FORGIVENESS is a Big Freaking Word

This is a long one, and one that's been mulling for a long time.  I still don't know if it's quite sufficiently finished, but I think it's reached the point where it needs to be let loose.  The subject is:

FORGIVENESS

Prepare yourself, because this one's a monster.  Because I love you so much, I've broken it down into topics for easier digestion, thus:

Why do we forgive?

This is a tricksy one.  I mean, "because God said so" is a bit obvious.  But why did he say so?  It's a child's question, but one we don't ask frequently enough.  (Certainly, there are things that I have to, in the end, leave at "because God says so," but I think it's valuable for our own growth, understanding, and faith if we try to understand why God requires of us the things that he does.)  The answer I've come up with has 3 parts.

First: Because we have been forgiven.  This is the obvious one, based on Jesus' parable of the unmerciful servant.

Second: For our own health and salvation.  Selfish!  According to a 2004 article by Jordana Lewis and Jerry Adler of Newsweek, research on being unforgiving shows that holding a grudge can lead to "increased blood pressure and hormonal changes -- linked to cardiovascular disease, immune suppression and, possibly, impaired neurological function and memory."  This also has a parallel in the Matthew: "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

Third: Because other people are people.  One of my favorite C. S. Lewis quotes (and one that continually reminds me how far I have to go in my journey) deals with this, peripherally.

"It is a serious thing to...remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

Reading this always makes me feel a little breathless.  We are made in the image of God.  We are immortal souls.  With this knowledge, and with the knowledge that each person must, each day, make the same hard choices you do in the same awful circumstances, it's hard to refuse someone compassion.  Of curse, it's hard to remember this Truth.  Or maybe it's easy to remember this Truth, but to see how if we were in the same situation (or perhaps even when we were), we made a different choice.  Yet the same could be said by the object of our scorn about some other choice that we made.

So now that we've decided to forgive:

What is Forgiveness?  

Seems like a simple question.  "Forgiveness" is such a common word.  We throw it around all the time, but the more I think about it, more I realize that I don't really know much about it.
There are people who study forgiveness - which seems odd to me (but I'm not a psychologist).  Dr. Edward M. Hallowell (a Harvard psychiatrist and the author of "Dare to Forgive.") says something I've come to realize only in the last few years: "(Forgiveness is) a process, not a moment.”  This will be familiar to Lutherans, who talk about baptism as being something we renew daily - each day we must drown our "Old Adam."  Forgiveness seems much the same.  It's not enough to forgive someone once, it is something you have to do over and over again, every day.  Because it's not easy.  Because we are sinful, and it doesn't stick.  Because Christians can never relax!  Anyway, this isn't something I've heard in other places.  It's something I realized myself, and this quote is the only other time I've come across the idea.  It changes how I look at forgiveness, though.  It makes it easier and harder at once - harder in that you can't just do it once and be done, but easier in that I don't have to feel guilty when bitter feelings rise up again after I've "forgiven" someone.  It's a process.  Let it process.

But what does it look like when we forgive someone?  Dr. Dean Ornish says "When I talk about forgiveness, I mean letting go, not excusing the other person or reconciling with them or condoning the behavior. Just letting go of your own suffering."  I considered this good enough for a long time.  For example, I once had a friend, who turned into an enemy.  When I forgave her, it didn't make her my friend again, it merely made her "not my enemy."  I returned her to the state of "stranger," insomuch as that was possible.  Is that enough?  If it is, then what does it mean when God forgives us?  Almost nothing, I would say.  God lets go of his hurt, but doesn't reconcile with us?  "Oh, I forgive you.  I mean, you're still going to hell, because I don't love you anymore, but I'm not, you know, mad."  Well gee, that's great.
Then again, it reminds me of the book of Numbers, where God forgives Israel, but then still punishes them with their 40 years of wandering the desert.  He forgives, and yet still punishes.  There is justice.  We all know the story, of course, and know that the punishment was not forever.  When God forgave, it meant he wouldn't turn his back on Israel forever, but that they still had to make amends by this wandering.  Similarly, he sent his flood, but saved Noah; he scattered and confused Babel rather than destroying it - he executes his justice, but leaves the "opportunity for new beginnings."


In his fantastic article about the genocide in Rwanda, Giles Fraser says “One of the things I have always liked about the stories of the Bible is that they are mostly uninterested in a person's inner life. They don't say much about how Jesus feels. But they say a great deal about what he does. Likewise with forgiveness: it is not fundamentally something that you feel, but something that you do. Specifically, it is the refusal to respond in kind, the refusal to answer violence with violence, the refusal of an eye for an eye. This, importantly, means that you can do it even if you don't feel it...For the problem with forgiveness, as a kindly feeling towards a wrongdoer, is that it is impossible for most of us, maybe even for all of us... Forgiveness, as in the refusal of reciprocity, does not make us feel good inside. In fact, as Nietzsche rightly pointed out, it does probably the opposite. We are still bitter and angry. But if this is the burden we have to bear for peace, then so be it.”
This goes almost directly against the last quote - it's not about letting go of your feelings, but about not acting on them.  There's actually a sort of parallel in the Bible, but Paul (in Romans) takes it one step further:

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse...Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

So forgiveness is not just non-retaliation, but active compassion as well.  Actually, this is not dissimilar to my idea that I could make someone a stranger.  There's nothing in the verse about trusting your enemy or becoming friends with them.  There are verses, however, that tell us we should be compassionate to strangers in this way.

