Forgiveness

by Cappy Nunlist

A Sermon given at Mount Mansfield Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on January 24, 2010

Forgiveness.  There was a period in my life when I needed to know what this word meant.  I spent many painful days . . months . . .  thinking about the meaning of the word.  I’m not sure that I ever found the answer, but I’m willing to share how far I got in my search in hopes that it might help you in yours.

   I am not talking here about forgiving minor transgressions – someone cutting in front of you at the supermarket, your mom forgetting your birthday, the person who RSVPs to your invitation and then never shows up.  We’ve all been there, done that. These frustrations may be fodder for Ann Landers’ column but if they are major issues in your life than you may have more problems I care to deal with in today’s talk!

And I am not talking about global transgressions – although these certainly deserve serious consideration.  How do we forgive Hitler or Idi Amin or Osama Bin Laden?  Do we want to?  If so,why?  If not, are we violating some moral principle?  But that is not my concern today, in part because forgiveness in this context is entirely one-sided.  Whatever answer to the question we may arrive at, Hitler or Idi Amin or Osama Bin Laden, even if they were all alive today, could care less.  They don’t need or want your forgiveness.

Rather I am talking today about forgiveness at an intensely personal level  - forgiveness for acts committed by a deeply loved one -your spouse or significant other, your child, your parent, your sibling, your closest friend.  And not just any act, but an act that breaches the very core of the relationship - a spouse or significant other engages in an extramarital affair, a parent refuses to acknowledge your partner of the same sex, a sibling does not invite you to any family gathering because you adopted a child of another race, a friend spreads a destructive rumor – or any of these people physically assault you or destroy your self-esteem by constantly demeaning you.  How do you forgive such an act or actions by such a person – even if they admit they were wrong , say that they’re sorry and beg your forgiveness. 

                 This was the question I found that I had to answer some time ago when someone I cared deeply about, after apologizing for his actions, asked for foregiveness  Without forgiveness, I was told, the relationship could not continue.  I fully understood the genesis of that request.  A solid relationship cannot be re-constructed on a foundation of guilt and blame. And I knew that simply saying the words would not be enough – they would have to be true in a deep and meaningful way.  There was no faking this one.  But if I was willing to say the words, how could I know if I was being truthful if I didn’t even know what they meant

What does it mean to forgive?  All of the world’s major religions consider the act of forgiving another to be a virtuous act.  Indeed, a Gallup poll taken in 1988 found that 94% of those questioned said that it was important to forgive - but few of them knew how to do it.  As C.S. Lewis said, “Everyone says that forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.“  Apparently I was not alone in my confusion.

I discarded quickly the notion that I should “forgive and forget.”  The harm that had been done to me was profound – and I was determined that if nothing else good came of it, I was at least going to learn something from the experience.  One learns nothing by sweeping experience under the rug.  Forgetting was simply not an option.

It seemed, then, that the minimal requirement was, at the very least, a statement that what had what happened was OK.  But try as I might, and try I did, I couldn’t get my arms around this one.  The act committed was not OK.  It was not OK when it happened, it still wasn’t OK and it wasn’t going to be OK in 100 years.  I could perhaps, if I tried very hard, understand why it happened at least to some extent.  I could even admit that my own actions might have contributed.  Fault can seldom be placed on the shoulders of one person entirely.  But if some degree of understanding or sharing the responsibility made the act justifiable, it wouldn’t need to be forgiven. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that saying the act was OK diminished its seriousness and, even more importantly, diminished the importance of the wrong done to me and the pain I had experienced, elevating the importance of alleviating the guilt of the wrong-doer over the wrong done to me.   I discovered that I was not a big enough a person to say all was OK.

Well, if forgiveness was necessary and I couldn’t forget and I couldn’t say it was OK, could I at least say that I would not let the act impact our relationship.  But that was simply dishonest.  What had happened was now part of our history.  To disown it was not possible, it had to be owned.  It had to be factored into the relationship whether that relationship was to continue or not.

I still was acknowledging that forgiveness was critical, was necessary – but I couldn’t seem to get there.  And I should be able to.   After all, as Alexander Pope said, “To err is human, to forgive divine.”  Then somewhere in my search I came across the biblical passage where Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?  Up to seven times?”  And Jesus replied, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”  Really??   I have to forgive the person who hurt me 490 times.  Frankly, that just pissed me off.  That’s not Christian, that’s just plain stupid.  

