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.

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?