Don Friesen
My brother tells the story of two elderly women, Helen and Lydia--relatives of ours, no doubt--who had a quarrel decades earlier for which they'd never forgiven each other. In their closing years Helen became ill with what looked to be a terminal illness. Both of them were devout Christians and both felt they should make amends before Helen passed away. After some discussion and many tears they came to a peaceful resolution, and as Lydia turned to leave Helen's hospital room, Helen said to her, "Remember, Lydia, if I don't die, then everything will be as it was before, okay?" (John W. Friesen, Do Christians Forgive? Well, Some Do ..., page 35)
Forgiving someone who has wronged us is a difficult thing for most of us, something to avoid and postpone until the last possible moment, and even then we're tempted to make the grace we extend conditional. We have a tendency to hang onto our grudges, and so the story that Jesus tells in today's Gospel reading may be unsettling for us.
Grace Experienced, but Nothing Learned
Jesus told a story of a man with a severe learning disability with respect to forgiveness and grace. There was a king, Jesus said, who, settling accounts with his slaves, discovered that one of them owed him "ten thousand talents!" (Matthew 18:24) Like any storyteller, Jesus was fond of hyperbole, and the amount he cites is huge! Estimates of the amount vary, but today's equivalent would be millions, if not billions of dollars! An impossible debt! It's an absurd figure designed to distract the hearer from the literal amount to the point being made in the story.
The slave, of course, was unable to pay the debt, and so the king ordered the slave sold, "together with his (family) and all his possessions...." (18:25) Whereupon the "slave fell on his knees before (the king), saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.'" (18:26) Another impossibility, but "out of pity for him," says Jesus' story, "the lord ...released him and forgave him the debt." (18:27) A most magnanimous gesture! A massive bestowal of grace.
What starts out as a story of extravagant graciousness takes an ugly turn, however. The slave himself had a debt to collect, the amount paltry compared to the size of his own, now cancelled debt. When his own debtor was unable to pay, the slave seized his fellow slave "by the throat" and demanded immediate payment. (18:28) His fellow slave adopts the identical posture and words (18:29) that proved so successful with the gracious king, but the slave gives his fellow slave no slack at all, and sends him off to debtors' prison! (18:30)
Word of this got around and caused great distress (18:31), for no one could believe that someone who had experienced so much grace could extend so little! Unbelievable! The slave's inability to learn from his own experience is patently obvious, but apparently the human inability to learn gracious behaviour is so great that Jesus makes the lesson-to-be-learned explicit. The king tells his dull slave, "I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?" (18:32-33)
Jesus told this story in response to a question from Peter, who himself appeared to have a learning disability with respect to forgiveness and grace. Peter was having a lot of trouble with this particular catechism lesson and so he went to Jesus for some remedial help. He said, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" (18:21) I know that Peter was a fisherman, but I think he was also an engineer because he thought this was a math problem. And Jesus gives him a mathematical answer, saying, "Not seven times (Peter), but...seventy-seven times (18:22), or as some translations render it, "seventy times seven!" (RSV) In other words, Peter, throw away your calculator! Throw away your ledger! Your spreadsheet! Throw away your score card, for love "keeps no record of wrongs." (1 Corinthians 13:5, NIV)
Like the king in Jesus' story, God has forgiven us more than we can ever repay. And like the slave in Jesus' story, our own ungraciousness stands in vivid and shocking contrast to the astounding graciousness of God.
Forgiveness Is Difficult
The story Jesus told is easy to understand, but it's very, very difficult to apply. It sets a high and demanding standard. Forgiveness sounds like such beautiful thing, but it's a difficult thing because it's a relational matter, and often a very complex relational matter. It has to do with the history of a relationship. It has to do with the power arrangement in a relationship. It has to do with repentance. It has to do with the willingness of the offending party to change. It has to do with one's own spiritual well-being. It has to do with a lot of things.
Many of us have struggles around the issue of forgiveness. We've been hurt, and we have the scars to prove it. It may have been a school teacher who humiliated you. It may be a spouse who violated your trust. It may be a colleague who cheated you, or who tried to build his or her career by sabotaging yours. Perhaps a fellow church member hurt you. Perhaps it was a parent who openly favoured one child over another. Perhaps it is much worse, like sustained abuse, or some other tragedy.
