FORGIVENESS

In my last post, I said the premise upon which Jesus based his ministry was forgiveness.  Forgiveness seems easy enough, but it isn't.  It's counterintuitive to human nature. It makes us feel uncomfortable both to forgive and at times to be forgiven.  Our animalistic tendency is to get even and settle the score.  An eye for an eye still holds weight and even in Christianized cultures forgiveness is generally contingent upon doing time, doing penance, being repentant, and admitting guilt.

There are people in every age and some very notable cases today who have found it in their hearts to forgive those who have caused them great pain and loss as the only way to move forward.  I am always amazed and humbled by their stories.  Many of them are followers of Jesus and/ or have a deep spiritual understanding or have a deep human understanding of human frailty and how precious life is.

Jesus' approach to bringing forgiveness forward is unique and persistent.  Jesus does not talk about forgiveness directly, unless in reference to prayer (ex. Mark 11:25). Forgiveness is a noticeable subtext in almost all of Jesus' teachings regarding interpersonal relationships with our fellow humans.  In application, Jesus' approach is subtle and employs a somewhat backdoor approach to getting the message across.  I think Jesus understood our animalistic tendencies very well, knew that we struggle mightily with being forgiving and in seeking forgiveness. Jesus taught by example more than anything else, and it would be worth the time here to look at a couple of examples.

THE PARALYTIC MAN

In Mark 2 is the story of the paralytic man. This miracle story is unique in that the miracle of Jesus healing the paralytic is basically and afterthought in the story.  In Mark's version Jesus comes home to Capernaum and a large crowd gathers in his home.  While he is preaching, a group of men bring a friend or relative of theirs to be healed by Jesus, but they can't get to Jesus because of the crowd, so they climb on the roof and open hole to let the man down on a mat. When Jesus sees this, he expresses amazement at the faith of these people and says to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven." 

Why Jesus says this is, I believe, because of the link made between illness and sinfulness in Jesus' time.  The paralytic and those who cared for him must have thought he or someone in his family had sinned which caused his condition.  This was a quite common assumption and connection made by the people of Jesus' day.  I get the feeling, Jesus did not place credence in that thinking but understood that this man was suffering from more than paralysis of his body.  He was suffering in his soul and mind as well. 

What is interesting is that the religious leaders who were in Jesus' house took issue with his pronouncement of forgiveness.  They informed Jesus that he had stepped out of line, that only God could forgive sins. [Some might say that's the whole point of the story - Jesus is God, but I'm not going there.]  Jesus doesn't argue their contention directly, but simply poses a question  of whether it is easier to say to someone that his sins are forgiven or to tell someone, such as the paralytic, to get up and walk.  Without waiting for a reply Jesus informed them that "to show the son of man has authority to forgive sins on earth" he tells the paralytic to get up, take his mat and go home, which the paralytic does.

The point Jesus made, but which I think might have been lost on his audience at the time, is that it is actually harder for us to forgive.  I left the phrase "son of man" in small caps because I think there is too much read into Jesus' use of the phrase at times.  In this instance, Jesus' use of the term seems generalized, meaning anyone can forgive sins. Jesus' basic message about forgiveness is when we are forgiving, God is forgiving.  This is Jesus' back door approach in prompting us to be more compassionate and kind.


THE ADULTEROUS WOMAN

 In John 8 there is a story that some translations have reduced to an italicized footnote or have noted that most scholars do not believe the story is original to Gospel of John, that it was added later.  Given that the Gospel of John is so highly editorialized and theologized, I'm surprised they bothered.  In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether it was an addition or whether the story actually happened.  It is one of the most meaningful stories about Jesus in the Gospels, and if questionable as to it authenticity, it is certainly well crafted and seems to capture the essence of Jesus' approach. 

The story begins with a woman who is caught in the act of adultery.  The woman's accusers know Jesus is in town so they bring the woman to Jesus, and in the typical editorialized manner of the Gospel of John, the story goes that they did this to test Jesus, to see what he would do with someone "caught in the act."  They know that Jesus knows the punishment for adultery in law is that an adulterous person should be stoned to death, but they're curious on whether Jesus will go soft on her. 

So they bring the woman to Jesus and point out that she was caught in the act and remind Jesus of the law and what should be done to her.  It is at this point that I know some are thinking, "Well if they caught her in the act where is her partner in crime?"  Good question, but I think we tend to overlook the fact that women were treated more harshly in such circumstances than men back then (not that much has changed today).  We don't know what happened to the man.  He might have received his comeuppance or the men in the group might have looked the other way.  It's hard to tell.  The point of this story is that here is a woman (perhaps suspected of prostitution and, in this male dominated society of the time, considered a throw-away) caught in the deed, a slam-dunk case that shouldn't require much thought. 

