(Luke 11.1-13) Pentecost 7
28 July 2019 – © Neil Millar
‘Give us this day our daily bread’. We pray to God using these words every Sunday in our service, and over the past month I’ve been reflecting on the theme Bread for the Journey. I suggested that this request at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer relates to spiritual as well as physical sustenance, and I’ve spoken about three virtues that, like bread, feed us as disciples of Christ – the bread of humility, of compassion, and of attention. This morning, I want to add the bread of forgiveness. ‘Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’
If we are to progress in the spiritual life, to mature into ‘the measure of the full stature of Christ’ (Eph 4.13) it is essential that we practice giving and receiving forgiveness. Jesus is really acknowledging this by placing this petition at the heart of his teaching on prayer. As a spiritual guide, Jesus is a realist. He is fully aware that living in a social context is a daily challenge, that with the best intentions we bump into and bruise each other, tread on each other’s toes, get frustrated with one another, hurt and offend one another, get hurt and offended. We’re taught to pray, ‘Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’
This petition is the most daunting part of the Lord’s Prayer, and that’s because our receiving of divine forgiveness is connected with our willingness to offer it. In fact, in the prayer Jesus is expecting that we’re already practicing forgiveness with one another. ‘Forgive us our sins, as we (literally) have forgiven those who sin against us.’ So, how are you going with this? If you’ve been badly hurt it may be that forgiving the offender feels impossible, and in one sense, I think, it is. Let me explain what I mean.
‘Forgiveness, as an act of love, is felt, not achieved’, writes Stephanie Dowrick in a book I purchased at our last book sale at the bargain price of three dollars. And, in those few short words, she communicates some important truth. First, she’s telling us that forgiveness is an act of love, self-giving love. ‘The need for forgiveness begins with an act of betrayal, cruelty, separation or loss’, Dowrick writes, ‘the suffering that precedes the need for forgiveness is never welcome’ and the tendency when we experience it is to want to pay back the offender (to make or see them suffer) and to get away (to protect and pity ourselves). If Jesus had taught us to pray, ‘forgive us our sins and punish those who sin against us’, it would’ve made more sense to most us. But he doesn’t, he calls us to travel the far more challenging path; to let go of pain and resentment and the desire for revenge; to love.
This makes little sense logically. Forgiveness ‘offends the rational mind’, Dowrick (1997:291) writes:
‘When someone has hurt us, wounded us, abused us; when someone has stolen peace of mind or safety from us; when someone has harmed or taken the life of someone we love; or when someone has simply misunderstood or offended us, there is no reason why we should let that offence go… no reason why, from our own pain and darkness, we should summon compassion and insight for that person.’
The mere idea of forgiveness can be offensive to the ego. And, yet, if we refuse, as I’m sure you’ve discovered, we heap suffering on our suffering – we get bitter and resentful, feel unhappy and alienated, and worst of all, we cannot get free of the offender – we lie awake obsessing about them, hoping for their downfall and humiliation, we criticize and complain about them to others. It’s as if what they’ve done, determines who we are – it’s toxic and it’s horrible.
On the other hand, when you’ve forgiven, ‘you feel it in your body’.
‘Something – very nearly a ‘thing’ – has left you. You are no longer carrying the load you were; you have put it down. Anger may have given way to sorrow or regret… Into what seemed black and white has crept a little grey.
The muscular tensions that you had come to assume were normal are eased. You are less vulnerable to infection … Your immune system lifts. Your face muscles let down. Food tastes better. The world looks better. Depression radically diminishes. You are more available to other people and a great deal more available to yourself.’ (Dowrick 1997:289-290)
Forgiveness is counter intuitive but vital for personal and social wellbeing. When we refuse to deal with the pain and anger, ‘we stop growing and our souls begin to shrivel’ (Peck 1993:46).