I began to realize was that there was something wrong with this picture.  Someone commits a serious wrong, they know it, they admit it, they say they’re sorry – and then they lay the whole bundle at the feet of the person they have wronged and say, “Here.  You fix it.  Forgive me and make the guilt go away” - thereby making the wronged person feel guilty if they can’t comply.    And I was feeling guilty.  So I stopped.  I finally recognized that the sin, as it were, was not mine to forgive.   The only “sins” that can be “forgiven” – whatever that means - are those that are acknowledged.  And it is the person who commits those “sins” who must forgive themselves – not the one who was hurt.  And the task of forgiving oneself is a difficult one indeed.

But that didn’t leave me entirely off the hook.  Clearly I had a responsibility also.  I could not forget the act, I could not/would not say that it was OK.  I knew that what had happened would always be a part of our history, of our relationship.  But after a very long time during which I had time to heal, I was able to say, with all my heart, that the wrong committed did not define us.  What happened,  happened and it could never be erased.  But I was finally able to recognize that act as just a small piece of the much larger mosaic that was us.  Forgiveness, if that is the word, ultimately meant honoring the harm that was done, putting itin its place and finally acknowledging how little it mattered when I compared it to the far greater good of the relationship,  This allowed me to do what was, in fact,  essential -  to fully commit, without reservation, to that relationship.  The “sinner” was able to forgive himself.  And as an added, and completely unanticipated bonus, the wisdom and understanding so painfully gained did, in time, help create an even stronger relationship.

However, and this is a big however, the story would have been far different had I compared the harm and the relationship and determined that the relationship was not worth it.  It seems to me that there are wrongs that are too severe or too often repeated, to forgive no matter what meaning you assign to the word.  Parents, spouses, siblings, friends who so emotionally or physically batter their loved ones that the relationship is essential destructive – should not be asked to forgive.  Christianity, like all other world religions, teaches you to turn the other cheek (apparently 490 times) and you’ll feel better for it.    Poppyock.  I don’t think so. I think that you’ll just feel used.  If you are involved in a poisoned relationship with a spouse, parent, sibling, friend – just tell them to go to hell and leave.   Don’t waste your time figuring out how to forgive them.  There are acts for which there is no justification and relationships that are not worth preserving.

I agree with Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad who analyzed a number of world religions and concluded that the moral imperative of forgiveness, espoused by all of them, can be and often is the foundation of authoritarian control.  They wrote “to forgive without requiring the other to change is not only self-destructive, but ensures a dysfunctional relationship will remain so by continually rewarding mistreatment.”  I would add that no one has the power to “require” another to change.  You can, at the end, only control your own behavior.  Don’t require that the other person change.  You’ll stay in that destructive relationship forever.  So just leave.

On the other hand, numerous studies have found, not surprisingly, that those who hold on to hatred and resentment and the need to seek vengeance are unhappy and neurotic.  (As a divorce attorney, I can verify that is true from personal experience). But I don’t believe that forgiveness is necessary to avoid these consequences.  To me, it is far healthier to say, I am not going to forgive you, I don’t actually give a damn what happens to you, I don’t know why you did what you did and I never will so I’m not going to worry about it anymore.  I’m not going to forget, I’m not going to say it’s OK, I’m not going to pretend it is not part of my history.  But I have the rest of my life to lead and I’m not going to let you haunt it.  I will learn what I can from what happened and go forward - without hatred, resentment or bitterness - not to reward you in any way, but simply to save me.  I’m letting go of you and what you did and I’m not allowing you to hurt me any more.

I’ll leave you with this brief summary of my thoughts:  

First, if you have done something seriously wrong, by all means say you’re sorry and then go about the very difficult business of forgiving yourself.  

Second, if you are the one who has been wronged, separate the act from the actor.  Do not try to forgive the act, but determine whether your relationship is defined by that act.  If the relationship is of greater value than the harm that was done, then set about the very difficult business of re-committing to that person and that relationship and all that is good in it.  

Finally, if the act does indeed define the person and the relationship and you cannot re-commit, then get out.  And begin the very difficult task of finding a place for this bit of your personal history which allows you to go forward without bitterness or resentment dragging you down.     

And don’t feel guilty that you are unable to forgive.  You are still divine.