Today we look at a dynamic in our living that leads to the fullness and richness of living and loving.  It opens doors to realities we can not  expect nor explain.  It is not easily attained, and yet is simple in concept.  It entails hurt and pain, and yet delivers joy and a deep, deep sense of well being.  It is a universal need to receive and give this dynamic.  For without it life becomes cold and hard.  Relationships become distant and guarded. With it we become at the same time vulnerable and strong. 

          This topic is not merely an academic or theological one for me.  It has some deep personal significance.  It is very real.  I have experienced the need to receive forgiveness.  I have caused pain and hurt to another.  When faced with its reality, I knew my only hope was to be forgiven.  I have also stood on the other side of that coin.  I have been deeply hurt.  So much so that I wanted to do bodily harm to another.  I even drove passed the house where the other lived and wanted to burn it down.  I knew my only hope was to be forgiving.  To wrong another or be wronged by another is a critical experience in our lives.  It often is pivotal in our personal development.

          Oh, I’m not talking about the slights or minor injustices we may face from time to time.  The ones we can eventually move beyond and even forget.  I am talking about those that cut so hard into us that we will never forget and sometimes never escape their grasp.  Injustice, unfairness, cruelty, and carelessness are only some of the destructive forces that can attack us.  Just this week we have read  or  heard  about  the thirty-year-old wife and mother killed by a driver who is alleged to have been in a rage while running a red light. Her husband was standing on the other side of the street watching as her body went hurling through the air.  How is he to respond to this young man driving recklessly without a license?  If that were your significant other how would you respond?   How have you responded to a deep hurt in your life?

                In Jesus’ prayer he teaches us to pray that we be forgiven, as we are forgiving.  Forgiveness is not easy for more than one reason.  We don’t want to really admit we have done something that requires forgiveness.  We aren’t really THAT kind of person. To think of us and sin is uncomfortable. Secondly, it is not easy because it entails deep pain.  We go to great lengths to avoid pain.  And finally forgiveness is not easy because often it is misunderstood.

          So let us look first at what forgiveness IS NOT!  I have had people come to me saying that they can never forgive because they won’t ever forget what happened.  The slogan forgive and forget is well known, but it is also not true.  Forgiveness is not forgetting. The husband will never forget that his wife was killed in an automobile accident.  But that does not mean he can’t forgive.  The inability to forget a hurt does not doom us to a life of resentment and hatred.

          Forgiveness does not mean excusing.  We may understand that a person may have had extenuating circumstances, a poor childhood, an abusive parent, or chemical dependency.  If the person is not to blame because  of  one  factor or another,  then forgiveness is not necessary.  Understanding, yes, but forgiveness no. 

          Forgiveness is not tolerance.  It is not putting up with improper, unjust behavior or abuse.  Some women have been counseled, wrongly I might add, to be tolerant of their physically or mentally abusive husbands because they really don’t mean to be that way.  This is merely condoning guilt, not moving beyond it.  Tolerance of evil is not what we are suggesting when we speak of forgiveness. 

          Forgiveness is not submission to the other.  It is not forgiveness when one is left in a less powerful state than the other. Equality is not surrendered by forgiveness.  Forgiveness does not result in the forgiver being in a higher place than the forgiven.  Forgiveness restores relationships, not reversing the balance of power. 

          So these are some of the things that forgiveness is not.

          So what is forgiveness?

Forgiveness is something that is given, not earned.  One never deserves forgiveness.  One can not demand or expect it.  To receive it is to know grace.  It is to receive an unexpected gift.  That exchange of gift – the decision to give it and receive it – brings the relationship into a place it has never been before.  To acknowledge the broken relationship and its repair because of, and only because of, grace is life-giving to both parties.  The depth of love experienced when one is truly graced can not be adequately explained; only lived. It is both humbling and exhilarating.

          Forgiveness is reality.  It is looking clearly and openly at what someone has done or said.  It is being honest with yourself and the other that a breach has occurred in the relationship.  Such reality is painful.  But it also declares that there is a desire for a mending of the relationship.  That may or may not occur. That is part of the pain – to realize that the relationship is in jeopardy.   You may forgive someone who is not ready to receive forgiveness.  Just look at your relationship with God.  You have been forgiven, but you may not experience the benefit of that until you are open to receiving it.  You may have forgiven someone who has hurt you, but they are not ready to renew or reestablish the relationship.  But initially, forgiveness deals with the painful reality of a broken relationship.

          Forgiveness is the doorway to a new relationship; we’ve been made alive, as Paul says in Colossians.   When you forgive, you are declaring a willingness to begin again on equal footing.  There is no hidden agenda.  No baggage is carried along.  It is a willingness to reestablish trust.  It is an opportunity to have a new beginning, a second chance.  The past does not determine the future.  There are new possibilities, new vistas.  And both parties are free from anger, resentment and hostility.

          Forgiveness reasserts the value in the other and in the desired relationship.  It is a declaration that the other is important to you.  That you are more because of the relationship than you would be if the relationship remained in disrepair.  God values us.  Reconnecting is important to God, who desires wholeness for all of creation.  And God desires wholeness for each of us.

Through forgiveness we may need to deal with three different relationships.  First we are urged to deal with our relationship to others: brothers, sisters, mothers, father, teachers, friends.

          Second, we may need to deal with ourselves.  I have discovered that people often find it hardest to forgive themselves.  We have to move through a similar process with ourselves as we do with others.  Facing the brokenness, and the willingness to value ourselves again.  We want to earn a clean slate rather than receive it.  That doesn’t mean there are no consequences, for sometimes we do have to repair, or deal with the damage. But we do not earn a new self, we receive it. 

     Thirdly, we may need to deal with our feelings regarding God.  We may feel God has not been fair to us.  We may think God has deserted us when we most were in need.  We get angry with God and need to restore that distant relationship.  In the process we may discover that we are seeking rather than giving forgiveness. 

     Yes, dealing with forgiveness is hard work.  But it opens doors to new realities.  It creates relationships that we have never had before.  Our love relationship enables us to live in harmony and joy with our God and others.  That’s the miracle of forgiving grace!  That joy is one that can’t be explained but is never the less life giving with a capital L.  So that following our prayer of confession when we are assured of our forgiveness, we can sing our “hallelujahs” each week with a new sense of connectedness to each other and to God.