This is not to imply that forgiveness necessarily results in reunion. There may be some people we’re better off not seeing again. Some people we can’t see again, because they’ve died. When I forgive someone, it doesn’t mean we resume as if nothing ever happened. Nor does forgiveness imply we condone bad behaviour; forgiveness isn’t a sign of resignation, weakness or masochism. When you forgive someone, you’re not saying their actions are okay, that what happened no longer matters or needs reparation. No, you’re just letting go of the hold it has, releasing them and yourself – for the possibility of healing, growth, life.
Okay, so that’s something of a case for forgiveness. But what about the practice itself? It’s one thing to speak of its necessity, quite another to enact it, especially when you’ve been badly hurt. All too often in the church, the imperative to forgive has been taught glibly, moralistically, simplistically. The abused exhorted to forgive abusers without any acknowledgement of the depth of their anguish, the trauma they’ve suffered. This brings me back to Dowrick’s observation that forgiveness is ‘not achieved’. There’s a sense that in and of ourselves, by dint of sheer effort, it is impossible. Jesus teaches us to pray for it, which suggests that we need help, that forgiveness is a grace, a gift. ‘Forgiveness is no easy matter’, James Hillman writes in his essay on ‘Betrayal’ (1964:78),
‘even where one wants to forgive, one finds one simply can’t, because forgiveness doesn’t come from the ego. I cannot directly forgive, I can only ask, or pray… Wanting forgiveness to come and waiting for it maybe all one can do.’
Hillman acknowledges that forgiveness comes from beyond. But that doesn’t mean it just drops on our heads out of nowhere. Our willingness matters. Our wanting it and waiting is how we participate in the gift – though sometimes it’s a journey even to get to there. Sometimes the best I can manage is ‘Lord, help me to want to forgive’.
So, it can be hard to forgive; hard even to want to forgive. But, that’s different to refusal. When we flatly and persistently refuse, when we rule out the possibility (full stop), we thwart the process and spurn the gift.
A decade ago, I experienced what felt like a profound betrayal. I was deeply wounded and very angry. I couldn’t forgive. I didn’t want to grow old and bitter, but nor did I want to minimize the magnitude of what had happened. So, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. That was a big motivation for walking my first Camino in Spain. I just needed something to move! In 2013, I set off with a pack on my back and a small stone in my pocket. Now, walking all day every day, gives you a lot of time to think… and feel! Often, as I walked, my mind would rehash the same old story of betrayal, and resentment would torment my body. It was hard, there was a lot of railing and wailing, and whenever it was going on, I’d hold that little rock in my pocket. I imagined I was channeling my pain and resentment into it. I continued to pray for release. I walked to Santiago de Compostela and then trudged on a further three and a half days to Finisterre – ‘the end of the earth’. And, when I arrived, on a cold, wet, blustery day, I hurled that rock-full-of-resentment as far as I could into the Atlantic – and then I threw myself in, naked, to wash – a baptism of sorts. It wasn’t that I was totally free after that, but I did feel lighter… and something had shifted. Last year, I walked my third Camino, and one day, out on the hot, dry plains of La Mancha, I suddenly realised it was all gone. I was in the middle of nowhere and, at the top of my voice, I yelled with delight. My mind was free, my heart was free, I was free!
‘It’s my personal experience’, Dowrick writes (1997:299-300),
‘and something that I’ve observed with many other people also, that waiting is a crucial stage in forgiveness. It is almost as though one has to incubate events, let them settle; unconsciously as well as consciously sort out what really matters and what does not, and then, slowly, and having achieved at least some distance, return to them, find the learning in them, take from them what they can give, and begin to look forward to moving on: although never to life as it was.’
It can take weeks, months, even years for this process to come to fruition. Don’t give up, but let it be given. The bread of forgiveness… broken for you.
References
Dowrick S (1997) Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love, Penguin Books, Camberwell.
Hillman J (1964) Betrayal, Lecture 128, Guild of Pastoral Psychology, London.
Peck, M Scott (1993) Further Along the Road Less Traveled, Simon and Schuster, Sydney.
http://stninians.ht.dstier2.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NM.LK11.1-13.pdf