Like most of you, I liked what I heard from Greg Jones last
Sunday. And, like most of you, I was affected by what I heard
from Greg Jones last Sunday. Not that I realized it at the
time. It took a few days for some of his words to do their
work. Which was night work ... middle of the night work ...
or (as some might want to call it) dream work.
I am not one of those people who are long on dream analysis.
I don't pay my dreams a whole lot of mind. Neither do I keep
pencil and paper beside my bed, the better to record them
upon waking. I am not even 100 percent certain about whether
I dream in technicolor or black and white. But Tuesday night's
dream I remember, triggered (as it was) by a pair of sermons
I heard last Sunday on "The Extravagance of Forgiveness."
In my dream, I am in the office of someone who does not like
me all that much. But the feeling is mutual, given that I
do not like him all that much, either. At any rate, I am there
to offer "a sign of reconciliation and peace," in
the form of a couple of Piston basketball tickets. Where I
got them, I don't know. And why I would give them to him,
I don't know either. But, in my dream, I've got them, and
I'm offering them in a clumsy, bury-the-hatchet gesture.
Unfortunately, he neither wants them ... or me. In fact,
he turns everything upside down by suggesting that the real
reason I have come is to steal stuff off his desk. Which leads
me to defend my motive and my character. And which leads him
to attack me all the more. Suddenly we are grappling with
each other like a couple of schoolboys. I wind up with his
head in a hammer lock. Physically, I have the upper hand (which
is most unusual, given that I hate physical confrontations
and, early in childhood, learned the fine art of talking myself
out of them). But here I am ... with clear advantage ... capable
of inflicting even further bodily harm.
There is a wall beside us and I seriously entertain the thought
of ramming his head into it. Which I don't ... even though
I could ... because my superego takes over and says: "You
can't do that, Ritter. That's not who you are. Neither is
it what you are all about." So I release him, take my
Piston tickets and go ... having utterly failed in my attempt
to make things better, while having succeeded (if you can
call it "success") in making things worse.
Point being: Forgiveness is not always the easiest work to
accomplish ... and those who would engage in it had better
be prepared, on occasion, to work overtime. Maybe if I'd gone
to his office with Tiger tickets. Or opera tickets. Or not
gone to his office at all, but called him on the phone. Maybe
if I'd written him a letter ...
In an illustration that Greg shared Sunday night, he cited
C.S. Lewis as having said: "I recently discovered I had
finally forgiven someone after 30 years of trying ... and
it felt like a miracle." Thirty years of trying. Can
you imagine that? All of which made me think of the admonition
of Jesus, wherein he suggested that if, on the way to the
altar with our gift, we remember some unresolved messy business
with a brother or sister, we should lay our gift down ...
go find the brother or sister ... hammer out some kind of
reconciliation ... and then return (supposedly with the brother
or sister in hand) to approach the altar together. Wow! If
C.S. Lewis had taken that admonition literally, he would have
remained outside the church ... or (at least) away from the
altar ... for 30 years. And if we took that admonition literally,
we would empty out the sanctuary right now. There would only
be three or four people left to hear the rest of the sermon.
Assuming, that is, that there would be a preacher left to
preach it. Which certainly wouldn't be me. Because I'd be
out there with you, trying to right some messy wrong ... heal
some ugly wound ... rebuild some bombed-out bridge, with those
who are at odds with me, or I with them. In short, forgiveness
is a wonderful thing to feel, but a difficult thing to do.
Still, it is hard to read the Bible without sensing its importance.
I know, given that I keep looking for loopholes. Never is
there the suggestion that forgiveness is optional for Christians.
God commands it. Jesus models it. Mental health requires it.
And true community, inside or outside of the church, can't
happen without it. Sooner or later, all of us will crave it,
or find ourselves in the position of needing to offer it.
When Jesus answers the question in Matthew 18 ("How
many times must I forgive?"), the answer is either 77
times or 70 times 7 (490 times), depending upon how you translate
the Greek. Either way, it sounds like a lot. More than any
reasonable person should have a right to expect. But Jesus
is not being reasonable, here. In fact, he's pretty clear
about that. "Reasonable" stops at seven. What Jesus
is saying when he bumps the definition of "reasonable"
to 77 ... or 490 ... is not that you can stop forgiving at
number 78 (or number 491), but that you keep on forgiving
until you stop counting.
