Early this past week a woman asked me what my sermon topic would be on Sunday. When I told her I had decided to talk about forgiveness, she observed, “You talk about forgiveness a great deal.” Her comment got me thinking. Why do I talk so much about forgiveness?
For one thing, I realized, I so often witness and experience what a lack of forgiveness does to individuals, to families, to communities, to nations. For instance, I knew the family a number of years ago where the grandfather didn’t see his son or his grandson for fifteen years. His son had broken a family tradition that the first-born son in the new generation would be named after his grandfather. The man was hurt that his son had not honored him in this way, and he retaliated by ignoring both his son and his grandson for fifteen years. Can you imagine the chaos and conflict in that family, especially at holidays and family celebrations? The man’s refusal to forgive did more harm to that family than the son’s not keeping the family tradition ever had. So often our retaliating when someone causes us pain doubles or triples the damage of the original hurt.
Then there is a woman I know who, when her marriage broke up, was so deeply hurt, felt so profoundly wounded by her husband’s decision to leave, that she determined she would get back at him. She would give him as much pain, if not more, than he had given to her. For years she would make things as difficult as she could. For him, it was like having a poison dart behind him every time he made a turn. As a result, much of the time he reacted with an equal amount of anger. They were at war. And in the middle were three innocent children. Their lives must have been badly damaged by the war between their parents, the revenge of the mother.
In certain parts of the world, as we are all aware, beyond their immediate family people identify themselves primarily as members of particular tribes, regional or ethnic groups, and in some cases they have been battling one another for centuries. There can be an atmosphere of kill or be killed. You hit me, I will hit you back. You kill somebody in my family, I will kill somebody in your family. It goes on and on and on. It is the proverbial eye for an eye. Gandhi wisely observed, “An eye for an eye, and soon the world will be blind.” You have probably also heard this saying: “When you fight fire with fire, everybody ends up with ashes.” These are the negative effects of non-forgiveness.
On the other hand, look what happens when people have forgiven. They hurt as deeply as others, often suffering unimaginable loss and pain, yet they have found a way to move into forgiveness. I think of Imaculée Iglesia. Many of you remember one Sunday afternoon last May when she told her story here. Imaculée is from Rwanda. During the genocide there she and seven other women spent ninety days hiding in a tiny three-by-nine-foot bathroom as murderous chaos raged outside. When at last it was safe to come out, she discovered that all but one person in her family had been killed: macheted, slaughtered. Her life was destroyed. Everything she had had before was gone.
Yet Imaculée has a presence which radiates. When I first met her I wondered, “How can this woman have so much joy in her heart? How can she radiate so much energy and love after what happened to her?”
She told me that she had understood that, as well as working through the pain of loss, she would also have to do the hard work of forgiving. She found out who had killed her family. He was a town official, a member of the rival tribe, and had been a friend of the family. She went to his office, and she forgave him. Afterwards she explained, “I did not want to have to live my entire life burdened by hatred and the desire for revenge.” She has been traveling around the country and the world, telling the story of the wonders of the forgiving heart.
There is a woman I know who, a number of years ago, returning to her house unexpectedly, found her husband with another woman. As you can imagine, this devastated her. She had been aware of a long history of philandering in the past, but this was the final straw, and she asked him to leave, ending the marriage. Two or three years later, she found herself in great emotional pain; she went into a depression and came close to being hospitalized. Eventually she realized that she would not be able to heal until she had forgiven her ex-husband. So she invited him to come to the family for Thanksgiving dinner. She said she did it for their children—which she did—but she also did it for herself. More recently, she took a plane to be with him and see if she could help him through an illness. That is the wonder of the forgiving heart.
The forgiving heart has been demonstrated for all to see in South Africa. Twenty years ago I would not have given a nickel for the success of that country. The violence, the animosity, the hatred there was escalating after centuries of exploitation and suppression of the indigenous people by the European settlers. Anybody would have thought South Africa would end up in flames. But it didn’t. People like Bishop Desmond Tutu came forward with an intention to find a way to bring peace. They started a reconciliation process. People who hated one another sat down with the people they hated and who hated them. Somehow they began to generate a movement to understand that your enemy is still a human being. They began to make early steps toward becoming one country.
Nelson Mandela, the great moral and spiritual leader of the Black people of South Africa, was in jail for twenty-seven years. Finally, he was released. Almost magically, he became president. Jesus said, “The stone which the builders rejected became the chief cornerstone.” Mandela had done his forgiveness work while he was in prison, and when he came out and was elected president, there was no rancor, no revenge. There was only acceptance and love. Forgiveness worked. It continues to work.
Recently I was talking with a Roman Catholic bishop friend of mine about South Africa. I mentioned how pessimistic I had been about that country’s chances and he replied that he had been too. But, he said, one of his priests, returning from spending some time there, had told him, “I’ll tell you why Mandela succeeded. It’s the Christian story. He suffered terribly. And he forgave.”
