Because the topic of forgiveness is so sensitive, and has so often been used to bludgeon, silence or guilt those who have suffered an injustice, I want to start off with a few caveats. I don’t think anyone has the right to demand that another person should forgive, or forgive on a certain time line. In my mind, God can give us anger at an injustice as a powerful force to drive personal and societal change. Forgiveness isn’t a more “worthy” or morally correct feeling than anger. Each emotion has its appropriate time and place. Please accept the following thoughts not as a general promotion of forgiveness, but theological reflections on forgiveness in its proper time and place.
My father-in-law Ray was the victim of medical malpractice when he was in his 60s, and the family believes his quality of life could have been better in his remaining years if things had been done right early on. Ray could probably have successfully sued his doctor – and since Ray is a lawyer, he could probably have done it without much cost to himself. But Ray chose not to, saying that he just didn’t want to spend his remaining years in the courtroom. He’d rather enjoy whatever time he had left with his family.
Ray’s decision came to mind after I heard the Norwegian Labour Youth Party’s response to the terrorist who killed 77 people, most of them teenagers, on July 22 this year. Eskil Pedersen, the leader of the Youth party, later said at the party’s official memorial gathering, “We have been changed and marked by what has happened. We will always be known as the July 22 generation. And that gives us power. Because we have the power to decide what the future will be.”
Neither one of these vignettes is about forgiveness per se, but my curiosity was awakened. What, exactly, does the famous Matthew 18 say about forgiveness? Matthew 18 contains the scene where Peter asks whether 7 is the correct number of times to forgive, and Jesus responds, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times”. Now, Jesus may simply have been saying, “Peter, you dolt, this isn’t something you can quantify. This is about soul and internal transformation, not a set of rules.” However, if he was saying something more generalisable, what could that be?
I started, as usual, by looking at the context. What is going on in the story before and after this particular scene?
The story with Peter is in a collection of parables and incidents that take place just before Jesus goes to Jerusalem and is killed. In terms of relative importance, we are close to the core of what Jesus’ wanted his disciples to know, the heart of what he wanted to accomplish in his life. Immediately before Peter’s question is the parable of the lost sheep, in which Jesus explains that each sheep (person) is too beloved and precious for God to allow him or her to be lost. Before that, the disciples bicker about who is greatest, and Jesus tells them that the greatest is s/he who is most like a child. Immediately after Peter’s question comes the parable of the unmerciful servant, who is forgiven a huge debt he owes his master, but follows up by refusing to forgive a smaller debt that is owed him, and harshly punishes the debtor. The master’s response is to withdraw the forgiveness he had previously granted. Jesus moves on to address divorce, essentially saying that a man can’t just divorce his wife because he feels like it. Then Jesus returns to the topic of children, saying that heaven belongs to children and those who are like children.
In looking at all these stories together, it looks to me like Jesus is addressing generosity, broadly speaking. What they all have in common is that the initiator of the parable is trying to impose some sort of judgment on others, dividing people into categories of greater/lesser or worthy/unworthy. It is about turning away children, someone who owes money, or a wife one is no longer infatuated with. In each situation, it is the person with relative power in the relationship who rejects the one who has less worldly power. Jesus teaches the person who would judge or dismiss someone who comes to them that they should respond generously and with welcome.
What – the question of forgiveness belongs in the larger picture of generosity and welcome?!
I have always thought of forgiveness in the framework of justice, as an ultimate goal in a journey that involves the victim feeling healed, the perpetrator repenting, making amends, and choosing a better path. Maybe that’s why I could never articulate a theology of forgiveness?! As long as I looked at forgiveness in the context of justice, it seemed to tie the victim to the perpetrator in a relationship of sorts, and the humanly impossible feat of feeling peace about what had happened. It never felt right.
But what if forgiveness instead is about acts of generosity and welcome? Perhaps that is why my father-in-law Ray and the Norwegian Labor Youth’s actions made me want to read Matthew 18. Now, I can’t say anything about how any of them feel – that is not for me to say. They may feel badly done by, angry, and still hungering for an apology, restoration, or wanting never to have anything to do with the perpetrator ever again. All of those would be very natural feelings. Perhaps they feel peace about it? I don’t know and I don’t think I’m entitled to know, and it belongs in their inner world and their relationship with God.
