Forgiveness. It is the hallmark of Lent and a topic that I have addressed several times in my reflections. And there is a reason why it is a favorite virtue of mine to discuss. Often we look at virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and Fruits of the Holy Spirit as sort of abstract concepts. Kind of like we sort of know what they mean and that we are to make them part of who we are every day. But at times we don’t see the concrete basis or outcome of either following or not following these ideals. We read about them. We say, “yep, that’s right. Sounds nice”. But then we move on and forget what each of these virtues really mean.
About 4 years ago my two daughters got into a fight. Not physically. But a war of words. In one of the worst forums a verbal war can take place in…digital media. Email. Texting, WhatsApp. Not in person. These fights, it seems like, never happen face to face. It is was easier to attack and defend using the keyboard. You don’t see body posture. You don’t hear inflections. And you can easily walk away from the keyboard. Not so easy to do so when in the same room with someone. When together you usually get upset, fight it out then come to some agreement. Rather than bailing at the first sign of trouble.
And so it has been with my daughters. One gets upset and angry. The other gets emotionally distraught and fears the anger from the other. So she avoids confrontation and forgiveness. But here is the thing. Is forgiveness something that is to be earned. Or is it a gift to the person who hurt you and maybe, even more so, a gift to yourself. Now I am not saying that if a person is being hurt in a relationship they should stay in intimate contact with the offending party. Hardly. That would be like constantly beating your head against a concrete wall and expecting it to not hurt after awhile.
No. Forgiveness, I think, means take away the anger and the resentment towards the other party. Have a carefully structured relationship that avoids being put in a potentially hurtful circumstance. That structure should be based on the behavior of the other party. The more they offend, the less the interactions. But we must remove the hate and the spiritual and emotional isolations. I have a friend from Grammar School who has a son who has not talked to him and his wife for maybe 10 years. The son and his wife even had a baby and they refuse to allow the parents to even see their grandchild. I have another close friend whose daughter and son no longer speak to them. Cutting yourself off from another as a form of punishment has become an epidemic of sorts in the last couple decades. For some, it is so easy to discontinue interaction because of a disagreement. We have seen it in the last 10 years with political differences between people. Even between close family members. It is a VERY hurtful practice, leaving no potential for reconciliation.
How do we know what true forgiveness looks like? Of course, Scripture almost always has the answer. We see it in today’s first reading from the Prophet Micah. He was in the picture during the time of the Babylonian exile and was a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah. Micah wrote about sinning, punishment and then salvation. No wonder it is believed he was shedding some light on what the Messiah was going to be like. Jesus took our sins on Himself. Absorbed a punishment that was meant for us then he died and rose again. So from the point on, we are forgiven when we ask with a repentant heart. No strings attached. And God did so over and over and over with the Israelites. And does the same for us.
Mi chamocha ba’elim, Adonai? Mi kamocha nedar bakodesh, norah t’hilot, oseh feleh. Hebrew which translates into, “Who is like You, O God, among the gods? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, working wonders?” The Israelites sang this song as the crossed the Red Sea, fleeing from the Egyptian army. This song is based on Verse 18 from the reading from Micah. Which reads:
Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?
And He does not hold our sins over our heads. Using it to come crashing down on us when we slip up. Once forgiven then always forgiven. In the story of the Prodigal Son, the Father was deeply hurt by his son. In asking for his inheritance early, the son is basically saying “I wish you were dead”. He then goes off and squanders all that the Father had worked for and entrusted to his son. Coming to his senses he decides to head back to his Father and beg for forgiveness. He returns home to what is culturally the kiss of death…returning home a failure. And the Father would have had every right to treat him as that failure. To shun and ignore him. to Ghost Him. But what does he do?
The Father embraces his son, not even allowing him the time to give his well rehearsed speech of apology. He immediately forgives his son because his son came to HIM. To ask HIM for forgiveness and, equally importantly, for RECONCILIATION. A return to a relationship. Not a perfect one, I am sure. I am fairly sure that there were fights and disagreements between them after the party was over and the fatted calf digested and “expelled”. But messiness is one aspect of every relationship. We succeed and we fail. We show love and displeasure. But in a good relationship there is always engagement of some type and there is forgiveness for the expected hurt. Why? Because that is how God deals with us. At the end of the reading from Micah, the prophet exclaims:
You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins;
You will show faithfulness to Jacob,
and grace to Abraham,
As you have sworn to our fathers
from days of old.
Jacob cheated Esau out of his birthright. Abraham did not trust that God would fulfill His promise to make him the Father of many nations. So he took matters into his own hands and had a child, Ishmael, with his slave girl, Hagar. But God showed faithfulness to Jacob and grace to Abraham. And so He does with us. And so must we to each other. Without that forgiveness we all just became isolated ships separated from one another instead of as one people in the boat taking us to our heavenly home. FORGIVE. Move on. Reconcile with one another. And then God will look at us with a smile and say, “Mi chamocha ba’elim…Who is like you?”