Forgiveness is the essence of the Christian faith. Christianity is forgiveness. Think about the last days of Jesus’ life. Here was a man who was absolutely, completely innocent. He represented goodness and perfection. The lust for power and control from the political forces of the day, and the all-too-human failing of his followers and friends, came together in a way that cost Him His life. What did He do? Among His last words on the cross: “Father, forgive them, release them, because they do not know what they are doing.” There is power in forgiveness.
Jesus in Blue Jeans, by Laurie Beth Jones, contains some great insights about Jesus. She writes about His kindness and how powerful is the cord made from kindness, patience, compassion and forgiveness bound together. Normally we think of the word kindness as a weak word, not in the same league as words like power, and force, and authority. Yet Jesus showed the strength that lies there. He led with kindness and compassion and patience. With these gentle and loving qualities He changed people’s lives, and He changed the world.
Laurie Beth Jones tells a story about a Roman Catholic priest named Arturo. One evening he invited members of his parish to a meeting. Everyone he invited had been divorced. They arrived, wondering and curious. He brought them all into a room and, in Jesus’ fashion, he began to wash their feet. He said to them, “I ask your forgiveness for the Church, for its hardness of heart toward divorced people.” That had to be a powerful evening. What tremendous courage this must have taken for that priest. And how beautifully he demonstrated the power of kindness.
Religious institutions often fall into the trap of making rules and regulations that eventually become more important that the essence of the faith. Christianity was brought into being by a man who was able, dying in great pain on the Cross, to look at His persecutors with a forgiving heart. The essence of Christianity is this forgiving heart. When we turn from that to an emphasis on narrow rules and regulations, we lose what Christianity is all about.
In the Bible there is a wonderful conversation between Jesus and Peter. Peter asked Jesus, “How many times should I forgive?” and he mentioned somebody he was having difficulty with. “As many as seven times?” Knowing Peter as we do, he was probably boasting a little bit, bragging: “Look at me, Jesus. Seven times I forgave this guy. It was very difficult.”
Jesus responded this way: “Peter, ‘how many times’ is not what it is about. You never count when you forgive people. It is not quantitative, it is qualitative.”
Jesus was talking about having a pre-determined mindset toward forgiveness. There will be hurts, there will be troubles, there will be times when people will be thoughtless and cruel and our natural reaction will be to harden our hearts and retaliate to even things up. But Jesus was talking to Peter about his overall attitude toward those who hurt him, a kindly state of mind, a mindset of forgiveness. When you have that, the little hurts will not bother you. You can forgive easily. When there are big hurts you can at least begin to work through the process, pray through the process, that will lead to the peace of forgiveness.
There is a story about the power of a forgiving heart that dramatically demonstrates how we never know what will happen when we do the right thing in the kinder way. It is a story about a rabbi named Shapiro who lived in a small Polish village in the decade before the Second World War. He was an amiable, robust and warm personality, always friendly and kind and giving to other people regardless of who they were. He loved to take long morning walks, and he would walk out into the countryside, calling out greetings to everybody he saw. Every morning he would pass by a farm owned by a German named Herr Muehler, and he would call, “Good morning, Herr Muehler.” Herr Muehler would not respond. “Good morning, Herr Muehler,” the next day. No response. This went on for several weeks, Herr Muehler never acknowledging the rabbi.
During the years before the war that would produce the Holocaust, the Jews were increasingly persecuted. Rabbi Shapiro had good reason to be resentful of Herr Muehler’s refusal to acknowledge him. He could well have said, “I am going to get back at him. I will ignore him as well.” But he kept on: “Good morning, good morning, Herr Muehler.” Finally one day Herr Muehler responded, “Good morning, Rabbi.” This continued for several years.
When Hitler invaded Poland, the Jews were gathered together and sent away. Rabbi Shapiro was sent to a number of different concentration camps, and one day a train took him to Auschwitz. Disembarking from the train, he found himself at the end of a long line. At the other end of the line was a German officer with a baton, pointing to either the right or the left as each person came before him. Right meant death, left meant a chance for life. The rabbi moved closer and closer to the head of the line. He wondered, “What kind of man would do this sort of work, putting people to death so easily?” As he neared the officer, he saw that it was Herr Muehler. When it was his turn to face the officer, for a second their eyes met. “Good morning, Herr Muehler,” the rabbi said. In a muted voice Herr Muehler responded, “Good morning, Rabbi,” and directed him to the left, and to life.
We never know when our decision to look kindly on someone when we have every reason to withhold our forgiveness will come back to us in a good way. But we do know that if we are predisposed toward forgiveness we will be better equipped to handle the big hurts when they come. We can begin to find our way toward the place where, like Jesus on the Cross, we can say, “Yes, I am in pain, Yes, I have been let down. I am ravaged by what has happened to me. But, Father, forgive them.” Let us pray.
Lord, for the lesson in forgiveness taught to us by Christ on the Cross, who forgave, we thank You. Give us the wisdom, the courage, and the grace to be forgiving souls. We need it for our lives. The world needs it for its future. Amen.