The eCrozier

Forgiving others is one of the hardest things we’re commanded to do by Jesus. The hurt can be so deep. And since we can’t undo what’s been done (although many hold on to a fantasy that the past must change), where does all the pain and anger of the sin go? Often it gets projected on to the people around us. Or it gets directed inwardly into self-destructive behaviors and, sometimes, into self-medication.

Yet, this isn’t a minor teaching by Jesus that can have many interpretations. Jesus is clear: we must forgive, if we expect God to forgive us. He states this plainly in the prayer he taught us to pray: “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who sins against us. (Luke 11:4)” So, we must learn to forgive. Minor transgressions against us are easy to forgive, but when we’ve been deeply wounded by another, it’s hard to forgive. And then when we hear the command of Jesus to forgive and we can’t yet forgive, we can experience guilt over this inability. If that happens, things become compounded: we haven’t forgiven the other person and we’re also now paralyzed by guilt that we haven’t forgiven. This is where real, deep despair occurs.

Taking all the above into account, let’s look at what steps we can take to forgive:

1) Ease the pressure on ourselves. Forgiving others is a process of our spiritual growth. We aren’t born “forgivers.” We learn to forgive as we see it modeled in our homes, communities, and churches. We need patience with ourselves when it comes to forgiving so we can develop the spiritual maturity and capacity to forgive. Once we have learned to do so, it becomes more a part of spiritual practice in life.

2) Don’t get hooked into the emotional state of the sin against us. We must find a place to stand outside the sin (St Igantius called this “detachment”). When we’re emotionally entangled we can’t move towards forgiveness. Rather, we become fused to the hurt of the sin and we lose our identity as one who is washed in the forgiving waters of baptism.

3) See forgiveness as a gift from God. If we don’t ask God for the gift to forgive another, then we can’t receive it. Some folks don’t ask God for the gift to forgive because they’ve so defined themselves by the hurt of the sin against them that they wouldn’t know what to do if the hurt weren’t there anymore. It’s like the Hatfields and McCoys. They couldn’t stop the feud because, if they did, they’d lose their identity as the victim of another’s sin.

4) Forgiveness is about us and not about the other sinner being repentant or not. We should not connect the other’s repentance to our work of forgiveness. Yes, we pray for the amendment of life for the one who has done us wrong, but it’s a spiritually dangerous thing to wait for the other person to repent before we’ll forgive. Honestly, that may never happen. When we hold that in ourselves the event continues to define us. By not linking our forgiveness to other person’s repentance, we remove the capacity they have to keep us fused with the sin. Forgiveness is always about our spiritual practice and not about the actions or inactions of the other.

+Scott