What does forgiveness mean? And What Doesn’t it mean.
A couple of weeks ago, as I was walking my son to school he asked me what I was going to preach about on Sunday. I told him I had a couple in the ole hopper… one on music and singing and the other on forgiveness… I was thinking about and researching both. Didn’t you just preach on forgiveness? He asked. Yeah, your right son, I probably did preach on it not that long ago.Why do you spend so much time preaching on Forgiveness he asked? Well… good question… how do I answer it?
Because, I said to him, forgiveness is one of the hardest of the Christian practices to learn… its really hard to forgive when we have been hurt. BUT… forgiveness is not only what we do, forgiveness is who we are… If we follow Christ, we are forgiving people, even when it is hard and even when it is risky.
Forgiveness is tough to talk about because it is so risky. To commit ourselves to forgiving is to, in essence, commit ourselves to the risk of being hurt. I don’t mean to be a downer… but I think that is where the bible pushes us. Forgiveness as a self-help practice that will make us feel better is a bit of a mis-representation of forgiveness as jesus taught it and lived it. I have been guilty of this misrepresentation myself. Its just that its awfully hard to talk about forgiveness is one shot because there are so many facets to forgiveness. I think forgiveness can give us peace and make us feel better, sometimes. Other times it is just soul-wrenching gutsy work that hurts.
I think that preachers offer too much wiggle room about forgiveness, me included and I want to address that over the next couple of weeks… but first, I do want to offer you some wiggle room.
There are some situations, extreme, but real and prevalent, I’m afraid where forgiveness has to be very specifically defined. Forgiveness is the promise that anyone can return to the love of God, no matter what their past holds. And this is troubling because we, who have been hurt, feel violated by the idea that someone who has hurt us, may, in fact, be loved by God too. Specifically I am thinking about someone who has been emotionally, physically or sexually abused. If I forgive the abuser, am I not opening myself up to the risk of being hurt again? While basically the idea of forgiveness, as we will see, is that nothing can separate us from the love of God… sometimes we do need to have boundaries so that we will not be hurt again. Forgiveness of someone who has hurt us physically or sexually does not require us, in my opinion, to make ourselves available for more abuse. Forgiveness in this case would not be a return to relationship. While I think Jesus did want our forgiveness to be riskier than we would like… I don’t think Jesus, who spent his lifetime freeing people from abuse, to stay in these specific kinds of abuse for the sake of ‘forgiveness.’ In these cases I think that forgiveness would be more ‘Zen’ and that sounds funny, because we are Christians not Buddhists. I mean, forgiveness would mean that we do not wish harm on the person who has abused us. Now… I do not mean that we do not wish justice, or consequences. I am not saying that the police should not be notified or the legal system availed. We can forgive and still call the police… we should, in these cases call the police, get authorities and the legal system involved. But instead of wishing the abuser pain or suffering, (even thought they deserve it) forgiving them would mean wishing that some day, some how, they too would come to know that God loves them… does that make sense? It doesn’t mean keeping quiet or not getting the authorities involved or not pressing charges. It does mean that in our own hearts, we begin a process, and it is a gradual process I am sure, where we do not harbor angry or vengeful thoughts. Notice too, that I said process. Anger and vengful thoughts would be a normal part of the healing process, to be guided by therapists and pastor and perhaps one or two loving friends. So I’m not saying its wrong to feel angry or vengeful. I’m saying that we accept them as natural, without guilt or shame, and then, under proper guidance, move toward a place of peace, over time, patiently with ourselves… does that make sense?
Now, to get back to the risk of forgiveness…. Lets read a story… Luke 15;11-32
So, I gotta tell ya; my first reaction is that I want to shake the father. I mean, I get it. Its his boy, his little boy. But still I wanna shake this guy because he’s opening himself up to so much more hurt. I can see this turning into oh, I don’t know… can I borrow some money, and then some more money. I can see this turning into, can I borrow the car, and then the car getting, oh, I don’t know, run into a ditch. I can see the son rifling through the old man’s wallet for cash, or stealing his credit cards for the cash advance. I can see parties at hotels with all sorts of new friends and drugs and booze.
And then the son returning with an, I’m sorry dad, I really am. I’ll do better this time. Can you see it too? I can imagine it, because I’ve seen it. And you’ve witnessed it too, no doubt.
Which reminds me of two things; a movie and real life experience.
At my first church in providence I did a lot of work trying to convince the members that we should be doing something to help the many homeless people who hung around our neighborhood and sought shelter on at our front door. So, I’ve been working at this and working at this and finally they invite someone from the street in after church for something to eat. Well, she promptly starts shoving the ladies purses in a trash bag when she thinks no one was looking. Do you hear what I am saying… you open yourself up and this is the thanks you get right?
