A Scandalous Forgiveness Case Study

I am continuing to unpack my “theory” of forgiveness. If you need to get caught up, it started about a week ago and you can find all posts at northstarcommunity.com/blog.

Forgiveness is either an action or a lack of action. Depending on circumstances, forgiveness is either 1. treating the wrongdoer as if no offense has occurred or 2. refusing to demand repayment from the wrongdoer.

An example

I’ll use a hypothetical example so I’m not treading on anyone’s personal stories here. Let’s say that Jason and Jenny are married. Let’s say Jasons’ best friend, Tiger, had sex with Jason’s wife, Jenny. Let’s also say, for the sake of dealing with a “clean” case study, that Jason and Jenny had, up until this point, a very normal and healthy marriage relationship. Jason is the aggrieved party on two fronts.

We’ve used money lending as a primary metaphor for this theory. Forgiveness is like a money lender refusing to demand repayment from a borrower.

How do we assess this example in terms of our “debt” metaphor? We have to ask this question if we are to discover how we might refuse to demand repayment (assuming that we simply cannot do option 1 and treat the offender as if no harm has occurred)..

What is the debt that is owed?

The debt is whatever used to be present in the relationship that is now missing. The debt is the offense. The debt is also the fallout from the offense. The debt, in the case of something that does not involve money, is a number of factors combined. In this case we’re dealing with betrayal, deceit, disrespect, infidelity, and more. Just as we discussed in class, the trust that was formerly present is now gone. The debt is the accumulation of all the “bad stuff” now present in the relationship in conjunction with the “good stuff” that is lost. In such a case as this, there is no single way to analyze and articulate what the debt is- other than to point to the harm done.

Another way to look at it is to say that the debt is the thing that needs to be compensated for when a wrongdoer makes amends. Now, we know right away that some debts, including the one described here, cannot be simply compensated for. At least, not in short order. But, if we imagine Jenny offered to make amends, what would she be making amends over? Likely, all the of the issues listed above and a few more.

If you’re having a hard time articulating “the debt”, ask yourself what the wrongdoer would make amends over and that will get you somewhere in the neighborhood.

Returning to our metaphor

We mentioned, several days back, that one of the primary biblical metaphors for understanding forgiveness is one of money lending. In order for forgiveness to take place in a money lending scenario, the lender must refuse to demand repayment from the borrower and refuse to retaliate towards the borrower.

My way of processing this metaphor tells me that forgiveness is either an action (actively refusing repayment is an action) or a lack of action (refusing to retaliate is restraining ourselves from taking action). So, to apply the metaphor to relationships, forgiveness is either 1. treating the wrongdoer as if no offense has occurred (hang with me on this- I’m only recommending this under a very specific set of circumstances) or 2. refusing to demand repayment from the wrongdoer.

Be patient with me, if you can. I’ll unpack both of these in the days to come but, rest assured, in neither option do we ignore the damage that has been done.

We work at the action of Forgiveness

Two days ago I gave two reasons I’m unsatisfied with the idea that God is the only person involved in human forgiveness.

2. If we simply say, “God has to do it,” then we are not wrestling deeply enough with the question of how we encourage people to practice forgiveness. God needs to be active for forgiveness to take place, but we must also be active. If we do not need to act, then why does God encourage us to be forgiving? It’s a trick question, of course. God instructs us to forgive, as Jesus does his disciples, because he believes there is an action we can take in order to bring forgiveness about.

Let me take a step back for a second.

People in Jesus’ day and age were very different from us. They were not “in touch” with emotions. They did not have any concept of an “internal world.” They didn’t know anything about subconscious processes or motivations. They didn’t even know that a person could have an “identity” (other than the identity of whatever group they were a part of). For this reason, I’m not speculating to say that Jesus did not have emotions in mind when he told his disciples to forgive. It’s a fact that can be proven (it would bore all of us- but it can be done). Hearing this for the first time is likely going to be confusing or upsetting. If that’s the case, get in touch and let’s talk it through. This is actually quite good news if you’re willing to hang in there with me.

If Jesus doesn’t have feelings in mind, then what does it mean when Jesus says to forgive from your heart? Well, they didn’t think about the heart as the center of our emotions, the way we do. They thought about the heart as the center of all human activity- the way we use the word “brain.” In other words, a more accurate translation into our vernacular would be, “Forgive others from your brain.” Sounds very different, doesn’t it? It's a little less romantic, but it's not less important.

All this to say, for Jesus, forgiveness would have been an action, not a feeling. And he encourages action from us. The question is, what kind of action?

Collaborative Forgiveness

Yesterday I gave two reasons I’m unsatisfied with the idea that God is the only person involved in human forgiveness.

1. Some people have been harmed too greatly to get past their negative emotions.

I would think this should be obvious, but it isn’t. In fact, in Christianity anyway, it has become so common to speak of forgiveness as if it’s the Nike slogan: Just do it. Or, like we said yesterday: God will just do it.

That mentality creates this mentality: if a person still has negative feelings towards a wrongdoer then that means they either need to forgive and haven’t really tried, or they are bad at forgiveness and are immoral.

A third option is this: some harms are so great that emotions never get completely transformed. And, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that. There is only something wrong with that if we start with the assumption that forgiveness is just about emotions and that our emotions are the most important aspect of spirituality.

I think emotions are important. But I do not think they are the most important aspect of spirituality. And I don’t think forgiveness is primarily about how we feel. We’ll come back to that in a couple days.

Forgiveness and "bad" feelings

25 Because the servant didn’t have enough to pay it back, the master ordered that he should be sold, along with his wife and children and everything he had, and that the proceeds should be used as payment. 26 But the servant fell down, kneeled before him, and said, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’ 27 The master had compassion on that servant, released him, and forgave the loan. Matthew 18:25-27, CEB

We have gotten accustomed, in our culture, to perceiving forgiveness in terms of our emotions only. The most common definition, I would guess, goes something like this: Forgiveness is what happens when all my negative feelings about my wrongdoer are gone. It’s such a common definition, in fact, I suspect many might be thinking, “Of course that’s forgiveness. What else is there?”

Yesterday we talked about forgiveness in money-lending as refusing to demand repayment (or refusing to take action in the form of punishment). We see that again in this parable. We see no indication of how the master may have felt, other than compassion, which does not mean he didn't have other, more complicated feelings as well. In a few days time, we're going to examine in detail how we could apply this mentality (refusing to demand repayment) to our own forgiveness situations. But first, this:

I’ve spent the past few weeks reading about and lamenting the sexual abuse scandal that continues to plague Christianity. I’m not a naturally empathetic person but my heart breaks for those victims, their families, their congregations, their communities. I can't help but be dissatisfied in our culture's definition of forgiveness and its focus on feelings. How will a sexually abused child ever get rid of all of their negative feelings towards their abuser?

We could answer this in one of two ways. When we’re locked into a definition of forgiveness that is about emotions we’re stuck with this answer: God has to do it. There’s an element of truth to that of course. There is no forgiveness without God and God is actively involved in all acts of forgiveness. All the same, this strikes me as a somewhat unsatisfying answer on the whole. And I have two reasons for this.

1. Some people have been harmed too greatly to get past their negative emotions.

2. If we simply say, “God has to do it,” then we are not wrestling deeply enough with the question of how we encourage people to practice forgiveness. God needs to be active for forgiveness to take place, but we must also be active. If we do not need to act, then why does God encourage us to be forgiving?

More to come.