The Hard Underbelly of Forgiveness
By: Dave Richards
Tags: Family, Forgiveness, Christianity, Christian Living, Love

What Some Christians Are Not Doing To Really Make Forgiveness Work

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

My friends from the church we grew up in over 30 years ago requested that my brothers and I do a song for the upcoming Christmas program. (Looks like they were sufficiently impressed with the song I managed to get my brothers to do for a church service I had to plan some months before).

Problem is, the likelihood of all of us being together on the planned day does not even begin to score on the possible scale, given our varied schedules. So we arranged to meet on a Monday evening, at Mom’s house, to pre-record the song.

Then my youngest brother suggested we do the recording at the studio he was building. Didn’t sound like there would be a problem with that. But while my brother heard me welcome the idea, he was predicting that 2 of our 6 siblings — my one sister (his twin), and my twin — would not attend. (Yes, my mother had twins twice. My brother and I started the litter, followed by 2 boys, two and three years later, and 10 years after that my little brother and sister came 5 minutes apart).

These 2 siblings have suffered the worst of the abuse meted out by that little brother. He has been at the center and has indeed been the source of all the conflict our family had to endure years ago. He has cursed, demeaned, and abused all of us in general, and my sister and twin brother more intensely than the rest of us.

Fortunately, the situation is nowhere near that level of hostility today. A very cordial atmosphere reigns in our family these days. That is because there has been a tacit agreement among all my siblings to forget those hurtful experiences of the past.

But as you might guess, through “forgetting”, my siblings arrive at a slightly different place from where my little brother has reached.

The rest of us quietly nurse and soothe our old wounds. My little brother, with his change of attitude, thinks there is no reason we all shouldn’t be living happily ever after.

He has never apologized for or even acknowledged the wrongs he did. He just stopped doing them. He thinks that since he has repented, everyone should give him a clean slate. Under the mistaken notion that many Christians hold, that forgiveness is the only thing needed for relationships to work well.

Forgiveness — Demand and Supply

When an offense occurs the question of forgiveness inevitably arises. But first you meet the “declarer”.

He (sometimes she) usually talks a lot. A whole lot.

Usually about how good the relationship currently is (exaggerates)

Suggesting that nothing that bad had really happened (trivializes)

Says all you need to do is Forgive and things will be just fine (denial and evading). But note carefully: they demand forgiveness!

Declares: Christians should not hold a grudge

You can always tell which one of these Christian brethren is the offender in the current relationship. Usually, the offended [person] is quiet.

The offender hides their Pride under the “other person’s” obligation to Forgive. They abdicate their own Christian responsibility, assuming a false innocence. Trying to paint the other person as the guilty one whose sin will be absolved if only they do the right thing and “forgive men their trespasses”, as Jesus commanded. (St. Matthew 6:15).

But in that same Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had taught another truth just before teaching what is commonly known as “The Lord’s Prayer”. For selfish reasons too many Christians choose to ignore this.

First Things First

Words of Jesus: “Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift”. (Matthew 5:23–24 New International Version)

More important than all the singing and preaching and ministering things we do in church is making things right with our brother.

It is the place of self-righteous irresponsibility to which many Christians retreat that forces the expectation that these offenders should be automatically forgiven by their victims.

How audacious is their pride to think, that in past times they could be unkind to their brother or sister, and expect that those hurts should be automatically forgotten only because their evil actions did not continue!

They never apologized like they were supposed to, or asked for forgiveness. A noble act that honors their brother. They act as though they have never done wrong. They claim that the only person in the wrong is the person who needs to forgive a hurt. Those people just need to free themselves from the (hurt) state they are in by the forgiveness they withhold to their detriment.

Whatever happened to humbly asking for forgiveness from someone you hurt or offended, especially if or when the hurt was unintentional?

Too many of us judge others by the actions we see, then demand to be judged by the good intentions of our hearts. As if the other person could not have good intentions. But ours should be so obvious. Poppycock!

Forgive — A Divine Ability

Forgiveness is a divine ability that of the animal kingdom, only we humans possess. We are the only living species on the planet who make moral judgments.

Other animals have no sense of what is right or wrong. Their instinct portends only to their survival.

The newborn baby giraffe finds itself savagely kicked by its mother, just minutes after the hard landing from its fall out of the birth canal. The pain from its mother’s ‘kick-in-the-butt’ stimulates the strength in its legs for this newborn to become enough of a runner to not become lunch for any of the predators of the wilderness.

Neither the “child abuse” action of the mother giraffe nor the “homicidal” tendencies and actions of the lion who seeks to kill her for food are subject to any moral code. Nothing either animal does is “right” or “wrong”. For them, it’s only a matter of survival.

Human beings, however, have the capacity to think (objectively) about what we do. And whatever we do in relation to our fellow occupants of the planet, and especially with regard to other humans is always subject to a moral standard. It always matters when one human harms or kills another human. Because each human life has intrinsic worth and value.

Some of us humans want to claim freedom from the judgment of some of the actions that please us. Laws and regulations are all well and good when it comes to certain things. But especially in those cases when the motive for some actions is purely self-satisfaction, we try to justify our actions by claiming that the rules do not apply. Any excuse to make what we did “right” in our own eyes.

Out of that self-centeredness, we minimize the hurt and the wrong we do when someone alleges that we have offended them. We gloss over the hurt that others suffer by claiming (incorrectly) that they need only “forgive” for the situation to be fixed.

Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself

The commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself”, and the Golden Rule that instructs us to “Do unto others just like you want them to do to you” apply just as much to Me, as it does to this other person that I claim should love me enough to automatically grant me forgiveness.

In other words, you (and I) do not deserve to receive forgiveness for our sins against another unless and until we acknowledge and confess that sin and love our brother or sister by asking for their forgiveness of our offense.

Let’s face it, since this other person is mandated by God and the Bible to forgive (you), what are you responsible to do to them? (Especially since it is your hurtful action that started this whole saga). Aren’t they as deserving of your apology as you claim to be of their forgiveness?

It is evident that the need for offending Christians to reach out to and ask forgiveness of their Christian and regular family members is greater and more urgent than the ‘need for more forgiveness’ that many Christians claim exists in the body of Christ.

The modern-day Church is more lacking in the grace needed to ask for forgiveness than the grace to forgive. In both cases, Pride (which God hates) prevents the free flow of honor and forgiveness.

So many Christians (like my little brother) who accuse their brethren of sitting in the sinful seat of Unforgiveness are looking down their self-righteous noses at their brethren from the sinful throne of their own Pride.

The Book of Proverbs chapter 6 lists six things God hates, even a 7th thing he really detests. These things include a proud look, (haughty eyes) in place #1, and in place #7, what the King James Version calls “an abomination” is, (wait for it) — “a person who sows discord in a family”.

It is You (or I) and not the hurting victim of our actions who must make the first move.

Acknowledge. Apologize. Ask for forgiveness. That makes forgiveness glorious.

It also enhances peace and goodwill to all men. Especially this Christmas.