June 11, 2004
Forgivenness
Pentecost 2/6C “One who is forgiven little, loves little” (Lk 7.47b).
When asked by the press what mistakes he had made, the president could think of none. Try as he may — and the apparent anguish in his inner search seemed authentic — nothing at all showed up. From what Jesus told Simon at the dinner party, I suppose it follows — no mistakes, no need for forgiveness, not just “forgiven little,” but actually not at all. As well, that also suggests something about how much one loves. Next question?
Jesus is not unknown for quaint sayings, but this one equating forgiving and loving seems quainter than usual. Could it mean that if a person needs no forgiving, they’re exempt from the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor and whatever comes along? Or could it mean that a person is so much an overflowing slob as to be beyond forgiveness, so forget it with the loving? Or might it mean that a person simply won’t accept forgiveness either because he thinks he doesn’t need any or because he believes — or at least feels — he’s beyond God’s capacity to meet the challenge and his own capacity to love even himself?
It’s this capacity of God thing, this God-could-never-forgive-me-for-what-I’ve-done thing, that I run into most often in others and, I regret to say, in myself. And it seems it is this about us humans that is the point of Jesus’ parable. For there is little difference between being so good I don’t need forgiveness and being so bad as to remove it from the agenda. Both establish something about moral worth, the one, by looking down on those morally inferior (cf Simon), the other, by looking up to those whose moral superiority I can never achieve. Pridefully, both exclude God.
But perhaps the greater stumbling block in all this is how such selfishness renders us impotent to love. Precisely as one is self-centered, so is one incapable of loving. We who are forgiven little, love little, not because God short-shrifts us, but because as we are too proud to accept forgiveness, we are equally too proud to love.
A friend once asked me how things were going in my life. “Better than I deserve,” I answered. “My,” she replied, “you must have a very low opinion of yourself.” I was startled at her insight. It was the last time I ever answered the question that way. Further, her words continue to help me abolish the thought, as well.
Pride masquerading as humility is probably the worst kind. Paul put it to the Corinthians this way, there’ll not be another time, he’s saying, or a better time or a more appropriate time than now to put grace to work, so get a life.
The gospel is surely about sin. But the gospel is also about the grace and forgiveness of God. We risk losing sight of forgiveness, about the presence and grace of God in our temptation to dwell on the distance and judgment of God.
Forgiveness means to “let go,” or even to “send away.” We can think of it as a matter of self-protection, of refusing to let someone else’s real or imagined sin have power over our life or, as they say in AA, refusing to let someone or some thing live “rent free” in our mind.
It also means to set that person or thing free from me and my persecution or my wringing it dry with self-pity, especially if that person happens to be me. Forgiveness means I will not allow your sin to be an obstacle to my loving you. Forgiveness means I will not allow my sin to be an obstacle to my loving me.
“Accept the grace of God, but do not accept it in vain,” said Paul. For the one who is forgiven much, will love perhaps even more.