Mixed in with these experiences are feelings of anger, resentment, frustration, and bitterness, and perhaps even hatred. Some people are burdened with their inability to forgive; they would like to forgive, but struggle as they may they find it very difficult to get past the hurt. Others are burdened with the knowledge that they have hurt others and need forgiveness themselves. Forgiving others is difficult. Forgiving oneself can be just as difficult. Frederick Buechner says that trying to forgive ourselves is like trying to sit on our own laps!
Forgiveness Is Not . . .
I think we have enough experience with hurt and forgiveness to recognize an incomplete experience of forgiveness. When the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians, tries to describe love, it uses not only positive descriptors but negative ones as well, saying "Love is ...not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing...." (13:4-6) Similarly forgiveness is not a number of things. For example, forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. It may mean letting go of vengeance, and it may mean giving less and less thought and energy to the hurt; but scars remain. Forgiveness is much deeper than simply pretending the hurtful incident didn't occur or doesn't matter.
Forgiveness is not the same as dismissing an offence as inconsequential or insignificant. Forgiveness involves taking the offense seriously. Forgiveness is not naive, coming up with a host of excuses to let the offender off the hook. Offensive behaviour has consequences, and forgiveness does not condone hurtful behaviour.
Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Reconciliation takes two people, but an injured party can forgive an offender without reconciliation. And if forgiveness results in the restoration of a relationship, it does not mean encouraging the continuance of a one-sided relationship. David Augsburger, in a book he wrote about true and false forgiveness, includes a poem which reads:
There are many things that look like forgiveness, but upon closer inspection are a substitute for the real thing. I think that one of most important ingredients of true forgiveness is time. When any two of you are working through an important relational difficulty, beware the partner who wants to rush to the finish line. Someone has compared the granting of forgiveness to the peeling of an onion. There are many layers to forgiveness, and one peels off one layer only to discover another layer below it. Forgiveness takes time. It's a process, and it can't be rushed.
A person who had been cheated in business by a trusted Christian says that he was filled with so much hate, rage, resentment and venom when it happened that it was only with time that he realized his bitter attitude was self-destructive. He wanted to rid himself of this relational toxin and get on with his life. After more than a decade of struggle he thought it was all over, and then he got a phone call from the person who had wronged him. She wanted to get together and talk. He thought he had put the matter behind him, but he really didn't want to meet with her; he says, "I would have preferred to walk barefoot on glass... I had no doubt that God was testing my grace and forgiveness." (Norm Story, "Waiting for Someone to Say Grace") The two former business associates met, and while there was no sense of regret or remorse on the part of the other person, it did bring some kind of closure to the matter.
Time is a very important factor in the process of forgiveness. If you have lived in an abusive situation for a sustained period of time, it will take a lot of time and much therapeutic skill to re-design a healthy pattern of relating. Just like a serious physical wound takes time and skilful surgery to heal, so too our emotional and spiritual wounds require much time and skill to return to wholeness.
I Find Forgiveness an Incredibly Moving Experience
As difficult as matters of grace and forgiveness may be, I am surprised that there are as many grace-and-forgiveness stories as there are, and while I have deep empathy with those who find forgiveness difficult, I find these stories incredibly moving.
I never fail to be moved by our Old Testament story of Joseph and his brothers. The background to the story is that Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers. Through a strange series of events Joseph became a powerful man in Egypt, and then came the opportunity of every revengeful person's dreams! His brothers came to Joseph for help. The tables were delightfully turned, and since his brothers were unaware of Joseph's identity he could have had some devilish fun with them. What had the makings of a delightful farce, however, becomes a moving story of reunion and reconciliation. Theirs is a very tearful (45:2) reunion, and later, when his brothers passed on their father's request to forgive their crime, Joseph wept again, as did his brothers. (50:16-18) Joseph had made his peace with their earlier history and he told them, "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.... So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones." (50:20-21) "In this way," says Genesis, Joseph "reassured them, speaking kindly to them." (50:21) I find that biblical story very touching, as I do the story of Jacob and Esau's tearful and very public embrace after years of estrangement. (Genesis 33:4)
Some of you may have seen the quirky movie, The Straight Story, in which Alvin Straight, an ailing and aging widower hears that his brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not have long to live. Estranged for ten years, Alvin decides to visit Lyle. The quirky part of the movie is that Alvin no longer has a driver's license and has to use his riding lawn mower to get from Iowa to Wisconsin, but it's a true story, and the moving part of the movie is the very last moment of the movie, when Alvin and Lyle resume their relationship and affection with a bare minimum of words and gestures, but with unmistakable and incredible power.