The following ad appeared in the local newspaper of Scottsbluff,
Nebraska:
That young lady is a good candidate for the School of Forgiveness.
As are we all.
Jesus says (in a most misunderstood statement) that unless
we are willing to offer forgiveness to others, we will never
receive it from God. Which has nothing to do with the hardness
of God's heart, but with the hardness of our own. The bitterness
I nurture against you poisons my heart ... making it nigh-to-impossible
for God's love to get in. Unless, that is, I find some way
to lance the bitterness and let the poison leak away. In the
end, my bitterness not only holds God at bay, but everyone
else, too. I don't like to be around bitter and vengeful people.
My job calls for me to do it. But I don't enjoy it. And neither
do you. My Pennsylvania colleague, Eric Ritz, writes: "Have
you ever noticed, in the western movies, that the bounty hunter
always travels alone. It's not hard to see why. Who wants
to hang out with a guy who settles scores for a living? Cantankerous
sorts, these bounty hunters. Best leave them alone."
To err is human ... to forgive, divine. Which is another
way of saying that forgiveness is godly work. Never are we
more God-like than when we offer it. And, apart from the power
of God, we are not able to offer it. It's that hard. It really
is.
But what makes it harder still is that we've coupled a pair
of "F" words together, thereby doubling the difficulty.
I am talking about the words "forgive" and "forget"
... those "F" words. Most people link them. But
I am here to tell you that those people may not have done
you any favors. To be sure, everything is forgivable. But
not everything is forgettable. Nor should it be. Hear me out.
I almost never read Ann Landers. But one morning, the headline
over her column caught my eye. It read: "Forger Father
Ought to be Forgiven, Not Forgotten." In a nutshell,
the letter was written by a grown daughter whose father drank
his way out of his marriage ... out of his job ... and out
of his daughter's life. Living in another state, the father
found himself without car insurance as a result of three citations
for driving while intoxicated. To rectify the problem, he
forged his daughter's name on an insurance application and
then had one of his bar floozies pose as his daughter when
he went to re-register his automobile with the Department
of Motor Vehicles. Eventually his daughter caught on, whereupon
she pulled the plug on his little charade. Which led him to
proclaim: "From this day forward, you are no daughter
of mine." And, for more than a year, that's the way it
stayed ... with nobody saying anything to anybody.
Over time, however, the father turned repentant. And his
daughter turned mushy. Each felt badly. Both were ready for
mercy. Unfortunately, he was still drinking as much as he
ever had ... if not more. Leading her to write Ann Landers,
saying: "He wants to come and visit me next month. What
should I do?"
Ann wrote back, suggesting that she should see him ... receive
him ... hear him out ... even hold him close. But, added Ann:
"Don't give him your car keys. Remember that your father
has a problem. He drinks too much. And he does not let his
drinking stand in the way of his driving. That's reality.
And forgiveness does not obliterate reality. There's a part
of you that wants to love your daddy. Which is good. But you've
also got to remember how he drives."
Picture a Catholic priest ... a very good priest ... a very
kind priest ... a very loving priest ... but a priest who
has been quietly moved from parish to parish because of inappropriate
overtures made to altar boys. Now picture yourself as that
priest's superior ... perhaps his archbishop. Picture the
priest coming to you ... tearful ... contrite ... repentant
... confessing the same attraction. He is both sorry and sorrowful.
He pleads for mercy. You have it within your power to offer
it. Which you do. After all, on what grounds do you turn him
down? But you do not return him to parish life. Why? Because,
in addition to being his confessor, you are also his superior.
And you cannot forget what you have just forgiven.
Forgiveness suggests many wonderful things ... emptying your
heart of bitterness ... opening yourself to be a channel of
God's love ... creating the possibility for fresh starts,
second chances and new beginnings. But forgiveness does not
suggest an automatic return to things as they were ... to
people as they were ... to relationships as they were ...
so that the same hurtful consequences can happen as they did.
Forgiveness was never meant to be the lubrication that greases
our way back into the status quo, so that the same destructive
stuff can go on happening over and over. The person who repeatedly
says, "Let's just forget this ever happened," is
often the person who is going to turn around and do it to
you again ... just the same as before ... and sooner than
you think.
