I was asked for the process of forgiveness contained in my sermon yesterday on Romans 5:1-11 after church and in a few emails. And then this morning, I read Just Forgive? by one of my favorite professors, Dr. Frederick Schmidt (I commend his blog to you). So, I took it as a sign (an inside joke for Dr. Schmidt) that I should write about forgiveness this morning.
Dr. Schmidt succinctly explains one of the most challenging aspects of pastoral ministry. Many Christians are living in various states of unforgiveness and pain due to horrible circumstance that should not be trivialized. As I began my ministry, I did not fully understand how many Christians struggle to forgive others or how many people had experienced tragedy. It seemed odd to me that so many who claim to be born out of forgiveness are unable to forgive. I did not realize how these tragic events can harden the hearts of the faithful and make forgiveness difficult for Christians. If the idea promoted by Christians is "Just Forgive!", this seems to underemphasize God's justice. Pop Christianity portrays forgiveness as simple and instantaneous, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes forgiveness requires the cross and empty tomb.
This "Just Forgive!" view of forgiveness tends to hurt victims. I have literally had dozens of persons, some in their eighties, come to me feeling guilty because they felt stuck in their inability to forgive others. Questions and statements like, "Don't you know what they did to me?" "Wasn't what they did wrong?" "I can never forgive what they did." underscore how victims that I have worked with perceive forgiveness as equal to condoning the horrible actions of the crime. It is important that we never equate forgiveness to condoning horrible actions. As Paul would write, by no means!
In my ministry, I experience this issue in this way. A person will tend to make an appointment with me, or visit with me one to one about this issue. I listen. The victims will recount, often in great detail, the wrongs done to them and the horrible experiences of these events. I listen intently and strive to make sure they have all of the time they need to explain or sort through the details. And, often time I'm the first to hear how they felt theologically about what happened, although they would not necessarily describe the events in theological terms. Sometimes, its many years after the events themselves. Interestingly in each conversation, I'm asked. Something like, "What do you think about me, I can't forgive?" "Am I a bad person because I can not forgive." Or, "How can I be free from the burden of hating this other person." To tell a person to "Just Forgive!" is supremely unhelpful, as they have no clue what that means or how to do it. A process is needed. Just as the forgiveness and reconciliation of God with humanity required a process of atonement, reconciliation between humans should be modeled on the divine process of reconciliation. Romans 5 is a good place to start.
At the point when "Just Forgive!" has failed, I ask people to begin a journey. "Do you believe that God can forgive the other person?" Sometimes I have to focus the question even more, do you believe that what God did on the cross was enough for the other person too? Theologically, it is a question of atonement. Did God just reconcile with me, or all of humanity, or all of creation? When we fail to understand that what God did on the cross was enough for ourselves and for others, we suffer from a bizarre form of spiritual pride. Not a boasting self-promoting pride, but the opposite -- we think that what they did was so bad that it can not be forgiven. This view makes us the center. We forget that what they did was a wrong done against God. This can get people stuck in a strange form of self-focus that sometimes persists for decades. To progress past this view, I ask them to pray that God would forgive the other person daily for for a period of time and get back with me at that time. I focus on the wrong done to God and on the divine act of forgiveness. God's reconciliation in Romans 5 is not dependent on human action. I join them in praying for forgiveness for the other person daily. My hope is to introduce the possibility of God's forgiveness, not because what the perpetrator did was okay, but because what God did was so amazing that it is even greater than all sin.
A second visit/meeting begins a relationship with them that doesn't always "fix" the problem but allows us to journey together through a struggle to find shalom/peace. There is often more work and examining of our own salvation that needs to go on. Church pews are filled with people who have not actually accepted the divine grace available to them in Jesus Christ and are therefore unable to conceive of the possibility that God could forgive others whom they perceive as being worse than themselves. But, there are others who have been so abused that the prospect of unconditional love is unimaginable. There are some for whom it seems cruel to suggest that God forgives the perpetrator. It must have seemed so to Jonah and the elder brother in the prodigal son as well. The work is much more challenging here, but continues. Again, divine forgiveness does not mean that what was done was not wrong, it means that God's grace is greater than even that wrong. Sometimes the wrong was by someone who has already died, do we believe that reconciliation can transcend even death. Yes, because it does not depend on the perpetrator but on the victims acceptance of divine grace. If they were able to accept that God can and might forgive the other person, I ask them to continue praying and ask God to open ways that they might be made an instrument of that love and grace.
This begins the hard work of forgiveness. I don't ask the victim to "get over" what happened to them. I don't ask the victim to trivialize their pain and suffering. I don't pretend that there will be a point in the future that everything it okay or that the wrong done to them won't hurt. It will always be a part of their life. Instead, I strive to empower the victim to let God's grace handle what they can not. I don't ask them to forgive, but do ask them to let God forgive through them. I ask them to let God forgive what they can not.
Paul, knew both the need to be forgiven (he persecuted Christians) as well as the need to forgive (he suffered for the gospel at the hands of others). That is why I think his writing in Romans to a persecuted community remain powerful as the encourage divine reconciliation and human forgiveness. As he writes to the Romans to be reconciled with one another, he knows the pain and impossible chasm he is asking people to cross. That is why he focusses on the divine power that can work through us instead of our own power for forgiveness. As we help each other through issues of unforgiveness, should we not also use that grace divine? Just a thought...
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