Forgiveness offends the rational mind. When someone has hurt us, abused us, stolen our peace of mind or our safety; when someone has harmed or taken the life of someone we love; when we have been deeply offended, there is no rational justification why we should let go of that offence. No obvious reason why we should hope for enlightenment for that person. No obvioius reason why from our own pain and darkness, we should summon compassion and insight for the abuser, as well as for ourselves. It is not rational to assert that we will go on loving the person of the one who has hurt us so badly, the one whose actions we abhor, abhor everything they stand for. It is not rational to attempt to see them as our equal, that their life has equal value to our own, and to seek the best in life for them. To recognise that they are no less deserving of love than we are. To attempt these things is the equivalent of attempting the summit of Everest without oxygen.
Yet this is just what Jesus commands us to do. If we would be forgiven our wrong-doing then we also must forgive. So important is it that we learn the art of forgiveness that Jesus concludes his answer to Peter’s question by telling a very stern parable indeed, one which ends with anything but a ‘forgiving’ declaration that if we refuse to forgive we shall be tortmented ~ tortured in newer translations!
Peter obviously sees that a ‘bit’ of forgiveness is important, we can put up with something, forgive the perpetrator a few times,but there will come a point when pushed hard enough, we can let rip: For how long should we take it, Jesus? Seven times? That’s good-going! No. Seventy times seven. This means always, and every time. Our willingness to forgive must be unlimited.
Is Jesus being reasonable in commanding such a standard? Or is this his usual use of hyperbole? Putting everything in the extreme case as was the practice of teachers in Jesus’ day? Its not that we are really expected to fulfil Jesus’ injunction, its there just so that we do get the point and aim for it!
Hyperbole it may be, the number of talents the king’s servant owes is certainly beyond his ability at any point to pay. But this is not the point. The reality remains, when we refuse to forgive we are tormented. Jesus is not threatening us, he is telling us like it is! For our own happiness as much as the well-being of others, we need to learn how to forgive. It is not for Jesus’ sake – or God’s sake, it is for our own sakes. If we are unwilling to forgive our lives will be hard and brittle, and we will miss out on so much of the delight and happiness of life we could enjoy.
This does not mean that forgiving is easy. It is an art we need to learn over and over again.
And the learning will require hard work of us. But as a forgiving spirit becomes part of our core character, forgiveness in each particular situation will flow more easily. Our ability to forgive is reflected in our attitudes: towards God, to life, to others, to ourselves. When we have truly forgiven, there is a lightness in our step, a joy and strength in our looking forward.
So how can we come to this place of forgiveness? We can say: I forgive you. But if we don’t actually feel it inside us, then it is not forgiveness. Our resentment will go on festering. And it will find other subtle ways of expressing itself, spoiling our relationships, spoiling our lives. Though our willingness to say that we forgive, is of course, a good start. For feelings may follow actions as much as actions follow feelings.
Let us be clear first of all, forgiving the person does not mean condoning their actions – does not mean that the action does not matter. The actions of abusers remain abuse which we ought to challenge. Neither does forgiving mean that we are forever called to be doormats, laying ourselves down to be constantly walked over.
Our ability to forgive begins with our recognition that we are ourselves, each one of us, we are all in need of forgiveness. When we reflect that maybe, put in similar circumstances, we might have done the same, abhorrent as the actions are, and much as we hope and believe we would not, when we acknowledge our own need for forgiveness, our own longing to be forgiven, then we begin our work towards our forgiving of others. When we recognise that mostly, those who commit evil acts, have themselves endured suffering, abuse, neglect, sometimes in hidden ways, we can begin to find compassion in our hearts.
And not only this, we will also begin to see, that our suffering is an opportunity for our own learning, our own growing and maturing as people. It may lead us, if we so chose, into greater experience of life, into greater depths of being. We learn how to take responsibility for ourselves, and discover the freedom and strength of doing so. To do this means overcoming our fears. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the things we feel comfortable with, however unsatisfactory, slipping away from us. For the devil we know can feel a lot more comfortable than the angel we don’t know, and who in any case, may never arrive!
Forgiving requires courage. It takes time. And it takes honesty. We need to give ourselves time to grieve for that which we have lost. We need to have the courage to be honest with ourselves ~ and honest with those who have hurt us about how we feel. Doing this will release us from the pain of our anger, whether or not the one who has wronged us chooses to make amends, however nice this might be. What we need is the opportunity to articulate how we feel. And maybe first, we need to be honest with ourselves about what it is that has really hurt us. Maybe it is also our own failures that we find hard to forgive.
In Greek mythology the goddess of the seasons, Demeter, has a beautiful innocent daughter Persephone. Persephone who dearly loves her mother, wishes to be swept of her feet by a man. The powerful, clever and decisive god Hades captures her heart and carries her off to his domain, the underworld, the place of the dead from which there is no returning.
Demeter’s rage and despair at losing her daughter knew no bounds, and without Demeter’s loving care and attention, the winter lingered and lingered, the spring quite unable to break through and bring vital new life. Blinded by her own grief, Demeter was deaf to the cries of the people, who without their crops grew hungrier and hungrier.
Persephone also missed her mother and longed to see her. But she did not wish to return and leave Hades for ever as her mother wanted. In this situation, Demeter was forced to face the darkness of her own righteous fury. If spring was to come again on earth, she will need to open herself to the realities of the underworld, the realities of her own desires, the dark side of her own soul; she needs to ask clearly for what she wants, and seek within herself the compromise with what she finds: half the year with her daughter is better than her total absence. She needs to go beyond her own rage, self-pity and grief, even while to do so defies her sense of fairness and justice. She needs to accept that life will never be as it was, and adjust to the changed reality. She needs to be willing to allow new life to spring up within her, as it surely will, for life is ever renewing itself. And indeed, as Demeter begins to change within herself, so in the outer world, winter also gives way to the bursting joy of spring.
Forgiving does not mean we must continually endure unhappy situations. With God’s grace,
it is about finding the way forward into new and fuller life. Amen.