I do think I am permitted to reflect on other people’s acts. My father-in-law decided not to invest any more of his energy in the doctor and did not sue him. Instead he devoted himself to his wife and family and causes he believed in, creating a better life for all. The Labor Youth likewise decided to more or less ignore the killer. They have decided to put their energy into shaping the future. Their generosity and welcome of Muslims were the policies that got them into the crosshairs of the killer. After the killings, the surviving youth redicated themselves to that vision. Furthermore, they discerned that building social trust - creating a society that allows people’s spiritual, emotional, and physical needs to be met – is the best defense against violence. In other words, they are being welcoming and generous to all, in the hopes it might prevent future killings.
That looks like forgiveness to me, the kind we read about in Matthew 18. Then we can leave feelings of anger, peace, despair or contentment where they belong, in the private conversations in the heart between the individual and God.
Query for prayerful reflection: What stirs in you when you think of forgiveness within the framework of generosity and welcome? What do you think of the idea of distinguishing between feelings and acts when considering forgiveness?
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
September 25, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Bill Samuel
My sister, when she had breast cancer, was treated by an incompetent oncologist. After radiation treatment, she had what appeared to be a growth. Her oncologist told her it was a radiation scar. Later, she went to Mayo Clinic, and they told her that was impossible; radiation treatment doesn’t result in that kind of scar. It could only be cancer. The result was that it was untreated for years.
My sister chose not to sue the oncologist because she didn’t want to have that filling her life. She want on to live her life (and death – she died, perhaps because she was incompetently treated). That seemed like a sensible decision to me. She did change doctors.
However, one does have the question of duty to others. I did think she should file a complaint against him with the medical authorities to try to protect other women he might victimize by his incompetence. I’m not sure if she ever did that.
Forgiveness is never something someone is owed. It is a gift the one forgiving gives primarily to themselves, and secondarily to the person forgiven (and in some circumstances, not even that, as the forgiver is unable to contact the forgiven to let them know). It is a gift of choosing to live free from the resentment one has, whether or not legitimately, against the one forgiven. It is a choice to live a life based on grace, not on resentment or even justice in strict terms. My sister was a very strong believer in grace, and she exemplified that grace in the last part of her life.
October 7, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Susanne Kromberg
What a powerful story of grace. Thank you for sharing your sister’s story.
I struggle with the duty to report. On the one hand, it seems important that people speak up when they have had a bad experience, so they can help prevent incompetent or malicious practitioners from continuing their malpractice. And yet – how can we ask those who have suffered to invest even more time and energy than they have aready expended? And how can we ask them to subject themselves to the counter-attack on their integrity that is sure to follow?
I don’t know that there is one answer to fit all situations. Perhaps we need to encourage each person to pray and to see what God invites them to do in their particular circumstance.
October 8, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Bill Samuel
Yes, we can’t find out what is right in each situation by consulting a long list of rules. We need to go directly to the source to discern our way.
September 26, 2011 at 10:25 am
Barbara Bach Berntsen
The greatest of us can, precisely by the most trivial-seeming act, do tremendous spiritual damage at times. That is the lesson shown us in what J. R. R. Tolkien regarded as the most tragic scene in The Lord of the Rings, when Gollum nearly repents — and is damned forever by a cross word from Sam:
‘And so Gollum found them hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path of gloom ahead. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo’s head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam’s brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master’s breast. Peace was in both their faces.
Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee –but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.
But at that touch Frodo stirred and cried out softly in his sleep, and immediately Sam was wide awake. The first thing he saw was Gollum — “pawing at master,” as he thought.
“Hey you!” he said roughly. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Gollum softly. “Nice Master!”
“I daresay,” said Sam. “But where have you been to — sneaking off and sneaking back, you old villain?”
October 7, 2011 at 6:06 pm
Susanne Kromberg
And Sam was a good and loyal hobbit.
Yes, sometimes I think the greatest harm may be done not through malice, but by accident. Well-meaning people can do terrible damage without even knowing it. Which of course means that I may have done terrible harm of which I am not even aware! The greatest beneficiary of God’s generosity and forgiveness may well be me – even when I think I have been badly done by…
September 26, 2011 at 10:31 am
Barbara Bach Berntsen
As in the story of the Prodigal Son, I seem to have played all the parts in this scene.