Forgiveness (PART II) by Rev Allister Lane

31st October 2021

Genesis 50:15-21

Last week I shared how a friend of my recognises how Christian values have been adopted as social policy and common practice in New Zealand

(fairness/justice, looking after the vulnerable, provision of healthcare and education, etc)

But in his experience working in a government department one feature of Christian faith is deficient: forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a clear theme in the teaching of Jesus.

Jesus makes it clear that to follow him is to practice habitual and perpetual forgiveness.

We know from our own experience forgiving others isn’t easy, right?

And we can live deliberately blind to our unforgiveness.

Like a root alive underground, unforgiveness can have a subterranean existence in our lives.

Unforgiveness can be unseen but still alive, and it will distort you.

I used three related words to describe this: wrath – wreath – wraith.

Without with honest and thorough forgiveness your wrath will become twisted (like a wreath) and will distort you into a wraith.

Into a restless spirit, someone who relives the past, someone who is haunted.

And so Jesus teaches us to avoid our human instinct to hold on to bitterness and make a decision to forgive.

In today’s reading (from the first book of the Bible) we hear about a family that understands the human instinct to hold on to bitterness:

“Joseph’s brothers said, ‘What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?’”

Perhaps, we bear a grudge for wrongs done to us.

How can we deal with this?

Perhaps we feel forgiveness is so difficult and unachievable, it’s like a supernatural act.

Alexander Pope said: “To err is human, to forgive is divine.”

(or… “To err is human, to ‘Arghhh’ is pirate”)

Even if forgiveness IS a supernatural act, Jesus has come to share with us what is divine.

We have been forgiven by God and invited to practice the same.

So HOW might we do this?

I want to suggest three steps to forgiveness (and I’m grateful to Tim Keller for these)

1) identify with the wrong-doer

2) forgiving debts

3) seeking the good of the wrong-doer

1) identify with the wrong-doer

Identifying with the wrong-doer: whenever someone wrongs you, the first thing you do is focus on the discontinuities between them and you; the dis-similarities.

EXAMPLE: cartoonists take the high-profile person and grossly accentuates some unattractive feature. (Donald Trump)

This is exactly what you do when someone wrongs you.

You see them one-dimensionally in relation to the wrong.

If they lie to you, they are ‘a Liar!’

Now, when you tell a lie, that’s different – you’re ‘complex’.

You sometimes do bad things, but you also do good things – there’s a mixture.

We need to identify with the wrongdoer because our personalities are different.

So, someone might publicly humiliate someone by yelling at them in front of others.

You might say “I’d never do that!” 

No, you’re right – your sins are different. 

Jesus says you’re basically the same;

if you let your heart justify yourself over against someone else who is more similar than you’d like to think, your heart will be twisted/distorted.

Miroslav Volf in A Spacious Heart:

“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans, and I exclude myself from the community of sinners.”

If you are going to avoid becoming twisted and get rid of the roots, when wronged by someone you must immediately think about the similarities –

they are weak and I’m weak,

they are stupid and I’m stupid.

Don’t exclude yourself from their community and don’t exclude them from your’s.

Identify with the wrong-doer.

2) forgiving debts

Secondly, you must inwardly pay the debt of the wrong-doer.

You must pay yourself, rather than make them pay it.

Forgiving a debt is an economic term that Jesus and the NT apply to all forgiveness.

E.g. The Lord’s Prayer.  We pray “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

But another way to translate this teaching of Jesus is

“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”  (King James Bible)

Why is forgiveness talked about as ‘debt’ in the Bible?

Forgiveness is not living with disregard for past wrongs,

rather forgiveness emerges from a decision to overcome resentment and vengefulness;

mastering the anger and humiliation – those most poisonous of attitudes.

There may sometimes be a literal/external debt to be redressed.

But there will always be an emotional/internal debt.

When you feel someone has wronged you, they owe you.

And the currency… is pain.

We want to see pain; we feel they owe us suffering.

And so we want to see them pay the debt.

There are many ways we can approach this.

1) There are direct ways: we can go and yell and scream at them.

2) Less direct ways are we can talk about them to others and to erode their reputation.

3) we can be incredibly cold and withdraw our friendship from them.

The most indirect way is when you see them inside yourself you crave for their pain.

You say to yourself “If they continue to do what they did to me, it will blow up in their face. I can’t wait.”

You crave for their pain.

You have the feeling that they owe you a debt,

in the same currency that you received – pain.

You want to see them suffer, you want to see them unhappy.

Let’s be honest, if you do see them suffer, you feel better.

That sense that they owe you goes down, it subsides.

When the wrong-doer experiences pain, that debt you feel is owed to you gets reduced.

You feel better; in a sense you get relief.

But that will twist and distort you, badly.

What’s the alternative to the wrong-doer paying the debt of pain?

You pay it.

EXAMPLE: Travelling with a group of friends, I paid for the accommodation. “we’ll pay you back.”

Time went by, and it got awkward to think about asking them for the money.

The point is: they owed me $100, and if they don’t pay it, what happens?

I end up paying it.

The debt doesn’t go away; someone has got to pay.

It’s either them or you.

So what do you do…?

When you want to scream and shout at them – you don’t (ouch)

When you see them and want to ignore them – you don’t (ouch)

When you want to gossip about them to others to destroy their reputation – you don’t (ouch)

Most of all when you see them prospering and you want to run them down in your heart and replay the hurt they caused – you pray for God to bless them (ouch)

What’s going on?

Why does it hurt?

Because it’s costly to decide to act this way. You are paying the pain.

“Forgiveness is giving up the right to be angry”

Too many of us focus on our perceived ‘right’ rather than uprooting the anger by personally paying the pain.

It may sometimes feel like forgiving someone is letting them go free.

But, if you pay the painful price, the anger will go, and you’ll be free!

Either you make THEM pay, or YOU pay – both ways there will be pain.

But if YOU pay, you’ll be free!

You won’t be twisted.

You won’t be stuck in the past, reliving the hurt. You won’t be a wraith.

Jesus teaches us to be forgive - habitually and perpetually.

We struggle with this because we think in subjective terms.

Can I forgive? No, I’m still too angry to forgive.

Time doesn’t fix unforgiveness: we’ll still be angry if we’ve been playing the hurt over and running them down in your mind, and with other people.

You haven’t been paying the price – so of course you’re still angry!

And the longer this goes on, your anger will be a root, going deeper. 

So, instead of hoping the grudge will go away, you can take action;

you can make a decision – to practice forgiveness;

to pay the debt yourself, inwardly.

It’ll hurt like crazy, but it will make you free.

3) seeking the good of the wrong-doer.

So, you identify with the wrong-doer.

Secondly you inwardly pay the debt yourself.

Thirdly, if you do the first two you will be free to be able to want the wrong-doer to experience good.

That’s as straightforward as it sounds!

It’s the test for forgiveness; have you truly forgiven someone?

If you have, you will be able to want them to be blessed with goodness in their life.

We know it’s hard to forgive! 

But we ourselves have been forgiven.

God wants us to live forgiven and set free – and extend that freedom forgiving others.

On the cross, Jesus declares “It is finished”. 

We are no longer trapped by mistakes and poor choices.

The Gospel is the promise that we too can live practicing forgiveness.

As you recognise your little story within the big story, and you will get perspective to get over your hurt.

To forgive is to live as a disciple of Jesus.

Who do you need to forgive…?

Take a moment to ask God to help you do this.