Although I said before that God leaves the door open for his people to come back to him, even when he punishes us, I have trouble believing that we're required to do that - to trust those who've wronged us.  I can't find anything in the Bible that says we are (though if any of you have some biblical insight here, it'd be appreciated).  You can forgive the woman who mugged you.  You can try to provide financial aid for her - that would be the extra mile.  But I don't think it means that you invite her to sleep in your house.  You can forgive the man who molested you as a child, but that doesn't meant that you let him babysit for you.
Then again, we were forgiven fully by Christ's sacrifice, as if our sins had never happened.  Jesus said to "turn the other cheek."  That's not just non-retaliation, and it's not just kindness to strangers, it's opening oneself to new hurt.  If someone slaps you, give him the other cheek.  Trust him not to slap it again*.  We want to be like Christ.  Yet we also need to protect ourselves.  Yet God says we shouldn't worry, that he will always take care of us, and that it's not us who has the final call on anything. Forgiveness in this way would be practically impossible, and painful too, and I suspect that's one of the reasons why humans will never be able to achieve salvation without Christ. To reach the standards of morality expected of us is too high a bar (but the example is there nonetheless). To act as Christ did is a challenge set before every Christian for every day of our lives.

So, we have some idea of what we must do.  But what must they do?

What is required for forgiveness?

Hardest one yet.  I have heard it said many times that we must forgive each other even if the other person never apologizes.  That's really hard.  I'm not sure if it's true.  I'm not sure if it's not.  I've been scouring my Bible(gateway) to try to answer the question, but I haven't come to a real conclusion yet, so here's my data (feel free to pitch in with your own data, because it's a BIG question!):

Forgiveness is something that good Christians do, because we were forgiven.  That fact doesn't change depending on whether the other person ever repents.  

God forgave us before we ever asked for it:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

"While we were still sinners."  But does this mean that he forgave us, even knowing that we would continue to sin afterwards, or does it mean that he forgave us without our repentance happening first?

This all reminds me of the story in Matthew where Christ forgives and heals a paralyzed man.  In the story, some faithful men bring a paralyzed man to Jesus to be healed and he forgives the man's sins (and heals him).  That's not what the man was asking, as far as I can tell from the story.  The man didn't come to Christ and make a confession in full repentance, he merely came to him in faith and asked to be healed.  Christ took it upon himself to also forgive the man's sins when he healed him.

However, there are other places in the Bible where it seems that repentance is a requirement for forgiveness.

1 John1:8-10 - "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us."  

This verse talks about our relationship with God, but I think it applies to interpersonal relations as well.  If you confront someone with how they've hurt you and they get defensive, or claim you're overreacting, or apologize for part of it, and lie about another part ("claim [they] have not sinned"), do you have to forgive them?

Acts 2:38 - "Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."  

Again, forgiveness is coupled with repentance, and in this verse, the repentance comes first.

Luke 17:3b-4 - "If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them." 

This is a tough one, not for the same reason.  Here, it says you should forgive them if they repent.  But it also says you should forgive them even if they don't change their behavior.  This concept is hard for me, because if we require people to repent, then that out to mean that they change their behavior, oughtn't it?  If you say you repent, but don't change your behavior, do you really repent?  Certainly, only God can judge hearts - all we have to rely on is "the fruits."  But if there are not fruits, but only words, can we assume they haven't really repented?  In that case, repentance isn't required, but only the semblance of it.  And that doesn't seem to make much sense.

Then I remember that we are all fallen.  there are things that I've had to repent for over and over and over again, sins that, despite my best efforts, I still fall back into.  Change - real change - is hard.  It takes a long time, and doesn't go in a straight line.  We backslide.  We slip sideways into a different "replacement" sin.  We, as fallen human beings, are fuck-ups.  So I think that what this verse is trying to say is that we should be compassionate of our fellow fuck-ups, if they acknowledge their sin.  Even if they don't change right away.  Because life is hard, and change is hard, and although claiming Christ's promise is relatively easy, actually living your faith is hard.

Abruptly

The End

*On the subject of turning the other cheek, I have heard this hypothesis: Since most people are right-handed, a slap to the right cheek is a backhand.  Backhanded slaps are not only painful, they are a sign of disrespect, a sign that the slap-ee is beneath the slap-er.  To give said slapper your left cheek to hit, you are inviting him to hurt you again, but now it's a forehand slap, meaning that he hits you as one person hits another - he's accepting your equality as a human.  It's certainly a cool concept, but I don't think it really jives with the two verses following, about the coat and walking 2 miles.  I just thought I'd toss it down here in the interest of thought-provocation and increased knowledge.  Because knowledge is power!