Forgiveness
Luke 6:27-38
In today’s gospel, Jesus teaches about love, peace, generosity, hospitality, mercy and forgiveness. Luke’s Jesus makes heavy demands on one’s capacity to love unreservedly. Expect nothing in return, he says. Now along with love, I think that the concept of forgiveness is one of the most difficult and misunderstood ideas of the gospel, indeed in the world.
So, I am going to talk about forgiveness, which, as I shall attempt explain, has a multitude of meanings.
The Greek word translated as forgive in our Gospel passage is apoluó (ἀπολύω), meaning to release, to let go, to send away, to divorce. Elsewhere in the NT, the word is used for release of captives and prisoners, remission of debt, the liberation of someone acquitted of a crime in a court of law.
The Old English forgiefan means give, grant, allow; remit (a debt), pardon (an offense); and also give up and give in marriage.[1] It is a compound word comprising for-meaning "completely", and giefan meaning "to give". Furthermore, in late Old English, forgiefan acquired a sense of to give up desire or power to punish, which arose from a Germanic loan-translation of the Vulgar Latin perdonare, which means to give completely, without reservation. All food for thought.
That said, we need to talk about feelings. We often employ anger, say, as a secondary emotion to cover up what we are really feeling. The late Yvonne Agazarian, called such secondary emotions barrier defences – shame, guilt, humiliation, and shyness – which
… guard the threshold of the core of the self … on the other side of which are the forbidden experiences of love and hate, rage and fear, and grief and joy. [2]
In essence, the psyche is afraid of raw, primary emotions like love, hate, rage, fear, grief or joy. Many of us were brought up to not feel all or some of these things. We were not allowed to. I did not find out about anger until I was about fifty years old! Ouch. Barrier defences like shame, which actually feel much worse, are like a wall around the true feeling. Thus, the wounded soul.
Primary emotions are pure, and always legitimate. You know, pure rage is a joy to experience; it is purifying; pure hate has an ineffable integrity; pure grief is painful but growthful. If I hate, I am closer to forgiveness than if I feel humiliated. The problem is that secondary emotions like shame, humiliation or shyness are amorphous, dimensionless spaces devoid of reference points – very difficult to come to grips with; and so, forgiveness becomes problematic when these barrier defences intervene.
Grace Tame recently criticised media outlets that "sought to discredit" her by publishing an old photo of her sitting next to what appeared to be a bong.[3] In an open letter published on Twitter, the former Australian of the Year said the incident let her down as an advocate of the survivor community. She went on to say the country needed to have an "open and honest discussion about trauma and what that can look like".
"It can be ugly. It can look like drugs. Like self-harm, skipping school, getting impulsive tattoos and all kinds of other unconscious, self-destructive, maladaptive coping mechanisms," Ms Tame wrote. "Whilst I do not seek to glorify, sanitise or normalise any of these things, I also do not seek to shame or judge survivors for ANY of their choices.
"For anyone who needs to hear this: it is NOT YOUR FAULT."
When I am beset by humiliation, shame, guilt or shyness, I become paralysed, imprisoned in a space wherein forgiveness is a passing dream. In my efforts to not feel these oppressive things, I blame, I find a way to shift the burden on to someone or something else. My impulse is for vengeance, which, if carried out, is self-destructive, because an untended wound is driven even deeper.
On the other hand, if, somehow, I am able to acknowledge and experience my woundedness, my pain, then I am on the road to healing. And with healing a synthesis occurs; forgiveness simply happens, because it does not affect me any more.
So, I argue that forgiveness is not something you actually do; but rather that it is the fruit of a healing process. That makes it a grace. Forgiveness, if you like, is co-terminus with healing. They belong together, like a horse and carriage. Graceful.
We might recall David’s encounter with Saul, when Saul has resolved to hunt him down. Listen to David as he calls with desperation across the valley …
Why does my lord pursue his servant? For what have I done? What guilt is on my hands? Now therefore let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering; but if it is mortals, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out today from my share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, 'Go, serve other gods.' Now therefore, do not let my blood fall to the ground, away from the presence of the Lord; for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.[4]
There is huge pain in that statement, the anguish of one who has been cruelly disconnected from his family, his heritage and his God. David is saying how it is for him, is confronting Saul with his pain, and thereby gains release to forgive. Rage gives way to sorrow, and with sorrow comes mourning, and when the mourning is successfully completed, life is enriched. This can be for some a hard, hard road.
So, my friends, I am not convinced about the “forgive and forget” mantra, because I will guess that the injury has not been dealt with. Forgiveness must include remembering, but without the rancour of no resolution and without the resignation of no relationship, but rather with careful knowledge. So, in the end, forgiveness is, if you like, an emergent property, as it were, of the healing with which it is co-terminus.
If you think about it, that is what the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is about. When you know fully, and are living with it openly, then life abounds. As St Paul reminded us in his letter to the Corinthians,
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 3.12)
“Forgiveness requires more than just an apology. It requires action”.[5] Thus James Blackwell’s article in The Conversation last Monday. Blackwell refers to PM Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations, pointing out that the effects of the policies that gave rise to the wrongs of the past are ongoing.
“The trauma and pain of these policies, and of being disconnected from country, culture, and community, extends down to their children, and their children’s children”.
All of these problems are fixable by the government, Blackwell notes; but presuming forgiveness on the part of those you have wronged “will not solve any of these issues. Indeed, they are likely to have the opposite effect …”, reducing the ability of the government to engage with these communities, and impacting upon the mental and physical health of Stolen Generations survivors and their families.
“What is needed”, wrote Blackwell “is a national approach to healing …”
To which I would add, “What is needed is a personal approach to self-forgiveness.” That is so difficult. The two go hand in hand.
Vicki Zin’s poem Self Forgiveness[6] begins, “How do I truly learn to forgive myself?”
And ends with:
The only way to do this
is to try to forgive myself,
while realizing,
that those who also recognize
my true beauty are the ones
that deserve to be part of my life.
As the haze lifts more and more each day,
I do believe I will find my way again.
Just some more bumps along this
road that they call life.
Amen.
Doug Bannerman © 2022
[1] See https://www.etymonline.com/word/forgive
[2] Agazarian Y (1981) In Living Groups: Group Psychotherapy and General Systems Theory. Ed. J E Durkin. New York: Brunner/Mazel
[3] See https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-19/grace-tame-responds-to-bong-photo-on-twitter/100845436
[4]1 Samuel 26:20
[5] James Blackwell February 14, 2022 5.05pm AEDT
[6] https://hellopoetry.com/poem/380668/self-forgiveness/