I'm also very moved when I hear Wilma Derksen's story of her struggle to forgive the killer of her teenage daughter. It seems something one could never ask of another person, but when it's extended it is a powerful and healing experience.
This week's Canadian Mennonite carried a story of an employee at one of our church schools who embezzled a sizeable amount of money. ("Embezzlement at college," September 9 issue, page 32) While I don't know all of the details of this story, I was pleased to note that a lot of the important factors of forgiveness were present in the story. The offender expressed deep sorrow as well as his intention to repay the money he had stolen. The school agreed upon a schedule of repayment. There was a recognition of the pain caused as well as a genuine concern for the offender and his family. No doubt the presence of these various elements will do a lot to promote healing for everyone.
I think that one of the reasons these stories of grace and forgiveness are so moving is because they speak to our own need of forgiveness and our longing for grace. Ernest Hemingway told a story of a father in Madrid who put a notice in the local paper which read, "Paco, meet me at the Hotel Montana at noon Wednesday. All is forgiven." Signed, "Papa." On Wednesday of that week the hotel had to call the police to break up the crowd, for some 800 young men named Paco had appeared, each one hoping that he was the one forgiven by his father.
Waiting for Someone to Say a Word of Grace
A colleague tells of attending a men's breakfast at which there were some awkward moments when one of the men called everyone to gather in the hallway for prayer. Once there, he says, "We closed our eyes, bowed our heads and ...waited ...and ...waited, and ...waited. Finally, after more waiting, I looked up and asked, ‘Bob, did you want me to say grace?'" It was a awkward moment, he says, "as we all just stood around, ...waiting for someone to say grace." (Norm Story, "Waiting for Someone to Say Grace")
Much of the world is standing around waiting, hoping for someone to say a word of grace; waiting for someone to show mercy and compassion; waiting for someone, in a climate of revenge and retribution, to offer a word of forgiveness and pardon.
There is something about forgiveness that defies formulaic approaches, and one dare not be glibly prescriptive about grace and forgiveness, but when we experience it, or even hear about it, it touches us deeply. One of the reasons we gather as members of the Body of Christ is because of our longing for a word of grace. In a difficult and unforgiving world, we come to church hoping and waiting to hear a gentle and kind word of grace. And even when our own gestures of grace are less than graceful, it is when we are gathered that we hear the ancient stories of forgiveness and grace. In a difficult and demanding world we gather to remember these uplifting stories. We gather as sinners to hear and keep alive THE story of forgiveness and grace; to express our gratitude for God's grace; and to commit ourselves to be students of God's grace.
May we, in our witness as individuals, as families, and as a congregation reflect and share with others we encounter the same love and grace that we ourselves have so freely received. AMEN
When "forgiveness" is one way,
calling one person to
accept the difference,
absorb the pain,
adjust to injustice;
don't rush to it,
don't close the case with it.
It's not
forgiveness,
It's
...submission.
(Caring Enough to Not Forgive: False Forgiveness, page 24; the flip
side of the book is entitled, Caring Enough to Forgive: True Forgiveness)
When "forgiveness"
puts you
one-up,
on top,
in a superior place,
as the benefactor,
the generous one,
the giver of freedom and dignity--
Don't trust it,
don't give it,
don't accept it.
It's not
forgiveness;
It's sweet
saintly
revenge.
(Caring Enough to Not Forgive: False Forgiveness, page 8)
Time: A Significant Forgiveness Factor
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.