Have you noticed how everyone thinks forgiveness is a wonderful concept even though we all seem to struggle with the practice of it? I can think of nothing more practical or understandable than Jesus' request for clarification from Jesus: How often must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Indeed, we are ripe with excuses why forgiveness, as good as it is as an idea, it is not what we should do in this instance. We can find every extenuating circumstance why Jesus' words do not apply to us and do not apply to the issue we are working through. Even more, we can convince ourselves (even if we cannot convince Jesus) that forgiveness is exactly what we should not do for the person whom we have deemed impenitent because we see little evidence of sincerity or sign they will stop offending. As Lewis put is it, Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until have something to forgive. The truth is that Jesus sets the bar for forgiveness too low for nearly all of us. Sure, we are worthy of such kindness but we are not quite sure that our neighbor or spouse or child or parent or the stranger whose name we do not know deserves it as much as we do.
Bitterness is bad business not simply for those whom we have chosen not to forgive but for each of us who have decided it is better to remember the sin and hate the sinner. The gift of a long memory becomes a curse when it cannot surrender the memory of hurt or slight or pain even to the healing love of Christ. I venture to say that it is not simply impenitence that is the problem within Christianity today but also and even more so the refusal to forgive one another as Christ has forgiven us. Truly these have become, if we take them seriously, the most fearful words of the Our Father. Who wants to think that the measure by which we forgive one another will be the measure by which we are forgiven?
Congregations are so quickly and easily broken and divided by the refusal to forgive or by the choice to remember the wrong and allow it to stew and fret away God's precious gift of welcome, friendship, and unity. Somehow we find the prospect of forgiving the angry parishioner or the insensitive pastor too much for God to expect of us even as we routinely dump at the foot of the cross the sins we are not ready to give up -- all so that we might go home with a clear conscience. It is a clear conscience that comes at the cost of real repentance because it is without the intention to fight with all our might to give up the sin that comes so easily to us. Because we treat God's forgiveness as His duty to us, we can treat our forgiveness of others as a choice and neither the expectation nor the norm of our lives together under the cross.
The refusal to forgive is at least as responsible for the break up of marriage and home as the impenitence of those who sin against their spouse and family members. God has provide the glue to enable our fragile love to endure and it is the gift of forgiveness. Without this third strand in our cord of two, we are weak and vulnerable. But where forgiveness lives and we meet each other precisely where Christ has met us, our marriages and families have the potential to endure almost any wound.
We all agree that forgiveness is a great concept but we also agree that its application is messy and costly. In the end it is not our work but the Spirit working in us the miracle of Christ. Amazingly, the more we are aware of and appreciate God's costly act of forgiveness toward us, the more we find it easier to forgive others. May the Lord bestow upon us the riches of His generous heart that we may learn how to forgive and how to forget and so manifest here on earth the strong bonds of heaven and eternity.
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