June 29, 2005
Forgiveness
One of the things learned in twelve-step recovery programs is that addiction is largely if not altogether a self-diagnosed disease. It’s a useful assumption that makes one leery of diagnosing the next person, eg, judging who needs therapy and who doesn’t.
Whether the vice-president is addicted maybe to power or his office or whatever is up to him to figure out, but that he knows about the rest of us he made pretty clear when he said the other day that “liberals” would recommend therapy for the 9/11 bad guys and “conservatives” would recommend war. The usual mantra about this being a Christian nation was apparently lost on him in all the stir together with the niceties about whether the Ten Commandments, kept or not, belong out in the yard with the flamingoes or in the house by the wall clock.
Jesus told the rich fellow enquring about his salvation and claiming he’d kept all the commandments and maybe even carried them around in his wallet to go and enter a sell order as soon as the market opened and then give it all away. When it came to our enemies, rather than suggest we war on them, Jesus recommended we love them. If I remember correctly, he didn’t mention political parties.
Forgiveness and reconciliation is sticky business and reminds me of a message I once saw on a cocktail napkin. I can’t imagine what I could possible have been doing with it, but there it was, right in my hand. It read: “To err is human, to forgive is out of the question.”
Like most good humor, that saying’s of a truth. Forgiving a wrong — even one of our own — may be one of the most difficult choices we human beings ever face, and that, for some of us, we never make. Not the least of the reasons for this reluctance, I suspect, is not only the pain of bringing it up and wrestling with it, but that the meaning of forgiving and forgiveness is pretty confusing stuff.
So at the outset, maybe it’s best to get rid of the notion that to forgive means also to forget. Neither does forgiving mean that wrongs have no consequences nor any need for punishment or that these things can be altogether dismissed.
To forgive or to reconcile means at least that a relationship be kept open. Even hostile communication is better than none. At best, it means that a relationship might be restored to a healthy and productive state. In his speech last evening (28vi05) the president played the 9/11 card over and over again apparently to justify his bellicosity as if we need to be reminded about something that few are likely ever to forget. But as we go through all the rituals and ceremonies recalling this terrible wrong that has been committed against us and, lest we forget, committed against all humankind, may we never lose sight that as hard as it might be, this is also something we must inevitably come to forgive. Otherwise, so much for this notion of a Christian nation.
It’s up to us, of course, and to God’s grace whether we ever forgive anything or not. Yet, it is still ours to give it our best shot, not only for our own spiritual wellness, but for that of our nation, and ultimately for that of the entire world. We must remember. We must never forget. But we must, as well, forgive. Sure, it’s a burden, but we are not somehow exempt, and it’s also a blessing. The reason is quite simple.
Karl Barth, the great Swiss theologian who wrote tediously and unbearably long volumes, was asked to sum up his theology in one sentence. He answered, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” The reason we must forgive is that simple. “Because I said so” is a reason every parent uses when their authority is questioned. We must forgive — and especially forgive our enemies — because God says so.
It was that way with Jesus. It is also the prime jewel in the gospel covenant we made in our baptism. The Lord’s Prayer plants forgiving in every liturgy we celebrate. But the reason is also simple because it’s right. It’s ultimately the sanest way for people, whatever their religion or lack of it, wherever they hang or don’t hang the Ten Commandments, to live together in harmony.
But we’re not talking about individuals in a family or a congregation where love and forgiveness might be readily accessible, where the steps outlined in the gospel just might be followed. We’re talking about a whole country. But just as countries or nations make clumsy at loving their neighbors, just so are they altogether maladroit at forgiving. But there is a way.
We are a nation already proven vulnerable precisely because our commitment to liberty and justice has been used as a terrifying and devastating weapon against us. But the irony is that it is these very principles, themselves, at national and international levels, that are the stuff of forgiveness and reconciliation. Loving never has cured vulnerability and never will.
We must ask, then, How does a nation enter into reconciliation? What are the instruments of justice and liberty? How are they manifest? By vengeance? By isolation and withdrawal? By denial and arrogance? By breaking promises? By dissimulation? It should be obvious from our own personal experience that these not only prolong, but as well intensify hostility and resentment and postpone any possible resolution into a peaceful community, whatever the size — two or two billion.
In our Declaration of Independence we made a startling offer. It had as much to do with our nature and with what we wanted to become as a nation as almost any other of those great documents that signaled our founding. In the prologue, we expressed that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that (we) should declare the causes which impel (us) to the separation (from Great Britain).”
And then we said, as we outlined our grievances, “let (these) facts be submitted to a candid world.” And then, near the end, we appealed to the “Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions…”
For this nation to enter into a mode of forgiving and a desire for reconciliation, we must first keep our own founding commitments clearly in mind and what is more, practice them. One of the most important steps we can take in that direction is not to let our fear and its ensuing anxiety and anger and resentment, no matter how justified, distort our system of government, our capacities to use it fully and honorably, and our vision to be and become who and what we are.
This American political experiment is currently on precarious times. Not only is it in jeopardy from without, but, as well, in peril from within by an all too casual, passive, and permissive manipulation of its impressively balanced systems of justice.
So let us take this heritage and this commitment once again to ourselves, renewing our covenant and reaching out in all the ways we find appropriate for us, and, as well, call on our leaders to enlighten the minds and stir the consciences of all. We’ve spent untold billions on war, and millions have died over the ages. Might those billions have been better spent on preventing poverty and genocide and on adequate health care and clean air? Sure, keep the Commandments like the rich young fellow, but cash in the wealth and give it away. For justice is always compromised precisely as forgiveness diminishes. War never has winners, only losers.
The message on the cocktail napkin was mighty close to accurate. So, until we can rise to these challenges, let us keep in mind that God’s criteria are not only good behavior, but primarily love and justice and peace for all, including our enemies. And if all else fails, remember the words of St Paul as translated through no less than Oscar Wilde of all people, “Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.”