The Gray Monk

Trinity 22 (3rd Before Advent)
Tewkesbury Abbey
Sung Eucharist

+ In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen

“Peter sayeth unto Jesus, “Lord how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?”

This week a colleague sent me a new Politically Correct version of the Lord’s prayer, and, as I contemplated the Gospel for today, it occurred to me that I should share with you at least one piece from it. The familiar section which follows on from “ and give us today our daily bread,” has been rendered thus:

“and rationalize a disclaimer against our negative feedback as we rationalize a disclaimer against the negative feedback of others.”

You’re right, the rest of it makes about as much sense! Perhaps it also encapsulates part of the problem we, in our modern age, have with the concepts of sin, forgiveness, guilt, and freedom. Yet, in a rather twisted way, it also encapsulates our society’s understanding of sin. We are slaves to sin, and therefore guilt; we call ourselves “free”, yet we are in bondage to the baggage we carry around in our hearts; we are ashamed of the things we do to others and our inability to forgive what they have done to us. We blame everyone else, but not ourselves!

To err, says the proverb, is human; to forgive, divine. In his reply to Peter our Lord is not setting out some mathematical formula. He is simply stating that it is an ongoing and never-ending process. No matter how hard we try, we all cause someone else pain, daily. Sometimes we are, without knowing it, the instrument of someone else’s hurt, and sometimes, as in the case of the killing of hostages in Iraq, we are all affected but not the direct victim. It becomes much more complex when there is a permanent or longer lasting injury arising from the “sin”, and this is where we really do run into a problem with this simple imperative.

For Christ is not saying we ought to forgive, he is saying we must! There is a world of difference between these two positions. The book, The Foolishness of God by John Baker, sets this out very well. The problem is that we misunderstand the whole concept of forgiveness. Indeed, that whole has become twisted into something else in our society where it has become the norm for those who commit crimes to be “forgiven” by a rather nebulous group who claim to represent “society” without reference to the needs of the victim. Thus we see, as we have done in this last week, families distraught at the reduction in sentences of those who have killed their loved ones and who show no remorse for their actions.

The Bible makes plain that we are to forgive, but the emphasis is not upon a “society”, but upon the individuals - in other words, upon the victim to forgive and for the wrong doer to show remorse.

Consider the story of Jonah. Having very reluctantly - and only after some considerable coercion from God - gone to the inhabitants of Nineveh and urged them to turn to God and repent of their sinful ways, he is angry with God for sparing them when they do. It is not for us to demand of God that He punish anyone, or indeed, that He spare them - and as He showed while hanging on the cross at Calvary, He is prepared to welcome even the most sinful - provided they turn to Him and let go of their sin. To put it in our own terms - in all human sin, it is God who is the ultimate victim.

But there is a further and much more difficult side to this question, and it is this; the victim who cannot find it in themselves to forgive, is consigning themselves to a form of slavery to the entirely negative effects of constantly being angry at the person responsible. Very often this is compounded by the fact that the perpetrator may be completely unaware of the fact that their action has injured someone - or if they are, consider that it was a necessary evil committed “for the greater good”. Where they are aware of the injury, they may find themselves tied to the other great negative in human life - guilt. This is where forgiveness from victim and acknowledgement of wrongdoing by the perpetrator can benefit both sides. The hardest words to say when hurt or feeling guilty are “I forgive you” and “ I am sorry”. Anger and guilt often go hand in hand, and both are destroyers of hope, of promise, and of reconciliation with God.

Here, too, lies another very important part of the process, one often completely misunderstood in our society. Only the victim can forgive the wrongdoer. This is, interestingly, something the Islamic Sharia Law acknowledges. Only the victim, or the victim’s family may commute or confirm a sentence of death or maiming upon a convicted murderer or thief. The act of forgiveness does not require the injured party to act as if nothing has happened; on the contrary, to forgive there must be acknowledgement of the problem - and that, in itself, means that the wrongdoer must experience remorse and a degree of humiliation in accepting forgiveness and acknowledging fault.

It is not something that can be demanded of you, either. It is your duty to forgive, Our Lord has said so, but He has also made you free to exercise that or not. The problem is that, if you choose not to forgive, then you must accept that you will now carry that burden of hurt and anger until you are prepared to do so. Guilt and Anger remain the two parts of the wrongdoing - the guilt of the wrongdoer, and the anger of the injured.

According to the proverb we are to “forgive and forget” in order to meet this Gospel imperative, yet it is sometimes not possible to forget - especially when the victim is no longer able to work because of injury or has some daily reminder of the “sin” to live with. Nor is it always possible for the victim to forgive - especially when the perpetrator shows no remorse or boasts of their wrongdoing or the hurt they have caused - and let us not delude ourselves; there are those who do.

Sin affects us all, and so does forgiveness. Because we are all connected by our friendships, through our family ties, our church, work, or the neighbourhoods we live in, something done to one of us ultimately affects us all. Thus, we are able to forgive the perpetrator for that which affects us. But, it remains the role of the person most directly affected by the “sin” to forgive the primary hurt, and not ours or anyone else’s.

Sin limits our freedom, and we are all guilty of it in one form or another. Sometimes the refusal to forgive is as hurtful and as damaging as the original injury. As Baker wrote,

“We become free by accepting that we are responsible. Only the man who is prepared to stand up and say of his life, ‘This is my own doing,’ however great the pressures that have conditioned and circumscribed him, has broken out of bondage and is on his way to freedom.”

If we consider that carefully we realise that we who find it difficult to forgive are binding ourselves to the same guilt that the wrongdoer must carry - because our anger and hurt is binding us to a life of slavery to our hurt. There is only one way to overcome it - we must learn to forgive. Then we can ourselves hope to be forgiven.

Amen