In the movie ‘the Wrestler’ Micky Rourke plays washed up professional wrestler Randy the Ram. We meet him on the down-hill slide. His body is breaking down from all the injuries and drug and alcohol abuse, and no matter how many steroids and pain-killers he takes, he can’t perform at the level he once did. He can’t get a job because the only thing on his resume is ‘Professional Wrestler’. And he is alone. The plot to the story is his efforts at a comeback, in the wrestling ring and with his daughter, who is now a young adult, living on her own. He was never much of a father, he left when she was young. He never did pay much attention, missed birthdays and dances and proms and graduations. The list promises made and broken would stretch from west coast to east coast and back. But he tries, one last time to create a relationship with her. She throws him out at first, but he persists and in a particularly poignant scene tearfully asks for another chance.
How many of us have been on the receiving end of that… just one more chance?
And I found myself both rooting for Randy the Ram to get his second chance, and wanting to warn his daughter, don’t do it, it’ll only hurt in the end.
So they make a date for that weekend, a dinner date.
Does randy make the date or not?
Your right, he doesn’t .
That is what I see happening with the prodigal son. And that is why I want to shake the father and tell him to wake up, cuz I’ve been on the receiving… giving second chances only to be disappointed. And every time you open yourself up, every time to put yourself out there and hand your heart to someone, and they screw it all up… well, its like there is a little bit less of your heart, you know?
But the story of the Prodigal Son isn’t really a family drama is it?
Who is the prodigal son? Well, he is a symbol of the least and the lost of Israel. The lepers and tax-collectors, prostitutes and brigands, the diseased and impoverished and all those considered expendable, unimportant, a liability, a danger. As Jesus tells this story… this is who jesus has in mind as he describes the prodigal son.
Who is the father? The father is God.
When we think of God, Jesus wants us to have this image. A distinguished gentlemen, who seeing his bedraggled son skulking back home, hikes up his robes and runs with abandon and no concern for how it will look, to embrace his this ragged, dirty, skinny kid and then take him home and feed him up.
It’s really nothing new.
‘The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,*
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.’ Ex 34:6-7
Even though God removes Adam and Eve from the Garden, what does he send them with?
Even though Cain kills Abel and he too much be sent away… what does God send him with?
The mercy of God is a constant theme in the Hebrew Scriptures
After Israel makes itself a golden calf to worship… this is God’s reaction…
9The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.’
11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.” ’ 14And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
And what makes Jonah so upset with God? The fact that he forgives the Ninevites…
Perhaps the most beautiful of all verses in the Bible describes God’s tender heart for Israel when they have failed
Hosea 11:1-4
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
2The more I* called them,
the more they went from me;*
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.
3Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my* arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
4I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.*
I bent down to them and fed them.
Which brings me to what I think is at the heart of learning to forgive, and is most often forgotten. Forgiveness ultimately is about God, not you are me. We forgive, not because it always feels good, or because it is a safe and effective method, but because God forgives, is abounding in mercy… and if by following Christ we hope to be drawn closer to God, we will also be drawn closer to forgiveness… because that just is who God is… that just is what God does.
The bad news about forgiveness is that it doesn’t guarantee success. It will not always keep us safe, sometimes it will hurt. The bad news about forgiveness is what Jesus is teaching us about forgiveness in the story of the prodigal son, which is that it isn’t about us or them, the hurting or the hurtful… its about God… To forgive we have to train our hearts and minds to not be guided and directed by our past experiences and the natural way we protect ourselves from pain by keeping others at arms length. To forgive we have to also train ourselves to choose our actions and reactions not based on how others act, but solely on how God acts. And the bad news as Jonah experienced it… as the great song-writer penned it, is that ‘there’s a wideness in God’s mercy…’
But perhaps that is also the good news.
Because as often as I have been on the receiving end of the disappointment of forgiving and being disappointed… I have also been given a second chance when I didn’t deserve it… and I’ve experienced the freedom that this brings… when someone looks at me not as I am or how I have been, but how I just might be… gives me the strength the drive, the courage to change, to grow, to improve.
The bad news of the prodigal son is the God doesn’t always give us what we deserve, but instead, what we need, which is the gift of grace that sees us as what we still just might be. The good news of forgiveness is that we can be freed to see ourselves as God sees us, full of potential, a blossom waiting flower.
There are two sides to forgiveness: giving and receiving. Although at first sight giving seems to be harder, it often appears that we are not able to offer forgiveness to others because we have not been able to fully receive it. Only as people who have accepted forgiveness can we find the inner freedom to give it.
Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
