear, of betrayal? For the extent that you are able to experience this surprising, unexpected joy, you are able to declare, "Did not our hearts burn on the way?" Then you are able to share the good news to experience Easter to say, "We have seen the Lord. I have seen the Lord, He is risen and therefore I too am risen and I can live as if from another planet." Amen.