Sometimes you have to forgive and remember. But how long
do you remember? All of us know people who never let go of
the past ... meaning our past and everything we did wrong
in it. Even when we've outgrown and moved beyond it, they
remember and retell it. And we hate it. We even hate them
for it. "Let it go, already," we cry. "Give
it a rest. Give us a rest." Which needs to happen ...
over time ... when the work of restoration is well on the
way. It's a process, don't you see ... following an act that
sets the process in motion. The name of the act is "showing
mercy." The name of the process is "rebuilding trust."
Mercy ... that's a gift.
Trust ... that's a work (sometimes a long, hard work).
You've got a kid. Your kid messes up. Maybe once. Maybe twice.
Maybe a million or more times. Which does not lessen your
love for your kid. But which does diminish your confidence
in your kid. So you shorten the leash. You increase the surveillance.
You act like a parent whose trust has been betrayed. Which
your kid hates. And you don't much like it, either. But over
time, your kid shapes up. And you lighten up. Slowly, the
past fades from view ... to the point of being forgotten.
It's a process everybody understands.
Recall the prodigal son. Most of you know the story. The
kid storms out ... screws up ... slinks back. Tail between
his legs. Figures to eat crow. Gets prime rib instead. Story
stops. Chapter ends. Everybody goes to bed with a belly full
of beef ... a head full of burgundy ... and a heart full of
blessing. But the real work of restoration begins at 6:00
the next morning. That's when the rooster crows, the coffee
perks, and everybody rolls out of bed in preparation for spending
the next 14 hours out in the field, on the business end of
a hoe. All the while, everybody is looking down the hallway
at the still-closed door of the prodigal's bedroom, wondering:
"Will he, or won't he?"
Or picture a man who has been unfaithful to his wife. The
infidelity is uncovered and admitted. There are tears and
more tears. There are also pleas and promises. Let us assume
(for sake of argument) that there has even been a temporary
split, so that there can now be a wonderful reunion. Forgiveness
flows. He is welcomed like a king. Night after night, she
expresses her love. Morning by morning, new mercies he sees.
And if her words of forgiveness are not enough, there are
deeds, too. His favorite foods at dinner. The daily newspaper
by his favorite chair. Unlimited possession of the clicker,
so that everyone watches what he wants to watch. But no man
is ever truly forgiven by his wife until he has been readmitted
to the burdens as well as the blessings of the relationship.
Such as when she tosses him the dish towel and says: "Okay,
buster, it's your turn to dry." That's when he knows
he belongs, don't you see.
Like I said, forgiveness is work. Long, slow, hard work.
And not everybody is able to do it. Nor is everybody ready
to do it. Which may include some of you. Your pain is still
too raw. The separation, too wide. The gulf, too deep. If
that describes you, what does love require in the short run?
Let me make a suggestion.
If you can't give yourself to the relationship, you can at
least give the relationship to God. As a kid, I learned that
wonderful one-liner that I memorized as the "Mizpah Benediction:"
"May the Lord watch between me and thee, while we are
absent one from the other." Perhaps you memorized it,
too. But what nobody ever told us was the life situation that
produced it. Do you realize that those words were spoken at
the parting of Jacob and his Uncle Laban, two men who clearly
did not like each other and certainly did not trust each other.
Laban tricked Jacob into working 14 years in order to marry
the daughter who was promised to him after only seven years
of labor. Now Jacob has retaliated by taking both of Laban's
daughters ... all of the grandchildren ... the household statues
... and, most likely, the china and flatware.
Unless I missed something in the Bible, Jacob and Laban never
saw each other again. I doubt they ever wanted to. Given the
way they felt about each other, they probably should have
parted with curses. Instead, they parted with this benediction
... praying that God would watch over the other, in whose
company neither could bear to stand.
Praying for those you can't stand. Or who can't stand you.
There's a thought. It can't hurt. It might help. And it's
certainly a better peace offer than Piston tickets ... or
bashing someone's head into a wall. In fact, I am willing
to bet that were you to pray ... nightly, "May the Lord
watch between me and _____(insert enemy's name), while we
are absent one from another" ... the longer you say the
prayer ... the shorter will be the absence.
Note: In addition to the debt owed to Greg Jones (Dean of
Duke Divinity School), I am deeply indebted to Lenora Tubbs
Tisdale of Princeton Theological Seminary, and her essay on
forgiving and forgetting entitled "The Gospel We Don't
Want to Hear (or Preach)." It can be found in the Easter
2000 edition of the Journal for Preachers. The story
about the unfaithful husband came to me, years ago, courtesy
of my first (and best) professor of preaching, Bill Muehl.
