Forgiveness

 Matthew 18:21-35

Forgiveness is a big thing. We are fascinated by books written by people who get it right. Corrie ten Boom, Immaculee Ilibagiza; the book written by the Amish after the school shooting which happened in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. One of the things we miss in the story Jesus gives us today is that forgiveness is hard work. A talent converted to denarii is worth 6000 of them, just one. So imagine all the days of work this represents cause each denarius is a days wage. That's a lot of work. 

Unfortunately we look at forgiveness as something easily dispensed because Jesus told us to. We don't attach any work to it. Just do it. Forgive and forget. The thing is we are human and forgiving and forgetting is a process. We can't rush the person we've offended, and we can't insist on it being dispensed if we are the offender. The thing is Jesus is telling us we need to invest in this hard work if we are to see results.

Corrie ten Boom admits she wasn't the one to instigate the forgiveness. Her old guard came to a talk and asked. She says she hadn't even thought about it and she certainly wasn't feeling it. Then they shook hands and she describes it as a jolt or current which slowly made its way up into her arm and into her heart. She was able to tell her story, he told her his and his shame for what he had done. 

Immaculee Ilibagiza heard her brother being killed right outside the window of where she was being hid during the genocide in Rwanda. Later she makes it her mission to go and find the people and tell them she forgives them for what they did. She recognized her neighbors voices in the crowd killing her brother. It is hard to go and live there though, she lives here.

Forgiveness has to be done in relationship with yourself. Through being able to tell the stories of how you were wronged and to have those received by the other as true. The hard work of forgiveness sometimes takes us to the therapist, to the outer reaches of where we have felt safe. It asks us to be vulnerable if we are the offender and to listen to the other and admit what we have done in error. 

So when Jesus tells us to forgive today, it is not a pez dispenser forgiveness he is speaking of. It is one where we care for ourselves, care for the other involved, and care to listen and work things out. It is a giving and receiving which we cannot treat as though we are to be walked on again and again. It is in setting the boundaries of understanding, of where the offended one can tell the story and the offender listens and does not interrupt. 

The cost is in the time it takes. Sometimes the person won't forgive, sometimes they need time to heal from the wrong, and the one who offends has to give this space, otherwise there is no way forward. Just as the man today was given space to see how much he had been forgiven and then turns around and does not forgive. This space is important. It is sacred. It needs to be honored for the hard ground and healing it will bring. 

Forgive 7 times 70 again and again. Just make sure we all do the work needed to make sure we are allowing for the sacred space the work deserves. This way we can really work towards unifying the community of faith.