Definitions: Some Thoughts on Forgiveness

One of the bright spots that has emerged through the darkness of Sunday's tragic shootings has been the declarations of forgiveness from the family and friends of the victims. Christians have taken notice and, quite significantly, so has the press.* As more than one person has said to me, we ought to be grateful for the positive example of people living out their faith in a forgiving God.

Others, however, have not been quite so sure. In a recent conversation, someone had the courage to suggest what many of us may have thought--that perhaps it was too soon to offer forgiveness, that maybe doing so trivialized what was, by all accounts, a very terrible wrong, or that doing so may have rushed a grief process in which anger would have played an important role.

These are all legitimate concerns--but I think they may stem from a misunderstanding of forgiveness. So a few thoughts today on what forgiveness does--and does not--involve.**

• Forgiveness is not a one time event. The individuals affected by Sunday's shootings declared their forgiveness almost immediately. However, it will take time for them to grow into this declaration. As I mentioned in a sermon on this topic last month, they will have to forgive--to make moves against their anger--again, and again, and again (seventy times seven!). I suspect that for some of these people (perhaps all of them) it will take years for forgiveness to be complete. As Smedes says, "Forgiving is a journey; the deeper the wound, the longer the journey."
• Forgiveness does not mean condoning or excusing a wrong. In fact, forgiveness means the opposite. To forgive someone of a wrong, you must acknowledge that there is actually a wrong to be forgiving. To forgive, you must assign blame. When we forgive, we are not saying that the intolerable has suddenly become tolerable. Rather, we are saying that the only way we can deal with an intolerable wrong is through the miracle of forgiveness.
• Forgiveness does not mean minimizing a wrong. Saying "I forgive you" is not the same thing as saying, "That's okay--it was no big deal." If it's not a big deal, it doesn't need to be forgiven. As Lewis Smedes has written somewhere, "We need to sort out our hurts and learn the difference between those that call for the miracle of forgiveness and those that can be borne with a sense of humor. If we lump all our hurts together and prescribe forgiveness for all of them, we turn the art of forgiving into something cheap and commonplace. Like good wine, forgiving must be preserved for the right occasion.”
• Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. Reconciliation may be seen as the ultimate (though not always attainable) goal of forgiveness. However, forgiveness is only one step in achieving this goal. For full reconciliation to occur, the person who committed the wrong must also make a move--must "repent" in the biblical sense of the word (express both sorrow AND a commitment to change). If the person who committed the wrong has not changed, it would be unwise--even foolish--to enter back into relationship with them. In short, it takes one person to forgive but two to achieve full reconciliation.
• Forgiveness does not mean there are no consequences. God (and good parents, I think) may forgive the sins of His children but deem it important for them to live with the consequences of their poor choices. Sometimes when we forgive people, it is also necessary that they live with painful consequences. This can be an important a way of protecting ourselves from future hurts.
• Forgiveness does not mean forgetting: Forgiveness has more to do with the way we remember than with removing our memories. When we forgive, we learn to remember without anger or a desire for revenge. Furthermore, in a sin filled world, remembering the wrong we've forgiven can be important because of the need to protect ourselves from future hurts.
• Forgiveness is not something we only do for other people: Scripture makes clear that forgiveness is one of the ways we show Christ-like love for other people. However, it's also a way we love ourselves. When we refuse to forgive, we are held captive by our own anger and bitterness--it eats away at us and threatens to consume us. As Smedes writes: "When we forgive, we set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner we set free is us."

*It says something about the nature of forgiveness that it is considered newsworthy event. **Many of these come from Lewis Smedes' excellent book, The Art of Forgiving.

Endings and Beginnings

This week I'll be talking about our longing for our "home" in the New Creation (Isaiah 11)--a home that will be "set in order" for us when Jesus comes again. One of the thoughts I had kicking around in the back of my mind while I wrote the sermon came from something Eugene Peterson once wrote about atheists (and I may have commented on here before).

Peterson observes that many atheists are what he refers to as "Atheists of Compassion." They look around the world, see all the war and cancer and genocide and hypocrisy and other monstrosities that human beings are capable of, and conclude that there is no god worth believing in who would allow so much evil.* So their atheism, their refusal to believe in god/God, stems from their compassion for this world.

Peterson notes that in some ways, these atheists are our allies. As Christians, we too ought to be appalled by the brokenness of the creation. Our hearts ought to be just as broken (or more so) than that of a good atheists. So we agree there. We can call ourselves allies in our compassion for those who suffer in this world.

Of course, there are differences too. Namely, hope. We believe that there is a way "out" of this madness--a solution that will not come from the perfect political system or better policies or improved technology or a little more information or right thinking. We believe that one day, God himself will come again in the person of Jesus Christ and he will set all this right again. We believe that, because of his love for this world, God will not toss it in his divine dumpster, but instead will lovingly restore it to (and even beyond) it's prefallen glory. That's one of the reasons we long for his coming--because we love this world enough to want him to redeem it.

Here is how Lewis Smedes describes what will happen when Jesus comes again:

"C.S. Lewis said somewhere that when God comes back to earth it will be like having the author of a play called on stage after the final performance; the play is over, he takes his bow, the players leave, and the theater is swallowed in darkness. I do not much care for the metaphor. I believe that the Author of the play will appear on stage not after the final performance, but before the first curtain rises. The players have been turning rehearsals into nasty fights about who gets the best lines and the prime spot on the billboard; [they've been wrecking the set]; the play has become a disaster, doomed before it gets off the ground. it is then that the Author shows up, his original script in hand and with the power to change self-seeking egos into self-giving artists. The theater is bathed in gentle light, the curtain rises, and the play begins a triumphant and endless run. Not the ending, but the new beginning--this is what I hope for." (172).

What we long for when Christ comes again is not the day he will whisk us away from this mess, then destroy the world and toss it on the cosmic scrap heat. No, we long for the time when he will renew all things. We long for God's restoration of the world he loves (and we ought to love). We long for the time when we can experience the joys and comforts of home.

It's something to think about in the midst of our advent longing. Does our longing for his coming stem out of a disregard--even a disdain--for this world that God made? Or does it grow out of our love and compassion for it? Do we look at all the brokenness around us and just want to "fly away" and "be done with it all"? Or do we look at all the brokenness around us and hope that Jesus will come again and finally fix it--make it the way it's supposed to be? Do we sit around with our heads in the sand and wait for the sweet by-and-by? Or do we join Him in his big redemption project, even while we wait?

*This is the "problem of evil" argument. It's compelling, but it raises its own questions. For example: How do you measure evil, and at what point do you say there's "too much" evil. Or more significantly, what do you do with all the good in the world? (I call this the "problem of good"). Who gets the credit for that?