When they bring her to Jesus, his response is silence. He doesn't look at the woman and he doesn't seem to pay attention to her accusers.  When her accusers keep pressing Jesus, asking him what he thinks they should do, Jesus acts even more bored and starts doodling in the sand.  His actions, his body language saying, "Why are you bothering me with this.  Of course, I know the law and I don't doubt this woman is guilty.  Go away."

 His lack of verbal response throws them off guard.  When they press him harder Jesus finally stands up and instead of saying anything about the law or about the woman and her deeds, he simply says, "If anyone of you is without sin let him be the first to cast a stone," and then goes back to doodling in the sand.

Jesus levels the playing field by placing the woman's accusers in a quandary about their own sense of personal wrong-doing.  One good thing that can be said about the men who brought this woman to Jesus is that they were an honest lot. The story goes on to say that starting with oldest men to the youngest they each dropped the stones they had in their hands and walked away. 

When they are gone, Jesus finally stands and looks at the woman and asks her where her accusers are and if there is no one to accuse her, the women replies, "No one."  Jesus tell the woman that he doesn't accuse her either and to go and change her ways. The woman is redeemed and reclaimed. She is allowed to be who she really is, a child of God.

Forgiveness is not easy; especially, when the wrong done is obvious and religion is there to confuse us.  Forgiveness can be a messy business and can leave one feeling disorientated as to what direction to take.  Had this woman pleaded for her life, these men would have felt obligated to take her life because, at that point, it wasn't about her it was about their religious beliefs. It was about following the letter of the law.

When Jesus connected them to the situation by indirectly pointing out everyone has done things we can be accused of, have stones thrown in our direction, that they walked off.  I'm sure they felt confused and conflicted over the whole situation as they were walking away, wondering if they did the right thing and fearing that, given the quandary Jesus placed them in, they could be accused of blasphemy or hypocrisy.   I think we can all relate at some level to their feelings.   As a whole we have not found a good way to address wrong doing without punishment or retaliation.

PARABLES OF FORGIVENESS

Jesus presents forgiveness in various ways in his use of parables. I'm not going to delve into all of them, but I will list a few so that you can read them on your own.  Again Jesus gets at the importance of forgiveness as the way to redemption in straightforward and sometimes backdoor ways. 

In the Gospel of Matthew:

The Lost Sheep: Matt. 18:10-15 -  forgiveness as valuing the importance of the individual
The Unmerciful Servant:  Matt. 18:23-35 - Jesus' back door approach at illustrating
                                                                     the importance of being forgiving as a
                                                                     means to God's forgiveness

In Luke we have several important forgiveness based parables:

The Good Samaritan:  Luke 10:30-37 - forgiveness in engaged compassion for all
The Lost Sheep:          Luke 15: 1-7 -    forgiveness in valuing the importance of the individual
The Lost Coin:            Luke 15: 8-10 -  forgiveness in the persistent pursuit of redemption
The Prodigal Son:       Luke 15: 1-13 -  forgiveness as a way of being (the father's abundant love)
The Shrew Manager:  Luke 16: 1-13 -  forgiveness as paying it forward and God's forgiving
                                                              response

The foundation of forgiveness is a loving heart.  One cannot forgive without love and one cannot love without having a forgiving heart. For example, in the story of the Prodigal Son the son repents of his actions and returns home because he knows his father is forgiving. He knows he is not worthy. He knows he will be okay just to be a servant. What he doesn't know is just how deeply forgiving, how deeply loving his father actually is.  This is God's way and it needs to be reflected in how we present God to the world.

One of the frustrations I have with liturgical worship is its stress on confession as necessary for absolution or forgiveness. This is not Jesus' approach as illustrated above.  If we were to take Mark 11:25 more seriously, instead of having a generalized Confession of Sins, we'd have a generalized "Forgiveness of Sins" at the start of the service in which all present forgive the wrongs done to them to point out that if we're going to expect anything from God we must forgive each other:  We must forgive the wrongs done to us.  We must forgive the world.

I think liturgical churches have it wrong. In fact, most every church has no effective of means of practicing forgiveness apart from confession or an admission of wrongdoing.  Don't misunderstand me, I have nothing against confession if one feels compelled to so, but Jesus' teaching and practice was to forgive first as the means of opening the door to redemption and life-giving change. 



Until next time, stay faithful.