I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness over the past few days.
There's a prayer embedded deep within the Christian tradition: "Have mercy on me, O God, a sinner". It's hard to make excuses with a prayer like that. In fact, it's a refusal to even try. Once you've prayed a prayer like that, it's understandable why betrayal and all its related spiritual manifestations -- while certainly not easy -- are forgive-able.
If you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. That, it seems to me is at the heart of the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray. He doesn't put conditions on his statement, either. It's not a matter of forgiving someone if they're appropriately scared of the consequences or whether you can ferret out all the extenuating circumstances. We forgive. If we don't, we will not be forgiven.
In other words, forgiveness isn't the same as making excuses. Forgiveness says, "Yes, you did the thing, but I'm not holding it against you and I'm never bringing it up again". Excusing says, "Yes, you did the thing, but you're not to blame because you couldn't help it or didn't mean it".
Which, if I'm honest, is probably what I do when I pray for God to forgive me. I find that what I'm really hoping God accepts are those extenuating circumstances. Which means I'm expecting God to fall just a bit short of what God really does in Jesus Christ.
And therein in the source of a whole lot of my anxiety of late. I may say, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins" in the Creed, but when it comes to it, I most likely don't. And since I'm hoping God is good with accepting my excuses, when it comes time to practice forgiveness with those closest to me, it's hard to do. Because if the excuse feels a bit cold -- and it inevitably does -- forgiveness is hard to swallow.
Real forgiveness means looking at the ugliness of the sin, naming it for what it is, and refusing that ugliness to corrupt the beauty of relationship, of love. Real forgiveness looks beyond the excuse, after all the allowances have been made, and names the breach for what it is -- a cancer, a horror, a dirt, meanness or malice. And despite all of it, it reaches into that ugliness and pulls the person back out in the beauty of sacrificial love.
That, and only that, can be Christian forgiveness. And we have the guarantee of it from God in Jesus Christ. That guarantee, in turn, shapes all our lives -- including our relationships and marriages.
Because when it comes to forgiving other people, forgiving isn't excusing. Lots of folks seem to think that if you buy their excuse, that's as far as you need to go. Because excusing says there really wasn't any cheating or any wrong committed. Thing is, if it were true, there would be nothing to give. "No, you broke a sacred promise." And that is exactly what there is to forgive.
Forgiving means refusing to give in to the revenge or humiliation or hurt that you want to visit on the other person. Forgiving means not buying into the excuse too soon, and refusing to really accept the other person in the very midst of pain. It means seeing them as God sees them.
This is why forgiveness isn't a practice that's common in our culture. We run to excuses because excuses work in the way we concretize and absolutize our relationships. Forgiveness requires something more. That something more is sacrificial love -- the love made real and bloody in the cross.
It's hard, but it's not as hard as buying the excuse in the long term. Because forgiving the other means we're quite aware where we stand before God. Or, as CS Lewis once put it: "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you".
Boy, do I have my work cut out for me.
There's a prayer embedded deep within the Christian tradition: "Have mercy on me, O God, a sinner". It's hard to make excuses with a prayer like that. In fact, it's a refusal to even try. Once you've prayed a prayer like that, it's understandable why betrayal and all its related spiritual manifestations -- while certainly not easy -- are forgive-able.
If you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. That, it seems to me is at the heart of the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray. He doesn't put conditions on his statement, either. It's not a matter of forgiving someone if they're appropriately scared of the consequences or whether you can ferret out all the extenuating circumstances. We forgive. If we don't, we will not be forgiven.
In other words, forgiveness isn't the same as making excuses. Forgiveness says, "Yes, you did the thing, but I'm not holding it against you and I'm never bringing it up again". Excusing says, "Yes, you did the thing, but you're not to blame because you couldn't help it or didn't mean it".
Which, if I'm honest, is probably what I do when I pray for God to forgive me. I find that what I'm really hoping God accepts are those extenuating circumstances. Which means I'm expecting God to fall just a bit short of what God really does in Jesus Christ.
And therein in the source of a whole lot of my anxiety of late. I may say, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins" in the Creed, but when it comes to it, I most likely don't. And since I'm hoping God is good with accepting my excuses, when it comes time to practice forgiveness with those closest to me, it's hard to do. Because if the excuse feels a bit cold -- and it inevitably does -- forgiveness is hard to swallow.
Real forgiveness means looking at the ugliness of the sin, naming it for what it is, and refusing that ugliness to corrupt the beauty of relationship, of love. Real forgiveness looks beyond the excuse, after all the allowances have been made, and names the breach for what it is -- a cancer, a horror, a dirt, meanness or malice. And despite all of it, it reaches into that ugliness and pulls the person back out in the beauty of sacrificial love.
That, and only that, can be Christian forgiveness. And we have the guarantee of it from God in Jesus Christ. That guarantee, in turn, shapes all our lives -- including our relationships and marriages.
Because when it comes to forgiving other people, forgiving isn't excusing. Lots of folks seem to think that if you buy their excuse, that's as far as you need to go. Because excusing says there really wasn't any cheating or any wrong committed. Thing is, if it were true, there would be nothing to give. "No, you broke a sacred promise." And that is exactly what there is to forgive.
Forgiving means refusing to give in to the revenge or humiliation or hurt that you want to visit on the other person. Forgiving means not buying into the excuse too soon, and refusing to really accept the other person in the very midst of pain. It means seeing them as God sees them.
This is why forgiveness isn't a practice that's common in our culture. We run to excuses because excuses work in the way we concretize and absolutize our relationships. Forgiveness requires something more. That something more is sacrificial love -- the love made real and bloody in the cross.
It's hard, but it's not as hard as buying the excuse in the long term. Because forgiving the other means we're quite aware where we stand before God. Or, as CS Lewis once put it: "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you".
Boy, do I have my work cut out for me.