Forgiveness and Biblical Metaphors

Every seventh year you must cancel all debts. 2This is how the cancellation is to be handled: Creditors will forgive the loans of their fellow Israelites. They won’t demand repayment from their neighbors or their relatives because the Lord’s year of debt cancellation has been announced.

Deuteronomy 15:1-2, CEB

In Deuteronomy 15, God encourages his people to take care of one another, and to lend money freely. He tells the people that he will bless them such that there will be enough to go around. Generosity will not be a burden on the generous. In fact, he instructs his people that, every seven years, debts owed should be cancelled by the lender. This is done so that there will be no poor among God’s people, so that no one will acquire a debt that becomes too overwhelming.

This passage is, on the surface, about economics. It’s also about more than that. It lays the groundwork for one of the most primary metaphors used in scripture, and by Jesus himself, for understanding interpersonal forgiveness.

In the example of money-lending, forgiveness is the result of the lender not demanding repayment from the borrower. Forgiveness is not so much what the lender does to the borrower, but what the lender does not do. The lender does nothing when they could have done something (such as demand repayment or some other form of compensation, like throwing the borrower in jail).

I’ll say more about this tomorrow. But, in the mean time, think about this: What if forgiveness is an action? What if forgiveness is about something as simple as not demanding compensation for wrongdoing?

Generosity

I have not always appreciated generosity for the gift it is.  Generosity isn’t just about sharing the last cookie or perhaps making a sacrificial financial donation to a worthy cause - I understand that kind of generosity and have myself been the grateful recipient of such generosity.

Generosity from Brown’s perspective is new to me.  Here’s what she says, “Learning how to set the boundaries that allow us to be generous in our assumptions about others.  The challenge is being honest and clear with others about what’s okay and not okay.”  p. 150 Braving the Wilderness

What does this mean?

Here’s how it works with me.  If my husband does something that irritates me, I am quick to assume the worst.  I might think - he did that to irritate me.  He doesn’t care about me.  He doesn’t understand me.  My husband is a jerk.  This is the opposite of Brene’s call to generosity.

When my husband does something to irritate me and I remember to be generous in my assumptions - I might think:  Huh.  What’s that all about?  I wonder what he was thinking and I am curious to ask him about his choice.  Is he doing okay?  Is he tired?  Does he need help?

Generous assumptions result in curiosity and inquiry, not judgment.

As I am learning to practice Brene’s kind of generosity, our conflict has decreased and my sense of love and well-being has increased.  It’s really lovely.

For the most part, my husband does not wake up in the morning and set out to drive me nuts.  He is doing the best he can and it is quite wonderful.  Living generously, I can say the same about me.  

Why not live more generously?  How can it possibly hurt?

Giving and receiving

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; it is actually a by-product of practicing the spiritual discipline of not judging.  I don’t know why, but I am often astonished at how quickly someone is able to help me if I ask.

Problems that seem confounding to me often have clear, often simple solutions that others can explain to me.  I hope this is also true in the reverse.

Once I learn, through trial and error and often a fair amount of failing, who can be helpful in situations that I find impossible to understand, the beautiful side-effect is a deepening cache’ of folks I can call on in my time of need.

This frees up my time for the things that I can help someone else with - time I previously wasted spinning in uncertainty and a skills deficit in areas of life where I really, truly need to ask for help in order to resolve an issue.

This doesn’t have to be major stuff.  For example, when I study and prepare for a message series, I always cram too much into a single outline for a weekend message.  I will ALWAYS have this tendency.  Twenty years in and I STILL CRAM TOO MUCH IN TO A SINGLE MESSAGE OUTLINE.  What I have learned is that Scott, our co-pastor at NSC, can read my notes in 3 minutes or less and suggest to me what he thinks is my strongest point, what is extraneous information, and where in the outline I stop one message and go on to a completely new message.  I rely on Scott to help me in my weakness.  He never has this problem, and that’s great, because I could not be helpful in solving it for him.  But he has another area of message delivery that I can sometimes provide advance feedback on and I hope he finds it as helpful as I find him in my own preparation.

This is no big deal.  The world will no crash down around us if we do not practice this exchange of feedback.  If I go way too long in a message, the checked out faces in the room will teach me to stop talking.  But this kind of mutuality is helpful.  The scripture refers to this I think when it says, “Love covers a multitude of sins.”  It is not suggesting a cover up.  But it is saying, I think, that when we love and trust one another, it is a natural thing to rely on one another to cover our perennial weaknesses.  This strengthens the whole of a community.  It is helpful.

If Scott were to judge my over-preparedness, then I could not ask him to help me and in fact, he wouldn’t be very helpful even if I asked.  His judgment would negate his capacity to help.  

Is judgment getting in the way of love in your life?

Integrity

Integrity requires that we choose to live courageously by our core values over the comfort of taking the easy way out when faced with a tough decision that calls our values into question.  Recently someone offered me a high profile speaking engagement that may have helped our local community spread the word about our ministry.  They also required that I sign a release form that gave them ownership of the content I would present.  I chose not to speak.  

In past years, I might have been distracted by the perceived opportunity to share with our larger community all the wonderful things that I believe Northstar Community participates in out of my unbridled enthusiasm for our mission.  I wouldn’t have thought about the implications of willingly signing over my creative and proprietary rights in the process.

Today, I realize that this was not a respectful request when the speaker (me) was not being paid or even acknowledged for their work.  This is not an integrity move, and it took more courage than it should have for me to respectfully decline the offer.

Many carrots will be dangled in front of our faces that will tempt us to make decisions that are not consistent with our core values.  One way I am learning to distinguish a real carrot from fake fruit is giving myself time to make decisions.  All decisions.  Even small decisions.  Pausing to prepare, think about the implications of my choices, notice and acknowledge times when I want to avoid acting with courage - this time is necessary for me to live with integrity.

It’s not easy.  What shortcuts have you been tempted to take?  How have you allowed an “opportunity” to blind you to the cost of pursuing it?

Decency

In Brene’ Brown’s model of “B.R.A.V.I.N.G” - the first three things - boundaries, reliability, and accountability are fairly obvious and oft talked about concepts.  But  V is for “VAULT” really caught my attention.

The skill set she puts in this category goes like this:  “Learning how to keep confidences, to recognize what’s ours to share and what’s not.  The challenge is to stop using gossip, common enemy intimacy, and oversharing as a way to hotwire connection.” (p. 150 Braving the Wilderness)

These concepts are all ways Brene says we use fake connections to imitate true belonging.  When we gossip it feels all connected...until we imagine others gossiping about us.  Oversharing feels like intimacy until we realize that we shared with someone who was not safe and the sharing backfires.  Common enemy intimacy is when we experience a connective zing based on connecting with others based on who and what we are against.  This intimacy is particularly pernicious because it often joins us to people we with whom we share no common core values.  

This is why my Republican friends are rightfully upset because their Democrat friends are now labelling them a rascist because they voted for President Trump in the election.  My Democrat friends are devastated that their Republican friends say, “Hey, there is no way I could vote for crooked Hillary.”    The name calling and the connection each political party feels when they gather together and bash the other is an example of common enemy bonding.  Each is making assumptions that the other side believes are false.  But here’s the real problem.  We are making enemies out of people who are not enemies.  This is a problem.  

Folks, beware this kind of bonding.  It’s indecent.